2012 ChumpCar World Series Schedule

November 20th, 2011

The 2012 ChumpCar World Series was released recently and the folks at ChumpCar outdid themselves.  The series will be running 44 race weekends at some of the best race tracks in North America.  It really is a great!  To see the entire schedule, click here.

I’ve looked over the entire schedule and have come up with a personal schedule that I am really excited about.  My season starts and ends at Road Atlanta.  The first race is in February and the last race is in December.  In between, I’ll be travelling to Palm Beach international Raceway in West Palm Beach, Florida for a 24-hour race, I’ll be hitting Charlotte twice during the year, I’ll be heading back to Sebring, and I’ll be racing for the first time in more than 10 years at Daytona International Speedway.  I’ll be checking off a “bucket list” item when I race at Road America in April, I’ll be racing for the first time ever at the newly paved road course at Michigan International Raceway, as well as Gateway Motorplex and Memphis Motorsports Park, two recently re-opened tracks.  It should be great

Take a look and see what you think:

  • February 11-12      Road Atlanta (Double-7)
  • March 3-4               Palm Beach Int’l Raceway (24-Hours)
  • March 31                Charlotte Motor Speedway (14-Hours)
  • April 21-22              Road America (Double-7)
  • May 7                      Daytona Int’l Speedway (14-Hours)
  • June 9-10                Gateway Motorplex (14-Hours)
  • August 25-26          Michigan Int’l Raceway (Double-7)
  • September 22         Sebring Int’l Raceway (14-Hours)
  • October 27              Memphis Motosports Park (14-Hours)
  • November 10          Charlotte Motor Speedway (TBD)*
  • December 8            Road Atlanta (14-Hours)

*East Region Chumpionship

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The Rest of the 2011 Season

November 20th, 2011

I’ve been away from this blog for too long.  My last post was in April of this year and a lot has happened since then.  Let me try to wrap up the last several months in just one blog post.

In the last post I chronicled my race at Charlotte over the 2011 Easter weekend.  It was a fun race and Charlotte was a great race track.  I’m looking forward to back there next year.

I started feeling bad in May and was eventually diagnosed with some problems related to the cancer treatments I went through last year.  It wasn’t overly serious, but it did make it impossible for me to race for a few months.  So I decided to volunteer at several races.

In June, I traveled to Bloomingdale, GA with my daughter and we both worked a double-7 at Roebling Road.  I worked as a pit marshall (including pit in), but spent most of the day in timing and scoring.  Shelby spent the day working pit road and helping out with some administrative duties.  I was surprised how much I enjoyed volunteering at the race and decided that I wanted to work at more races before the year was over.

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14-Hours of Charlotte

April 27th, 2011

The 14-hour Chumpcar race was held the day before Easter.  That caused a little concern because my family usually like doing something special for Easter and they did not consider a seven hour drive back home from the race to be special.  Even so, they agreed to foillow along on my crazy dream and head to Charlotte for the weekend.

The trip to Charlotte was uneventful except for one incident.  Because the kids might be reading this post, I’m hesitant to give the details here.  However, it was very funny and I have to admit it caught me completely by surprise.  If you want to hear the details, just catch me off-line and and I’ll share the story with you.

We got to the track in the late afternoon and tech was in full swing.  I’ve raced at a few big-time tracks, but I have to admit that Charlotte felt huge.  It was my first time there and I was impressed.

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Heading to Charlotte

April 22nd, 2011

I haven’t been a very good boy recently.  I’ve failed to keep up to date on the blog and now I don’t have much time to write a proper post.  All I really need to say is that i’m about to head to Charlotte to race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.  I’ll be driving the same Camaro I raced at Roebling Road earlier this year.

The race itself is a 14-hour affair.  I haven’t ever raced at Charlotte before, but I’m really looking forward to it.  I’ve watched videos of the track and I think the Camaro may be well suited for it.

I’ll post a review of the race next week.  Until then, wish me luck.

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An Unexpected Race

April 4th, 2011

As I wrote about previously, I missed out on a race at Road America that I was really looking forward to when the race was postponed due to ice and snow.  Because of the weather, the race was rescheduled for this past weekend (April 2-3), but I was alrerady commited to go to Jacksonville, FL where my daughter was enrolled in a karting school through Endurance Karting.

The weather in Elkhart Lake, WI was chilly and rainy this past weekend, but it was good enough to hold the race.  I saw some video of the action at Road America and it looked odd seeing cars racing on the rack with snow covering the ground just off the course.  By contrast, we had sunny, beautiful weather in Jacksonville with temperatures in the mid-80′s.

My daughter did a great job in the karting school.  I was impressed that she was agressive from her very first time on the track.  She gave each drill 100% and didn’t show any hesitancy or fear whenever she was asked to do something.  Equally impressive was the fact that sahe wasn’t overly aggressive.  She understood the limits of the kart and she was very controlled in everything she did.

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A Dream Deferred

March 24th, 2011

Bad news.  The weather has turned cold and icy in Wisconsin, so ChumpCar has decided to postpone the race scheduled for this weekend at Road America.  The new date for the race will be April 2-3.

As I’ve described in previous posts, I have a special affinity for Road America.  In some respects, I grew up there.  My time at RA was my first exposure to sports car racing and it is what set me on the racing path I am on today.  I was really looking forward to retuning to Elkhart Lake and getting behind the wheel at Road America.

