May 26, 2007
-
Sebring 2007
THE WOODHOUSE WINDSHIELD REPORT: SEBRING INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
SPEED World Challenge GT Series
SCCA Pro-Racing
A warped race report by Bob Woodhouse, Woodhouse Performance
Sebring International Raceway
Sebring, FloridaMarch 17, 2007
What’s Changed: So the question is, can the passion stay in the story if you’re telling it from the sidelines? Heck, I don’t know, read this, then tell me. But let’s drop the race story for a moment. The last time I wrote you was late 2006, at Laguna Seca, the finals, my last race. “OK old man, get out of the car and put your hands on your head”, a criminal act I sometimes think, this not driving thing. Aaargh! People close to me are happy that I made good on the promise. Not that I am too old, yeah right, you never are, but I had to stop before I got so mad at Lou Gigliotti that I might kill him. No, no, no, just kidding, really I was, funny though huh? Lou belongs in this sport, we need him in order to maintain series leadership in controversy and color as opposed to other reality shows. Alas, I digress.
Since last year, the Woodhouse Race team has changed, the Dodge SRT-4 running in the Touring Car series has been sold, replaced with a second Dodge Viper Competition Coupe. New crew members are on board to compliment Rick and Nancy who were the keys to last years GT Crew of the Year award.
So two Vipers, two drivers, Brian Smith and Jeff Courtney and a new year as a team owner. Race teams tend to always be awash in uncertainty from year to year with their funding. So what will it take to overcome that? If I could make dreams come true we would have sponsors falling over each other to be on our program.
Providing a sponsor more value than he is writing checks for, that might be where we start. To dull the pain of no steering wheel in hand, I’m turning to help young Woodhouse Performance marketing director Delayne Hunt (any body is young by my standard) and others to bring our road racing to a higher level of appeal for both fan and sponsor. Sounds like BS doesn’t it? Could be, but we have a few fooled, this phenomenal group of sponsors we now have, KendaUSA.com , ProMPI.com and MPICoin.com as well as Badger Components, Kicker.com, and KaravanTrailers.com.
RE: The “higher level:”
Take the Air Cannon, OK; T-shirt cannon, what a hoot, we bombed the crowd at the pre-race starting line with 150 T-shirts branded with sponsor websites promising video hi-lites of the race. Once aware of our antics, a portion of the 100,000 fans came to the fence to watch the four attractive ladies fling white cotton, hey, hey, I said nothing here that would take your mind to the gutter, if it did, you did it. Now when this crowd lets loose of it’s beer bottles and starts typing in the dot coms we left them on the back of those shirts, oh lordie, “We got us a Convoy” (from the song by CW McCall).
Politics update: In an attempt to equalize competition during the off months, SCCA determined that it would reduce the performance of the top performing race cars, Viper, Porsche, Cadillac, Corvette, this is done through the addition of weight and/or increasing the air intake restriction. Let me say as I wipe the tear from my eye that we Dodge Vipers received our ample helping. Ten percent more restrictor and an increase in weight to 3200 pounds, the heaviest of any GT competitor. Those street stock ABS brakes we had. No longer allowed. (Apparently ABS is for sissies.)
Do not be surprised that eight of the top-10 qualifying positions were GM products and Tommy was our highest qualifying Viper in the ninth slot. Apparently the winter months left plenty of time for the Corvette and Cadillac teams to stew over getting their butt handed to ‘em so they came with a new level of performance (more engine) despite their restriction increases. Now that the playing field is tilted, either SCCA will act to rectify, or a spiral of expensive upgrades is about to take place. Lets ask for benevolent good judgment on the part of our SCCA scrutineering, and soon please.
The race:
When a race starts in a down pour and the track ends dry through 20 laps there is bound to be an abundance of drama; wow, do we have cool video for you.
Our drivers, Brian Smith and Jeff Courtney qualified 14th and 19th respectively and finished ninth and 11th but a lot happened “on the way to the office” as they say.
Lap one, Brian gets tapped in the rear at corner seven sending him off to the inside of the turn, he works his way back up the ladder until mid-race when the forward momentum seems to go stagnant, probably tire temperature from the charge. Then full coarse yellow ensues allowing tire cool down that opened up the chance to move on up. Brian had been dogging the back of the Viper of Rookie Jason Daskalos and on the last lap Jason gets wide in corner 12, slides off the outside, does a “ballet academy 10” pirouette back onto the track facing Brian nose to nose. This all in seconds and Brian makes one of the best nanno-second decisions of his career to come away with only a partial nose removal job, thus allowing him to finish one spot down from Tommy Archer. Our Jeff “Mr. Smooth” Courtney brought home the next Viper finish of 11th. Overall a good day given the hand we were dealt.
Tommy Archer, our 8th place finisher, being either “the” or one of “the best drivers” in the series gives you a reference of how the competition adjustments effected the Dodge contingent.
Mike McCann, our other strength for a top finish had some difficulty with what appeared to be corner 12. On corner exit he caught some thrown up sand with the outside rear initiating a 150 degree rotation that was impeded by the inside tire wall leaving a changed look to the front and back of his beautiful yellow and white machine. It appeared an oil cooler was ruptured and Mike called it a day.
CLICK HERE to watch race highlights from the Woodhouse Performance Dodge Viper
Please remember all this happens because of these fine companies:ProMPI – Your one stop shop for Promotional Items www.prompi.com
MPI Coin – Specializes in distribution and marketing of coin products. www.mpicoin.com
Kicker Car Stereo –KICKER is the world leader in high-performance mobile audio gear. www.kicker.com.
Badger Tire and Wheel – A leading Distributor/Manufacturer/Assembler of recreational trailer products. www.badgercomponents.com
Kenda Tires - Kenda is a leading tire and tube manufacturer for specialty and automotive tires. www.kendausa.com
Karavan Trailers – Equipment manufacturer of private label boat, watercraft, utility, snowmobile and other recreational trailers. www.karavantrailers.com
Forester Signs – Forester Signs is a company that makes Custom designed vinyl graphics, signs & banners. www.forestersigns.com
JG Wheel – www.jgwheel.com
Go here to get the entire race results:
Series Website: www.world-challenge.com
Speed Channel’s Website: www.speedtv.com
