Ford Racing Mustang Challenge - Race #6: New Jersey Motorsports Park

Well, we're back and ready to go for Round #6 of the Miller Cup! Round #5 was a fiasco, but we pulled through.

Race #6 brings us to Millville, New Jersey and New Jersey Motorsports Park. This is a brand-new facility built just for what we love to do: RACE!

New Jersey poses an interesting circuit that requires two different types of race car. On the first half of the circuit you need a car that handles well in fast, open corners. On the back half, you need a car that takes tight, technical bends well and puts the power down as early as possible. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to get a single car to do both of these things. Another challenge that presents itself in NJ is that the track is brand new to everyone. So while we are trying to set the car up, we're trying to learn the track at the same time.

This particular weekend is in stark contrast to Lime Rock. We have four days of track time, plenty to learn the course, our flights landed as scheduled and no baggage was lost, and we all came into the weekend well rested and ready to race!

The early parts of the weekend went off without a hitch. New Jersey's facility was nice, but it was incomplete. The area where we were to paddock was basically a dirt lot, so we found some indoor/outdoor carpet in town and made the best we could. Thursday was scheduled to be a test day where we would learn the track, make setup changes and all in all gather our bearings.

We were first out at 8:30AM, so it was an early morning! The first session went well and I learned the track quickly. Unfortunately for all parties involved, Scott Pruett had an incident late in the morning in his Daytona Prototype that left the pit-lane wall and his race car in pieces(see below)! This also meant that the incident would have to be investigated by the NJ State Patrol, so the track was closed for the rest of the day.


After taking the rest of Thursday off, we began anew Friday with practice. We started playing with different car setups, which left me with a car that was faster (good thing), but it also had some pretty bad understeer (bad thing). I ran fairly well in practice, and ended the day in the top 10, not too bad!

Saturday brought a single session for the Ford Racing Mustang Challenge competitors: Qualifying. Qualifying in a series as tight as this one is difficult. Your car has to be good, and you have to find an open spot within the first few laps, or your tires are past their peak. I've always been great at turning fast laps consistently for a whole race, however, going out and cracking off the fastest lap the car is capable of on your first hot lap is something I've never had to do. Well, no time to learn like the present!

TC Motorsports provided me with a great car, so it was up to me to do the rest. I went out and got held up on my first two laps, so I ran a few more and managed to get a clean lap, but it wasn't quite perfect. It was still a respectable time at a 1:29.507, good for 6th place on the grid; the thing is, if I would've gotten off ONE corner a touch faster and been able to drop my time by .048 (that's forty-eight thousandths of a second!!), I would've taken third!! Sometimes it's painful, I know. But that's why I love this series, the competition is so close!!

Sunday is race day, and our team had all qualified well. Carlo took 2nd with a great effort, just .161 off the pole, and Rick was just behind me in 7th. All three TC Motorsports cars in the top 10! I had a good start and maintained my position as well as staying in touch with the front-runners. As I go through Turn 5, I get the call on the radio that someone wrecked coming out of T3 and we had a full course caution. We circulated the track a couple times, then they brought the whole field into the pits while they cleaned up the crash and repaired the tire wall. Unfortunately, they kept the clock running while we were sitting, so our green race time was all of 17 minutes. It's OK though, not every racing facility has all the bugs worked out for their first event, I'm sure when we return in 2009 NJMP will be much better. After the restart, I briefly took 5th position, only to be knocked off the track in the following turn and once again found myself in 6th. The incident was enough to knock my steering off a bit and left me with a car that was not optimal. I persisted through the rest of the race, losing two spots coming out of T5 when I got a poor run out, and finished a disappointing 8th.

The team had an excellent weekend, but we all finished down one or two spots from where we started, which is always disappointing for a racer. Carlo scored a podium in third place, I took 8th, and Rick stuck right with me for 9th. Yet again TC Motorsports occupies three of the top ten spots! Perhaps the finishes weren't so bad?! I learned a lot (again), improved my driving, qualifying, and racing skills, and had a helluva lot of fun! See you in Utah for the finale!

Mustang Challenge Race #5 - Lime Rock Park

Well, my first adventure in professional racing begins with the 6th round of the Mustang Challenge for the Miller Cup, taking place at Lime Rock Park, Connecticut. The weeks leading up to the event were filled with preparation and anticipation. Luckily (in some respects) I was very busy with work for the week immediately preceding the race weekend.

The weekend started off with a flight from Seattle, WA to Washington-Dulles Airport in Dulles, VA. We were scheduled to have a flight from D.C. to Hartford, CT that would bring us within an hour and a half of the race track. Unfortunately, the latter flight was not to be as there were Thunderstorms in the Hartford area. We had to be at the track the following morning, and there were few options left open to us as it was already 6:00PM. The TC Motorsports team made the decision to rent a van and drive (!) from Dulles, VA to the hotel near Litchfield, CT. To make this long, long story short, Crew Chief Jon Ament drove the entire way and delivered the whole team safely to the hotel. The downside to that trip is we didn't arrive at the hotel until 3:00AM, and we had to be up at 5:00AM to get to the track. Ugh...

