Franklin Motorsport - March 2005 SCCA Arroyo Seco Races

SCCA Races at Arroyo Seco Raceway (Deming, NM), March 5-6, 2005

Results (running in the Spec Miata group):

Sprint Race, March 5th

Qualified 7th, finished 5th of 15 Spec Miatas

Sprint Race, March 6th

Qualified 8th, finished 4th of 15 Spec Miatas

What follows is a report that I wrote for the local PCA group...

For those who don’t know, I was at the SCCA double-regional at Arroy Seco Raceway, which is 15 miles east of Deming , NM . I think there were about 50 drivers entered, 15 of which were Spec Miatas. They had a concurrent HPDE going on, taught by Stan Czacki. I met Stan and was pretty impressed by him. He intends to bring his school up to Colorado at times and I think it would be a great alternative to other local schools (closer in price and attitude to Danny Collins). There were some familiar-looking Porsches there, both in the driver’s school and racing in ITE, guys that I’ve probably seen in Texas .

The local SCCA region ( Rio Grande ) put on the race and were very hospitable. The atmosphere reminded me of a PCA club race – very friendly. They have a few racers in the Las Cruces/El Paso area that have been running in NASA and some other Pro series. Those guys were formidable racers. The local region provided a free day on Friday, which was great since I had not seen this course. I got to walk around the course with Stan and learned a lot from him.

The AS course is very twisty and, although shorter than Second Creek, has slower lap times and is a much more fun track. There are “S” turns before each of the two straights and you have to hit them just right to get the best speed down the straight. There are multiple passing zones and no concrete walls or other hard targets.

Our other two RMR-member Miata drivers did not make this trip due to car problems, so I attached myself to last year’s SM champ, Bill Tolley, for the drive down and paddock location. Bill has a nice enclosed trailer which came in handy on Sunday (rain, hail, dust storms, etc). I tried to keep up with Bill in qualifying but couldn’t quite pull it off. My fastest time on that course was 1:21.9, whereas Bill qualified with a smoking 1:20.5 on Sunday morning. The course record was set last year by Bob Boileau at 1:20.9. Bill’s a helluva driver and his car is set up almost exactly like mine. We both drive early 1.6 Miatas, set up by Louie Rivera.

The weather on Friday and Saturday was perfect: cool and mostly sunny. The SM guys voted to have 2 qualifying/practice sessions each race day this year, instead of a practice session and separate qualifying session. The grid for the first session is determined by lottery and the times from the first session are used to set the grid for the second session. Your qualifying time is the best of the two sessions. Results over the last year show that I don’t qualify as well as I race, which is something I need to work on. You’d think that 50 days of PCA DE would pay off in great qualifying, but not so. I qualified 7^th on Saturday and 8^th on Sunday. My goal for the weekend was to finish in the top half of SM.

Saturday’s race started well for me, as I moved up 3 places in the first lap and, after bonking Dan Spirek’s new ’99 car in the second lap, convinced him to let me by soon after. Dan and I had the race of the day, as I led him through laps 3-15, and he passed me in the 15^th lap. At the end we were still bumper-to-bumper. After we finished, we were able to pop out that nasty dent in his rear bumper. Bob B finished first, Bill Tolley second, Tony Rivera 3^rd, and then Dan and me.

Thunderstorms woke me up on Sunday morning at 5:00am. The track got well-soaked, but the sky was clear when we arrived. Ours was the first group out to qualify/practice and it was slippery. The best times were 4 seconds off the pace. The second session was dry and we got good times. In both cases, the order of drivers was very similar. A heavy rain came about an hour before we started. Although the sun came out, it was awfully dark to the SW. I saw people changing tires up to 3 times in the last 15 minutes before the race. I didn’t have much of a choice and just went with my shaved Toyo’s with the most tread. I started in 8^th (4^th row). The track was wet for our race start. Again, I gained a few positions in the first wet lap, actually getting into 3^rd position, just ahead of Bill Tolley. Halfway through the second lap I got bonked by Chris Sarian (last year’s Spec RX7 champ) at the entrance to a tight turn in the mid-section of the course. I saluted him and drove away easily since he had lost his momentum. Bill tucked in behind me. At the entrance to the back straight you have to go through 4 left-right turns and, in the Miata, you have to shift from 2^nd to 3^rd right in the middle of the last turn as G-forces are pushing you to the right. As had happened several times that weekend, I missed the 2-3 upshift which shot my momentum for the back straight. Bill caught up with me and I signaled him to pass me since I had nothing for the straight. At that point Tony Rivera was leading, Bob Boileau was second with Bill trying to get around him and I was just behind Bill. We went like that until the last 5 laps when we got a monster dust storm and could hardly see the track in places. After another couple of laps we started getting hard rain and then hail. I thought I might get a chance to make a pass on the wet track, but those guys didn’t make any mistakes.

AS is a 10 hour drive from here if you don’t stop. I would gladly do it again. It would be nice if the PCA would hold a race there, but it’s not exactly a populated area and, lately, the PCA entries have been slim in much more populated areas.