Formula First Racing Arizona

After last years snooze fest of a Formula 1 season, I have been quite entertained by this seasons action, we actually got to see some racing, the rule changes for this  year have made for some pretty good entertainment, especially when you compare it to the past few years, where all the racing was done in pit lane.

However, while last weeks German Grand Prix got off to a great start when Vettle tried to run Alonso into the wall and Massa slipped right by and took the 1st posistion . Massa ran a great race, until Alonso caught upto him with just 17 laps to go, Massa recieved a radio transmission from the team “Alonso is faster than you, do you understand?” As every F1 fan knows , team orders are illegal, but anyone who heard that knows these were team orders.

So, from the teams perspective I can understand that they want to win as a team, both the drivers championship as well as the constructors race. They are also concerned that if Massa and Alonso went wheel to wheel, there is a good chance they would take each other out and blow it completely. The fact that Alonso was leading Massa in the points race doesn’t change the fact that Massa was leading Alonso in the actual race. As a fan I want to see them race, as a driver, I could never consider letting anyone by (team mate or not). Needless to say I was pissed off when Massa was ordered to let him by.

Alonso is a 2 time world champ, and I can’t stand him, while I respect his ability, I don’t like the fact that he thinks everyone should just let him by, I have seen several instances where Alonso is behind someone even if it’s 2 seconds or more, he puts his hand up in disgust and can’t seem to fathom why the guy in front won’t just pull over and let him pass. It’s called “racing” Fernado, you remember, it’s what you did years ago as a rookie, you used to earn your wins!

So, team orders, legal or not are always going to exisit as long as the guys in  the front office look at racing from thier accountant’s point of view, but the driver just wants to win, he just wants to beat everyone including his team mates, and the fans want to see a great battle, plain and simple, I might have been able to accept this if, this was the last race and Massa had no chance of winning the big one, but Alonso could if he could finish first, but it was the mid point in the season and it’s anyone championship at this point. What Ferrrari did to Massa is just plain wrong, I would love it if the next time a driver hears ” he is faster than you, do you understand?”, that drivers reply is: ” yup, and it looks like it’s gonna be one hell of a good race to the finish line!”

 My hat is off to Massa for his loyalty to the team, but I would have loved to see them race, I don’t think Alonso could have won if he had to race Massa for it, but it would have been quite a battle none the less, unfortunately we will never know.

JKFITZ

Hi:

Good to see you folks are running formula firsts. We are not too far away that we can’t get together for a race or two. We have two formula firsts running with SCCA Calclub both of them being purpose built Formula First “Evolution” cars we bought through SR Racing. We also run with VARA as an exhibition class from time to time. VARA has a race in Las Vegas later in the year that might be easier to tow to for all concerned.  We could make this an annual event. Any interest?

I would like to post a pic of my car but do not know how. Can you help?

Lou LeBlanc, La Canada CA  (LA area) 818 399-3802 (cell)

Well I managed to get thru an entire weekend without blowing anything up!  The car ran pretty good on the new motor. Tim, Greg and I were the only ones who showed up and it seems that Greg has his car pretty much tuned up and running great. We all had very close races all weekend long, I was struggling with the front tires, Tim had problems with the motor mount setup (or lack thereof) and Greg was just plain fast all weekend!

On Saturday’s main race I was out qualified by both Tim and Greg, I managed to get around Greg early on and finally caught Tim, we went back and forth several times during that race and close to end, Tim was leading and developed oil pressure problems and pulled out of the race ( I am not sure I could have beaten him any other way, he was on fire!).  I finished  first with Greg not far behind.

Sunday morning practice session started out with Tim and I going at it again, swapping the lead several times until another oil problem forced Tim into the pits, Greg once again had faster lap times than either Tim or I.  Tim’s problems got worse when we discovered the cracks in the frame near the rear, the motor had no forward mount, which caused the wheels to hop when braking hard. That caused the frame to tear, in fact one hard bump and that car would have been in 2 separate pieces. About the only holding the front half to the back half was shift linkage and a few wires.

The next 2 sessions I got consistantly worse, I was trying to figure out why my car would bog down coming out of the turns, it turns out that all I needed was decent front tires, I could then carry more speed into the corners and in turn get out smoother and faster. I guess I was so leary of the new motor that I overlooked the obvious!

