The 2004 13-Hour Charge Of the Headlight Brigade, Virginia International Raceway

Also see the team info page at http://it2.evaluand.com/gti/enduro04.php

The www.philstireservice.com Team GTI won ITB (of 6 entries) and finished 28th overall, of the 59 teams that started. We won the race by only 5 laps. Now, you might think that's a lot, but this race was a battle of fuel stops.

The Greg Shaffer / Paulo DoCouto vbdgraphics.com Golf led the ITB pack to the green with a convincing pole. We had some very good success during the twilight qualifying the night before and were in second, but it was apparent that there was going to be a fight between the top five ITB cars. Unfortunately the third-place Mustang ran into misfortune soon after the green, taking them out of the race.

While everyone ran pretty fast, we had more frequent stops than the others, for a couple of reasons: one, we managed to run Kirk out of fuel during the night practice on Friday and he could not drive back to the pits after it choked, so we knew we needed to stay within our ultimate range. Two, and probably just as important, with four drivers we wanted to make sure that each got sufficient track time during the 13-hour race, so that guided our fueling decisions.

Scott Giles did a great job keeping up with the ITB pack at the start, but our main issues soon came to light after our first stop to bolt Kirk into the car: the 02 Golf went much longer than us before stopping for fuel (wasn't it around 2+ hours?) and the BMW 2002, while significantly slow in lap times, went WAAAYYYY farther than any of us on fuel (over 3 hours?). Each one of our stops was a minimum of two laps lost, so the battle soon became a hare/hare/tortoise one.

The 02 Golf led the way for the lion's share of the day. They were faster than we were (one driver pulling in 2:27s to our low-30s), and they were consistent. Lap after lap we watched them go by, with Evan Webb reeling them in at times, losing space on others, but we had decided by mid-afternoon to consolidate our lead on the third-place BMW and work towards a solid second place, and see what happened.

Suddenly, with about 4 hours to go, we hear over the F&C radio that the leading #02 Golf had pulled off at South Paddock! We were surprised that they had not yet pitted for fuel, so we wondered if they had "Kirked" the car (our euphemism for running out of the liquid stuff), but within a few minutes the workers were calling for a tiltbed versus a flat tow and we knew their situation was worse than simply fuel (we found out later they had filed a front wheel hub). We assumed the lead three laps later, much to our muted glee.

The tension was not yet over, as there was the BMW tortoise to contend with. We knew we had two more fuel stops to go (for a minimum 4 laps lost) and we estimated the BMW had only one. That meant we needed to maintain our then-existing two lap lead, preferably extend it. Those last two pit stops were the best ones our AWESOME crew did all day (they changed front tires faster than we could get fuel and driver in), the drivers pushed as much as we dared (within reason), and Scott did the "clean-up" job to bring us across the checkered with a five-lap victory.

My response to Kirk was, "You know, I kinda like this 'winning' stuff".

Even better, with the exception of a minor doughnut on the passenger door from the start ("...a glove, some compound, and about 4 minutes to fix..." sez Kirk) the car was dent and incident-free. That's more than I can say for a LOT of the other cars out there, especially the Wreck Pinatas...

I'll let Kirk fill in the details and mention all the sponsors but I want to toss in big thanks to Phil Phillips of Phil's Tire Service (those Toyos hung right in there), Lee Grimes of Koni (nice shocks, dude), and Cobalt Friction for the Hawks. I mentioned time and time again on the radio that the car was spooky consistent from the beginning to the end of my stints. EVERYTHING on the car was the same from the second lap to the last. I had a lot of confidence that the shocks, tires, and brakes would be the same they were the lap before, giving me the confidence I needed to drive reasonably well.

On top of that we had a load of fun, I met some super folks, and I hope that these new friendships will last for a long time. If you've never done an enduro, I'll tell you it's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun.

A few other points of trivia to consider, re: Project GTI...

** The engine is stock - as in "the same 122,000+ mile unit that came in the car", unopened and not refreshed in any way

** The gearbox has neither an LSD nor aftermarket final drive

** The car is inspected and licensed and is regularly driven on the street, albeit not for everyday transportation purposes

** In addition to the 13 hours, that car completed a double school, four regionals, the Blue Ridge hillclimb, two Tarheel club track days, and a rallycross this season

** We covered 938 miles at an average of over 70mph and approximately 11 miles per gallon of premium pump gas (purchased at the station out on highway 58)

** We earned the unofficial nickname of "Team Sawzall" when the crew removed the stock exhaust system and added a cheapo turndown in the paddock, between the test day and official practice

** Yes, the catalytic converter is still in place

Greg's diatribe on the driving...

