Welcome, Race Fans, to Round 4 of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge!
Thursday, June 4.
This warm weekend finds us surrounded by the gently rolling hills of Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Mansfield, Ohio for the O'Reilly Auto Parts 4 Hours of Mid-Ohio. We are on the cusp of summer with the higher temps and potential for storms that brings.
We have been checking the weather compulsively several times a day for the last week waiting to see what the rain is thinking. Initially, it considered coming down all four days before concentrating its efforts on Saturday afternoon. It’s planning to be in the low 80’s, with light breezes all weekend. We shall have to wait and see if it changes its mind.
This time, our series is the headliner event. That gives us the luxury of the first sessions being later in the day, but that is balanced by increasing the wait time to get going for the drivers and crew. Tech times and sessions for CSM's VP Challenge car are still early, so everyone still has the long days here. This gives us lots of time to converse, share stories and reacquaint with friends. Of course, there’s the track walk too, giving the drivers their first look at this weekend’s state of the circuit.
Our first practice is Friday at 3:25 PM EDT for an hour. The team and drivers are pretty confident that the set up will be quite close to optimal for tomorrow afternoon. Second practice is Saturday at 10:45 AM, again for an hour. Qualifying, rolling off at 4:30 PM, carries the highest likelihood of rain and lightning.
Sunday brings the autograph session, fan walk, and the main event when we get the 4-hour race. The green flag flies at 12:15 PM. We are hoping for the coolest temps and pleasant cloud cover during the race.
This weekend Morgan and Gordon are joined by Madeline again. Look for them in the #2 white/black/green CSM Porsche. Everyone is psyched and in good spirits! Wish us lots of luck and follow live timing here.
Friday, June 5.
Dawn is pink and the dew silvers freshly mown grass. Cows graze knee deep in mist and the sheep are still huddled together in their field. It's a lovely drive to the track through the farmlands of central Ohio. The breeze advances to a light wind. It's enough to ruffle the flags and keep the air in the paddock moving. It also brings in puffy clouds to keep us cool. We see pit lane master, Johnny Knox, and when he asks how we are, I answer "Fabulous!" Of course it is - it's a racetrack and nothing has happened yet. The day is full of promise.
While we await Morgan's turn on the track, there is still much to do. The other car under the CSM umbrella this weekend is the VP Fuels #25 with Ismaeel Ellahi at the wheel. Everyone is here to support him as he prepares for his first practice, also the first session of the day. It's the first feel of the track condition and as expected, it's not great yet. As more sessions go out there, the cars clear the dust and lay more rubber down on the line, increasing the grip. That is offset a bit with rising temperatures, but if the clouds hang around, the pavement won't get really heated as it does in full sunshine.
There's a long lunch period in the schedule today. It's oddly quiet for two hours with only generators and air tools to carry the song of the racetrack through the interlude. We have great shade with the two cars in garages and the hauler directly across. The tables in the shade under the lift gate are a perfect place to hang out, have lunch, and catch up on things.
By the time that Practice 1 finally rolls around, the wind has picked up and we have peak temps for the day. It's more sun than clouds now, but at least the wind keeps us cooler. Unfortunately, that same wind keeps trying to move stuff around and shakes the pop up canopies pretty hard. This time, we get to lay out all our equipment to suit our preference this weekend since we aren’t sharing a WeatherTech box. Still, it takes a little bit to get the flow of activity worked out, just like always.
The pit lane is quite cozy. OK, it's really pinched for space. We have a full field this weekend with 46 cars, 30 in our class. If the the boxes behind or ahead of us are occupied when we want to pit, entries and exits are much harder. Extra vigilance is needed to ensure the car stops just right in the box and we keep close control of all the equipment and tires and people over the wall. Errors in the pits are the source most of the penalties during a weekend.
Morgan takes the first stint and does a few uneventful laps. When Madeline takes over, the crew practices a tire change just to check that placement and flow. She gets the big middle part of the hour. Gordon goes in to finish the hour off. While many teams got penalties for various violations, it bodes well for us that we had a clean hour all around.
