Greg Collier
20+ Year Contributor
- 1,258
- 13
- Mar 8, 2003
-
Diego,
California
NASA PRO-RACING BUTTONWILLOW RACEWAY PARK
(June 11-12, 2005)
Car Prep
It took a week to find the electrical short from the last race at Willow Springs. I had the engine compartment and the interior stripped open looking like a big kettle of colored spaghetti. I mustve blown 30 bucks in big pink 30-amp ignition fuses trying to trace the problem. I decided to take a breather from the mind numbing electrical system to do my once over on the front brake pads. I lifted the car and pulled the front wheel and low and behold the main wire loom in the fender well was hanging down like a limp (you know what I mean)! The tire had crushed the loom up against the inner fender and you could see a major black spot from were it shorted against the body. There were at least a half dozen exposed wires and the loom shield was shredded. EASY FIX! The car started right up, while it took another two hours to put everything back in place. I must have used a pound and a half of zip ties and hundred feet of electrical tape.
With the last zip tied a postal van pulled up and the guy handed me a box. HOYTTECH.COM, All right, I thought to myself, the new in-car camera system is here! I ripped the box open like it was Christmas morning when my eyes popped out of their sockets to see what looked like, 10,000 wires. Holy crap! I screamed, Ive got to go buy more frigging zip ties!
It turned out the Hoyttech camera system was an easy install. The setup included a G-Box that shows real time lateral and front to rear g-forces, MPH, and lap times, all controlled by a GPS. How cool is that? Theres another box called a View-2 that does picture-in-picture so you get two views on the same screen. The system also had two small cameras (wide angle) with different mounting brackets so you can get whatever type of camera shots you want. Lets say I was eating a sandwich while I was driving turn 9 at Willow Springs, with picture-in-picture you could see the track in front on the main screen and the mustard from my sandwich going up my nose on the smaller screen. WAY COOL!
On to the races
Friday morning at 7AM and were off on our 5-hour trek to Buttonwillow. Guess what? Its frigging raining! I cant remember when its rained in San Diego in June. As a matter of fact it was raining the last time we left for the track in May.
Ya-da ya-da ya-da ya-da, ya-da ya-da ya-da ya-da, its 12:30 PM, 90 degrees, sunny, and we made it to the track!
We get our paddock garage key, pay our track fees, unload the car, and Im ready for some Friday afternoon testing. There must be at least fifty cars already at the track and half of them are twisting and turning around the course. You could see white puffs of smoke coming from brake pads, smell hot rubber and high-test race fuel, and hear the roar of finely tuned engines. Right then you know, life is good!
I get goose bumps and hurry to put on my drivers suit. The good ole drivers suit! You dont know what its like until you put a fire retardant drivers suit on in 90 degree weather knowing its gonna be 115 degrees in your car. I must lose ten pounds every race weekend and that includes drinking 5 gallons of water.
Testing
The cars purring like a hedge hog, tire pressures good, seat belts tight, Hans device and helmet in tack, window net up, I get the thumbs up and its out onto the track. Were running track configuration #13, counter clockwise this race. We use the full 3.3-mile track with what seems like 100 turns. I like running counter clockwise because the car seems to set better in the turns with its weight disbursement. Ive learned to start out slow with my first run, I cant tell you how many times Ive spun out on the first turn going too fast on cold tires. You also look like a complete idiot making a stupid rookie mistake, but thats never stopped me before (looking like a stupid idiot that is).
I did my first lap at half speed with cars flying by me. These guys have been here all day with probably a hundred practice laps on their cars. I did my second lap a bit quicker and so on and so-forth. The car felt great and the flying cars I started out with became small blurs in my rear view mirrors. The practice session was checker flagged so I took the car back to the garage. I climbed out of the car with my ear-to-ear grin and started the tire pressure checks. Forty pounds left front, forty left rear, forty right rear, and twenty right front. Twenty right front? I mumbled. Crap! I thought. I added fifteen pounds of air to tire and went to do my other checks. About fifteen minutes had passed I re-checked the tire pressure. Crap! I thought. The tire was back down to twenty pounds. I said to myself, The tire was hot when I brought it in off the track so maybe it just cooled down? I put more air in and checked it after fifteen minutes. Crap, crap, crap! I mumbled. The damn tire wasnt holding air. My next practice session was already on the course and there I was carrying my wheel to the track tire center. They didnt have a water tank there so they sprayed soapy water all over the tire, the rim, the valve, my face, but nothing. All four tires were almost new and I didnt have any spares. I did bring a couple of my 16-inch rims with the 275-45/16s but the 16 inch rims wont fit over my new front Stop Techs. I run 275-40/17s so they are the same height as the 275-45/16s just different profiles. I said to hell with it and had the tire replaced at a cost of $260.00. Yes, thats the cost of one Hoosier including mounting.
