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To All…
Here’s the latest from www.hemanracing.com. As if we didn’t get beaten up enough in New Hampshire’s race several weeks earlier, the team decided we had more in reserve and headed out to Nelson Ledges (Ohio) race track for a 12-hour jaunt this past weekend. Not unlike many of the past races, we left at 1am on Friday, July 22nd to start our 7-hour trek…or should I say what we initially believed would be 7 hours.
About 150 miles into PA, we were a little restless and as luck would have it, this would be the least of our concerns. Since our race trailer is quite heavy, the manufactures put a total of 4 tires on the rig - lucky for us because we blew two almost completely off their rims at about 70 mph. If you’ve ever traveled route 80 in PA at 3am, you’ll know there are no lights, little in the way of shoulders, no exits for miles, and a lot of speeding trucks. With no options and only one spare, Patrick took control and got us on our way, albeit limping. Many phone calls and several acts of kindness from strangers along with a prolonged breakfast led us to a tire store that would open at 7am. With two new tires and a shiny new rim, we were off by about 8am.
Life was good…, and if Lady Luck was on our side, our test session at the track would still be within reach. Well that turned out to be a silly thought because about an hour into the second leg of our trip, we blew another trailer tire….makes you wonder why we do this. With the last remaining spare in place, and a little prayer, we were off again.
Finally, at about 1pm (or 12 hours from when we started the journey), we arrived at the track in time to get a couple of hours of practice. Out of 32 cars entered, our time of 1:23.3 appeared to be respectable for a 2-mile track that none of us had ever been on. This placed us 14th in the field, but didn’t really count because qualifying wasn’t until 8:15pm that night.
Willie took to the track for qualifying and was only able to squeeze out a P22 starting position…not great, but with far too few hours of sleep the night before, and with 12 hours of racing ahead of us to improve on this position, we thought it would all work out. Too tired to attend the 9:15pm practice session, we took our marbles and went to the hotel to get some much needed shut eye. Well, Lady Luck appeared to have had the day off as it took us over 45 minutes to find the hotel. Not sure, but we probably didn’t get to sleep until around 1-2 am Saturday morning.
After a night of sleep and feeling somewhat refreshed, we headed towards the track and arrived in time for the 9am driver’s meeting. After learning about stuff we should do, and most importantly learning about what we shouldn’t do, Glenn took to the wheel for an early morning practice before the 12pm start of the race. He was smooth and consistent so the team decided he should start the race (OK, aside from him being smooth, we were all too beat to change the seat setting for one of the other shorter drivers to start).
At the end of the first hour, Glenn was able to surgically cut his way through traffic and found a home in P18 (6th in class). About an hour and 40 minutes later, Patrick took to the wheel and quickly established his dominance over many of the other higher powered cars so much so the Chief Stewart stopped by on several occasions to comment on his driving style. As a group, OK maybe not as a group, but it was decided that after about 30-45 minutes of total track domination by Patrick, he should come in and think through some of his unconventional techniques in hopes that others would have an opportunity to have the Stewart’s spotlight on them.
Having slipped back to P21 due to some driver changes and driver-induced oscillation, Willie helped the team find a home in P15 (OK, maybe it was more about car attrition than Willie’s driving) by the 5th hour. This placed us 5th in class which wasn’t quite a podium finish, but by our calculations was potentially a top 5!
By the 6th hour, the team had rocketed to P12 (still 5th in class) which in no small part could be attributed to finely executed pit stops. Wish we could have said this was meticulously planned, but sometimes stuff just falls into place. By the 8th hour, we had risen to 4th in class and the likelihood of a 3rd place (in class) podium finish was within our reach. Although we’re not proud of it, we all gathered, arm-in-arm, around a burning Toyo tire and did the little attrition dance hoping just one little SM Miata would experience early retirement. Well, much to our delight I mean surprise, the 1st place SM Miata blew a rod and punched a hole in the side of the engine the size of grapefruit. At this point, we all but locked up a 3rd place finish in class. Although Patrick was out on the track, we all attended the little Miata eulogy to pay our respects (OK, we just wanted to ensure that there was no chance of this car getting back on the track as it left with a 30 lap advantage on us). Anyway, Patrick was quickly radioed and made aware of the unfortunate set of circumstances that befell the 1st place car…and after a quick cry, he was asked if he wouldn’t mind keeping our little Miata on the black stuff and stay away from anything that looked like grass or tire walls.
By midnight, Patrick brought our number 04 Miata home in 11th place overall and 3rd in class – good for a podium finish where we rec’d awards and accolades from all. Our final best time lap was 1:21.57…not bad for a bunch of sleep deprived guys.
Check out our website for the race pictures. And as always, special thanks to our sponsors, Lynn for the outstanding DTR work and her family for the support and timing work.
Willie, Glenn & Patrick.
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