Friday morning the team arrived at the track at 7:00AM to prepare the cars and get ready for practice. We were allotted two 30 minute practice sessions to learn the track and setup the cars, followed by a 25 minute qualifying session to determine the starting order. My coach, John Robison (JR), and I took advantage of the early morning hours to walk the track and try to get our bearings after the previous night's events. I went out in the first practice session with the sole intention of learning the track. I got comfortable fairly quickly and starting trying to find spots where I could begin whittling my lap times down. Eventually I got down to around 1:00.XXX lap, which I thought was pretty good. It was good enough for 11th on the time sheets.

At this point, yet another malady came down on our team, as Team Principal and Lead Driver Carlo Sparacio was unlucky enough to pick up a flu bug over the course of our trip. He was sick all day Friday, but still managed to run in the top 5 in both practices! Talk about sucking it up and driving!

In the second practice, we opted to install new tires, to get a feel for what the track was like with new rubber. I felt better, and went faster (59.9XX lap time), but so did everyone else! I fell to 14th on the grid and wasn't feeling so stoked about it. It turns out, there's some competition in the Mustang Challenge, and Lime Rock Park isn't exactly an easy track to go fast at!

Qualifying went well, as the rain threatened and sprinkled a bit. I went out trying to find a spot to get a clean, dry lap. I got what I felt was a decent lap at 1:01.XX, before going sideways in the Climbing Turn (yikes!!) and bringing it in. It turned out to be good enough for 8th place!

After a busy first day at Lime Rock Park, the team finally had an evening where we could go back to the hotel and relax. JR and I took full advantage and got a great night's sleep. Unfortunately, that night Crew Chief Jon fell victim to the same bug Carlo got and was hurting pretty bad. He sucked up just like Carlo did and got all three cars ready to race the following afternoon.

I started the race in 8th position and had a good start, retaining my position. About ten minutes into the race I had already overheated my tires (still getting used to the car, but avoidable), and I induce (unintentionally) a slow spin coming out of Big Bend. Sigh.....

I lose two positions and re-enter the track in 10th place. I keep driving, and start to overheat my tires again, but this time realize the error of my ways and start to smooth everything out. I see my lap times start dropping on the dash and the 11th place car get smaller in my mirrors. At this point, another driver loses control exiting the Climbing Turn and hits the wall in pretty spectacular fashion, bringing out the full course caution.

The double-yellow allowed me to close the gap to 9th place and cool the car down. The restart brought in another variable: lapped traffic. I managed to get around a few cars in turn one, and totally lost track of where I was in the running order. The following lap, I entered turn one (which is the only passing zone on the track), and was going inside of two slower cars. Unfortunately, I was a little optimistic, went a little too deep and collected one of the other cars in the right rear fender. I managed to keep the car under control and continue without losing my position. From there, I held off a hard-charging Dan Aweida for what turned out to be 7th place!

I was very happy with the result, and felt I had done justice to my first Ford Racing Mustang Challenge for the Miller Cup weekend. That was until the Chief Steward came over and informed me that my contact with the other car in T1 was inappropriate and avoidable. They assessed a fair, but gut wrenching, 30 second time penalty, and dropped my finishing position to 13th. Sigh...

Overall, it was a trying weekend, but I learned a lot. Not only about the car, the series and the race track, but a lot about teamwork, perseverance and sportsmanship. I also learned that there is a big difference between professional racing and club racing. Ford, Miller Motorsports Park, and TC Motorsports all put on a great program, and I'm lucky to be in the situation I am.

We'll be back and feeling much better about New Jersey! See you all then!
-Ted

Wow, what an epic test day...

Today I attended a test day at Pacific Raceways. I was there to perform a number of tasks: shake down Stan B's E36 race car, re-acquaint myself with a PRO3 car (courtesy of Bill S.), and get some seat time in my new ride for the rest of the 2008 season, the TC Motorsports Ford Mustang FR500S.

I started the day off in Stan's E36 and right away recognized some changes that needed to be made. We made some suspension adjustments and changed the brake bias and the car was worlds better ( 2 seconds per lap!). After sorting out most of the issues with the E36, I jumped in the FR500S Mustang for a session. I was extremely impressed with the car! It was responsive, had good power and excellent brakes. Everything a guy could want in a race car!!

Immediately following that session, my presence was requested in the Frost NW Racing pits to set some baseline data for Stan's E36. I gladly obliged and ran a handful of laps before turning the reins over to my co-driver for the day and the car's driver for the rest of the weekend, Paul F.

The session following, I hopped into Bill S's PRO3 BMW. It was so nice, it felt like putting on an old pair of shoes. It didn't take long at all to get up to speed, but I was having so much fun, I drove for a few more laps than necessary! It was interesting comparing Bill's car to my old PRO3 car; the two handled very similarly, but Bill's braking system was impressive! The precision you can maintain with the complete non-ABS system was amazing.

For my last session of the day (at 3:30PM!) was in the TC Motorsports FR500S. It was for me to get comfortable in the car and try to get a feel for what the car does in differing conditions on the track. I was pretty amazed that it took only a few laps to feel at home in the car, and in no time at all we were like old friends. I took advantage of the entire session to play with the car and get to experience it in slightly greasy conditions on an ever-changing circuit.

All in all, it was an incredible day; one I will not likely be fortunate enough to repeat in the near future.