Live Search Racing: Jim Walsh

2008 Season begins for the Live Search car

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 01:26:32 GMT

by Jim Walsh

I haven't been able to blog after each every event this year, I'll give a brief summary of the first three race weekends here, then slightly more in-depth posts on the last two weekends in followup posts.

My first race weekend was the Oregon SCCA Regional at Portland International at the end of March. Weather was miserable - it was the first time I've ever gone out on a dry track with racing slicks, and had to come in because I couldn't get any traction because of hail. It had rain, sleet, hail, and wind. The qualifying session was wet, I qualified second overall and first in GT2.

Finally we had dry weather for the race, and I got a good launch and into the lead at the first corner, with Nick Fluge, Matt Crandall, and Andrew Foley behind me. A couple of laps in I was getting a decent gap on the field, a couple of seconds a lap, when my window net fell down on the back straight! I was fumbling around trying to grab it on the straights (while driving with one hand) to reconnect it, but I dropped it and it got tangled. It was only a matter of time until I got the dreaded 'meatball' flag to pit for mechanical problems. I pulled into pit lane, my new crewman Chris Brown buckled the window net back up, and off I went for the SLOOOOOOWWW drive down pit lane (35mph speed limit) while the other cars were zooming by at 140mph! I was on a tear, I repassed Foley and Fluge and was chasing after Crandall, but I never saw him on track, so I kept pedalling harder, thinking he must be further up the rode. After the race, I found out that he'd broken a few laps after I got on course and didn't finish the race, so I won both overall and in class.

The next event was the California Festival of Speed at California Speedway in Fontana, CA. This is a Porsche Club of America event I've been to a couple of times before, it's always a great time, with plenty of basically identical GT3 Cup cars to race against. I also entered the Yokohama Driver's Cup event going on in conjunction, which made for a pretty crazy 3-day weekend, with 17 sessions on track over the three days!

I did well in both groups, on pole for class (GTC3) in PCA, and coming second and first in the first two races. I was actually black flagged in the third and final PCA race as a corner worker thought he saw contact between me and another driver (the PCA, unlike most organizations, doesn't wait until after the race to address race incidents, but calls people in on the spot). Both of us were stuck in the tech garage for the rest of the race. Afterwards, the steward didn't see any body damage on either car and released us with no penalties, but unfortunately we both lost the time on track.

I also did the Yokohama Driver's Cup series event, which is a stepping-stone series to the pros - most of the drivers are also running in the Michelin Cup pro series, lots of big transporters with big race teams and multiple cars, I looked a little out of place with my single-car trailer and one crewman with me. There were eight drivers in the 'A' class (996 Cup cars) and it was definitely a darn good class of driver in this series. I had to pedal like mad to finish third in both of the races, I've never been happier to be on the podium! I was sliding around like mad in the second race, and had to work super hard to keep a couple of cars behind me. After the race I found I had a severely corded left rear tire, I'm very glad it held up as it would have been ugly if it had lost pressure on the high banking at the speedway!

The third event of the year was my first National SCCA event, a combined Regional/National at Portland International the first weekend in May. I did well in qualifying, on pole for both races, but Matt Crandall was super close behind me in the dry (I had a bigger gap in the wet National qualifying). Unfortunately it was dry on race day so I wasn't able to take advantage of my years growing up on snow and ice covered roads, and I knew I'd be battling Crandall who'd been close many times but had never beaten me. Yet.

For the National race, I was ahead for the first lap or two, but Crandall got a great launch onto the front straight, stayed in my draft, and was able to tuck inside of me into the chicane and get past. I chased him back down, and was on his butt for most of the race, putting pressure on him, and he was finally starting to lose a little grip, and I was able to get a good launch onto the front straight and repay the move with a draft pass into the chicane. It didn't take long before we were being held up by an ex-Busch car that was wicked fast on the straights, but whose tires were going away bigtime so he was getting very loose in the corners. I was trying to figure out a way by, with Crandall on my tail trying to get by me. The Busch car eventually got full-on sideways in front of me exiting turn 7, and I had to nail my brakes to not broadside him, and Crandall had to do the same behind me. I was able to get back on the power for the back straight before Crandall, and that gave me a bit of a gap, that I was able to keep for the rest of the race. Wow, awesome race, I had to work for that one! Especially since I miscalculated my fuel requirements and was on fumes for the last couple of laps.

