race+report...
Blood, Sweat and Gears
They said it couldn't be done.
Well, that's not exactly what they said. It was more like... Wait. Let's start over.
They said it was a bad bad bad idea.
Well, maybe not bad bad BAD, it might have been just one or two "bad"s. I don't remember exactly.
They said it was insanity.
Or maybe they just said it was sillyness. I really seem to be having an issue here.
They said it shouldn't be done.
Yeah, we'll go with that. That's vague enough that it could be argued one way or the other without real commitment.
So they said it shouldn't be done. We shouldn't race there. It's too dangerous and has too many problems.
Who's this "they" anywhoo?
We did it. We're all still here. Great fun!
This racecourse is completely new. Summit Point Raceway www.summitpoint-raceway.com only finished construction of the Shenandoah course adjacent to their long established West Virginia racetrack recently. In our Vintage Racer Group www.vrgonline.org driver's meeting on Saturday morning the question was asked "Will there be markers at the turn-in points and apexes?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because we don't know where they are yet!"
In the configuration we ran, Shenandoah is about 2 miles long and consists of 13 turns. Most of the turns have multiple apexes or serious elevation changes. Many have blind entry points. It is narrow. The barriers lining the track appear very near. Then, there is the Karussel! The Karussel is a dimensional replica of the famously daunting turn of nearly the same name (it appears Summit Point has removed the last "L" from the name) at the old Nürburgring Nordschleife course in Germany. 20 degrees of concrete banking set into a greater than 180 degree turn. It is bumpy with a "visibility challenged" entry and FAST. Save the obscure expletives for a moment, that is just - plain - fun.
The race was held over the October 1st weekend and was a great turnout for the Vintage SAAB Racing Group www.vintagesaab.com/vsrg/. With four vintage racing SAABs at the event, it was the best showing in years. Alright, I admit three of those four were from the same "team garage" from Wilmington Delaware but who's picking nits here? My Dad brought his 1964 Quantum Motor Cars Formula "S", his 1959 Quantum One (no blood relation) and his 1968 Sonett. Dad's car for the weekend would be the Formula "S" while my brother-in-law Jeremy Freeman would wield the Quantum One. My mount was the newly converted to road racing duty Sonett, better known as "SONEAT". Chuck Christ of Breinigsville, PA brought "The Darned Orange SAAB", a 1960 93 F appearing in M&M candy orange. Interestingly enough, we were all classed in the appropriately named the "small-bore" racegroup defined by their puny powerplants. The racetrack atmosphere was awash with the resonance of unmuffled SAAB two-stroke and V4 race engines!
Saturday was a Tough Day.
The Quantum One was bottoming in the Karussel. The exhaust is the lowest hanging part of the car and it was scraping under the high vertical loads. Jeremy said it got somewhat better as the session continued. There was a good reason for that. In the pits, we discovered our 2 inch round exhaust tubing was now much more "D" shaped, worn through in one place and coming apart at a joint. This required some weld reinforcement.
The Formula "S" was being rather cantankerous. It wouldn't start without a lot of fuss. The voodoo machinations I must perform to get that thing started is an event in itself. To bystanders, it must look like I am doing eXtreme dentistry on the carburetor while Dad cranks and cranks and cranks the starter... I stick my fingers deep in this... hold my palm over that... play pattycake-pattycake with the venturi... do a little smoking jack-in-the-box-jig when the fire comes blazing out the wrong way... Keep cranking! Keep cranking! Almost got it!
To top it all off, once started it would foul the plugs if you weren't crazy revving like mad... Go go goooooooo!!!
Poor Chuck got it the worst. With the 93 running great, revving sweet and pulling hard he was just starting to let it hang out. THAT, it would seem, was the problem. The vibrations from consistent high rpm shook the old wire fan guard a bit too much. Shook it to bits it did. One of those bits bit the radiator and left a nice "through and through" from which steam and water escaped. A bit of epoxy repaired the radiator while the broken and mangled guard was removed. THAT was the next problem.
