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| Team3S NASA BBQ Crew #33 E2 Spec Miata Race Report |
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 I have to begin with a great big THANK YOU to NASA Pro Racing, their entire ace staff, dedicated corner workers, Dave Bongiovani and all of Timing and Scoring, and especially to Jerry Kunzman, for making it all happen. No one was really sure that it could be done - it was one of those ideas that comes along and you think, "well..., wouldn't THAT be cool!"... A bunch of us were with Jerry when he came up with the idea, but I don't think any of us thought he would really go through with it. (Cocktails were involved...) Once the announcement was made, we knew that we WANTED to run in this race, but we didn't know what car we would run, so we didn't enter until August. "E.T." and I began 2003 with the intention of buying a second car, so that she and I could BOTH run in the same track events *together*. To "fill in the blanks" for those who don't know us-- "E.T." stands for Eileen Thomas; "3S" stands for 3000GT and Stealth, and I'm Bob Forrest..., one of the (USA) Administrators of Team3S, an international group of "3S" owners (from 57 countries). Our members "meet" on the internet, and some of our members (locally in CA, and elsewhere) gather at various school and racing events. Team3S is a sponsor of NASA Pro Racing, providing HPDE windshield stickers for all NorCal (and some SoCal) NASA weekends. We're even better known as the folks who host the free NASA NorCal's Saturday Night Barbecues. E.T. runs the "Gas-Powered Blender Thingy" at the NASA BBQs, and doles out those killer Margaritas and Mudslides. We're known here in NorCal as the "Team3S NASA BBQ Crew".
After sharing our non-turbo Stealth in NASA HPDEs for the past few years, E.T. and I had been looking for a Stealth RT/TT or (sister car) 3000GT VR-4, which are 300+ HP, all-wheel-drive twin turbos. We bought a '91 VR4 in March, but we realized that it would take months to turn it into a competitive track car, because of the car's weight and turbo cooling issues. She was impatient to get her competition license, so a month later she bought a ready-made racecar - (NASA NorCal HPDE Director) Barry Hartzel's Spec Miata #70, which had been a repeat winner in the Spec Miata Challenge series from previous years. E.T. got her license, started racing right away, and she took 2nd Place in 3 of the first 5 races she entered. Team3S had no "3S" car available, but we had a couple of "hot" drivers and several members who had asked to crew for us, so we decided to enter the Spec Miata in E-2 class in the 25 Hours of Thunderhill.
Our 25-Hour Enduro Race Report is about some pretty special people - our drivers and
our pit crew. We never could have finished this daunting race without the dedication of every single one of them. We never doubted, we never let up, and we never quit. Our team ran against entrants from all over the world - US, Germany, England, Italy, Japan, New Zealand..., teams from everywhere. BIG teams, which showed up with 2 or 3 eighteen-wheelers full of spare cars and parts! Some got into the US a week or two early to start practicing and training; the Japanese team pitted next to us were stuck in US Customs for 3 WEEKS and almost didn't make it. (How unfair and inefficient is that, Customs!?!) As we pulled our cars out of the trailers at almost the same time as the Japanese team, our team members looked at one another as we suddenly realized where the hell we were-- those guys touched a button, and POOF! - out from under the chassis came 4 hydraulic lifts that picked the whole car up about a foot. ...as I was unloading my Harbor Freight jack out of my car... ;-) We were a bunch of rookies in a sea of professionals. You wouldn't have known it from our results, though. Out of a field of 77 cars (73 made the grid), only 56 cars finished the race. We qualified 18th in E2 class, and we finished in 13th place! (We started 55th in the entire field and we finished in 37th). We couldn't be more thrilled! That we finished *at all* was a miracle, since besides being up against big-money pro teams, we had some *little* things working against us:
The big race weekend began on a frantic note-- we *had* been planning on getting to the track on Thursday night. We were delayed, due to last minute adjustments and installations on our car, and the car of our "trip convoy" partners, Metric Motorsports, with whom we shared two trailers. (Thank you for your generosity, Mike Brunelle and Vicman Ng!). We didn't get to Thunderhill until a full DAY later than we had planned. Instead of spending Friday on the track tuning and setting up the car, we didn't even get there until the last half hour of qualifying..., 5PM Friday night! As it is, 100 miles into the trek up to Thunderhill from San Francisco, we realized that we had forgotten our stopwatches... While the two trailers continued Northward, I turned around and made the trip BACK to the Bay Area and the 150 miles up to Thunderhill in 3 hours... (don't ask), in time to see the last few minutes of qualifying. Despite all our planning, and as prepared as we had tried to be, we had fallen far behind schedule, and we had a few things going against us--
--This event was the first ever 25-hour enduro, but our Team3S crew only had two people who had ever done ANY enduros before.
--None of us had EVER raced in the rain.
--None of us had EVER raced at night.
--We were a rookie team assembled from various car backgrounds (3000GT and Stealth, Camaro, Spec Miata, Porsche, Cobra, Supra, Vette...) who had never worked together before.
--We were driving a car that had a new engine put in just a couple of weeks before, which we had not yet broken in.