For the Regional race, I was caught napping at the green flag - I was looking in my mirror when the flag was thrown, Crandall got a good start, and his horsepower and torque let him get to the first corner ahead of me. I was on his tail the rest of the race, waiting for him to make a mistake, and though I was a little bit quicker in the corners, but he did a great job of not leaving any openings, and his speed on the straights and his equally-good brakes didn't let me use the awesome Porsche brakes to get him into any of the braking zones. Great job Matt, looks like it'll be an interesting year!

You can see some great pictures of the National race here, and of the Regional race here, thanks to Doug Berger of PhotoSport Northwest Digital Sports Photography.

Thanks for a great 2007

Tue, 13 May 2008 01:15:41 GMT

As I begin the 2008 season, I want to start off with a shout out to everyone that helped me have such a great 2007 season with the Live Search Racing Porsche GT3 Cup.

I’d particularly like to thank my supporters and sponsors, starting of course with my fabulous wife Penny, who is as big a fan and supporter as I could possibly hope for, and is a huge help in logistics and even stepping in to help crew. Of course everyone in Live Search, but I need to single out Sebastian Gard, both for overall support and for putting together an incredible design for the car with the help of Eddie Yip. It’s stunning, it’s a crowd favorite, and I’m proud to drive it. I also need to give a shout out to MSN Autos, AdCenter, and of course Microsoft as a whole.

I need to thank Rich at Bel-Red Auto Body for the fabulous job in keeping the car looking so good, particularly on the incredibly tight timelines needed to make the race schedule, as well getting it ready for display events like the Microsoft Company Meeting (where they did some very fabulous work on super short notice after I was so ungracious as to bang up the car the weekend before).

From a performance perspective, I can’t possibly have had a better sponsor or relationship than with Yokohama Tire, and the fabulous Advan race tires I’ve been running all year. There’s no way I could have gotten sixteen poles and fifteen wins without awesome tires under me. Never a single tire problem all year, incredible grip and handling, and super long life to boot – the entire Laguna Seca four-hour enduro was run on the same set of tires I used to finish second at the SCCA Runoffs. My only regret is that Mother Nature didn’t cooperate in giving me an opportunity to try the Advan rain tires, particularly at the Runoffs.

Of course, Greg Fordahl and Dave Welch and the rest of the gang at Fordahl Motorsports have been absolutely key in giving me the car and setup to be competitive for every single session all year, with zero mechanical problems. Greg is of course the top Porsche race engineer in the country, and it’s an honor to have him as both a friend and key part of the team. Dave and Greg have also helped hugely with making me a better driver, thanks for all the coaching and continuing to push me, I couldn’t have done it without you.

I’d like to thank Saul Katz and the folks at Solo GI for inventing the Solo GI bar, which is not only the best tasting nutrition bar out there, but keeps my blood sugar stable and my energy high. I literally ate cases of them through the year, fabulous product, and I’m glad for Amazon one-click ordering to keep them on my shelf at all times. I'm totally addicted to these.

A huge thanks to all the race officials and volunteers that give their time and energy and passion to make the events possible, in particular the SCCA Oregon and San Francisco regions, the huge SCCA community involved in the Runoffs, and the Porsche Club of America. No I didn't forget you, I'm saving a very special thanks for the SCCA Northwest Region for not only being my home region since I first joined the SCCA as an autocrosser back in 1988, but for honoring me with the 2007 SCCA Driver of the Year award.

And of course, all my family and supporters, within Live Search and across Microsoft and elsewhere, including the faithful readers of this blog, thanks for being there all season, especially when things weren’t looking so great early in Runoffs week. And to all my fellow racers, and especially to the volunteers, it not only wouldn’t be possible without you, but it wouldn’t be worth doing without all the camaraderie and selflessness that makes the racing community so fabulous, and keeps me coming back. It was great to hear how many people watched the coverage of the GT2 Runoffs race on Speed Channel, thanks for the comments, I'm glad you enjoyed the race, and got the opportunity to get a peek into the level of competition and intensity that make this such a great sport.

Jim Walsh

Live Search Race Car 2007 - Race Season Finale and Summary

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:56:47 GMT

by Jim Walsh

The 2007 season is in the books. Two more races at Laguna, an SCCA Regional 30-minute race, and the RDC four hour enduro. Pole position in class for both races, two more class wins, and an overall win in the Enduro, by a fairly comfortable six laps overall, and eleven laps in class. To cap it off, I was elected Driver of the Year by the Northwest Region SCCA at their recent awards banquet.

Overall for the year I’ve had nineteen races, been on pole for sixteen of them, and ended up with fifteen wins and three second places. I have no idea how I’m going to top this, maybe it’s time to hang up the steering wheel. Nah, what fun is that!