The new tire was mounted on the car and there were still two practice sessions to go. I started climbing in my car when I heard over the loud speaker, The track is now closed to all closed wheel cars! It turns out there were countless off track excursions that day. The last one included a driver being taken to the hospital
C R A P! ! I took off my drivers suit, I closed the frigging garage door, and we went to check in to the hotel.
Race day
Its a beautiful Saturday morning at the track and Ive already checked the oil and water levels and my tire pressures look good. I got my car logbook signed and my ready to race sticker is affixed to the windshield. Its 8:20AM and Im on the track doing my warm-up laps. The car sounds great and running like greased lightning lap after lap around the track. The session is over and its back to the garage. I checked the tire pressures and all is good.
Its 11:20AM and Im sitting in grid waiting to qualify. Im running with all the big boys this weekend (thats all V8s). Pro-trucks are tube framed, fiberglass bodied, 800 hp, wide slicked, hell on wheels. Ive run with these guys a lot and theyre all excellent drivers and clean racers. I see the back ends of these trucks a whole bunch. Then we have AI or American Iron, these are fully built Mustangs pushing 500 hp on big slicks. These guys are good drivers but can get pretty aggressive. Then theres CMC Camaro/Mustang/Challenge, 350 hp Race prepped muscle cars. The years range from 1980 to present so theres a lot of diversity with these cars. The drivers are decent but youve got to pay attention when youre around them. They usually start behind my class so I never really see them until I lap them.
So Im sitting in my car revving my engine in anticipation of qualifying when this guy comes up to my passenger window and says, Im ludicrous. Im thinking, Ok, is this guy nuts or what? The he says, Greg, Im ludicrous! I looked down at his t-shirt and see DSMTuners printed on it and I understood. I shouted, Youre Ludachris, youre Chris from DSMTuners! It was so cool! Then he introduced this beautiful chick who turns out to be his wife and Im thinking, this guy aint nuts!
Anyway, our qualifying session started and the car performed flawlessly. There were over forty cars on the track and I had no idea who was running in my class. I saw a lot of Mustangs and back ends of Pro-trucks but no Porsches or Ferraris. It turned out that the only other Super Unlimited that was running that day was the Axis twin turbo Nissan 350-Z. I know this car has almost twice the horsepower as me, but ya-da ya-da
So I ended up qualifying second to the 350-Z and Im started 8th from the pole, thats not bad out of forty-two V8s and a totally sponsored Z.
It was back to the garage after qualifying where I spent time with Chris and his wife Cynthia. (Chris, youre a cool dude with a cool wife, good job!)
While talking with Ludachris I checked my tire pressures for the upcoming race. Guess what? You got it! My new tire was down to 20 pounds. All I can figure is the three-piece rim is leaking someplace. Thinking fast, I pulled one of my 17- inch rears and put it in place of the bad 17-inch in front then I put a 16-inch rim with the 275-45 on the rear. The car sat fine but even if it didnt, screw it! Im here to race and continue my points for the championship!!
Race time
My entire race group (about 42 cars) sat in grid waiting to pull out onto the track. I had a half dozen Pro-trucks and the Axis Nissan in front of me, and the American Iron was running in front of the Camaro/Mustang/Challenge just behind us.
The pace car with its blue strobe lights flashing pulled out onto the track and the rumble of V8s intensified as we followed for our warm-up lap. We scrubbed and heated up our tires at a snails pace that seemed like a 3.3 mile eternity. We made it through the last turn towards the front straight and the pace car exited, then we grouped into our two by two rows. I hit my boost switch for that little extra power as we approached the flag tower. Green, green, green, green, and the full throttle engine noise seemed deafening. My foot to the floor, 2nd then 3rd gears I blew right up the center of the Pro-trucks like I was shot out of a cannon. I hit turn one with the grace of an ice skater then down the Ss like it was a straight line, I looked in my rear view mirrors and I must have been 10 car lengths ahead of everybody when Greg-------Greg------Greg-----, wake up!
(Had you guys going there for a bit, huh?)
