I drive an E stock 944 turbo S. My race group was made up of class E and class F. Other cars in class E are 95 993 type 911’s, 84-89 3.2 Euro and Club Sport Carrera’s, and 944 S2 club sport cars. Class F is 944 turbo, 944 S2, 928S, and all 3.2 Carrera, Euro SC, and C2 / C4.

The course used for the race was the 2.5 mile road coarse. It uses NASCAR turn 1, a chicane at the beginning of the next straight, the tunnel turn, then a hard left turn into the infield section. The infield is tight, not much room to pass, then you get dumped back onto the beginning of the main straight, and get to do it again.

Here is a map of the track.

This weekend was the first time I’ve driven at Pocono. I drove in the driver ed event on Friday to get more track time. Race practice Saturday, warm up and qualifying Sunday morning, then race on Sunday afternoon.

I had a quick warm up Sunday, the car felt good but the session was very short. Get gridded for qualifying according to times from the warm up session. Uh oh, my times weren’t good, as I was tentative on the track since the track was wet from rain the night before. It’s going to be an interesting qualifying session.

Get ready for qualifying, I’m gridded behind the #43 944TS of Eric Ravid. From practice, I know that Eric and I are about the same speed. I might be a little faster in the banked turns, but Eric is faster in the road coarse and on the straights. Qualifying starts, I get out there and run 1 decent lap, then another. Now I’m behind Eric and I want to get past so I can go for it. I follow him through the NASCAR 1 (the bowl) and he slows me down a little. Then through the chicane, and I gain on him going through the tunnel turn (another NASCAR turn, taken flat out in 4^th gear, about 130 or so). I drop down into the turn and pass Eric. I want to put a little distance between us before I have to slow to make the hard left (second gear), so I stay on the throttle a little longer. I try to slow down, and I realize I’m not going to make the turn. DAMN! I blow the turn (if you screw this turn up, you go through some cones, and make a left back onto the course) and Eric and two more cars get by me. I’m mad as hell at myself and get back on the course with a vengeance. I catch up to the other cars, but can’t get by. Now I’m worried that qualifying time is almost over, and I haven’t had a good lap. I slow down to get some open track, but I slow too much, and two more cars get by me. I wait a little and then go for it. I catch the cars in the bowl and ruin my lap. I slow some more, and just as I have enough open track to get in a clean lap, the checker flies. Crap! Not a good qualifying run.

I check the charts, and I ran a 1:52.XX. Not good. All weekend I was running low 1:51’s, getting gridded 20-25 for the practice, now it counts, and I screwed it up and I start 28^th (in a 38 car field). I’m very upset with myself.

Back to my paddock space. Check the car, add some air to the right side. Relax, drink some fluids. Think about the race.

Onto the grid, depressed about my track position. Eric is like 8 cars ahead of me, he turned a time of 1:50.4X, which is excellent. I resolve to drive clean, and to not go off course at the Devil’s Elbow (the tight left at the end of the tunnel turn, I’d been blowing that one all weekend, I went off there three times). The race that’s going on while we wait on the grid ends.

Grid workers signal 5 minutes to race. In car, put in window net, strap in, helmet on, gloves on. One minute to race, fire car up. Get onto track and in position. Follow the other cars on the warm up lap. Drop back and accelerate hard. Check boost to make sure I’m getting 1.8 bar, brake hard to heat up brakes and tires (according to Carrol Smith, you warm tires more by hard accel and braking, NOT by weaving back and forth, so that’s what I do) and repeat that a few times. Come off of oval and into road course. Stay in position. Drive around road course. In second gear, about 3500 rpm, start coming onto straight, and everyone takes off. This time I remember to shift at redline (unlike in the practice starts) and we go down the straight. The two nice lines of the warm up lap are gone. Cars are 5 wide down the front straight. I go to outside to the wall, and the car in front of me, an F class 944 turbo, doesn’t. I use my extra HP to motor by. One car passed. Go into the bowl hard, stay high because cars are still three wide. Drop to bottom of track and pass a 911 down there. Come out of bowl and try to get all the way left for the chicane, but a car is there so I stay one car width to my right. Go into the chicane side by side and I have a slight advantage so I move over to the left at the exit and pass the car. Down the back straight up through the gears, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, shifting right at redline. Scream around the tunnel turn wide open.

Make note to brake EARLY. As I come out of the turn I see the flaggers going nuts. Waving yellows everywhere in the Devil’s Elbow. I see about 3 cars in strange positions, 1 totally off course, 1 backward in the middle of the track, one ½ off, but going again. I go around the car in the middle of the track on the right side, but the 911 I passed in the chicane goes around on the left and he passes me. One of the cars that spun was George Pelligrini in his 951S. He is fast, a lot faster than me. Now he’s behind me, but I don’t think he’ll stay there. One lap, and he pulls down on the front straight and passes me going into the bowl. I drive in hard and turn down. George is at the bottom of the bowl, so we go through side by side. He has the better line through the chicane, and that’s it, he’s past me and there is no way I’m going to catch him. Later I watch him pass two more cars in the bowl. Very impressive. We go through the infield OK. Get onto the front straight. Everything is OK. Catch and pass the 911 the next time we go into the bowl. I watch my mirrors on the exit of the bowl to make sure he doesn’t try to get inside me at the chicane. I move to the left to protect my line and turn in for the chicane. I check my mirror and I watch the 911 overcook the brakes and he slides through the chicane and keeps on going. That bastard kept on going and got ahead of me when I went around the chicane. That made me pretty mad but I got by him again and stayed ahead.

