Slipstream - May 2010

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Arctic Weekend at The Mineral Ring By Carey Spreen March 19, the Friday before the first Time Trial/ Autocross weekend of 2010, had been the warmest day of the year so far - sunny with temperatures near 70 degrees. Which made it all the more difficult to believe the weather reports that forecast snow and sub-freezing wind-chill factors in North Texas for the next two days. However, the weather reports were right - Saturday dawned wet and cold. Those who trailer their cars to Time Trials and Autocrosses kept their lightly-treaded sticky tires mounted, but the rest of us who drive our cars to these events had three choices: (a) Drive out on street tires, bringing the sticky tires with us to change on-site; (b) Mount the sticky tires at home, and take our chances driving to Mineral Wells on tires that are street legal but not at all intended for rainy or snowy winter conditions; or (c) Forget about the sticky tires and just run on street tires. When I got there Saturday morning I saw all three choices in evidence. I had selected choice (a), but upon further review, the wind, rain, and cold convinced me that changing tires would not be worth fighting the unrelenting wind, at least not on Saturday, so I went with (c) instead. Eighteen drivers showed up, a low number probably caused by the Siberian turn the weather had taken. And because the rain, even though it had ended by 9 am, was supposed to turn to snow later in the day, the organizers early on decided to give everyone their two sets of three runs and call it a day. Good choice, as it turned out. The entrants were divided up into the Ready to go traditional two run groups: workers went to their stations (1 per corner due to the small attendance), and drivers got in their cars. And as you might imagine, being in the car was the most comfortable place we could be! As the morning proceeded, the temperature continued to drop, but the wind remained Photos by Kristi Kelley constant, so by the time the second run group finished, we all needed a good thawing. We ran Time Trial Course 1 in its traditional clockwise direction, with the tight left turn after the start/finish line. And even though the rain had stopped hours earlier, the damp track and cold tires made for some unpredictable traction conditions, and gave everyone plenty of opportunities to practice their skid-recovery skills, especially at that tight left. “Turn into the skid” is the mantra we learned in those high school driver All smiles on the green light education classes, but what is usually not mentioned along with that is to straighten the wheel as you come out of the skid, since, if you don’t straighten out, the car will recover from the skid, but will continue into a similar swing in the opposite direction. Which you then have to steer into again, repeating as necessary, until either the car straightens out for good, or it finally comes to rest pointing in some direction contrary to the one in which you would prefer it be pointing. This phenomenon is sometimes known as “getting a little behind in your steering,” and all of us have experienced it at some Who is that masked man? point in our driving careers, hence the cheers that this occurrence elicits from the other competitors when it happens on course. Fortunately, the Mineral Ring is a very safe place to do this, since there is typically nothing to hit for hundreds of feet in any direction, except for those uncomplaining traffic cones, who willingly sacrifice life and limb for us on a regular basis. Anyway, we finished timed runs at about 12:30 and retired to Chili’s for a warm meal. Upon our return to the airport, a few good men and women dismantled the Time Trial course and set up the Autocross course for Sunday. 26
Mike Lockas did a few test runs on the course, since he would not be officially competing on it the next day, and was easily able to hit 70 mph on the back straightaway in his Audi A4. Sounded like it was going to be a fast course! I had left by that time, but as course setup was finishing, snow began falling. That evening, Ft Worth also got a light dusting of snow, but later I heard reports of several inches of snow in the eastern reaches of the Metroplex. That probably accounted for the low turnout of 15 drivers on Sunday for the Autocross. However, in Mineral Wells, there was neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night to stay these autocrossers from the swift completion Chuck McCoy giving us the thumbs up. the US Postal Service . . .) Travis braved the cold to launch the first TT of the year. of their appointed laps. (Apologies to Anyway, Sunday’s Autocross course was much longer than Saturday’s Time Trial course, in terms of time if not distance. It consisted of a few sets of offset gates, a quick slalom, a very long straightway (4th gear for most of us) containing a small kink to prevent the speeds from going even higher, and another set of offset gates with a 180 thrown in. It took us each about a minute and a half to drive around it, so the jokes about not being able to finish the morning course walk before nightfall were not too much of an exaggeration. So after 10 runs each, plus fun runs, we called it a weekend. And once again, we were reminded that, although the MineralRing does not have much to offer in the human comforts department, we always get lots of fast runs and a safe environment in which to make them. The April events there will have taken place before you read this, but Autocross 3 will be held on Sunday, May 16 at Pennington Field (the HEB ISD football stadium) in Bedford. And if you would like to try a Time Trial on a real racetrack, mark your calendar for Sunday, May 23, which will be Time Trial 3 at Motorsport Ranch in Cresson, TX, and will run on the 1.7-mile course. Hope to see you at one or both! Autocross #1 Results Name Time Class Michael de Jong 99.923 2 Chuck McCoy 94.281 3 Denny Payne 95.826 3 Christy Payne 96.315 3 Travis Howard 97.897 3 Gary Vincent 110.035 3 Clay Perrine 102.320 4 Gary Kelley 86.309 5 Carey Spreen 91.921 5 Tannia Dobbins 94.948 5 Joel Nannis 96.629 5 Michael Pelletier 89.255 6 Jeff Herrmann 91.831 9 Jonathan Altschul 94.930 6X Joel Nannis giving it his all. Sheba didn’t mind the cold weather! May 27
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Slipstream - May 2010

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