While running the motor to check that things were no longer leaky, Chuck's eagle eye spotted some loose carburetor nuts. Reaching in to tighten the offending fasteners, Chuck's right hand passed through the path of the whirling fan blades. Voluntary crew chief Chip Lamb was sitting in the driver's seat manning the controls and had a widescreen view of the horror through the windscreen. His later descriptions of the events kept coming back to "there was a lot of blood". A trip to the hospital, 33 stitches, a broken finger and a lot of gauze later... Chuck is on his feet but severely disappointed and not a little dazed by the pain[killers].
The Sonett was being almost boringly reliable for me. Seemingly, all my usual bad luck was infecting those around me. I was a wee-bit spooked.
That evening we enjoyed a pleasant low-key banquet at the track with Jeremy and the Quantum One being declared "Best of Breed" in race group 2. The award was an event poster signed by all the drivers (comically, even by Jeremy himself).
I decided to put another day's worth of miles on the newly rebuilt motor before I changed the break-in oil so I had a little time to hang out with the other VSRG members Chuck, Chip and team head chef Mary Anne Fieux before heading back to the hotel. They certainly do lay out a scrumptious spread of varied vittles when they come to the track. Yum. Thanks for the hospitality!
Sunday...
Sunday I arrive rather early. A pounding headache woke me up before my alarm went off, how very off-putting. I snuggled the schnauzer dog (Saabina), kissed the snoozing wife (Annalisa), said "See you soon" and choked down a headache powder. That mostly muffled the pounder so I did actually enjoy my morning at the track. It was chilly and clear with shimmering dew and the sun was just about to pull the covers off another fabulously beautiful West Virginia morning. Seeing an opportunity, I picked up my camera and got on my bicycle to take a leisurely photo-tour of the course while everyone else was still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. I took artsy-fartsy sunrise photos and bonded with the place. There's nothing like riding a bicycle around the track to discover the rises, lines and little variances in the paving.
When I pedal back, cars are being revved by mechanics that are likewise feeling the morning coffee kickstart. Vroom vroom. Wakeup call. Let's go racing shall we?
The schedule calls for a morning practice before two afternoon races and the "all-comers" race at the end. For that first session, we get my Dad started in the Formula S but it won't run right. I don't understand what its problem is… We even gave it an entire night of doing nothing to sort itself out? As a result, Jeremy and I get on track late and only put in 2 laps before the session ends.
During the lunch hour, the drivers like to give the volunteer corner workers rides around the course in the racecars. We take it really easy but try to give them a sense of what the track and cars are like. The smiles are priceless. Annalisa arrived at the track about this time and I managed to get her into the passenger seat of SONEAT for a quick go-around too... Her breathless comment after two spirited laps was "And why aren't we wearing helmets again???" What a treasure she is.
Just before the race in the afternoon Mary Anne Fieux corralled the cars and crew to take a Vintage SAAB Racing Group photo. Going directly from our high-zoot photoshoot, Jeremy and I drop the Sonett and Quantum One off at the grid for the start of our race. Now, it should be noted that all weekend we'd been coming onto the track in the middle of the sessions. This is because of the Formula "S" behaving such a stupefying twit. As a result, neither of us had a very good idea of how fast we were in comparison to our competition. All we knew is I hadn't been passed yet and only one person other than me had passed Jeremy. So we arrive on the grid where my friends Ralph and Candy are running things and Ralph comes over and tells me I'm his arbitrarily assigned pole car and points to Jeremy with 2 fingers... He's #2. Yikes.
I hadn't started a race on pole since a driver's school practice start 3 years ago. Worry creeps in. Because I knew, even if no one else knew, that I was breaking-in a newly built V4 racemotor and restricting myself to 5500 rpm. Most of my speed on track was coming from late braking and hard cornering. Even Jeremy was able to keep pace with me on the straights, despite the nearly stock 2-stroke struggling to push the Quantum One's dubious aerodynamics. Honestly, it was embarrassing.