Here I am working the infield. Gotta make the car get back to the left!

Next car ahead of me is Eric in his red 951. I am not close enough to catch him but I don’t care. I’ve passed a bunch of cars, I’m happy, and I don’t want to blow my race by doing something stupid. Then we come through the infield, and before we get onto the main straight there is a serious incident. A white 911, car #50 has hit the inside of the wall, and is sliding backwards across the track. I pick my way around the mess and now I have caught up to Eric. I am not going to try and pass. I get close to him and start to put the pressure on. He’s flying, and I stay right with him. I gain a lot of ground through the tunnel turn, and he brakes late for the Devil’s Elbow and I stick my nose under him in the turn. He accelerates out of the turn very quickly, so I can’t get by. At the next turn, a sharp second gear right, I turn in late and stay on the right. I try to get ahead of Eric, but I can’t, so I fall back in line. We both scream onto the front straight, and zoom down the track. I shift into 5^th gear and watch the track markers fly by. 3, 2, 1, lift, wait, turn in, try to get the car to the bottom of the bowl and get back on the power. I’m right behind Eric and pressing him hard. Exit the bowl, full throttle towards the chicane. Hard on the brakes, down to 2^nd gear, turn in, make the quick right and then the quick left. Back up through the gears. Right behind Eric. Fake like I’m going to go under him in the tunnel turn, but stay behind. right behind him, press him through the turn, then get wide at the exit of 1 turn and put two wheels in the dirt. Stay on the power and get back on the track, no problem and I haven’t lost ground. I resolve to try and pass in the bowl. Again I’m right behind him, up to 6000 rpm in 4^th, quickly into 5^th gear, stay on the power. He shuts down at the end of the straight, I move left and pass. Try to turn left, the car does not want to, I get under him and hold on. The car starts to slide up the track, but it sticks and I get back on the power, and I’m ahead. Stay low in the chicane and stay ahead. Now as long as I don’t screw up I will stay ahead. Careful through the tunnel turn, make the tight left very careful. Start to pull away.

There’s another car in front of me, Mark Forrester in his F class 911. I gain a little on Mark. Follow him down the straight and see where he slows for the bowl. Follow him around the bowl and through the chicane. Wow, his car lifts the right tire a lot for the right turn in the chicane and then the left even more for the left turn at the chicane exit. He can go right over the edge of the track and not even touch anything. I get a little closer in the tunnel turn, and stay close in the road course. Back onto the main straight. At the end of the of the straight, I drop down and pass him in the bowl. Work like a madman to stay ahead. He’s right behind me in the tunnel turn, but I go low and protect my line. Work around the road course, come onto the straight and there it is, the checker! I’m done, I’m alive, and I’m happy!

Here's a shot of me leading Mark. This was the last lap.
 

I ended up 14^th of 40 cars, and 8^th in class of 12.

In case anyone is interested, here were my lap times from the race:

Some other tidbits:

We were supposed to have practice starts and a 5 lap fun race on Saturday. As we were sitting on the grid a large dark cloud approached. We head out for the lap behind the pace car, and as we are on the infield section, heading towards NASCAR 3, I see a huge billboard with ‘NASCAR’ on it blow to pieces. Then I see all the corner workers diving for cover. We get onto the front straight and go, then a chair blows across the track. Head into turn 1 and all hell breaks loose, lightning, thunder, downpour, hail, you name it. Come out of the turn and the race is black flagged. Drive back to me paddock space and it’s raining like you wouldn’t believe, and the rain is going sideways. All my stuff was soaked. Luckily my crew sprinted back to the paddock and grabbed as much gear as they could and stuffed it in their cars. So at least my clothes were dry. My EZ up took a beating. Of course, the rain stopped 30 minutes later, but the place was a mess. Power out, the tent for the dinner blown down, debris everywhere. That was it for Saturday.

Some observations of Pocono: The key to the track is the bowl. For some reason, probably because I’m stupid, the bowl didn’t scare me. I didn’t have enough guts to try and go through there flat out, but I don’t think too many people did that anyway. I would go down the straight flat out in fifth gear, at over 5000 rpm, (that has to be about 140 or so), lift when I got to the ‘1’ sign, then coast a little, turn in, and get back on the power. It’s a little scary when the car doesn’t want to turn, and starts sliding back up the track, but the tires hook up pretty quickly, and I could go full throttle out of the turn towards the chicane. I never did get comfortable with the Devils Elbow. I went off course there three times twice in 1 session. As I headed into the pits (black flagged you know) Tom Charlesworth said "You must be having a tough day" and I told him I’d go easier through there. I screwed it up again during my qualifying....

The flaggers for the event were from Watkins Glenn, Race Communications of America, RCA, or something like that. They did a great job. Very professional, easy to see. There was a serious incident where a car hit the wall in the bowl, hit it hard, and the top got crushed. They got the guy out and in the ambulance pretty quickly. Later he was helicoptered out of there. Last I heard, he was going to be OK. That just serves to remind you of how serious this stuff is.

After the race, Eric came over and congratulated me. That really meant a lot to me. We both raced hard, but clean. He gave me racing room, and I did the same. There are a lot of good people in club racing.