| Roebling Road School |
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| Roebling Road School |
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How to
Paddle a Racecar
The Roebling driving school went really well, especially if you were a
duck. Trial by fire...er, water, according to Dave Hester. He adds that
all the drivers, for the most part, were courteous and realized that to
get through the school, you had to be there at the end. All of our cars
ran well. Dave did learn a little about rain prep (more on that later). As
school time approached, Art and I watched the Savannah weather closely.
Everything looked sunny until Wednesday morning, when the forecast
abruptly deteriorated. When we arrived at Roebling Wednesday night, the
van packed to the gills with rain gear and hot chocolate, the storm of ‘04
was just starting to settle in. By 10:00 the following morning, the skies
opened up and the dozens of wannabe racers lined up for registration were
shaking in their t-shirts and tennis shoes. Wind chills? In Savannah?! |
2004 Races November |
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Later on, chief instructor Kevin Allen gave all 130 or so of us the bad news. The rain was supposed to continue through the entire weekend. I’m sure I wasn’t the only student thinking of backing out and heading for home, but not one of us was going to come out and admit that we couldn’t handle a little rain on a racetrack. The next two days were a test of our resolve. We slogged through lakes and rivers in the paddock, soaking our Nomex socks to the ankle. One student was actually running around with plastic grocery store bags over his driving shoes. (I wish I’d thought of that.) Crews with the forethought to bring canopies and EZ-ups were fortunate. Everyone else had to tinker with cars in a constant drizzle. Friday morning gave us enough of a break in the weather to do a quick walk/trot around Roebling’s track. The rain held off through station wagon track tours and the start of our 20-minute practice sessions. That was the last time we’d see dry track until noon on Sunday.
I never really found Jon’s rain line until the fourth session, when it poured so hard that the track became one big river with a thin line of pavement running along the inside of the turns. I remembered what Pete Kraus had said at VIR’s driving school last October: “Driving a racecar is like dancing with a 2,000 pound partner. The car will go where you lead it; not where you force it.” The rain sessions at Roebling taught me how to loosen my hold on Jack’s steering wheel and lead him around the track. A death grip equaled increased agricultural awareness. Pounding up and down on the gas pedal didn’t work either. Lots of gas meant hydroplaning. Not enough gas resulted in an electric slide right and left through turn 3 that, fortunately, wound up with the car facing downstream and still rolling. “Both Feet In” (thank you, coach Thompson) and the CRX saves rookie driver one more time. Whew! (Dave Hester gets the perseverance award for the weekend. I never knew anyone could race with a permanently fogged windshield, but he did it. It’s also his fault that the rain finally let up on Sunday. As soon as he got a new racing defogger (a.k.a. squeegee) installed, the sun came out. Thanks Dave!.) I had my share of off-track excursions, the worst of which was driving into the right ditch on the grid before our first race. Ohhhhh, the embarrassment! I could have sworn that’s where Art told me to go. I mean . . .I wasn’t nervous or anything. The pace laps and practice starts were the usual racing school mayhem, then we got the green and I tried my first turn 1 inside pass. When I went around the inside of that Miata and realized that he had pulled in behind me, the race turned into pure fun. I managed to pull off a couple more passes in the five-lap race and made my first tentative attempts at drafting. Oh, so cool. I also came close to blowing my first yellow flag, trying to pass a showroom stock Neon. “Oh, boy . . . Oh, Boy! . . .Ohhhh, S**t!” The brakes worked, thank goodness. I didn’t see much of Michael Hartberger on track. He was too busy running through the front of the pack. (This from the man who swore he was just going to play it clean and finish school. Riiiiiight.) Every time I saw Michael in the paddock he was grinning himself silly and he finished 18th out of 46 cars in our final race. Waaay to go! Dave Hester finished 7th overall in his race group and placed 2nd in his class for the Saturday race. In spite of his visibility