One of the best things about this team is that we have a very friendly and strongly supportive atmosphere. Everyone helps each other do well and enjoy the ride. So, we will be back tomorrow, bright and early to support Ismaeel in his qualifying session. After that, Morgan, Gordon and Madeline go out for Practice 2 at 10:45 AM. Have your timing page ready to go!
Saturday, June 6.
No dewy fields or bright sunshine this morning. Instead, the sky is trying to work out its plan for the morning. We see blue sky, tall puffy clouds, and the flat dark grey of rain all at once. The questions are where, when, how much and how long. Cuz it’s gonna rain!
Qualifying for Ismaeel on the VP car is at 8:50. Rain before, during or after? My guess is all three, but with enough dry mixed in to be extra complicated. It gets to be a real skill test when you go out on a slightly damp track with dry tires to bank a lap quickly the best you can and then the rain starts. Then you have to just hang on or give it up because there’s probably no time left to change, and no point either. No one goes faster in the wet.
And yes - the weather did all three things. Now we just compulsively refresh the radar and forecast to see what Morgan’s car will get for P2 at 10:45. Is the rain band building or dissipating? Which way is it moving? Is it getting too flashy or noisy? The sprinkles come and go all morning. And we watch.
The cars still kick up the spray as Practice 2 begins with Morgan buckled into the seat. That should clear quickly, at least until the next rain band arrives. The track does dry out with each lap taken, and the times drop accordingly. Morgan hops in and out, checking various things related to running in the rain. He's is the first one to crack into the 1:34 range and then it's time to change drivers. He's just into the pit lane when there's a red flag called for someone off course and not moving away quickly enough - good timing for us! We do a driver change and make adjustments. When we go green again, Madeline takes her turn. It's drying pretty fast and we bring her back in to take dry tires. All the while, we are watching that heavy dark sky creep ever closer. Will we or won't we get the full time on track?
That's answered 38 minutes into the session. The weather has closed on us, bringing that flashy lightning inside the safe radius and replacing the rumble of engines with the rumble of thunder. We've been getting regular updates tracking it and now we get the call to shut down and take shelter. We button up everything as fast as we can and scurry through the downpour back to the garage and trailer. Every time there's another strike inside the radius, the clock resets to a new 30 minute hold on everything. It goes on long enough that IMSA does not restart our Practice session - the lightning has robbed Gordon of any laps today. Once the front edge moves through, we get the part of the rain that's going to settle in and be around for quite a while. Word is that we will take up the VP Race 1 beginning at 1:00. It is likely to remain wet throughout the 45-minute race. We all root big for Ismaeel!
Weather definitely has a mind of its own. The fat band of rain that I thought was going to hang around for the whole VP race only lasted about 15 minutes into it. The rest dissipated entirely. That gave Ismaeel the huge challenge of keeping his rain tires cool and happy enough to go the distance. He did a great job! From his 5th position to start, he made calculated choices and moved up two spots to stand on the podium. It’s worth the watch!
The rain forecast for the afternoon decided it wasn’t in a hurry to arrive, so we ended up with a dry qualifying session. Madeline turned her best lap of the weekend so far in this session. She will start tomorrow in 20th.
It’s all racing tomorrow, kicking off with Ismaeel in VP at 8:00. Mustang Challenge goes at 9:05 with Mazda MX5 Cup wrapping up the support races at 10:10. Our 4-hour race gets the green at 12:15. We may have the best weather of the weekend for it too. Nice breeze, some clouds, no rain and only about 80 degrees. Watch it on Peacock TV or YouTube. And of course, root for a good race!
Sunday, June 7.
We are on the way even earlier this morning. The sun is working on climbing the trees, but its glow only makes the fog orange. The closer we get to the track, the thicker the blanket becomes until the sun is just a bright area in the sky. This fog is not a surprise after the downpour and light show last night. We missed most of that being sound asleep.
