Another race was drawing near and despite my best efforts, I was once again without a racecar. Having not been behind the wheel of the RX since zinging the motor last July, I was jonesing to go racing. I had inquired about renting Steven Burkett's IT RX7 for the race, but after thinking about it for a day or two, decided against it. I should keep my semi-bad luck from spreading to someone elses car. Steven was “Assistant something or other” for the Double Drivers school and since I wasn't racing, he asked me to be an instructor for the Saturday portion of the school!

There are tons of people that know way more than I do about racing and about the intracasies of Gateway, so I was a little nervous. Luckily, I was teamed up with a couple of students who were fairly green. We started out the day by giving a little on-track experience in street cars before the students were set free in their race cars. I decided to start at the beginning and show them how to get to the grid, how they would be gridded, what the grid workers role was and how they would communicate with the drivers. Once we were out on the track, for the first couple of laps I gave them a run down of the typical braking points, where the corner stations were, and where the trouble spots were. After a couple of laps I started showing them “the line.” There was a track imposed 55mph limit on us, but in a 4 door Honda Civic with my kids carseat in the back, and $40 economy tires (thanks to Keith @ AutoTire in Ballwin), that was plenty. Even at the low speed we were going, the students commented on the G's felt on the oval and how the back end felt a little light.

After 10 or 15 minutes we headed back in so that the students could get ready as they were the first group out. Both students were driving IT cars. One student, who had taken a previous school at Memphis, was driving an ITB Ford Escort. The other student, around 17/18 years old was renting an RX7 that I helped build, so I knew the car pretty well. I went down and watched in T1/T2 to see how they did coming off of the straight and getting dive bombed in T2. I also wanted to see how they would deal with traffic trying to pass coming into and out of T2. Both were pretty slow, but did fairly well. After about 10 laps, I moved down to the 3a/b complex to get a view of how they did through the rest of the infield. They were a little off the pace but as they became more comfortable in the cars at speed, lap times fell about 15-20 seconds over the course of the session . The RX7 driver had a pretty spectacular off in 3a and did a very good job recovering.

After talking with the drivers and addressing some of their questions, I decided that the best viewing spot of the track was going to be the bleachers, so the rest of the day was a hike up the bleachers and then back to talk with the students. The RX7 Driver was having fuel delivery issues after the 3rd or 4th session and they plagued him for the rest of the day. The Escort driver had some smoking issues coming out of T6 so he never really felt comfortable pushing the car, but his times dropped steadily as the day went on.

Something that I learned was that communication is key when instructing and being instructed. The Escort driver was very good at conveying where he was having problems and what the car was doing. When I mentioned something that I had noted, he was anxious to discuss it further. The RX driver, possibly due to his youth, said about 4 or 5 words to me each time I met with him, even when I would try to pry answers out of him. Luckily, I knew from personal experiance that the car he was driving had more in it, and that it had fuel delivery problems in the past. Hopefully I was able to help him out, although his times never really dropped, but his motor was pretty much along for the ride after the Ovals half way point until the turn in for 1.

For Sunday, I was going to help out in F&C. I've only worked two corners before, so I've had a little experiance, but I would gain a lot more. The Sunday Regional race was COLD and a little windy with some pretty dreary cloud cover most of the day. We were a little light on Corner Workers so it was a good thing I decided to help out. I believe we only had 2 per corner, with T6 pulling a worker from one of the flat tows. So... if you're a driver without a car for the day or weekend, do the club a favor and work a corner. I guarantee you'll learn something that will be valuable when your on the track.

Once the first practice session was underway, the adrenaline kicked in and warmed me up a little. The GT, Production and A-Sedans were the first on track but no major incidents. In fact, almost all of the Practice/Qualifying sessions went pretty well. We had to respond to a car off in no-mans land between T4 and T7. An ITB BMW 2002 and an ITE car (Celica???) had some contact. The BMW was pushed down the short shoot coming out of T6 and then punted off drivers right down the embankment into a tire barrier. I was yellow flagging during the IT race and saw the entire event unfold. I watched the ITE car dive under the B car into 6, and knew that the B car probably didn't know he was there. The B car came back across what looked to be the normal line and cut off the E car, but the E car didn't lift. I watched as the E car stayed in it pushing the BMW down the short straight and lifting the tail end of the 2002. Just before T7, it looked as though the E car gave a little wiggle and off the 2002 went into the ditch on drivers right...

More coming on working T5 during the Sunday Regional

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