--We had lowered the car slightly (weeks before), then discovered on the day before the race that we hadn't completed the alignment.
--Three of our six drivers were rookies in 2003, and three of them had never even DRIVEN a Spec Miata before, let alone raced one.
--The rotors and brakes were installed the day before the race - and not bedded.
--We had drivers ranging in height from 5'3" to 6'4", from 130lbs to 280lbs - age range was 26 to 62. NONE of our drivers had EVER sat in the seat before (including E.T.), since we took the biggest guy's seat out of his Cobra and fitted it to each of the 6 drivers with either kneeling foam or expandable poly - THAT morning of the race! (It was about 45 degrees Saturday AM with a stiff wind, and E.T. was sitting in the seat blank in just spandex-- Albert Butterfield helped us as we poured expandable foam into a giant garbage bag, flopped it into the seat, and she sat in it as we let it set for about 10 minutes, then we took out the foam and sculpted it with a switchblade.)
--And finally, we were one of the few Spec Miatas entered in the race who ran as "pure spec", without mods for a few extra horsepower (which we REALLY could have used!).
Although the race started with an hour or so of cloudy sky, the rain that followed was horrible - even torrential - right through through most of the night. The track was awful, right until to the
end - if you went off-line, two wheels were on dry and two wheels were in mud, debris, or water. We ran that car for 25 hours straight. It never even burped. We
each have our own cars set up for weekend racing..., but this little Spec Miata racecar we entered
in NASA's 'super-Enduro' has really gained my respect. Since the 3.2 mile Thunderhill track
took an average of just under 2:30 for a lap in the inclement weather, the math comes out to something
around 1900 miles driven in just over ONE DAY (less pit stops, of course). The car was hit multiple
times (twice each when Steve and ET were driving; Geoff was hit once), we spun out and went off-track
several times, and we were repeatedly bump-drafted and nudged and ... If anything, our #33 finished stronger than when it started. Handling was perfect throughout.
We had been advised beforetime by a whole bunch of Spec Miata and Enduro experts as to what
parts we should to expect to replace in a 12-hour enduro, and they doubled the numbers for the 25-Hour:
"You'll need 3 sets of tires, 2-3 sets of brake pads and 1 set of replacement rotors".
Hell, NO...! Not when you "luck into" 6 great drivers and a talented crew planning
the race you don't! All of our spares sat off to the side of the pit for the whole race. We
finished the race with what we started with-- ONE set of brakes, ONE set of rotors, ONE set of tires.
The rotors were fine, the brakes are still good as a spare set, and the tires *just* got to that sweet spot
where they do whatever you tell them to do - about the tread of a fully shaved tire. Instructions to ourselves for next year?: It's all about brake management - don't use them. Run the tires at the right pressure - for us, 28psi gave us even temps across the tread. And drive it like you stole it!
I know that I'm being redundant, but I'm really proud of the folks who participated in this event with us.
E.T. and I could not have been luckier in finding such a terrific and talented bunch of people to
make up our Enduro team. We could not have finished this race AT ALL if it hadn't been
for the selfless contributions of every single crew member. Our local 3S members have
been doing NASA NorCal events together for years, but we had never even MET half the folks
on our Enduro team until the night before the race. There were a couple of company
prez's, supergeeks, a construction company owner, auto repair shop owners, company directors
and VP's, advertising and graphic artists biggies - an impressive array of people..., each at the
top of their respective fields. We were all gathered to contribute toward that common goal
of racing in this Enduro. Some only ran HPDEs and some had been racing for 40 years,
and a couple of the crew didn't drive competitively at all...