problems, he still managed to have a whale of a good time. He got signed off after Saturday, ran a couple practice sessions on Sunday, then headed home. I opted to stick around for the extra track time. At the end of our lunch break on Sunday, a patch of blue sky appeared and Art and Chuck went to work putting the Hoosiers on the CRX. Dry line? Oh yeah, I vaguely remember that. My first dry practice session was horrible, like I had never driven a racecar at all. At our debriefing, Jon Krolowicz looked me in the eye and told me to scare myself. Quote: “Brake at the last possible moment going into turns, SLAM the CRX’s tail around and keep your foot on the gas!” Keeping my foot in it going into turn 1 was the scariest thing I’ve ever done, but you know what? The brakes worked, Jack’s rear end swung around, I nailed the gas, and we shot out of turn 2 like a rocket. Woohoo! After that, keeping the pedal down through turn 3 was easy and that braking thing worked again as I dove into turn 4. I never did find quite the right line through 5 and 6. But lemme tell ‘ya about 7,8, and 9 bay-bee! Every time Jack’s tail twitched, I gave him more gas, and if there is anything more fun than slingshotting onto Roebling’s front straight, I don’t know what it is. It’s the screamin’, seat-puckerin’ ride of the century and all you can do is keep pedaling and hold on! When I found myself shifting into 5th gear at the beginning of pit row, I knew I had done it right. Dave thanks EVERYONE who helped out- Linda, Matt, Lindsay, Chuck, Art, Chris, Jamie and of course, Brian Walsh, his instructor. Bob and Ken Bass, who paddocked next to our gang, and Jim Orr, the other A/Sedan driver, were all in Brian's group. As with every event, the Hester clan met more great people. As Linda said, "Everyone was so helpful." A Huge, HUGE thanks to all the workers at Roebling. Those people froze their butts off, slogged through ankle deep water and mud to help stranded drivers, AND kept smiles on their faces. We couldn’t have done a single lap without them. Art and Chuck Fullgraf were the best crew a racerchick could ever have, especially when they were lending moral support over the radio, and I can’t say enough good things about my instructor: Jon Krolowicz. Jon was always ready with constructive critiques, encouragement, and just enough pushiness to keep all of us progressing. Thanks Jon! And we’ll end this tome with a quote from Dave Hester: “I've been involved with some kind of racing since '77 and racers are some of the best people in the world. Good competition, but willing to lend a hand anytime, even when they know you will be lined up beside them later in the day.” Amen. See ‘ya at the races!
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February 22, 2004
School
started with a 4-hour classroom session Thursday night. Guess who was in
attendance? Barbie! Yup, Barbie (a.k.a. Bobbie Elam, of Richmond,
Virginia) went to driver’s school and she sat right in front of me, a
perfect blonde doll in pink slacks, high-heeled pink sandals, fuzzy white
sweater, and pink fur-lined purse. How Bobbie managed the flooded paddock
in those sandals was a miracle of navigation. Poor Hyler Craft. Wife Faye
told him to expect a woman driver from Chattanooga in class. While
performing his introductions, Hyler zeroed in on Barbie’s D Modified front
suspension and asked, hopefully, if she was the girl from Chattanooga. His
disappointment was palpable when he realized that the Gore-Tex clad mummy
behind Barbie was the right student. He never recovered for the rest of
the class. (I want to know how Bobbie kept her pink lipstick on under her
balakalava. And yes folks, she drove a hot pink RX-7 called, you guessed
it, “Barbie’s Dream Car.”) 
Saturday
morning, chief steward Dave Rathford gave us dire safety warnings, then
sent us out to our doom. When racers are really pushing the gas, they call
it, “pedaling” hard. Saturday we were “paddling.” My instructor, Jon
Krolowicz, told me to drive the “rain line.” I found the puddle line.
Fortunately, Jack the CRX is a very, VERY forgiving racecar and most of my
race group was pussyfooting as much as I was. Even the 30 Spec Miatas
behaved themselves. That didn’t mean that we all stayed on the track. All
day long, I came around turns to see racecars running off into the wet
sand right and left. Turns 2 and 4 were the most popular spots, with turn
5 running a close third. One poor guy spun safely off to the right in turn
7, and then drove nose down into a culvert as he was trying to get back
onto the track. 