At least I knew and trusted my companion on the front row... He was driving Dad's car too! Before the green flag dropped I was cruising along at about 30 mph trying to let the pacecar get away. As it turns out, that is a fairly decent rev-zone for me but a rather horrific one Jeremy. SONEAT took an early jump and quickly gapped the Q-One by a couple carlengths to lead into turn 1! An Elva Courier and a Fiat Abarth 1000 Bialbero slid in front of Jeremy. Behind that, I know not what mayhem may have occurred. It’s not important. I concentrated on pulling away and Jeremy dispatched with the Abarth before the end of the first lap. In my mirrors, I could see the Elva working to catch up but also seeming to fall steadily to the fierce two-stroke power of the Quantum One! Suddenly, all I could see behind me was the bare aluminum body of the Quantum One! It seems Mr. Elva did a spinner in the long decreasing-radius turn 4! One off into the dirt and on the track it is a SAAB one-two finish! Afterwards, much backslapping was seen in the Vintage Saab Racing Group pits. A discussion with Mr. Elva Spinner revealed an admission that he was pushing "perhaps" a little too hard and just couldn't seem to close the gap.
For race #2, Jeremy handed over the Quantum One to my Dad since his Formula "S" was sidelined and besides, it is his car after all. On the grid, Dad conspires with Ralph to handicap me... He suggests that an "inverted start" with the first place finisher of the previous race lined up last and the last place finisher starting on the pole. Ralph thinks this is splendid and dashes off to wave the tail end car to the front of the line. On his way past me he says "Stay right where you are until I say you can move." So starts the race... I'm all by my lonesome in last place with Dad just ahead in next-to-last. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not upset, this is going to be FUN!
I played it cool and let the pack have the first few turns to get sorted out. Dad is less generous and sneaks away two spots between turns 1 and 2. I shortly get past those same cars (an MGA and a Lotus 7) and halfway through this lap I'm back up on Dad's tail, sniffing the stroker smoke! We start our second lap by passing an Elva Courier on the front straight together. Between turns 1 and 2 (to Dad's credit) he doesn't make it TOO hard for me to get by. After a few more turns I catch up to the leading 356 Porsche. Yeah, you caught me... The entire field was only 6 cars large, me included. So what? Lots of folks were tuckered out from all the tracktime we'd had and were on the trailer heading for home. So back to racing... The Porsche can easily outdrag me up the hills but can't hang on in the corners. He decides to make things interesting and starts driving a very “defensive” line. Glee! What fun! A scrapper! He takes away all my favorite passing spots by driving heavily to the inside in the braking zone. I try to go around on the outside a few times but he balks me enough to shatter my momentum and then plants his foot and powers away. I have to wait for the next series of twisties to stick my nose in again. He relents after I harry him for two extremely enjoyable laps and gives me a point-by on the main straight. I set my mind to putting in some clean laps and take the checker in 1st for the second time, evah! Dad finishes in 3rd behind the Porsche, scraping exhaust and all!
that Dad could drive SONEAT and Jeremy could get back into the Quantum One. Instead, I picked up my camera and went to the side of the track to take photos. A few laps in, Jeremy noticed the engine missing a little and pulled into the pits to find the sparkplugs looking a little yucky with some glossy deposits and electrode erosion. It drove onto the trailer and we will look into it over for the next event. Dad had an extremely entertaining battle on track with an Elva MkIII sports racer until SONEAT started to trail smoke (leaking valve cover gaskets) and the clutch began to slip. It seems Dad thought I said I was limiting myself to 6500 rpm... Oops. So he was making a bit more power with those revs and we found out the clutch needs help.
All in all it was an extremely successful event. It was the first time since her conversion to vintage road-racer that SONEAT finished a race, much less 2, much much less won both those races! What made the whole thing so very special was that I got to share the excitement with so many friends and family. Over the course of the weekend my wife, my in-laws, my sister and my mother were all part of our cheering section. With Chip stopping by, Chuck doing his best to wave a bandaged hand of encouragement and Mary Ann’s smiling enthusiasm there was an extra helping of everything that makes this all so much fun. Of course Dad and Jeremy are ever-trusty co-conspirators in the madness of racing vintage SAABs. Without them I’d still be writing about wanting to do this, instead of writing about the joy in doing it.
-STEFAN
VRG competition #97
VSCCA competition #374