Denver Grand Prix, 8/15/2005 Round Nine of the Speed World Challenge GT.
A race report as seen from the windshield of the Woodhouse Viper Comp Coupe

How do you measure the quality of an event?  If it is something like the Denver Grand Prix; perhaps just check your fun meter to see if it got pegged.  My bench mark for a  street race are those small rooms called Port A Potties, yes those little green plastic huts .  They tell you if the city is sincere about presenting a world class event.  Denver; you win.  The Port A Potties were awesome; hundreds of them; and new.   As long as we are being impressed, how about the racing venues: Champ Car, World Challenge, Trans Am, Formula BMW, Toyota Atlantic, Drifting (Formala D), Boxing, MotoX jumping, Extreme Sports.  

Now imagine the logistics nightmare of getting all of these racing venues on track for practice and testing.  That left our practice very minimal and our down time high, or so we thought.  Those voids got filled to intensity with Viper club members, and race fans full of passion for automobiles, and not the kind with a six pack in one hand and a toke in the other.  The support team of SCCA people came from all over, including our Nebraska Region SCCA team, the Whoomah gang, Frank Sofranek pres.  (OK explanation here.)  Frank is a racer and corner worker and along with his wife and friends has taken the word whoomah and infamized it with his constant full volume vocalizing and stickers that show up on race cars. 

The 1.657 mile track was created from the streets around the Pepsi Event Center next to down-town Denver with the race track sides lined with our perennial favorite; concrete and chain link.  Visualize your race car as a dime that is inserted into a vending machine. Have ever seen the channels and chutes that a dime flows through before it hits the coin box?  That was the impression left by my first reconnaissance lap of the track.

Bob and Holly Raub and Tim Wiens representing 3R Racing and First Tier Bank launched the week-end in grand fashion by inviting the entire World Challenge paddock to the 3R race shop for an evening of food, beverage, music and cars.

The gesture proved priceless to the SCCA World Challenge community, establishing relationships and strengthening those that competition erodes. Touring the shop left no question that 3R is a professional builder of championship capable cars.

Phil McClure of the 3R Viper team, and one of the finer drivers out there, took some after-practice ribbing on Friday.  Known to appreciate a good spinner knob on his steering wheel, he was asked if he would like two installed on his Viper Competition Coupe. Apparently he was doing some drifting and left a bit of wall evidence on his rear quarter.  OK, I guess you had to have been there.

Here’s a few of the many Viper people who said hello: Jim Johnson local pres., Bob Cloutier, John Johns, Gar, Jay Popp, Dave Fisher, Kip Partridge, Dennis Quela and it goes on, don’t hit me for leaving you out.

Now for some dirt:  After the noon Saturday qualifying sessions I received a visit from Mr. story teller and Corvette driver Lou Gigliotti.  He took me aside and invested the next 5 minutes on his opinion of my character flaws as a race driver and general menace to my competitors.  I was so floored.  What motive would he have here?  It defies gravity to think I or anyone would want to accommodate his requests after such a lengthy character trashing. Reflecting back; it may be his way of saying I hope you won’t try to even up a grudge (let’s not go there, I wasn’t  carrying one).  Since I am gridded directly behind him for the start of the race maybe he thought the opportunity to punt him would overwhelm me.  It was known too that Lou had notions of sand bagging much of the race to play the “lose the rewards weight” game.  Lou can espouse multiple paragraphs without breathing, so conversation gaps to question his flawed information weren’t too available and those that were just seemed to escalate his emotional state, so I threw in the towel and said: “Lou it looks like you will need to watch your back” and walked away.   

Lou was a good test of self control and I didn’t score an A.  But I do recognize a competitor’s fantasy world when his Corvette looks like a Saltine cracker put together with super glue due to his own aggression.

The race had an eerie feeling to it as the cars came to grid for the standing start.  Maybe it was Rick’s words ringing in my ears, “Just go up and bump Lou on the grid and get it out of the way”.  I wouldn’t of coarse and I wouldn’t take a grudge into a race even if there was one.  What goes around comes around.  The bleachers were filled with impatient fans since we sat there for 20 minutes waiting.  Finally the lights go out, the car launches well and we go up the right side wall beside Lou until a Cadillac jumps into the lane in front of him. Lou makes a quick jerk right prompting me to back out and follow carefully as the four wide first corner becomes a two wide in the next until some reasonable room develops as the laps begin to unwind. 

