2007 Thunderhill Double National Re-cap

It’s 9:00 AM on Wednesday and here we all were, Ken, John, Emma and I, all packed up, ready to go, sitting in the truck in our driveway.  We were meeting Brian and Chuck as they passed by the Donald exit on I-5 so Ken called Brian to see where they were.  Where they were was still in Hood River.  Brian was backing out of his driveway and “snap” – the axle on his car trailer breaks.  Fortunately, Brian already had the trailer at a local shop where they were doing the necessary welding.  I think Chuck was at Brian’s place, drinking coffee and watching Ken’s in-car race DVD from the March race.  I’m sure Brian was somewhere pacing.  They’d be on the road in about an hour. 

Hmmm…was this a sign of things to come?

We decided to go ahead and get going, with the plan being to meet up with Brian and Chuck for dinner in Redding.  Fortunately, the trip down there was uneventful and Brian and Chuck made good time, making it to Redding in time to have dinner with us.  Fenn and Bill made it into Willows not too long after us, so all the guys went to the track that night and set-up the pits.

Practice on Thursday got off to a good start.  It was sunny, clear and around 50 degrees.  Emma and I got to the track around 11:00 AM and the tension in our pits was palpable.  Come to find out Towey’s bad luck had followed him to Willows.  During his second time out on the track, he felt the motor lose power.  He immediately came in and diagnosed a bent valve.  Immediately, the trauma team went to work.  Do they pull off the head and put in the extra one Ken had brought?  After much consultation, it was decided to pilfer parts off of Ken’s head and put them into Brian’s motor.  This meant that Brian lost the rest of the testing opportunity that day and with this being his first time on this track it was frustrating to say the least.  They ended up putting it all back together on Friday, after fighting (and cussing) the valve spring clips.  Brian was back on track for the practice session Friday afternoon (and didn’t miss a beat).

Fenn had come down with a nasty flu bug on Monday and hadn’t even begun to feel better once he and Bill got on the road Wednesday.  Once Bill saw how pale Fenn was I think he was wondering what he got himself into.  We were all very worried about Fenn on Thursday with the temperature rising over 80 degrees.  As the day went on, he moved slower and slower, sat in his car longer and longer after each session and became a whiter and even whiter shade of pale.  At the end of the test session, he proceeded to lie down on the asphalt in his pit and fall asleep.  OK, so far so good!

Chuck’s first time at Thunderhill was going well, with him getting the hang of the track pretty quickly.  There were a few “offs” and a spin here and there but nothing that slowed Chuck down! 

The test session all in all went well.  There were about 12 Miatas and Ken was on the top of the speed chart @ 2:10:7 with Will right behind him @ a 2:10:9.  Ken’s engine temps stayed cool despite the 80+ degree weather.  They got at least 4 runs that lasted 30 to 40 minutes, so lots of good track time.

On Friday, the Double National event started off with an afternoon practice session for 25 minutes with Group 3 being the first ones out.  There were 22 Miatas on the entry list but a lot of the normal San Francisco guys were not running Spec Miata (Cross, Rampelberg, Vodden to name a few).  Unfortunately, Group 3 included everything from Spec Miata, to T1, to FP, GP, HP to SSB and several others so traffic was an issue.  Will was fastest during this practice session, with Fenn 2^nd, Chuck 3^rd, Ken 5^th and Brian 9^th.   Brian was having some handling issues but the motor was staying together so that was progress.  Here is Chuck, first time at Thunderhill and he is running 3^rd!  Go Chuck!

That day, Sean Hedrick’s new Miatacage car showed up in our pit with a bit of damage on the front.   The core support was buckled, the hood was bent, the headlights were misaligned and it hadn’t even been on the track.  Sean had the car transported down to Thunderhill and during the ride, the car came loose in the transporter and dropped from the 2^nd level to the 1^st level and landed on its nose in the living quarters.  Fortunately, MacGyver (aka Ken) and his crew were available to make the necessary repairs before the driver even arrived.

Sean’s car was being rented for the weekend by John Mefford, an x-Star Mazda driver from Vegas, and he set up in our pits.   We think that John enjoyed his first run in a Spec Miata.  He told Brian that he liked the way all the Miatas immediately were “on the pipe” at the beginning of the session like a bunch of teenagers in Formula cars.

One other Northwest Spec Miata was at Thunderhill.  Alec Osenbach from Whidbey Island in car #77, and he finished 16^th and 13^th.  Hopefully we’ll be seeing Alec at PIR more often too.

Fortunately, Fenn had Thursday evening and Friday morning to rest and he seemed to be on the road to recovery.  He was starting to give me grief so I knew he must be feeling better.

Qualifying for the first race was early Saturday morning.  Fortunately by this time someone had wised up and move the Production cars to Group 5 with the Spec Racer Fords.  This eased up the traffic a bit (but didn’t get those Corvettes, Camaros and Civics out of our way).  I’m not sure how happy Spec Racer Ford was about the change but we were happy!

Emma and I stood up on the hill at the end of the front straight, in between Turn 1 and Turn 2 for qualifying.   Standing here you really get a sense of how fast these 2 turns are.  I watched a Miata slide off of Turn 1 and drift a long way very quickly and I was amazed how much speed he carried off the track.   At least there is a lot of run-off space here.  I’m sorry to say that it happened so quickly I was unable to get pictures of it – just blurry track and lots of dust flying is all I got. 

Qualifying seemed to go smoothly for the OR guys (that I could see anyway) and we came out with Will on the pole, Ken 2^nd, Fenn 5^th, Brian 8^th and Chuck 16^th.