EVERY ONE of us left our ego at the door and pitched in to do whatever it took to get the job
done..., whether or not it was our specific pit assignment: Construction company
owner Ann Koch grabbed up the kitty litter and swabbed windshields when she wasn't lugging equipment or logging lap times on the stopwatch; Apple MAC exec Bill Ashurst was on the 'gas-up crew', and hopped in Ed's golf cart and made a zillion gas runs to the pumps in the torrential rain; Mario Lento constantly checked the fluids and kept the engine clean of track debris..., and 'woke us up' with his endless enthusiasm; our oldest (and fortunately, most experienced) driver, big Ed Gaven drove #33 out in the heaviest late-night deluge and was turning 2:50's when those of us in the
pits couldn't even see in front of us more than a foot - whenever the rain let up even a scoche, he ran in the low
2:30's instantly; Ed's Factory-5 racing partner George Morrill, another racer with 30+ years of track experience, helped gas-crew and stayed around without sleep to do any little chore; Ron Bertolone, who volunteered his RV for the weekend, to provide a place for the racers to nap, manned the stopwatches for hours on end, much of Saturday night until almost dawn...; and kudos to our two experienced Spec Miata guys who signed on at the last minute when Gary Brausch was too sick (and forbidden by his doctor) to race - SM race winners Steve Romine and Tommy Lo, going out there on that messy track and making up time every time they drove... (Tommy gets bragging rights to our team's fastest lap time - 2:12.101 - which was faster than many cars in the 'higher' classes!); And talk about stamina-- our oldest crewmember Vern Roberts (who is local Team3S member Rick Pierce's father-in-law), who helped do *everything* in the pits for 24.5 hours with only ONE tiny cat-nap(!). Jim Bucha, who kept cancelling his break time to encourage the drivers - especially to advise the folks who got hit, and give them "the talk" to get past it and get back out there... after being hit really hard on the track, E.T. wouldn't have continued without Jim's encouragement; Geoff Mohler, who has driven school and club races for a dozen years, but who just got his license hours before the 25-hour Enduro... - he put the whole team in "another gear" when he radio'd back after being cut off and then hit off the track that he was HAVING FUN! That was a turning point that got our blood moving to kick some ass and enjoy ourselves!; another rookie driver, (winningest Camaro rookie in CMC history) Erick Van Wagenan was right behind Tommy's amazing lap times and gained us a couple of places each time he drove. [A note about our team's lap times-- Tommy, Erick, Steve and Geoff's fastest laps - only fractions of a second apart - were EACH faster than the fastest lap of the 4th place ESR class, 1st to 3rd Place in E-1 class, and ALL Places in E-3 class!] Linda Romine didn't appear to sleep at all, what with keeping us all stocked with food, water and snacks, and keeping our 'mascots' (5-yr-old Katie Mohler and 8-yr-old Victor Romine) happy..., and out of our hair. Bonni Weatherwax, who runs her own races in Northern California under the "TEAM Racing" banner, gets special mention as gas crew chief and for doing a whole lot of everything - but especially for helping us finish the last few hours of the race-- She braved the wind and the cold to go out there with a headset as our spotter, and to 'talk' the drivers through all the traffic of the 'intense', last 100 laps...
Special personal thanks go out to Nissa and E.T. One of the first 3S folks I met on the net is Anissa (Erbes)
Mohler, who was originally slated as our Team Manager and in charge of mobil communications (to monitor the NASA signals and keep our lap times accurate).-- she took over for me in the Crew Chief slot, and choreographed about 20 hours "live and in-person", and planned the other 5 hours beautifully. She did everything from scheduling the rest cycles so that each of the drivers were set up (and that a spare driver was ready 'just in case') and arranging crew schedules, to doing close to half of the communications with the drivers. Nissa took over when the flu literally 'dropped me'... Maybe 3 hours into the race when I got soaked, I got the 'shakes' really bad, so I retreated to my VR-4 and cranked up the heater to 77 degrees -- I was in there shivering, with a massive headache, for about the next six hours. When I finally ventured out of my makeshift 3000GT "hospital bed", it was well after dark. Bill was going strong, and said that he planned to stay on his shift for a few more hours. He and Nissa took one look at me and suggested I that I rest and keep warm, then relieve him for the late shift. Ann Koch was still at it too, and it was pretty late when she left her (triple) shift. I was Crew Chief in name only, since all the crew members 'carried the ball' with equal ease. The whole team picked up my slack like it was no big deal - but it was a big deal to me that they were working "one man shy" in those cold, wet conditions. Nissa woke me about quarter to three AM and I worked the 3-to-8 shift, took a catnap, then worked through to the end. Nissa..., you're AMAZING!
And finally, of course, what can I say about my wife, partner, and best friend of 13 years, Eileen Thomas? "E.T." gets special high praise that she put together the right personalities that made 'her' team into 'our' team. As Team Captain, she sat down with each driver and crew member individually and mapped out their part in the race strategy, did the filings with NASA for all 18 of the planned crew members and drivers, took care of arranging for all the work on the car, including the new engine the previous month. She did one of the the early driving runs in the heaviest, most agressive race traffic, and then in the final frantic 2 hours of the race..., and ET was the one who brought the car home safely across the finish line. What a Kick-Ass Racer Girl! ;-)
Ernest Hemingway said, "There are only two sports-- mountain climbing and automobile racing. Everything else is just a game." He was right..., and only people who participate in this sport know how very true it is. I've got an incredible affection for the people who worked so hard for our Team3S Enduro team. And I've got a whole new attitude in general after living this experience with them... The drivers and crew know what it took to accomplish this, and no words can really accurately describe it. Racing is all about personal accomplishment, and even bragging rights, but it's also an intensely emotional experience - and this was one which I'll never forget. I'm so glad that I read some of the other race reports before I finished this one-- Now I know that I wasn't the only one who felt it... I was taking photos when the USAF color guard came out and we all stopped for the National Anthem. But when those USAF fighter jets roared over us and we heard "Start your Engines...", all I could do was point the camera and shoot, since there were simply too many tears in my eyes to even see through the camera anymore. Totally overwhelming! I'll tell ya..., "So what" if you play football for the Denver Broncos? Talk to me when you've raced a 25-hour enduro. THEN I'll be impressed. This race was AWESOME, and my friends and I did it!
Regards to all,
Bob Forrest
Team3S NASA BBQ Crew
Spec Miata #33, Class E2
www.Team3S.com
See our Team3S race photos
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