This was one of my best racing weekends ever. Yeah, it was hot, but not too bad. The close racing/driving more than made up for that.
We had 7 racers in the fight: Ariano, Gormelly –from the AZ group, Foxx, Memo,  Dunn, Weitze, and Comeau from the SoCal group. In addition, we had Robert, Fred, my brother Tony, Jim Hicks and Jon Ariano’s dad, in the HPDE groups.

Robert’s engine developed a rod knock on Saturday so he left, but he was replaced by David Hirsch on Sunday morning. So there was a pretty good-sized group of  944’s there. We also had Victor Apostolou and Steve Stepanian going through the Driving Concepts Racing School, both of which are headed for the SoCal 944 spec class. There were 2 more new guys who came over and talked for a while about joining the class. One already owns a stripped 944!
Tony and Jim Hicks were having the time of there lives throughout the weekend as this was their first ever real race track experience. Jim Hicks is driving an 87 924S with a complete 968 drivetrain, 3.0 liter, 6-speed, and all. With some solid driving experience and the right attitude behind them, they both progressed from HPDE 2 to 3 during the weekend.

Hirsch took it really easy and just eased into the speed groove during the day because he was running a brand new engine and hadn’t driven in a while.
Mike Pons came over for a while in his 951 and we worked on his seat slider for a bit. The cars were kind of spread out in the paddock this time because of very limited parking near the snack bar. The AZ group was over near turn 1 and we were closer to the snackbar in 2 groups, but that didn’t stop us from sharing parts and resources. Glen came over and took a page from my factory manual and a bag full of fuses to get his second fan working. Memo came over from Johnny Pag’s camp and left with a good rear brake line. It was great to work together to keep all the cars ready to race! And we did…..

We had 7 cars on the grid for both days. Max Toyo Tires dollars available again!
I skipped both Sat and Sun morning warm ups to save tires and gas. Qual’d 3rd on Sat and 4th on Sunday, finished 3rd both days, but ran in 2nd during both Sat and Sunday’s races! I had some of the most exciting racing/driving in a long time! Glen and I were chasing each other and duking it out for a while. Lots of traffic.
Sat’s start went well for me as far as the green flag goes, but I went backwards quickly when we all rolled to throttle. I believe I went down 2 or 3 spots right away, but got them back in the next few seconds. Glen went wide on the outside of turn 1 at the start, slowed the outside line down quite a bit, and threw up a bunch of dust, but got right back on, though several 944 spots and a bunch of other cars back. Big dust cloud across the track! I think I followed Jim Foxx through the dust cloud, then passed him into turn 2? It was a REALLY busy and very exciting ride for more than several turns! I was happy to be running in second…..for a while.  Glen ran me down and motored by me in 7 (?), only to later find himself  in the middle of no less than 3 spinning Hondas in turn 9! He came down to a crawl when I was only about 100 meters back with a good head of steam. I passed him on the front straight and opened up a big gap,  happy to have captured 2nd place again. It took him a while to close the gap, with the help of a full course yellow for a spun/stalled Honda between turn 3 and 4A, and by the white flag he was near me again, but not close enough to attack. BTW, that full course yellow brought out the pace car. The drivers in front of me, at the time, (mostly) were bright enough to work hard to catch up to the back of the pack and the pace car before we went green again. The bad thing is, while the pace car was trying to get us all bunched back up and single file for the restart on the very next available lap, he slowed way down just over the blind apex of turn 6! Most of us were already caught up, cruising, and waiting for the last few cars to catch up, which they did! They came flying over the hill in 6, still trying hard to catch up, and found the rest of the pack suddenly in front of them at a crawl! I saw bad things coming and moved left, out of line, ready to take to the dirt if I needed to, in order to keep from being hit. There was a little locking of some brakes, but no big drama this time.
 I knew Glen’s car/driver combo was superior, so I tried a little harder to maintain my stolen lead. Too hard. Made 3 mistakes. There he goes by me in turn 7 again! I think we finished about a car length or 2 apart. Big thumbs up to each other on the cool down lap. NASA officials didn’t pull any of us to scales or impound during the weekend. Glen came straight over to my spot in the paddock, got out and said, “Great racing and thanks for not hitting me in turn 9!”
Saturday night we made some tentative steakhouse dinner plans which didn’t pan out exactly as planned. The CRE crew; Jimmy, my brother Tony, and myself started drinking a few brews by the poolside ….it was so nice in the pool and jacuzzi that evening that we ended up staying right there. Lots of beer, good friends, and 2 kinds of Freeto’s. Now that’s livin’ well my friends! I later asked them about getting some dinner and they said, “You just had it! Now pass another beer over here.”
We later went over to the Club D.I., which is always entertaining for me. What a cast of characters… But this time, some of the local girls knew we were coming because of last month’s event at Willow. They brought reinforcements. Made it a little more interesting. One of the highlights of the evening was the showing off of some tattoo’s….