Alas, it was not meant to be.  At least not this year.  On the date of the rescheduled race, I am supposed to be in Jacksonville, FL with my daughter while she goes through karting school.  I’d like to tell you that I am such a terrific, selfless father that it never entered my mind to go to Road America instead of Jacksonville.  Truth is, I tried to figure out a way to make it work, but I just couldn’t fit a future karting school into my schedule. 

So, while ChumpCar is racing at Road America, I’ll be in Jacksonville, Florida.  I’m excited to watch my daughter as she begins her life in racing, but I’d be lying if I said at least part of my mind won’t be on the race in Wisconsin. 

Oh well, there’s always next year…

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Should I Add More Races?

March 21st, 2011

I had a few of email conversations this past week concerning the possiblility of adding three races to my schedule.  I don’t know if i’m going to do any of these races, but it sure has me thinking.

The first email I received was from the team owner of the team I raced with at Eagle Canyon Raceway in February.  I wrote about the race previously.  If you’ll recall, we blew the engine in the car during the Saturday race and had to go home early.  Well, it appears the team has installed a new engine and the car is ready to race again.  Ben, the team owner, wrote to ask if I wanted to come race with them at Texas Motor Speedway on April 16 & 17.

Next weekend I’ll be racing with Neil and his team from Indiana at Road America.  Neil wrote this past week to let me know that the work being done to the team’s Acura Integra is on schedule.  He also asked if I would be interested in running with the team on April 30 and May 1 at Iowa Speedway. 

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Learning About Racing At Road America

March 14th, 2011

I was 15 years old when a friend asked me if I wanted to go with him and his family to “work a race” at Road America.  I didn’t have any idea what it meant to “work a race,” but it sounded exciting, so I said I would like to join him.  Thus began my lifelong love affair with sports car racing.

That first race was the famed June Sprints, an annual SCCA club racing event.  My friend’s dad was a race official, and we were put to work in timing and scoring (T&S).  In those days, there was no electronic timing and scoring; no transponders and electronic loops in the track.  Instead, we wrote down every car number as they came by the T&S stand. 

One of the great things about working T&S was that we were given all-access paddock passes.  That meant that we could go anywhere at the race track.  The all-access passes came in handy during pro racing weekends.  Security was tighter than it had been during the SCCA Club weekend, but the all-access pass got us where we wanted to go.

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Learning To Heel-Toe Downshift

March 2nd, 2011

I have a confession to make.  I’ve been racing for several years, but I’ve never fully learned to heel-toe downshift.  If you’re not familar with this term, you may have heard it called “matching revs” when you are downshifting.

The idea behind heel-toe downshifting is that you don’t want the engine rpms to suddenly jump when you downshift.  For instance, if you are approaching a turn in third gear and you need to downshift to second gear in order to make the turn and have as much torque as possible coming out of the turn,  you don’t want to just throw the car into second gear.  Doing so will spike the rpms and may cause the drive wheels to lock up.  That’s not a good thing.

Here’s another real life example.  In my most recent race at Eagles Canyon Raceway in Texas, I was coming down the front straight toward turn one.  I was in fourth gear and needed to shift to third gear in order to go through turn one and two with as much speed as possible.  Because I have never fully learned how to heel-toe downshift, I had to brake harder to slow the car down than drivers who can heel-toe downshift.  It may seem like a small thing, but consider that this happens at nearly every turn, so I am losing a little bit of time at several places around the track.

Intellectually, I understand heel-toe downshifting, but I’ve never trusted myself enough to physically do it during a race.  This is now a goal that I want to achieve before the end of the season.  In fact, I’d like to become proficient at heel-toe downshifting sooner rather than later.

To fully understand what I am talking about, here is a video from Jeff Bucknum, former IndyCar driver and current driver of the #6 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro in the Continental Tires Sports Car Challenge showing exactly how heel-toe downshifting works.

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My Next Race Will Be…

February 22nd, 2011

I’ve been trying to figure out which race to go to next.  There are three races on the ChumpCar calendar for March.  They are:

  • March 12-13  Rockingham Speedway (Rockingham, NC)
  • March 19-20  Sandia Motorsports Park (Albuquerque, NM)
  • March 26-27  Road America (Elkhart Lake, WI)

I ruled out Sandia Motorsports Park.  Because it is the farthest away, I knew it would be a struggle to make it work.  That left Rockingham and Road America.  Initially, I thought about doing both races, but I want to be careful not to plan too many races in too short of a period of time.  It’s important to keep some harmony at home.

With that in mind, I’ve decided that my next race will be the Double-7 at Road America.  I have a history with Road America that I’ll detail in an upcoming post.  Honestly, I hate to miss Rockingham.  I’ve heard good things about the track and it’s my understanding that last year’s race at “The Rock” was a good one.  Plus, I want to support as many races in the Southeast as possible.  Unfortunately, it’s just not going to work this year.

I continue to work on rides for the rest of the season and I even have my eye on buying a car for the two Nashville races.   It may seem impractical (especially since I already own half of a race car), but if I can buy it right, it may be less expensive than renting a seat.

Road America is just over a month away.  With any luck, the weather will be decent for the race.  As a part-time resident of the State of Wisconsin, I can tell you from experience that the end of March can be cold and snowy.  Hopefully this year, the old saw about March that says it “comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb” will hold true.

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