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Montreal Diary
Sep 4, 2009It had been over 5 years since I had raced at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. I would have to go back almost 50 races & almost all the way to my first race in a profressional series to the last time I raced in Montreal. It was in the Canadian Formula Ford series. At that time I could only dream of getting to drive in the 'big cars' or the features series at those events. Aug 29th, Montreal 200 would be my first time racing at the highest level of sports cars on Canadian soil. It was a victory before the race even started.
Every track is known for something. At the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve it's how hard it is on the cars' braking system. In just one lap in the Daytona Prototypes we slow down more than 160 km/h (100mph) four times. Because those four brake zones also happen to lie on four consecutive corners we wear through the brakes even quicker by creating such a large heat cycle in such rapid succession.
In racing your car's set up is everything. And in endurance racing, strategy is just as important. That said, Friday was a sunny dry day and our only day to set up the car for Saturday's race, which forecasted 70-100 percent showers. Our first obstacle on Friday was understanding the brakes, the wear rates and find a balance with the different compunds of brake pads. Heat is the biggest factor in braking, too little and there is not enough stopping power, too much and the brake pads wear out quickly. If you choose the wrong brake pad you either loose lots of time under braking or run the risk of the brakes failing mid-race creating major problems.
Mid-day I was chosen to qualify the car, which meant I would also start the race. We made some fairly large set-up changes to the car going into the 15 minute qualifying session, which is rare, but the gamble paid off. Though the qualifying session itself was a bit of a struggle--we qualified 12th, two-tenths of a second quicker and I would have started 10th--the changes pointed us in a better direction and we were able to further develop that set-up in the final 1 hour warm-up session on Friday.
Come Saturday so did come the rain. Ten minutes before the start of the race, as cars were pushed onto the pre-grid, the clouds pushed the rain down on us. Luckily, right before they dropped the green flag, race officials allowed all of the cars to go through the pits and change to rain tires. With the added grip from the wet tires I made a good jump on the start. I held my position around the first corner and passed a driver into the next. On the exit of that corner I avoided a car spinning across the track to gain another position. A few corners later I drove down the inside of another car. At that point I had no idea what position i was in, but knew it had been an aggressive start. By the end of lap one I was in 7th position.
Almost as quickly as the clouds came in they disapeared and with all of the cars running around the track dried quickly. By lap 5 cars were beginning to come into the pits to have the dry tires put on. Our engineer made the call and we changed over too. The track remained dry for the next 30 or so laps while I was able to hold position & run laps times within a second of the leaders.
On lap 34 the rain began again. This time it wasn't a down pour but spot showers, which is worse because the track is unpredictable. Each corner could range anywhere from bone dry to soaking wet and changing every lap. Most of the field including us were still running on slicks making the wet corners extremely slippery. It wasn't very long before a car spun causing, amazingly, the only full course yellow of the day. We took that opportunity to do our driver change and get Ricky in the car.
With the yellow still out, the rain stopped and the track started drying out. 4 laps after the re-start the rain came back, this time with more force, which forced the field to pit for rain tires.
Ricky drove ten laps in soaking conditions running times as quick as the leaders. Then the rain stopped and as the track started to dry teams began switching back to slick tires, hoping for the advantage once the track fully dried. Our engineer made the call to keep Ricky out on the wets and risk being one of the last cars to switch. We were in 5th place. Just as the times between the cars on slick tires began to equalize with those running on wets it started pouring. It was perfect. All the cars on the slick tires--including two of the leaders-- had to come in and switch tires again, which allowed us to move into podium position.
Our engineer called it perfectly. With only eight minutes remaining in the race we were in 2nd place... and then the windshield wiper motor failed. At first it was not the most damaging of problems, but as Ricky came up on the slower GT cars, the spray they kicked up left him with almost zero visibility.
He held the #12 Penske car off for a while but eventually the visibility edge gave way to our 2nd position. From there the only way for Ricky to see the track was to follow the slower GT cars' brake lights, which slowed him down by eight seconds a lap and allowed the #99 Gainsco car to quickly gain ground on us. On the second to last lap the #99 car managed to make the pass and take 3rd position.
It was a very brave drive by Ricky in those closing stages with the visibilty issues and a great day all around for the Beyer Racing team. Compared to such famous racing teams as Penske and Ganassi and the very accomplished Suntrust and Gainsco racing teams, the fact that on this day the rookie team of Beyer Racing was able to run with the big boys and take 4th position is a great testament to the team, the preparation and the strategy put forth. Great work guys!
Dynacor Media