Let's not go too far into discussions of the driving antics of a lot of the drivers, the Wreck Pinata boys especially. It will quickly turn into heated and ugly discussions about various persons' heritages and initial driving instruction. Ironically, the majority of the comments on the SM board tend to reflect about how 'clean' and 'well' things went (ignoring of course the endo rollover, many consistent off-course excursions, and obvious significant body damage), further confirming - for me at least - that ignorance is bliss.

What can be done about it? Not too much, as it requires inward reflection by the participants, and there's no evidence that this will happen any time soon. If/when it does, though, I predict a hell of a firestorm.

I have a well-proven system to avoid conflicts whenever possible. I call it "aggressive yet leave yourself an out." I suggest that the biggest conflicts on the track came when a passee was trying too hard to let people by. Remember the topic we had a few weeks ago (maybe in the NE forum?) where we talked about the passee's responsibility when a faster car is coming through? I made it clear that my position on the matter was to drive your line, be predictable, and keep your speed up as best you can. This way you become predictable so the passer knows where you're going, you'll maintain your speed through the corners (thereby helping both drivers), and the faster car can then plan on using their strong suits to pass you at a safe and convenient place.

To illustrate this, let's take an example of where one of the ITE cars was coming up on me. If it's on the straight, I made it clear well in advance to the passer that I saw them, and I made it clear to them which side of the car I wanted them to pass me. In that manner, there was clear communication that the passer has been seen and that I will accommodate them. in extreme examples, such as in the slow left-hander before the Snake, I'd even gesture wildly out the left window with a spinning motion of my left hand that I will delay my turn-in and they should aggressively work to pass me there. However, I would NEVER drive offline to accommodate the passer; if they couldn't make it happen offline and in a safe place then it didn't happen.

There are a few places where a pass is unsafe (in my mind) such as after that left hander, again into the entrance to the uphill esses, and through Roller Coaster. In those cases, I made it clear to the passing driver that I was *not* going to accommodate them there by either waving a "no" with my hand inside the car and/or by drifting towards the middle of the track, thus discouraging the pass. However, once done I would make sure that I kept my speed up through the esses and while flying through the corner (at South Bend, for example) would gesture the side for them to pass me coming out of the corner.

As you can see, I was not only managing MY own car, I was managing the OTHER drivers as well. I was not "blocking" them per se, rather I was managing when and where they could pass me, and limiting it to safe places. This kind of attitude is slightly different than in sprint races, because I realize that sprints don't give you the luxury of time, but the same ideas and rules apply.

Let's take the other point of view. If I were a driver in one of those well-handling-but-low-powered vehicles coming up on a slow, underpowered, 300-lb-heavier box, the last thing I'd want to do is dive-bomb the box into a slow corner. The result, at best, would be two cars now going much slower through the corner side-by-side, with the possibility of the fatter box - now having been forced offline - understeering out of the corner into me. Not only have I significantly increased my risk, but I've needlessly killed any semblance of a good lap, especially given I could easily cream him coming out of the corner.

Instead of losing 2-3 seconds on the lap with that method, I'd lift or brake about 100 feet earlier, keep my momentum up through the corner, and go screaming by on the exit. Even better, it's possible the refrigerator will get a good exit out of the corner, and now I have a free aero tow for at least half the straight, possible regaining that lost half-second.

So, because in general that was not happening, I as the refrigerator driver had to take a different tack on actively managing the slower cars. In that case I had to, in many cases, take a much more aggressive stance to keep cars such as this from dive-bombing me. If a certain well-handling performance car was in tow down the straight I made it clear which side of the car they were to pop out and pass, and I made it clear that I was going to accommodate them. However, if it appears that the driver was coming from too far back and they were going to try a Hail Mary pass (which was pretty damned obvious based on their "body language") I'd make it crystal clear that I was *not* going to accommodate them by moving over to make sure they KNEW there was not going to be a hole when they got there. For the most part, the other drivers got the word and backed off and drove their normal line, and as a result they - TA DA! - killed me coming out of the corner. Funny how that works out.

I believe that the end result was no hard feelings among the fast cars, as I did my best to accommodate them in a safe place, probably no hard feelings among the faster more experienced small-but-well-handling drivers, but quite likely some cussing from the slower SWH drivers. No apologies for that last group; trust me, that nasty-tasting medicine was good for you in the end.

Our results were no significant contact and a race win. You decide if the tactics are valid.

GregA