The first race was set for 10:45 AM on Saturday.  All the guys were up to grid with a few minutes to spare, except for Fenn.  We found out the hard way the SFR counts the warm up lap so race time is when the green flag waves.  This means that the race started at 10:45 AM so you needed to be at grid and ready to go earlier than we are used to for Oregon races.  Fenn was on his way to grid at 10:40 AM but was stopped by an official to let another car onto grid.  This other car had trouble getting his car started and by the time he did, the official waved Fenn to the back!  He claimed Fenn was late and he would be starting at the tail end of the line (39^th place).  Not a good way to start your race.

Emma and I stood on the bleachers at Turn 14 and Turn 15, so I couldn’t see what happened at the start but they did get through clean.  It is fun to watch at this point of the track because you see some great late braking passes (and attempts).

I do know that Fenn was very busy working his way through traffic, and battling out-of-class cars (I’ll mention one certain X19 that comes into play later in this story).  The OR finishing order was Will winning, Ken 2^nd,  Fenn 12^th (good job starting from the back),  Brian 18^th and Chuck 21^st.  Chuck had a “meeting” with a Showroom Stock B Miata in Turn 14 and messed up his new hood and shiny red paint job.

The event on Sunday brought out one of the regular SFR SM drivers, Brad Rambelberg.  Qualifying was early again and Brad ended up with the pole, with Will 2^nd, Ken 3^rd, Brian 4^th, Fenn 9^th and Chuck 12^th (go Oregon Region!).  Brad set a new track record for the pole with a time of 2:08:094. 

I had some family show up to root us on and we all watched the 2^nd race in the tower.  This gives you a great view of pretty much the whole track except for Turns 8 and 9.  You get a front row seat to the start (which isn’t a good thing for me and my nerves).  They did a split start for this race, which ended up being not such a good thing because most of the cars in the other groups were actually slower than the Miatas (Rampelberg started 5^th overall) and we caught up to them in no time; more on that later.   Brad brought the field around Turn 15 pretty fast and I think he realized he was going to pass the pace car in the pits so he slowed up a little.  Ken was right behind Brad and ended up tapping the breaks a bit to keep from hitting him.  Well then Brad hit the gas, the green flag waved and this allowed Brian to get around Ken going into Turn 1.  It was another clean start, with Brad and Will stretching out a bit of a lead early on.  Brian and Ken raced a bit, with Ken getting around him to take 3^rd.  

Traffic immediately became an issue with Brad and Will catching slower cars from the groups ahead of them.  The traffic allowed Brad to pull out a bit of a lead on Will, and Ken was able to catch up to Will.  Brian was hanging right there, battling the same traffic.  At one point, Ken caught up to our friend in the X19 (remember Fenn’s friend from yesterday?) and this guy was relentless (I’m being nice).  The X19 was battling another GTL car, a Civic, who was now right behind Ken.  Mr. X19 wanted Ken to be the middle of the sandwich to help keep his closest competitor off his tail.  The X19 was slow in the turns with just enough horsepower to keep ahead of Ken on the straightaway.  Not only was he slow in the turns, he was a blocker.  Ken would get a fender beside him early before the turn and X19 would cut over almost knocking into Ken.  This went on for a couple laps, and I knew trouble was a brewing.  Of course a T2 Camaro added to the mix in the esses didn’t help matters.  Ken got around the Camaro and was back with Mr.X19 by the straightaway.   Ken was all over him in Turn 1 and then was completely beside him on the inside of Turn 2 when X19 decided to make a hard left, spinning him and Ken right off the track.  Ken was able to get back on the track right away, but Mr. X19 was stuck outside of Turn 2 for the rest of the race.

Ken came on the radio to ask what position he was in, how much time was left and how much damage did he have.  Todd Harris and Todd Butler were in the tower so they were able to help me decipher what the situation was.  We figured out Ken was in 6^th, there were 4 laps to go and that he only had a shallow dent in the right front fender, and rubber all over his right front wheel.  Ken said the car felt fine.  With only 4 laps to go he had his work cut out for him.  As all this was going on, Marc Hoover, another SM, was busy making himself known on the track.  I don’t know the details but I’ve seen some video and it ain’t pretty.  Ken made his way up to 5^th, and Marc was black flagged with 1 or 2 laps to go, moving Ken up to a finishing position of 4^th.  I was relieved that we were able to get out of that race in one piece, let alone with a 4^th place finish.

Todd H. and Todd B. both told me that they saw what happened with Ken and that he was not at fault.  This would come into play in impound as the stewards tried to re-construct what had happened on the track.   

Brad ended up winning the race, Will finished 2^nd, Brian 3^rd, Ken 4^th, Fenn 7^th, and Chuck 12^th.  Impound was very long and nerve-wracking with several on track incidents being “discussed”.   An “independent witness” came forward, clearing Ken of any wrong-doing in his incident so he was released after about 45 minutes or so.  The race ended at about 1:30 PM and when we left the track at 4:30 PM, the “provisional” race results still had not been published.  Brian had some good run-ins with Mr. Hoover so there was much discussion and video being viewed surrounding that.   This type of drama seems to always be the case when we’re at Thunderhill. 

I was really impressed with the strong runs by the Oregon Region guys this weekend.  I’ve been told that this track is both physically and mentally demanding, and you can really see that when the guys get out of the car each time.  So to be at this track only 1 to 2 times a year and have the majority of them place in the top 10 is amazing.   Congratulations to Will for his win and 2^nd place finish, and a shout out to Towey for finishing 3^rd in the second race.  Nice job since this is his first time on this track and how much adversity he overcame this weekend.  Sean and miatacage.com sponsored 4 cars this weekend and they all finished in the top 5 the second day.  Great job to everyone!