Back to reality Ok the pace car stuff, the two by two rows stuff, the green, green, green, stuff, the deafening engine noise stuff, and oh yeah, I forgot to hit my boost control switch. (Dumb ass) The Pro-trucks flew down the track with the Axis Z and me coming up the rear. I know the Axis Z has got something on me but I kept a close 2nd to him. We all flew down the Ss toward Star Mazda turn a left-handed sweeper and then onto another ¼ mile straight away. Magic Mountain was next with its definite elevation change and flying left-hander. Then its Talladega, a long 150 mph left handed sweeper that separates the men from the boys. At the end of Talladega theres a quick right to a small right handed sweeper then a gradual left, a small straight, to an ass busting left, right, left, to another small straight before you hit whats called the button hook. (That was a mouth full) The buttonhook is a small 30 mph almost circle lefty to a gradual right then tight right back onto the main front straight. The turn before the main straight has to be done just right or youll end up in the wall. Ive almost done that twice and Ive seen it done a dozen times resulting in wrecked cars. Once you hit the front straight its pedal to the metal and you start the whole thing over again.
The car ran excellent but I lifted a bit in Talladega because I wasnt real confident with my tire situation. (What a ####!) I was amazed that I kept so close to the Axis Z. We got a little distance when we started to pass the Camaro/Mustang guys, but hey, what can I say? Some of the AI cars passed us with their 500 hp but thats to be expected. I came in 2nd place, duh and 10th place overall. The car was bi***en and I collected 90 points towards the championship.
We did a bunch of different camera shots with the new Hoyttech in-car camera system. I got video of the race with one camera lens pointed out the front window and one pointed out the back window. It really looks cool with both views at the same time. I got shots of me driving and shifting with one view and the main camera looking out the front. I couldnt believe how much I drive with one hand (a very bad thing to do!) The G-Box was a trip giving all this information about mph, lateral G-s, and lap speeds. It was like watching Speed Vision. I know with all this added information I cant help to become a better driver.
Sunday race
Sundays race was a repeat of Saturdays, although a Pro-truck flew off the middle of Talladega and ended 150 feet off track in the sand and rocks. An American Iron car skidded off the front straight into the weeds and his hot exhaust pipe started a brush fire under his car. The fire truck extinguished it before the gas tank blew. I know he was a happy racer!
We got a bunch of good video from this race, and its all being edited as Im writing this. The DSM made another good showing for itself, and I collected 180 points towards the championship. That means Im 235 points in the lead for first place in the Super Unlimited class!
It was a good weekend of racing What more can I say?
Greg
(June 11-12, 2005)
Car Prep
It took a week to find the electrical short from the last race at Willow Springs. I had the engine compartment and the interior stripped open looking like a big kettle of colored spaghetti. I mustve blown 30 bucks in big pink 30-amp ignition fuses trying to trace the problem. I decided to take a breather from the mind numbing electrical system to do my once over on the front brake pads. I lifted the car and pulled the front wheel and low and behold the main wire loom in the fender well was hanging down like a limp (you know what I mean)! The tire had crushed the loom up against the inner fender and you could see a major black spot from were it shorted against the body. There were at least a half dozen exposed wires and the loom shield was shredded. EASY FIX! The car started right up, while it took another two hours to put everything back in place. I must have used a pound and a half of zip ties and hundred feet of electrical tape.
With the last zip tied a postal van pulled up and the guy handed me a box. HOYTTECH.COM, All right, I thought to myself, the new in-car camera system is here! I ripped the box open like it was Christmas morning when my eyes popped out of their sockets to see what looked like, 10,000 wires. Holy crap! I screamed, Ive got to go buy more frigging zip ties!
It turned out the Hoyttech camera system was an easy install. The setup included a G-Box that shows real time lateral and front to rear g-forces, MPH, and lap times, all controlled by a GPS. How cool is that? Theres another box called a View-2 that does picture-in-picture so you get two views on the same screen. The system also had two small cameras (wide angle) with different mounting brackets so you can get whatever type of camera shots you want. Lets say I was eating a sandwich while I was driving turn 9 at Willow Springs, with picture-in-picture you could see the track in front on the main screen and the mustard from my sandwich going up my nose on the smaller screen. WAY COOL!
On to the races
Friday morning at 7AM and were off on our 5-hour trek to Buttonwillow. Guess what? Its frigging raining! I cant remember when its rained in San Diego in June. As a matter of fact it was raining the last time we left for the track in May.
Ya-da ya-da ya-da ya-da, ya-da ya-da ya-da ya-da, its 12:30 PM, 90 degrees, sunny, and we made it to the track!