It deepens a bit more before it begins to lift at last. Fortunately, it didn’t even delay the start of racing. It may be still nearly sodden in the grass, but it’s a dry on the track today and that’s helpful. The glare from the low sun angle is bad enough without the reflection off wet pavement. Ismaeel gets off to a good start from 6th in the VP Race 2. Again, he moves up a couple spots and puts on another good show with a tight battle for 2nd to 4th places. That is given extra life with a restart in the last third of the race. It’s hard to make a pass work though, and at the checker he’s in 4th. It was a good run!
Morgan, Gordon and Madeline have done their driver change practice. Next up for them is an autograph session at 10:30 and the fan walk begins at 11:20. John and I will miss much of that this time. We will get a glimpse of it as we speed by the pits during the IMSA hot laps. Yeah - we scored tickets for that sweet ride in a Porsche! It’s a great day indeed!
I get the first go in the Porsche 911 driven by Tim, who also is the pace car driver for this event. Upon release from pit out, I’m pressed into the seat and he’s snapping up through four gears by the time we exit Turn 1. While I have been around this track before, it was only at the sedate speeds of flaggers on the way to station. This is entirely different and so much more of a thrill! We use a little exit curbing coming out of the Keyhole and rocket down the long start straight. We are in excess of 140 mph when we brake for China Beach. Rising and leaning hard up through Madness and dropping into the technical twisty part of the track, the tires scream and the back end dances. This pure joy is over all too quickly and I have to pass it to the next person alight with anticipation. We missed most of the fan walk, but it’s clear that they were having a good time out there!
For the race, we have extra stuff packed into the already cramped pit box. There are extra coolers, toolboxes and sets of tires. We also have a couple barrels of fuel along with another table for everyone’s gear and the lunchboxes and snacks. With the VP racing all finished, we have that crew on hand to help out too. It’s tricky to find a good spot to stand while waiting for crew action to occur with hoses, tires and feet everywhere. We can barely see the track, catching only a peek through heads and canopy poles as the cars come through the carousel onto the finish straight. There, we can see only the from the mirrors up as they flash by us and they are gone around Turn one in moments. The one video screen shows the ten camera shots around the track, weather and the TV feed all in small boxes. The engineers and strategists bob back and forth between that screen and the ones with the timing data and predictive tools. Even though I’m surrounded by data, it still feels like an information desert with the limited views.
When the green flag flew on the field, Madeline had a decent start, staying away from the first lap issues and gaining several spots. We were able to extend her stint to just over an hour and were on the lead lap when it was time for Gordon to hop in. He also went long, again very nearly an hour, but went a lap down before it was Morgan’s turn. Unfortunately, he ran out of fuel on the pit lane before reaching the box. That complicated the pit stop and the beginning of Morgan’s stint. The cars doesn’t like it when it runs out of fuel and it was running rather poorly on the first lap, causing Morgan to spin. He was able to cycle the car off and on again to reset it and get going, but it put us even further back. Still, his pace was quite good from that point onward and he was making up ground very effectively.
Making any kind of pass is difficult because it usually requires you to go offline to do it. That’s where the dirt and marbles (rolled up bits of tire rubber) collect making the grip out there bad, especially so deep into the race. With two cars in the tight turns leading onto the finish straight, Morgan chose not to argue to keep the place with the bodywork, taking the dirty line instead. He ended up slipping off the pavement and running much of the way down the straight in the wet grass where it is quite bumpy. He was just starting to come back onto the asphalt when a bad bump pitched him sideways and threw him quite hard into the guardrail at Turn 1. Morgan did get it stopped clear of the course, but our race was definitely over. We are grateful to the AMR rescue crew for being on the scene immediately and bringing Morgan and the car back to safety.
So now, we rest up and reflect on events so that we can move forward with strength and resilience. The amazing CSM crew will get the car race ready for the upcoming event. It’s in these moments that the racing family is most appreciated. The kind words and encouragement are a healing balm. Hang in there! We have so many more races yet to come this year! We will be ready to go again at Watkins Glen on July 27.
Check out the Schedules.
Photo credits to Sasha Guinot, Jason Ramirez, Beth Burkhard.