Short of seeing someone’s rear wing along the outside wall there was little drama until lap ten when a long brake pedal took over a big part of my life.   It continued a downward trend for the next couple of laps but I was confident it was stabilizing and that I could continue at a reasonable pace.  Not.  Double pumps weren’t timely enough and I left too much speed on the car in the short chutes landing a wall hit between 7 and 8.  The right front suspension was damaged but the car would move enough to maneuver out of the racing line. Humility got pretty deep thinking of how I cheated competitors and race fans out of three laps of racing.  I learned later several cars were losing brakes as well and the full coarse yellow allowed them to recover.  Don’t thank me please.

How did the other Vipers do?  Tommy came in 6th with Phil McClure on his tail and Tim Wiens in 10th.   Considering all the politics, which I will get to shortly, that was a commendable job for the 3R team to have all top tens.  Wait till you hear the rest of the politics. Mike McCann had power train issues, Jimmie’s car isn’t finished so it didn’t run.. 

But alas fellow Dodge lovers, I think your Championship title, and Tommy’s has been lost for the year.    The political machinery nearly ground to a halt in the Pro SCCA corner of the world.  As mentioned before, races are won as much off the track as on.  The Viper Competition Coupe has been in an underdog position all of this year and hurrah, at last there has been some recognition of this. Thanks to Bob Raub, of 3R and the Dodge boys for their persistence in getting heard. Harry Turner of SCCA personally came to each of the teams and apologized since their data used to evaluate the competitiveness of each of the different marques has been flawed.  Recognizing it, is good although it comes too late in the season to rescue a championship.  

For Harry to come and apologize makes him a man we can respect.  It gives the human race some balance since we have to include Lou in that category. Oops, I am so bad.

Up front the top three finishers were Porsches, then a Cadillac and a Corvette.  A great job was again turned in by the Moxlow/Trenton Forging Pontiac GTO team.  Driver Stu Heynor finished 9th giving much of the credit to his new hair color.  Stu, I bruise easy.

Next up Mosport.  Then the finals at Laguna Seca.  You know where to go for details and for transportation of any kind go here www.woodhouse.com.

May god bless.     Bob Woodhouse 

Portland International Raceway 7/30/2005 Round Eight of the Speed World Challenge GT.A race report from the #13 Woodhouse Viper Comp Coupe windshield.

Still awash in “feel good feelings” from the 6th place finish at Infineon and qualifying 9th for today’s Portland  Speed World Challenge GT race;  had us pumped about garnering a top 10 finish.

To bolster that thought, I had the strongest fan club/cheering section in town.  Twenty five Woodhouse “Kicken Grass” T-shirts were being sported about by these sincere supporters.  Did I mention they were all relatives?  (Hey, you do it your way, this works for me.  The paybacks could be brutal though, you know, attendance at weddings and such.)  So the stands were prepared to make as much noise as the cars.

The waiting for race time is excruciating, nerves feel like 10# fishing line with a 15# fish hangin on the end. Mid-afternoon comes and so does the starting ceremony rituals.  The anthem is sung, the flag girls clear grid, and the race cars take their start boxes. The red lights glow on, my clutch foot starts to shake, breath deep, better; lights are out!, clutch drops, we go, Stu, our friendly GTO driver in front me is growing bigger in the windshield,  throttle stays down and we slip past on the right, then the Volvo, this is good, we can do this, then the Cad CTS of Pappis makes an aggressive move to the right that chops our unfettered acceleration.  At the top of 3rd gear around 100 mph entering turn three, comes the unexpected. 

As if a giant sea-gull with diarrhea made a windshield hit with the mother of all butt loads.  The windshield went opaque white.  I began thinking the car in front blew up.  As the wipers take a sweep, it looks like old faithful coming through the hood louvers.  During the next few nanoseconds my brain is saying,  “this is gonna get wild”.  The back end of the car is swinging around like the loose end of a garden hose as the cooling system pukes liquid everywhere.    There are race cars in close quarters on all sides. “Damn, I’m gonna wreck em all.”  I try to stabilize the car with the throttle and spin to unoccupied territory. 

Dan Lacy, the Motorsports Chaplain would tell you “it was the grace of god”.  Somehow all those spinning cars managed to stay apart and get back to racing.  They flew off every direction.  I wonder if Speed Channel got it. Sorry guys, it wasn’t on purpose. 