We get our paddock garage key, pay our track fees, unload the car, and Im ready for some Friday afternoon testing. There must be at least fifty cars already at the track and half of them are twisting and turning around the course. You could see white puffs of smoke coming from brake pads, smell hot rubber and high-test race fuel, and hear the roar of finely tuned engines. Right then you know, life is good!
I get goose bumps and hurry to put on my drivers suit. The good ole drivers suit! You dont know what its like until you put a fire retardant drivers suit on in 90 degree weather knowing its gonna be 115 degrees in your car. I must lose ten pounds every race weekend and that includes drinking 5 gallons of water.
Testing
The cars purring like a hedge hog, tire pressures good, seat belts tight, Hans device and helmet in tack, window net up, I get the thumbs up and its out onto the track. Were running track configuration #13, counter clockwise this race. We use the full 3.3-mile track with what seems like 100 turns. I like running counter clockwise because the car seems to set better in the turns with its weight disbursement. Ive learned to start out slow with my first run, I cant tell you how many times Ive spun out on the first turn going too fast on cold tires. You also look like a complete idiot making a stupid rookie mistake, but thats never stopped me before (looking like a stupid idiot that is).
I did my first lap at half speed with cars flying by me. These guys have been here all day with probably a hundred practice laps on their cars. I did my second lap a bit quicker and so on and so-forth. The car felt great and the flying cars I started out with became small blurs in my rear view mirrors. The practice session was checker flagged so I took the car back to the garage. I climbed out of the car with my ear-to-ear grin and started the tire pressure checks. Forty pounds left front, forty left rear, forty right rear, and twenty right front. Twenty right front? I mumbled. Crap! I thought. I added fifteen pounds of air to tire and went to do my other checks. About fifteen minutes had passed I re-checked the tire pressure. Crap! I thought. The tire was back down to twenty pounds. I said to myself, The tire was hot when I brought it in off the track so maybe it just cooled down? I put more air in and checked it after fifteen minutes. Crap, crap, crap! I mumbled. The damn tire wasnt holding air. My next practice session was already on the course and there I was carrying my wheel to the track tire center. They didnt have a water tank there so they sprayed soapy water all over the tire, the rim, the valve, my face, but nothing. All four tires were almost new and I didnt have any spares. I did bring a couple of my 16-inch rims with the 275-45/16s but the 16 inch rims wont fit over my new front Stop Techs. I run 275-40/17s so they are the same height as the 275-45/16s just different profiles. I said to hell with it and had the tire replaced at a cost of $260.00. Yes, thats the cost of one Hoosier including mounting.
The new tire was mounted on the car and there were still two practice sessions to go. I started climbing in my car when I heard over the loud speaker, The track is now closed to all closed wheel cars! It turns out there were countless off track excursions that day. The last one included a driver being taken to the hospital
C R A P! ! I took off my drivers suit, I closed the frigging garage door, and we went to check in to the hotel.
Race day
Its a beautiful Saturday morning at the track and Ive already checked the oil and water levels and my tire pressures look good. I got my car logbook signed and my ready to race sticker is affixed to the windshield. Its 8:20AM and Im on the track doing my warm-up laps. The car sounds great and running like greased lightning lap after lap around the track. The session is over and its back to the garage. I checked the tire pressures and all is good.
Its 11:20AM and Im sitting in grid waiting to qualify. Im running with all the big boys this weekend (thats all V8s). Pro-trucks are tube framed, fiberglass bodied, 800 hp, wide slicked, hell on wheels. Ive run with these guys a lot and theyre all excellent drivers and clean racers. I see the back ends of these trucks a whole bunch. Then we have AI or American Iron, these are fully built Mustangs pushing 500 hp on big slicks. These guys are good drivers but can get pretty aggressive. Then theres CMC Camaro/Mustang/Challenge, 350 hp Race prepped muscle cars. The years range from 1980 to present so theres a lot of diversity with these cars. The drivers are decent but youve got to pay attention when youre around them. They usually start behind my class so I never really see them until I lap them.
So Im sitting in my car revving my engine in anticipation of qualifying when this guy comes up to my passenger window and says, Im ludicrous. Im thinking, Ok, is this guy nuts or what? The he says, Greg, Im ludicrous! I looked down at his t-shirt and see DSMTuners printed on it and I understood. I shouted, Youre Ludachris, youre Chris from DSMTuners! It was so cool! Then he introduced this beautiful chick who turns out to be his wife and Im thinking, this guy aint nuts!
