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Phoenix

Sun Automotive 200

22/04/2001

John Martin's

Saturday Notebook

A brief discussion with Dyson team manager Pat Smith: Why are you running your old R&S Mk. III here instead of the new Mk. III-C? "Our new Mk. III-C is for ALMS races only, as there is no easy way to change the new car to the wider roll-over hoop that Grand Am requires, then change it back again for Grand Am -- and if we left it with the wider roll-over hoop it would hurt the speed in the ALMS races. Also, with the older car, with its 5-speed gearbox, we get a slight intake-restrictor advantage over the newer chassis in the Grand-Am with 6-speed boxes."

Why did you enter the #20 car, then withdraw it? "Because at the last minute it turned out Rob Dyson wasn't going to be able to make it, so we just put the one [#16] car on the truck. EFR was very unhappy!" [Elliott Forbes-Robinson had been slated to be Rob Dyson's co-driver in the #20].

Finally, Smith said that he thought the #16 would be "in very good shape" regarding fuel mileage in the race.

Over in the Banana Joe's / Intersport section of the garage area, Jon Field was mulling over whether to start on the tires he'd used on Friday to qualify second-fastest, which he'd flat-spotted, or to put on new tires and start from the back of the field. In the belief that he'd only have to start behind the other Sports-Racing cars, he was leaning towards the new tires, but then upon learning that he'd have to go to the back of the entire field if he put on new tires, he wasn't so sure. [As it happened it was a decision he didn't have to make, as before the start the race was declared "wet" and he was able to start on the front row -- only to spin it all away on the first lap].

Field was still savoring his "victory" at Sebring -- he said he drove three consecutive stints at the end, including all of the dark hours, except for the last 20 minutes -- did the lack of the central headlight on the Lola slow him down in the dark? "No, because after a while you get into a rhythm driving around the track and the lack of the center light was not really a problem, and certainly not something worth stopping to fix." What put you so far behind at Sebring? "We had a rear shock absorber [damper] break -- the shock itself and not the mounting -- and we lost 6 to 8 laps fixing it. However, we really learned something by doing that, as we were forced to use a longer shock absorber as a replacement [on both sides presumably] and the car was much better and faster with the back end raised like that!"

When told that Pat Smith was confident on the fuel-conservation issue, Field snorted that "Pat Smith is always playing psychological games -- we run the SAME engine as he does in our #28 car, and I KNOW that the Dyson car will have to stop three times!"

Then some prophetic words from Oliver Gavin: "Jon always makes GREAT starts!" Would you rather have wet or dry conditions for the race? "I think we'll do well either in dry or full-wet conditions, but if it's in between it could be a problem for us."

From John-Sebastian Sauriol of the crew of the #78 Norma-Mader: "The engine is a four-liter V-8 built in Switzerland by Mader, based on a BMW engine. For some reason that I don't understand, Grand-Am is forcing us to run smaller air-intake restrictors than some 6-liter engines [perhaps because the Mader is a multi-valve dohc engine and the 6-liter engines are two-valve pushrod engines?] so right now it's not really competitive." So why are you using it? "We are expecting big improvements in the future!" Norma chassis designer-builder Norbert Santos was present to shepherd his car. Obviously the Norma people are interested in selling their chassis to other entrants.

I had a long discussion about production-racing rules with Jim Bell, owner of the #54 JET Motorsports BMW "M3" V-8: Regarding Porsche's opposition to the admittedly built-for-racing 4-liter V-8 engines used in the ALMS / ELMS BMW M3s, he pointed out that those cars conform to current ACO (and thus ALMS / ELMS) GT-class rules, but he expects that Porsche will try to put pressure on the ACO to ban them from Le Mans. In fact, he seemed quite bitter about the Porsche company's "political" attempts to maintain their dominance in the GT class. Furthermore, "the engine in our car is a 4.9-liter COMPLETELY stock BMW production engine, except for the con rods and pistons." What about getting around the controversy concerning your car by running your engine in a BMW 5-series 4-door chassis and calling it an M5? "The 4-door 5-series is too big and heavy for this type of racing, the only way it could work at all would be to move it up to the GTS class." Further, "the GT-3 Porsche is a purpose-built racing car, and nobody can buy one of them from the factory now because they've completely sold their production run of 21 cars. However, Tom Milner / PTG would be happy to sell you a car exactly like mine, as it's just one of the M3 chassis that he built and raced in the late '90s with the V-8 engine installed in place of the straight six -- Milner has three more of those M3 chassis for sale right now! Grand-Am can use air-intake restrictors and ballast weight to equalize my car and the Porsches."

Bell also seemed upset about the Mosler running in the GT class, which (according to him) is 250 lbs. lighter than his BMW, and yet has no air restrictors at all imposed on its 6-liter Chevy-based engine . . .