Buttonwillow Raceway Majors Tour Race Results – May 2016
Buttonwillow Raceway Park – SCCA Major Western Division Championship
For several months the Team has been chasing the handling issues with the Stohr WF1. The issues surfaced at the SCCA Runoffs in Daytona in September, and made the car unmanageable at Auto Club Speedway in October 2015. Long story short, we’ve been chasing these issues throughout 2016. We arrived at Auto club Speedway in January with rebuilt/re-calibrated shocks. The car wasn’t 100%, but much improved. Mechanically issues and inclimate weather undermined our ability to get some serous seat time over that weekend (read below), and fine tune the car. Next up was Willow Springs Raceway in February, the car felt “off” and the rear of the car did NOT instill confidence. This resulted in the inability to commit to the corners at speeds we needed to be truly competitive. After the Willow Springs race weekend the team pulled the rear differential, which is hard to access, and sent it off for a refresh. The vendor reported there was definitely a problem, so through a process of elimination we eventually identified the culprit. Unfortunately, our 2016 race season has been compromised by the handling issues and other mechanically gremlins.
Now the good news, we now have a sorted race car and the opportunity to focus on racing and being competitive. One of the stories of 2016 has been Jim Devenport setting new track records in Prototype 1 at all the tracks we’ve raced at this year. With some hard work, we feel that we can take the fight to Devenport in his Norma M20FC. So in a sense – with great optimism; we felt our season began this weekend.
We had a simple game plan going into the SCCA event, learn the track, fine tune the set up on the Stohr WF1, and get back up to speed.
Learning the Track
I quickly realized that Buttonwillow Raceway is a real handful. I haven’t raced here in seven years, and really don’t recall running the current configuration. The circuit is a combination of slow technical corners and fast high speed sections. Lots of FUN! The last time I drove a track with these slow technical corner was Chuckwalla Valley Raceway in March 2015. The take away; learning a new track is not an easy thing and this particular circuit is both mentally and very physically demanding on day one.
Day 2: Practice/Qualifying Sessions 1 & 2
After the morning qualifying session we engage in a thorough debrief of the on-board car data, Jeff Shafer had the opportunity to get my car out on track Wednesday prior to my arrival and put down a solid time of 1:37:3. The data system allows us to take the data from when Jeff was driving the car and overlay my data on top. This gives you a computer visual/ graphic of the car’s speed into, thorough, and coming out of all the corners…laid out on a track map. If the lines in the graphic are closely superimposed, then the drivers are going at a very similar rate. If there are gaps in the graphics, these gaps represent where Jeff was going faster me. This eliminates the guess work; I now know where I am going slower or need to make up time! After determining the areas where I can improve, we view my on-board video and Jeff coaches me through some of the sequences of corners on the circuit where I need to carry more speed or try a different approach. This is extremely helpful listening to him explain he’s driving strategy for certain segments of the track.
Qualifying Sessions 2 plays out as expected based on everybody’s lap times in practice and the first qualifying session. I am chasing Devenport’s time of 1:36:5, he is clearly going to be the fastest guy all weekend. Mission accomplished; we are P2 on the front row with a lap of 1:38:7.
Race 1 (15 Laps): Devenport sitting on pole gets the jump at the green flag and proceeded to slowly pull a 5-7 car gap, no big surprise. I give it my all in hot pursuit, coming off the hill I reduce the gap and notice Devenport lifts considerably going into Riverside, as we exit unto the back straight I am one car length behind him and pulling in his draft. It’s rather surreal as the wind has been blowing all day and our raced started after the lunch break, thus the track is covered in a light film of dust and it’s getting kicked up by the lead car. Devenport brakes a tad early at the end of the back straight and I go for the pass…enjoy the video:
