First of all, I didn’t have a chance to take any pics (Im trying to get some from one of the other people that was there). Ill try to post some up if/when I get them.
I went down on Friday afternoon to help crew for Berg Racing’s two ITS Mazda Miatas. John, the owner of Berg Racing, qualified 2nd behind a ITE 325i BMW. We had a great team of people from all across the country. We had crew from CT, NJ, NY, TX , Mass etc. Several of which were flown in for the race.
It was my first time really crewing at any race so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I went to the Glen with them for a sprint race, but didn’t do much other than change wheels, and rear brakes on one car between qualifying runs.
Anyway, after a few stops I finally got over the wall and helped to change tires, yank drivers in and out etc. It was definitely exciting trying to be as fast, safe, and efficient as possible. We went pretty much incident free until one of our crew (who went out for a stint at around 2am) went off in the carousel trying to let our other driver by at like 3am. Luckily he was able to get back on the track under his own power and back to the pits. There we had to swap in a new driving light off the spare car, pull the left fender off the tire with the big slide hammer and racer tape the front bumper cover back in place. It was definitely the craziest part of the whole nite and was definitely a wake up call at a time when I had been up for 20 hours already.
After that I managed to nap a few times between the two car’s driver and fuel stops for maybe a total of 3.5 hours. Then at 6am we had to do front brake pads, check wheel bearings etc. Another guy and I did the front pads. Nothing like changing HOT pads after two hours of straight abuse on the track. We fueled, changed driver, four tires and front pads in 5 minutes. Apparently pretty fast as the rest of the experienced crew was quite pleased.
Both of our cars were running in the top 5 or 6 the entire day. By 4am maybe, the BMW was way out in front (perhaps 25 or more laps at this point if I recall correctly) as they were consistently 2-4 sec a lap faster than basically everyone depending on driver etc. Then at around 4am they had to replace a fuel pump in their fuel cell. The fixed it on pit row and back out in 15-20 min. We gained a few laps on them (perhaps the gap down to 10) but they were still way ahead and now running strong again. Also there was another ITE Miata that we were contending with I believe in 2nd. Then around 7 am the BMW crashed hard in turn 3, the driver (actually the owner of Moroso Motorsports Park I believe) looped the car, went backwards into and up onto the tires and up onto the nose of the car before falling back on its wheels. They dragged the car back to the garage and managed to get it driveable in an hour or two. However, they were soon back to the pits and were done for the night. Im not sure what finally did them in but something just wasn’t right.
At the end of the 24 hours we ended up in first and second place in ITS and second and fourth overall. We nearly reeled in the ITE Miata, but we just ran out of time and laps. I believe we finished a half a lap down.
I believe we turned nearly a 1000laps, or 2000miles. We used at least 24 Kumho tires on the two cars (Im still not sure if that’s how many we bought at the track, or how many we used total) and 4-500 gallons of gas, which took quite a few trips to the local gas station with our 55 gal jug and several 5 gal cans. I think we all drank a couple hundred gallons of water, gatoraide, and coffee. We were treated pretty well with two catered lunches and a catered dinner, yum!
All in all it was a great experience and I cant wait to go down to VIR in November and help to crew the 13 hour there. Apparently I did well enough (actually one of our top crew guys was shocked it was my first race) to be more than welcomed back.[FONT=Wingdings]J[/FONT]
Im sorry if this doesn’t all flow well or make great sense but Im still exhausted from the long weekend
Dan