After the Runoffs (see this writeup in the SCCA newsletter, and catch the full GT2 race on Speed Channel at 10am Pacific on Speed Channel on Jan 2^nd), I hadn’t really planned on doing any more events. But I had a great time last year at Laguna Seca for the last SCCA Regional event of the season, and of course at the 4-hour RDC Illgen Enduro, which Greg Fordahl and I won last year by five laps in class, and 2.7 seconds overall against the CSR of Zadig and Hatfield, with a Lola another .8 seconds back. So Laguna and the SCCA and RDC events kept calling my name, and I finally answered (at the last minute), and hit the road on Thursday evening for the tow down to Laguna. My normal crewman Dave Welch already had plans for the weekend (imagine that!), so I headed down by myself, with some phone calls in to some folks down in L.A. and San Fran, and a backup plan of making do with the one crewman (ex-Fordahl mechanic John Tate) that Greg Fordahl and Steve Haywood were using in their run with Greg’s Porsche 944. We’d basically have a similar plan to last year – I’d start the race in my car, Greg would start in the other car, Steve would swap with Greg at a pitstop, and Greg would take a breather then get into mine for the last stint of the race.

With the late start, I missed practice and qualifying on Friday for the SCCA event. I did hit the track for the 11:00 Enduro Practice on Saturday, so I had a chance to make sure that the car was working well, and liked the newly paved track. I got out on track late, and only got a couple of slow laps in before I was called in for a sound violation, 1dB over the limit. I called Greg Fordahl over the radio and he dug around in the trailer to find my ‘redirecting’ exhaust tips while I drive back to the paddock, and we got the tips on the car, but by the time I strapped back in the session was over. I hadn’t done any particularly fast laps (in fact only did 4 in total), but the Runoffs setup felt good, with no obvious changes needed.

The SCCA race grid was on Saturday afternoon. Having missed qualifying, I started from the back of the 21-car grid, after explaining to the confused grid workers why I wasn’t on their qualifying sheets. It was a mixed grid of fast production and tubeframe cars – GT1, GT2, GTA, GTL, and SP (Super Production). There were some interesting cars on grid, the monster GT1 ground thumpers, and the even more monster SP cars, that don’t have to bother with the silly GT1 rules – basically SP allows any car that sorta-kinda looks like a production car if you squint hard enough. Think NASCAR, but a lot lighter. There were two other GT2 cars, a pretty small field, both were older Porsches that I hadn’t raced against before.

I had a decent start, but it was tough slogging getting past a lot of slower cars, but I was up from 21^st to 13^th overall, and to second in GT2, after the first lap. I got by the next GT2 car on the next lap, then slowly kept working my way through the field, every car getting harder and harder to pass, as my speed difference was lessening. I had the white #54 of Steve Schmalz in my sights as I passed start/finish with one lap to go, and got beside him braking into turn 2, but he wasn’t going to go gently into the good night, and ‘didn’t see me’ as he came across me at the apex. I distinctly recall realizing that I had two decision here – allow him to hit me side to side, I’m sure it would be minor contact, and I’d keep the position, or let him have the corner and try to get him later in the lap. Given that I already had the lead in GT2, and I doubted one more position would result in my replacing Alonso at McLaren next year, I decided to keep the car pretty J He was pretty aggressively blocking me the rest of the lap, I stayed with him in case he messed up, but I didn’t want to take a chance of messing up the car before the Enduro, so I finished in 4^th overall, .8 seconds behind Schmalz and 13.1 seconds behind the leader. http://www.mylaps.com/results/newResults.jsp?id=693512&highlight=4&ShowPerClass=0 Not too shabby, I was faster than the overall winner in 8 of the 19 overall laps, even with all the traffic I needed to get by from the back of the grid. I was also a couple of seconds quicker than my lap times a year earlier, as I’d had entire year to think about how I was messing things up in my first visit last year J

For the Enduro on Sunday, I let Greg run the car during the morning practice as he hadn’t been in the car for a year, and he very quickly got up to speed and comfortable with the car, had no problems with the seating position or setup, so we were good to go for the race with no changes. Steve Haywood ran Greg’s 944 in the warmup, and John Tate and I were running around like chickens with our heads cut off, getting our shared pitspot (our assigned spots were on complete opposite ends of pit lane, so we decided to share one spot) ready for the race, get the fuel cans filled, get nitrogen and regulators and airhoses and tires ready for any tire changes, get the radios sorted out so that John could talk to both cars, etc.

