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[USA] Round 4, WERC (Western Endurance Racing Championship)
Pierre Demartines pierre at demartines.com
Wed Jul 14 20:38:46 BST 2004
Dear all,
"It could have been better..." and it definitely could have been much
worse!
Team Birkinsport and its two Birkin racecars continued the efforts on the
Western Endurance Racing Championship. Last week-end at Willow Springs, we
had our 4th serving of the NASA's WERC feat with the great folks of NASA
SoCal.
This chapter was a 3-hour night race (7 to 10pm).
14 laps into the race, car 7 was punted on the right rear wheel while
passing a competitor. About an hour later (consequence? maybe) it apparently
had lost all the differential oil, frying the diff and starting a fire as
soon as it came back in the pits (quickly extinguished --not too much damage
except that the diff is a goner). The car was in 3rd position overall when
it happened, but was then two laps up on the team closest to us in the
points championship. It's really too bad that this happened, because it was
Dave's turn to drive the whole 3 hours, and he was doing an awesome job!
Into the third hour, car 6 (also trading 3rd and 4th places overall with the
GT-2 Porsches) was punted while lapping a slower car in a different class.
The hit was hard enough that it apparently deflated the right rear tire,
with the result that when the car spun, the rim dug into the asphalt and
sent the car into multiple flips and rolls across the track at over 100mph.
Woody was driving at that time, and thanks to the fabulous cage by Roger
Hamlin and to a good dose of luck too, he walked away from the wreck with
only bruises and some very sore ribs.
The words fail me to describe what I felt when, looking at the procession of
cars stacked behind the pace car under full yellow, I couldn't see the
little Birkin amongst them. I started alerting the rest of the team, and
several endless minutes passed while the horrible feeling was sinking down
in our respective stomachs... Finally, we heard the inevitable on the
paddocks' loudspeakers: "it appears that car 6, the Birkin driven by Woody
Harris, is the car that crashed between turn 1 and 2." Then, to our relief,
it was immediately followed by: "The driver seems to be fine and is being
checked by the medics as we speak."
It was Woody's birthday on Sunday, so at midnight his daughter Amy, who was
with us and was slowly trying to regain composure, gave him an improvised
but lovely little birthday cake: a brownie with tons of candles on it...
In summary, lots of emotion, few points, one car down, the other car
damaged. We will repair and be back in full force for the next round:
October 9th at Buttonwillow.
The good of the weekend was that we discovered that we were competitive with
the "big boys". There were 6 Porsche GT2's fielded by some professional
teams (some of which competed at Daytona) and we were running in the middle
of them. The Birkin's consistency in lap time and no need to change tires
were overcoming the GT2's ultimate speed on this very fast race track
(essentially two ovals linked).
Standby for more in-depth coverage of the all the season's race on the Team
BirkinSport website: www.teambirkinsport.com
Cheers,
~Pierre
Pierre Demartines pierre at demartines.com
Wed Jul 14 20:38:46 BST 2004
Dear all,
"It could have been better..." and it definitely could have been much
worse!
Team Birkinsport and its two Birkin racecars continued the efforts on the
Western Endurance Racing Championship. Last week-end at Willow Springs, we
had our 4th serving of the NASA's WERC feat with the great folks of NASA
SoCal.
This chapter was a 3-hour night race (7 to 10pm).
14 laps into the race, car 7 was punted on the right rear wheel while
passing a competitor. About an hour later (consequence? maybe) it apparently
had lost all the differential oil, frying the diff and starting a fire as
soon as it came back in the pits (quickly extinguished --not too much damage
except that the diff is a goner). The car was in 3rd position overall when
it happened, but was then two laps up on the team closest to us in the
points championship. It's really too bad that this happened, because it was
Dave's turn to drive the whole 3 hours, and he was doing an awesome job!
Into the third hour, car 6 (also trading 3rd and 4th places overall with the
GT-2 Porsches) was punted while lapping a slower car in a different class.
The hit was hard enough that it apparently deflated the right rear tire,
with the result that when the car spun, the rim dug into the asphalt and
sent the car into multiple flips and rolls across the track at over 100mph.
Woody was driving at that time, and thanks to the fabulous cage by Roger
Hamlin and to a good dose of luck too, he walked away from the wreck with
only bruises and some very sore ribs.
The words fail me to describe what I felt when, looking at the procession of
cars stacked behind the pace car under full yellow, I couldn't see the
little Birkin amongst them. I started alerting the rest of the team, and
several endless minutes passed while the horrible feeling was sinking down
in our respective stomachs... Finally, we heard the inevitable on the
paddocks' loudspeakers: "it appears that car 6, the Birkin driven by Woody
Harris, is the car that crashed between turn 1 and 2." Then, to our relief,
it was immediately followed by: "The driver seems to be fine and is being
checked by the medics as we speak."
It was Woody's birthday on Sunday, so at midnight his daughter Amy, who was
with us and was slowly trying to regain composure, gave him an improvised
but lovely little birthday cake: a brownie with tons of candles on it...
In summary, lots of emotion, few points, one car down, the other car
damaged. We will repair and be back in full force for the next round:
October 9th at Buttonwillow.
The good of the weekend was that we discovered that we were competitive with
the "big boys". There were 6 Porsche GT2's fielded by some professional
teams (some of which competed at Daytona) and we were running in the middle
of them. The Birkin's consistency in lap time and no need to change tires
were overcoming the GT2's ultimate speed on this very fast race track
(essentially two ovals linked).
Standby for more in-depth coverage of the all the season's race on the Team
BirkinSport website: www.teambirkinsport.com
Cheers,
~Pierre
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