First race Aug 7, advice

Steady and smooth. Remember it's about maintaining momentum. Do you have a cool suit? In Aug that will help. Make sure you fill and use a water bottle filled with Gatoraide. You need those electrolites to stay sharp. Set up your passes with enough room to keep or get back to your line. Watch for flags. It there's a yellow keep your tires warm. Get fuel level right. Get a good radio and talk with your pit. Get info from them. Watch your gauges. An hour is longer than you think. HAVE A GREAT TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!

 

Best of luck!

"Watch out for the Lola" LOL!

You might want to ice down some Louis Roederer. "just in case"......

 

"the Red Lola..."

 

That's the one!!!!!! *grin*

 

That car looks awesome man. Congrats on the car, and I hope you do well in the race!

 

"Void your bladder!" Malcolm Labatt Simon, Chief Steward, Vintage Sports Car Club of America.

Seriously, do this before a race. A full bladder can kill you in case of a crash. Don't worry about drinking fluids during the race unless you take the Duncan Hamilton approach and swig champagne during pit stops. America has become a nation of babies constantly drinking water. It's unseemly and unnecessary unless you are Lance Armstrong or an NFL running back in a one hour race .

Don't let the red mist get you. It's only an amateur race. That said, you're there to win.

Watch for engines blowing in front of you. I was once following a Bugatti Type 35B setting up for a pass when he blew up and got a helmet full of shrapnel.

The trick to fast driving (as it is with ski racing or many other things) is to be looking 1-2 corners ahead. If you're looking 50 feet in front of your race car, you ain't going to win squat.

Practice relaxing your eyes before a race. I don't mean sleeping, just get the eyes unfocused and resting, not looking around and then focus on the corners ahead.

As for making sure about having enough fuel, that little Cooper in my avatar had a 20 second lead over a field of 35 cars including sports cars up to 1500cc's at Road America and I ran out of methanol in the last corner of the last lap.

 

Here's a tip. Win!! Just kidding. Goodluck and make us proud.

 

William,

As Jim said smooth is the answer, but I would like to add something.

Race your own race, do not get involved in battles. A 1 hour race is a long race for us amatures and we are not at the F1 level thus:

- Set yourself a lap time that you can maintain driving hard but not stupid.
- Get a mate to hold out a pit board with the last lap time on it. You can use a radio or your own inboard car lap timer, but I'm not a rich man and simply used to use a pit board. I also am not a fan of somebody talking to me while I'm racing. Thus I used to pit board to ensure I maintained the pace I wanted, which really should be very close to your qualifying pace at this amature level (ie. no fancy qualifying tyres, special engine tweaks, etc. just driver at your best).
- Watch the first couple of laps ... especially the first few corners. Why?, because amature drivers get a wee bit too excited and forget that the race is 1 hour long and it is all on into the first corner. Stay out of trouble and let them ruin their race

I am very good at these sort of races because I am very, very consistent and also when I set a practise lap it is not a 1 lap fluke, it is me driving at 100% (not 105%) and the car is working hard ... but I am not killing it ... thus I can usually stick within 1/2 a second of that lap time for ages ... until the tyres go off ...

My father and I came in 4th overall in a 1.5 hour race driving my humble and near standard Alfa Sud 1500 TI (only springs, sticky tyres and a simply port and polish). We were racing against Porsches and Ferraris, you name it. We had one massive advantage in that we did not need a fuel stop, but we also kept out of trouble and hammered the little Alfa Sud for the complete time . You should have seen our lap times ... would go 20 laps in a row exactly the same (as accurate as we could time with our cheap hand held stop watch) ... infact over the whole race I think the biggest difference was less than 1.5 seconds. That is how you do well in these races ... and most club racers are not used to racing for that long and go to sleep and let the pace fall.

I also won a 1 hour club race in my last club car (I think it was 1 hour, might have been 45 minutes) with no driver changes and it is a long time ... I did not have a drink bottle and I was seriously dehydrated at the end ... infact I was bone dry way down my throat ... and was resorting to opening my helmet visor down the back straight a little to cool me down (open car). But again we had our pit board and my father and brother in law kept giving me my lap times ... I maintained my pace all race long and others could not ... I won!

Obviously if winning is really important to you, you need to keep intouch with the race leader ... but you also need to do some thinking about the situation, ie. if you know the driver, will he/she be the sort to maintain the pace, etc. A little research into your opposition never hurts, but you probably have been racing against them for a while, so by now you know the pretenders, the talkers and the real drivers, etc.

Good luck.
Pete

 

Um, avoid using your brakes.

Seriously, make sure your training is heavy on the cardio and get your diet straightened out ASAP.

 

Uphill..both ways...with only a quart of water...and barefoot...in the snow...on my way to school... wait, what?

--Dan

 

Ditto Pete

 

Check out Eat to Win by Robert Haas. That's your best bet.

For training, change it up as best you can. Cycle, run, row, fruitboot, I mean rollerblade, etc. and note that race drivers don't look like bodybuilders for a reason. They also don't look like Paul Tracy a few years ago either.