Racing & Hockey Weekend

June 13th 2006

Hmmm - what's been going on lately... I had a busy weekend - had a race weekend with the Russell Race Series at Infineon Raceway, previously known as Sears Point Raceway. ( You really shouldn't be surprised - given the sponsor logos on every race car, it was just a matter of time before tracks got sponsor logos/names too!). Russell runs a nice "arrive and drive" program, in these "Formula Russell" open wheel cars, which are a whopping 1150 lbs with a 150 hp Mazda rotary engine.

I hadn't raced since March, so I was pretty rusty and had to learn the track and limits of the car all over again. I had really slow times at practice on Friday, but was just happy to keep the "shiny side up". I ended up qualifying 8th, and finishing the race in 7th on Saturday. (Official Race Results here- best time was a 1:48.6, with the fastest guys in group A running about 1:41.0) We ran a pretty fast configuration - similar to this one, but with turn 7a instead of 7, 9 instead of 9a, and the full turn 11. In the Russell cars, you can be pretty much flat on the gas between 7a and 11. Turn 10 has serious "pucker factor" due to the wall being right by the edge of the track. (don't look at the wall, don't look at the wall, Doh!).


Saturday night I drove back from Sonoma to the Peninsula (about an hour and a half), as I had a hockey game at the Ice Oasis in Redwood City. Saturday night is Beginner night, although there are definitely some ringers out there. Despite a nearly full bench, we had our butts handed to us 10-2. There was a photographer present, and I happened to find his pictures of our game by simply googling for "ice oasis photos". My favorite picture of me is this one to the right - actually looks like I know what I'm doing. :)

Sunday morning I got up at 5:15am to drive back to Infineon. They appeared to have changed the track configuration again - this time we ran the AMA Superbikes/IRL configuration, but with the full turn 11). A slightly slower track, because of the kink in 9a. But nevertheless, I felt much more confident than on Saturday. Qualified 8th again, but finished in 5th! (Best time was 1:52.9) Passed one car right at the start, passed another car that got pushed off the track at turn 2, and passed one more car at turn 4. The rest of that race I spent right behind car #20 (nice guy named John J.)... losing ground in the front part of the track, but catching it up on the back half. As much as I wish I could've passed him, I'm pretty sure I couldn't have pulled away from him, and I'm positive I would've messed up with him right behind me. Definitely had to hand it to him, he was cool under pressure! Official results here.

Oh yes, how fast do these cars go? John J. volunteered his 911 Carrera S to be the pace car for one of the A group races, and rode along in the passenger seat with JK (one of the Russell instructors) driving. The porsche got up to 130mph, and John was sure they had left the race cars behind. But he looked back and not only were they right on porkchop's tail, they were weaving left and right in an attempt to warm up the tires! So these cars AVERAGE a lap at about 85-90 mph, so guessing top speeds are probably in the ~110mph or so.

One note: racing really hurts my neck. One thing you don't really notice in the racing games is that a) you're not wearing a helmet, and b) your neck doesn't have to support your head and the aforementioned helmet through major g turns! I have a newfound respect for race car drivers and fighter pilots!