Thursday before the Jack Pine weekend, I received a quick note from Race Chairs Marc and Elona Varnum requesting that I put together an article for SportsCar on the National race. Since the change in SportsCar format this year leaves room for just one club race report per month, I called editor Richard James to see if our event would qualify. Richard seemed a bit surprised when I reminded him that this was the final weekend for National racing, but suggested I submit about three pages by the Friday following the weekend and he’d see what he could do. So in between work schedule, I spent the several days after Labor Day getting it together, not really sure if it would make it into print. The other problem was I had no photos, and knew Rick Corwine was not at the race, but found out the next week that Jerry Winker had some race shots which he planned to send to SportsCar. If it appears, it will be in the November issue, and I hope this report is not overly repetitive.
We approached Labor Day weekend with great trepidation after the local weather-guessers had at mid-week assured us all of great weather. They were wrong as usual, and I left the cities at 0500 Saturday morn in light rain showers which persisted as we drove into CBIR looking for a dry paddock spot. We found one in the open pole barn next to Bill Bergeron, who was shaking his head trying to figure why his FC wouldn’t run. Bill’s
problems were to continue through the weekend. The drizzle persisted into open wheel practice with everyone on rain tires, and I managed to spin at the exit of turn 3 to give the corner crew some exercise pushing me off the outside after I high-centered the car in a precarious position. That session just about marked the end of rain sessions for the weekend, although the rest of Saturday ran under thick clouds with a brisk headwind on the long straight. Qualifying started with the Vintage group, who were led by Rich Stadther turning a fast 1:55 time in his Merlyn FF. Vintage also featured the nifty ’73 March F5000 restored by Greg Wold. The car was initially built for John Gunn and first raced in the U.K. before arriving in the states to contest the ’73 F5000 pro series. Greg was transitioning from driving Minis, and being very cautious with the "loud" pedal, but it was a treat to see the big Crane Cam scoop thundering down the straight. Wold and crew chief Bill Peters kept the car running flawlessly throughout the weekend.
In National Group 1 Andy McDermid was not deterred by the weather, and put his screaming AS Mustang on the pole, knocking almost a second off his previous year’s qualifying record. Carl Weiman reported that the crew set their own record with a transmission change in under 20 minutes before qualifying! Harvey West was on the outside pole in his familiar AS Mustang while John Fernandez gridded right behind Harvey with a new SSC qualifying record in his Neon. For the open wheel Group 2, John Schaller was back at BIR for the first time in two years since setting a GT-1 qualifying record in ’98. John’s Camaro has since been sold and is contesting this year’s Trans Am series in the hands of Willy T.Ribbs, but Schaller had no problem taking the overall pole in his venerable Ralt RT-5 with recently rebuilt motor. Steve Thomson was a second off his
’99 FC lap record, but still led the class by over two seconds. Micky Gilbert racked up a new FM qualifying record and was 4th on the grid. The largest group of the weekend featured 22 drafting SRFs, who were led in qualifying by Dudley Fleck, with Scott Goolsbey only a tick behind. Jim Courtney’s GT1 Olds led Group 4, with Jon Brakke’s Corvair a quarter second behind but on the outside pole. Glen Luening’s MGB led a strong EP contingent as he knocked over two seconds off one of the oldest qualifying records on the BIR books - David Finch in 1979 - enroute to third overall on the grid. Doug Sherwood beat the noise meter to put his GT3 Mazda on the outside of row two.
My efforts to boost the FF (Group 5) grid by offering a bounty to CFF drivers were wasted, with no Club cars augmenting the 10 car entry. Jeff Meister beat the headwind and Dave Hopple by a fraction of a second to nail down the pole with an impressive low 1:44 clocking. I went out with some weird looking new front Goodyears mounted at the track by Frisby, and was back in the pits after two laps with one tire rapidly losing air and the other way out of balance. We lost half the session weighing in at the scales and changing to a pair of older front tires, but fortunately we had 35 minutes to work with. I was still buried back in 8th almost two seconds off the pole. I must add that after making a call to Competition Tires West the following week, they sent out a replacement 430 compound front tire gratis, as Goodyear continues to have quality control problems with their tires from Chile. The F500 and Vee group was led by Steve Jondal’s F500, with Bruce Livermore a shade ahead of Bob Lybarger in FV.
When I got my car back in the paddock after qualifying, I was disappointed to discover I had cracked yet another front brake rotor. Then after
FUBAR, continued on page 8
Tonneau On-Line Nobember 2000
Page 5
Copyright 2000, Land O'Lakes Region Last revised: March 13, 2003
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