It was a busy morning – I was still getting my gear ready when we heard last call to grid, so John took the car to grid while I got changed. After a break in my walk to grid for the national anthem, I got in the car right at the five minute warning. We were gridded third, but the grid people didn’t leave space on the grid between the Sports Racers, so they held me off to the side to let the leaders out and actually started me fourth. Whatever – it’s a four hour race, being on the outside versus the inside of the second row at the start wasn’t going to make or break the result. The next Production car was in fifth position, the other top spots were all Sports Racers, which were a little quicker than the production cars, but didn’t always have the reliability to finish the race without problems. We were only .2 seconds off of pole, but knew that at the limit, the Sports Racers should be a good 4 or 5 seconds a lap quicker than we were, with better acceleration down the straights, significantly better cornering given their downforce and ground effects, and brakes at least equal to the legendary Porsche brakes, esp. with their massively lower overall weight.

The green flag fell, and the race was on. The new Elan sports racer of local Peter McLeod (who coincidentally was the first owner of my first racecar, a ’93 Porsche RS America) who started third, made quick work of the leading cars and was in the lead within a lap. I’d moved up one position, and was in third as we went by start finish for the first full lap, and quickly got into a rhythm and pace I could sustain for the 2.5+ hours I’d be in the car. I stayed in third until lap 10, when McLeod pitted unexpectedly, and moved into second overall, steadily pulling away from the second-place 02 Acura of the Trenery brothers in the Production Over (over 1.7 litre displacement) class. I stayed in second, staying away from trouble - there were a lot of cars on course, many of which were a fair bit slower, and I started lapping them within the first six or eight laps. About an hour into the race, there was a second full-course caution to retrieve a car stuck in the gravel in a vulnerable position, and I was within the window to make the rest of the race on two stops so I pitted for fuel, taking my first of two mandatory five-minute pitstops (which they did for safety reasons – not all the cars had seasoned crews, and they didn’t want tires rolling around or gas spilling all over the place, as inexperienced crews tried to emulate a 20-second NASCAR pitstop). This was a great opportunity for Steve to reach into the car and fix the drink bottle – it was awfully warm in the car, though it was sunny and low 70’s outside, it was 108 inside the car at the start of the race, and 116 by the first pitstop, and I’d only sucked air when I tried to get a drink during the first full course yellow.

There was a traffic jam at pit exit, I had to wait for the workers to retrieve my timing slip, and my in-car timer showed that I lost about 48 seconds waiting for the line to clear. Uggh, that’s about half a lap! I rejoined the race in third place, with the McLeod car having gotten by during the pitstop. 16 laps later, I moved back up to second when the McLeod car pitting again for fuel. The race was pretty uneventful – I had a good pace, slightly quicker than the leading Zadig sports racer, though we had three caution periods during this stint because of cars stuck in the gravel traps. Another 23 laps after I moved into second, a few laps after making up ground during a caution, I finally got past and into the lead, though I didn’t know it at the time – we only got race updates every hour (and about 30 minutes late at that), and with one crew person working two cars, as well as running to fill fuel cans etc., it was impossible to keep track of everyone’s pitstop status etc.

I pitted on lap 89, close to three hours into the race, and Greg Fordahl jumped into the car. He’d only had about a 20 minute break after driving the first 2.5+ hours of his 944 before Steve Haywood took over, and I’d radioed the crew to make sure that Greg got fully hydrated, as my drink system in the car was empty. The McLeod car pitted a few laps earlier, and had a slightly longer stop, so Greg reentered in first place. In fact, when we got the race update from the three hour mark which was shortly after Greg hopped in, we had 3 laps on the field. So from there Greg kept a strong pace but kept his nose clean, and finished the race without a single scratch on the car, a pretty amazing feat for a four-hour race with 51 entrants and large time differences, so passing multiple cars on every single lap. The rest of the field did a great job in keeping their eyes out for the leaders, so we had a few scary moments but not too many. At the end, after four hours, we crossed start-finish over 6 laps ahead of the second-place car overall, and 11 laps ahead of the second car in class, the 944 of Greg Fordahl and Steve Haywood. So for the second year in a row, Greg took both first and second in the same class J.

-Jim Walsh

SCCA National Championship Runoffs

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:25:52 GMT

by Jim Walsh

Well, my first trip to the SCCA National Championship Runoffs at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kansas is over. I’m sitting in the airport waiting for a flight, with a silver medal in my carryon, and the second-place trophy in my checked bag. Woo hoo! 3.4 seconds off the top step of the podium, on my first visit to the Runoffs, so I can’t complain. It’s been a great year for the Live Search Porsche GT3 Cup, with 5 wins, 5 poles and 3 track records in 7 SCCA National races, a Divisional Championship, and capped off with a second place at the Runoffs.