Radio to crew chief Rick:  “We just blew something big in the cooling system, I spun, we’re done. I will nurse it to the pits”.  As the emotion subsided, the rational comes back and Rick finds and repairs a separated hose connection.  No water for refill, to the trash cans, where a dozen plastic water bottles are refilled and used by Nancy and Scott Rogers as a water brigade that keeps Rick pouring as fast as the engine will accept it.  We’re re-fired and the Motec dash is reading like “man your battle stations” with blinking words and flashing red lights. Finally the temperature drops to 225 and Rick says, I can’t burp the air out so go run a couple laps and see what happens.  Out we go for a half lap till the Motec goes back into a “Red Alert”.  Next time we leave the pits the engine acts like it can deal with it, stabilizing around 230 degrees. 

Even though we are now 5 or 6 laps down I am enjoying the ride, the car is an angel, entering and leaving corners well; well enough to place the fastest race lap for the Vipers. Just wait, the politics side is coming.     

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 out of the 33 lap no full coarse yellow race, I end up on the back side of Mike McCann.  Mike’s Viper seems to be struggling and I notice drops of fluid hit my windshield so I pull off line and watch in my mirror as he creates possibly a Guinness record in white smoke plumes for the entire straight away.  Later we learned he lost the engine.

Some time after passing one of the Cadillacs (being piloted respectfully) I became the trailer tow ball on the back of Jon Grooms’ AXA Porsche lap after lap.  Jon had some creative lines in his corners, let’s see, you can zig but not zag?  Let’s not start that, I will just say, Jon found a way to place his car in front of mine regardless of how far off line it was.  OK insert politics here.  The Porsche, has the ability to out accelerate the Viper, (SCCA “can you hear me now?”) leaving me with three full laps of high evaporation rate on my patience.  So it is that we met in the last of the esses when Jon’s car again came off line and across my bow to find it nudging his rear bumper just an eensie bit.  Jon spun and I went to the grass to stay clear of any heavy hitting.   No regrets on my behalf Jon, I think you understand.

Portland International Raceway has two distinctions that set it apart from other tracks.  The lap times are extremely temperature sensitive, changing as much as 2 seconds from morning to afternoon.  The other is how slowly she offers up her speed secrets.  This track is reasonably flat, looks easy to learn, but alas, she is devious, making you look hard for the last two to three seconds.  The local racers are usually a leg up on the out of towners. 

On the politics:  I usually say something about the balancing act being administered by SCCA to keep all the teams potentially podium material.  Vipers were the underdog earlier this year, Cadillac was out front, with the rest of the professional teams between.  Then came an adjustment to the Cadillacs which left them competitive but not dominate to the Viper.  Now this is one man’s opinion who happens to drive a Viper, and I also know little about strategy for Championships and these are smart people. All three of the CTS-V Cadillacs are not being driven to potential at all times.  Championships are not won on the race track alone.  We’ll leave it there since I am so ignorant and stand to learn from all maneuverings. At present almost all of the race teams agree that the Corvette and Porsches are dominant and thinking an adjustment is eminent.  We can hope.

How’d the Viper people fare?  Rich Marziale popped a motor in practice.  Al Becera came up from San Jose and ran a clean race finishing 14th.  Al’s car is in new paint, lookin good.   John Dearing did an admirable 18th in his GTS after a mechanical issue took him out 6 laps from the end.  Mike McCann is probably the most disappointed since he was up front before his motor expired.  Tim came in 7th and Tommy 4th, thirteen seconds back of the leader.  And he owns this place shall we say, taking Championships here in the past, so you can relate to the dominance of the other brands.  Jon Brobst, Doris, Don Roberts and his wife along with a host of other Northwest Viper Club people made our Portland experience peg the fun meter.  Don is incredible, he hosted a Viper Supper with Kobe beef and Lobster.  I had to miss due to family obligations, hey I’m not stupid. But Don if you could dry ice that and send………..naa, there’s next year.

This race is broadcast Aug 7th, you know where to check www.speedtv.com

Check back here in a couple days, when the camera gets home we will embed some through the windshield video attached to the story above.

Off to Denver next go here for the details www.world-challenge.com

Remember your next vehicle is at www.woodhouse.com

God Bless You   Bob Woodhouse bobwoodhouse@woodhouse.com