Anyway, our qualifying session started and the car performed flawlessly. There were over forty cars on the track and I had no idea who was running in my class. I saw a lot of Mustangs and back ends of Pro-trucks but no Porsches or Ferraris. It turned out that the only other Super Unlimited that was running that day was the Axis twin turbo Nissan 350-Z. I know this car has almost twice the horsepower as me, but ya-da ya-da
So I ended up qualifying second to the 350-Z and Im started 8th from the pole, thats not bad out of forty-two V8s and a totally sponsored Z.
It was back to the garage after qualifying where I spent time with Chris and his wife Cynthia. (Chris, youre a cool dude with a cool wife, good job!)
While talking with Ludachris I checked my tire pressures for the upcoming race. Guess what? You got it! My new tire was down to 20 pounds. All I can figure is the three-piece rim is leaking someplace. Thinking fast, I pulled one of my 17- inch rears and put it in place of the bad 17-inch in front then I put a 16-inch rim with the 275-45 on the rear. The car sat fine but even if it didnt, screw it! Im here to race and continue my points for the championship!!
Race time
My entire race group (about 42 cars) sat in grid waiting to pull out onto the track. I had a half dozen Pro-trucks and the Axis Nissan in front of me, and the American Iron was running in front of the Camaro/Mustang/Challenge just behind us.
The pace car with its blue strobe lights flashing pulled out onto the track and the rumble of V8s intensified as we followed for our warm-up lap. We scrubbed and heated up our tires at a snails pace that seemed like a 3.3 mile eternity. We made it through the last turn towards the front straight and the pace car exited, then we grouped into our two by two rows. I hit my boost switch for that little extra power as we approached the flag tower. Green, green, green, green, and the full throttle engine noise seemed deafening. My foot to the floor, 2nd then 3rd gears I blew right up the center of the Pro-trucks like I was shot out of a cannon. I hit turn one with the grace of an ice skater then down the Ss like it was a straight line, I looked in my rear view mirrors and I must have been 10 car lengths ahead of everybody when Greg-------Greg------Greg-----, wake up!
(Had you guys going there for a bit, huh?)
Back to reality Ok the pace car stuff, the two by two rows stuff, the green, green, green, stuff, the deafening engine noise stuff, and oh yeah, I forgot to hit my boost control switch. (Dumb ass) The Pro-trucks flew down the track with the Axis Z and me coming up the rear. I know the Axis Z has got something on me but I kept a close 2nd to him. We all flew down the Ss toward Star Mazda turn a left-handed sweeper and then onto another ¼ mile straight away. Magic Mountain was next with its definite elevation change and flying left-hander. Then its Talladega, a long 150 mph left handed sweeper that separates the men from the boys. At the end of Talladega theres a quick right to a small right handed sweeper then a gradual left, a small straight, to an ass busting left, right, left, to another small straight before you hit whats called the button hook. (That was a mouth full) The buttonhook is a small 30 mph almost circle lefty to a gradual right then tight right back onto the main front straight. The turn before the main straight has to be done just right or youll end up in the wall. Ive almost done that twice and Ive seen it done a dozen times resulting in wrecked cars. Once you hit the front straight its pedal to the metal and you start the whole thing over again.
The car ran excellent but I lifted a bit in Talladega because I wasnt real confident with my tire situation. (What a ####!) I was amazed that I kept so close to the Axis Z. We got a little distance when we started to pass the Camaro/Mustang guys, but hey, what can I say? Some of the AI cars passed us with their 500 hp but thats to be expected. I came in 2nd place, duh and 10th place overall. The car was bi***en and I collected 90 points towards the championship.
We did a bunch of different camera shots with the new Hoyttech in-car camera system. I got video of the race with one camera lens pointed out the front window and one pointed out the back window. It really looks cool with both views at the same time. I got shots of me driving and shifting with one view and the main camera looking out the front. I couldnt believe how much I drive with one hand (a very bad thing to do!) The G-Box was a trip giving all this information about mph, lateral G-s, and lap speeds. It was like watching Speed Vision. I know with all this added information I cant help to become a better driver.
Sunday race
Sundays race was a repeat of Saturdays, although a Pro-truck flew off the middle of Talladega and ended 150 feet off track in the sand and rocks. An American Iron car skidded off the front straight into the weeds and his hot exhaust pipe started a brush fire under his car. The fire truck extinguished it before the gas tank blew. I know he was a happy racer!
We got a bunch of good video from this race, and its all being edited as Im writing this. The DSM made another good showing for itself, and I collected 180 points towards the championship. That means Im 235 points in the lead for first place in the Super Unlimited class!
It was a good weekend of racing What more can I say?
Greg