Overall, including other series this year (SCCA Regional and Porsche Club), I’ve had seventeen races, fourteen poles, thirteen wins, and three second places. My only non-podium finish all year was a fourth place when I had contact with a (formerly) off-course car while leading the race, and I’ve had zero mechanical failures all year. It’s hard to imagine a more successful season.

I’d like to thank Bill Meyers and Bill Gail for the weather help, and Jeff Lin and Dave Sauntry for getting us in touch with them. Bill Meyers got up at an unreasonably early hour on the weekend to give us a personalized weather forecast, so we were confident running dry tires for the race, in some pretty threatening weather conditions, with a major storm passing us only a few miles to the west shortly before the race. He called my crew chief as I was in pregrid, and again at the start of the race, with fresh updates. I also need to thank my #1 fan, my wife Penny, my crew Greg Fordahl and Dave Welch, Sebastian Gard and the Live Search marketing team for giving me the best-looking car of the 700+ competing at the Runoffs, Yokohama Tire for awesome Advan tires and great support and advice throughout the entire year, and all my supporters who’ve helped in innumerable ways.

The 8:00am warmup was dry, but there was a threatening weather system on the radar. I was feeling good, feeling relaxed, went out to get the feel for the track and the car again, as it’d been three days since I was on track. With a 10 minute session, I only got 4 laps. Came in, took a fuel sample in to make sure we were clear, it came back fine, looked like the fuel testing problems from earlier in the week were solved. I heard from one of the fuel testers that a tank of contaminated fuel had been delivered early in the week which had caused a lot of the problems, but they didn’t overturn the DQ’s of all 5 unleaded fuel runners on Monday, so I’m not sure if that was a rumour or fact.

The race itself seemed to go by in a blur. On pole, was last year’s winner Wayland Joe, in another Porsche GT3 Cup, with Jim Goughary in a Nissan tubeframe to his left. The second row was Tom Patton, many folk’s choice for this year’s championship, in a tubeframe V8 Sunbeam Tiger that’s a monster on the straights, and has surprisingly good brakes and handling, and to his left Tony Rivera in a Panoz Esperante GTS. I started in 5^th place, on the right side of the third row, with Mark Plummer in another Panoz Esperante beside me. Behind me was Jeffrey Moore in a Porsche GT3 Cup, and behind him was Gerald Mason in a Nissan tubeframe car.

We had two pace laps, I worked hard to get heat into my tires and brakes – my Yokohama slicks have great grip and will last through the race if I don’t overheat them, but they’re pretty squirrely on the first lap or two before they’re up to temperature. The pace car turned into the pits, and we went around the last two corners onto the front straight, with my crewchief Greg Fordahl on the radio carefully watching the starter, who he knew had a tendency to throw the green early. GREEN GREEN GREEN on the radio and I got a good start, pulling away from Mark Plummer on my left and gaining on Rivera, but with the V8 in the Panoz he was beside me entering ‘Alpha’, the kink before turn 1. I saw Patton lift early, so I thought I might get a run down the inside, but when we crested the hill, Patton was only a few feet from the right edge of the track, no room to squeeze in, so I had to tuck in behind him. Rivera and Plummer in two Panoz’s kept in it, with Plummer trying to get between Patton on the right and Rivera on the left, but carrying more speed than both of them. I’m not sure if he locked up his brakes or not, but I think he tagged Rivera in the back right and definitely got Patton in the back left. I saw Patton spinning to the left, and Rivera spinning to the right in front of Patton’s car. I tucked to the far right edge of the track, with Rivera coming across sideways right in front of me. I tapped the brakes to avoid, and the outward momentum in the right-hander pulled Rivera back to the left, and I was by without a scratch, in third place!