Sunday morning came kind of earlier than usual. At least it felt like it. Not hung over, just a little tired.
The Ceratec car was still balanced out very well and ran without incident all weekend. I did change out 3 tires to keep from showing cord. I put on 3 tires that were nearly as old, but it was good to get rid of some old shop tires .
I got another clean start, this time next to Jon Ariano.  Lots of traffic, then things settled out for a while. I can’t remember all the details. I was leaving that up to my Chase Cam system. Unfortunately, the rechargeable batteries I was using must have chosen the night before to end their career. They seemed, by all indications,  to have charged ok during the night, but kicked the bucket just as I was taking the green flag for Sunday’s race. DOH!  Heartbreaker……I was fighting to keep Glen close and at the same time fend off attacks from this old Celica and an old RX-7. I’d kill the Mazda in 9 by carrying much more speed into that turn, but he’d catch up to me down the straight. We ran really closely for some time, some of it side-by-side, until he saw me shaking my fist at him for racing out of class. He backed off. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was in a class battle of his own, albeit a very loose one, with a completely different kind of car which was some distance ahead of us. We talked about it later and worked it out with some apologies in both directions.
Later in the race, a Honda was pushed off the track going into turn 1. When I saw him, he was up against the wall, but the car didn’t look bad at all. Full course yellow ensued and the pack closed back up. Glen wasn’t far ahead now. I read the heavy traffic pretty well on the restart and got on Glen’s tail going into turn 3. He wagged his tail a bit much and got slightly off line. Sensing the weakness as an opportunity, the fangs and claws came out! I could smell blood! I set up wide for 4A and dove across his rear bumper to the inside of the top of the omega, my right side tires barely on the pavement. It worked perfectly and I got almost fully abreast before 4B. He made a surprised, quick adjustment of his line to allow me some racing room and I swear his passenger side mirror was poking my window net in some! I should have reached up and folded his mirror back! LOL! No wait, that would make him go faster down the long straights? Thanks for seeing that I was there, Glen! The glory was short-lived because I think we stayed side by side down to turn 5, then he ran away from me again, leaving me hoping for some more slower traffic ahead. It never came, but I was happy to finish 3rd again with such a busy, exciting ride. Sorry, I can’t remember all the other details. I was so bummed to find out I didn’t get that entire race on video. Glen and I came off the track and gave each other a great big bear hug and traded different versions of our same race. THAT, my friends, is what made the long drive from/to San Diego and the hot weather just a small speed bump in an otherwise great weekend away. Hope to see even more of you guys next time.
ps.
I might even bring out the new black car and enter it in the 944 Cup class, just to get things rolling in that class out here and show people there’s a place for all 944’s on the Left Coast. Would have brought it with us this time but the intended driver had to back out at the last minute and I couldn’t find anyone available with a racing license, who could drive it up or tow it from San Diego.