Wayland and Goughary had gotten through cleanly in front of the melee, so I was 4 or 5 seconds back, with a bad run out of turn 2, but I hunkered down and worked on chasing down Goughary in his Nissan. Those tubeframe cars are awful fast, but I was thinking that with pressure on him, he might overdrive his tires. I didn’t know how banged up the three cars were, or whether they were back on course, as turn 1 is over the hill so my crew couldn’t see from pit lane. When it was announced over the P.A. that the three cars were off and heavily damaged, my crew was expecting a full-course yellow, which was finally thrown near the end of the second lap. We then had four very long laps behind the pace car, I was working constantly to keep the heat in my tires to get a good restart. Every time the pace car would come around the back part of the track, I’d be sure that the cars must have been pulled away by now, but it was turn down the front start to start another lap. Finally, the lights on the pace car were off, and we restarted, I expected Wayland Joe to take off as soon as he hit the front straight and not wait for the green flag, which is exactly what happened, but Goughary was right behind, and I was on Goughary’s heels, so we all had a good run when the green flew, with no chance for overtaking. I started pushing hard on Goughary, he was running fast for a few laps and I was working hard to keep up, but I stayed within a second or two of him the entire time. I finally got right on him and I could tell that his tires were starting to go, and he was starting to have problems keeping his line through the corners. I was relentless, trying to push him into making a mistake, and if that wouldn’t happen, into using his car up. It was clear that it was only a matter of time before I’d be able to make a move, but Heartland Park is a difficult track to pass on, and the spots I’d eyed as possible passing points can usually be readily defended, so I knew I might only have one chance to make a pass stick – otherwise I’d tip my hand in a particular corner, and not get that chance again. I wanted to be confident I’d be able to get fully alongside Goughary going into the corner, and I’d be able to make the pass stick, so I let him slow me down for a couple of laps, but I stayed hard on him, making him work hard, and I’d also turned my lights on to keep him distracted in his rear view mirror.

He was definitely slowing down in turns 1 and 8, the two fastest corners on the track, so I’d have to hang back a bit to get a run so I wouldn’t catch him too early in the corner. As we were heading down the front straight and through the kink, I saw smoke from his right side, looked like his engine was going! I slowed down as I didn’t want to get caught out in oil on the track (which often accompanies a blown engine), but the track looked dry. I got through fine, and I was now in second place! I kept it a little slower through there the next couple of laps in case there was a little oil on the track (there’s nothing worse that hitting oil, I’d spun in oil at 151mph at California Speedway last year, and it’s a totally helpless feeling), and this was the fasted point on the racetrack. I started pushing again, but as the laps wound down, it was clear I wouldn’t be able to catch Joe unless his car broke or he went off-track, so I backed off a bit to make sure I didn’t make a stupid mistake and throw away second place, as third was well behind me. I had a little miscommunication with my crew, and misunderstood the times they were giving me, and I didn’t realize that Moore was now closing on me by a couple of seconds a lap. I finally clued in when I saw him right behind me, with a lap and a half to go. Quick wakeup call! I couldn’t do a complete flyer as I had to take a defensive line entering corners, but keep my eyes on Moore in the corners to see if he was attempting a move. I managed to keep him behind me on the last lap, and when he didn’t dive for the inside in turn 14 heading onto the front straight, I knew I’d take the checkered for second. I crossed the line 3.4 seconds behind Joe (who’d also slowed his pace), with Moore about half a second behind me.

It was then a blur of directions from SCCA officials - pulling the car into a special area, getting an interview on Speed Channel, then off to the winner’s podium for interviews over the track P.A. system, medal presentations, trophy presentations, pictures with what seemed like a dozen different sponsor hats on, then champagne to spray on each other. After all this adrenaline, it was off to the technical impound building, where they took fuel samples from the top finishing cars, did some other misc inspections, and my crew chief and I sat around waiting, and waiting, and more waiting. I finally got word that there were some protests filed because of the first-lap incident, I was called to give a witness statement and a copy of my video to the officials, and then more waiting. I finally got word that the first two cars were free to leave Tech so positions one and two were final, but that the third place car had to stay. After heading out for lunch, packing up the transporter, watching a few races, I finally got a call at 4:33pm (about six hours after the end of the race) that the cars were free to leave tech. At 5:10pm, the results were official, with no changes resulting from all the protests etc. So I stopped by Driver’s Services, picked up the trophy and medal, and we all headed off for dinner, a well-earned beer, and a good night’s sleep.

So that’s it for the 2007 SCCA season. There are a couple other races left, including the Illgen 4-hour Enduro at Laguna Seca On October 27-28, where I’m the defending Production and overall winner (with co-driver Greg Fordahl), but I’m not sure yet if I’ll head out there to run it. The full race will be broadcast on Speed Channel on January 2^nd at 10:00am Pacific (1:00pm Eastern). Full schedule here.

Here’s a clip containing the race start through the first corner incident. The race results are at here with a lapchart (positions after each lap) here and the official race writeup here.

Jim Walsh