The qualifying race was my worst session yet. I started out ok, but the lost a plug wire on #3. After a quick pit stop i was back on, and 1 lap down, I came on just behind Greg but because of the crappy tires, all I could do was watch Greg get farther and farther away, He absolutely destroyed me in that race.

The Feature Race: Tim let me borrow his front tires (the Goodyear guys packed up early on Sunday…and I am still a bit pissed off about that), Greg started 3 cars ahead of me, and worked as hard as I could to finally catch him 4 laps later. I passed him on the inside of the carosel, he hounded me for a few laps and then I spun comming out of the carosel and watched Greg fly right by! I figured that was it for me, but I pressed on any way and finally caught Greg again 4 laps later (traffic helped quite a bit), We were flying into the chicane, when Greg lost it and went off, all I could see was dirt and rocks, Greg’s car had completely dissapeared and I wasn’t sure which direction he was headed. I went way right and we ended up side by side on the other side of the chicane, I had the inside line going into the carosel and I kept my foot in it, just barely slipping into first, Greg was all over me thru the back section, once I was back on the straight, Greg was no where in sight. I turns out that Greg’s right rear tire went flat (probably because of the chicane incident), and he was out of the race! Too bad, because that was one of the best races yet! There is no telling who would have won if that tire had not gone flat! But hey, that’s racing!

And here is the best part, our lap times were in the low 1:07’s and only 3/10 apart!

I have a whole new level of respect for Greg, it turns out that all he needed was a car that handles half way decent!

The race for the championship for 2009 is going to be a long hard battle, It will be the toughest year yet, and whoever wins it will have truly earned it. It is anybodys race at this point, the cars are pretty much even, as are the drivers. I am looking forward to next month’s race, I have no doubt that it will be an exciting weekend filled with very close races!

Thanks again to Tim and Greg for making this best racing weekend yet! I am looking forward to many close battles!

-Fitz

Tell us about your recent racing weekend.

January’s Race Weekend Recap…..

Well what can I say, this past weekend didn’t quite work out as planned. Geno was going to test drive the Silver car, race all weekend and hopefully like it so much that he would just have to buy it, unfortunately the car failed to start on the first session, and Geno ended up injuring his right arm and would be unable to drive that weekend. It turned out to be a bad ground strap on the battery.

My car ran pretty good for 2 sessions, since the motor was just rebuilt, I was planning to take it easy on Saturday, then give the car a quick tuneup (re-torque the heads, adjust the valves, timing, jetting etc. ) on Sunday a.m. , and then race as usual all the rest of the day . Then during the qualifying race, 3 laps in, I hear a slight ticking sound, wasn’t sure what was, maybe the cowling was rattling , or something like that, then 2 seconds later, while decelerating I felt a heavy knock in the motor, I pushed in the clutch the motor died and I rolled into the hot pit area. I knew it was probably going to be bad, but since it wasn’t bleeding I had some hope. After removing the rear cowl, we spotted the problem…a huge hole on the top of my new motor. Now normally this would be the end of the weekend for me, but since Geno wasn’t going to drive the silver car, I decided to use that for the rest of the weekend.

For Saturdays main race I drove the silver car. I had never driven that car so I was surprised to find out that it was a handful ! Even on the warm up lap, there were very bad vibrations in the front wheels, but I decided to run it at speed for a lap or 2 and see whats up with it. I would get bad vibes decelerating and braking going into the turns, the tower turn was the worst, but somehow it seemed to corner pretty good once the car settled down. I would also get vibrations from the rear of the car at top speed as well. Needless to say, it was all I could do to get a high 1:18 in that race ( should be around 1:11) . I used that race more as a test session to study the car, and try and figure out what was going on with it. During the first few laps I was going fairly slow and cautiously when John Piggott slipped by. He was driving his 1200 Vee, and even though I was troubleshooting the car, I have this defect that does not allow me to turn down a race! But since I was driving a car that was considerably faster than his, I decided that I would not use the long straight to over take him, I would keep whatever distance we entered the straight with and try to beat him in the turns…. this proved to be a major challenge. Even though this was J.P.’s first official race, he drove that little Vee quite well! I spent the next 7 laps struggling to close the distance between us, when the white flag dropped, he was still 3 or 4 car lengths ahead of me going into turn 1, by 2 I was right up on him, at turn 3 we were side by side, neither of us backing down, race on! I finally slipped by on the outside just before turn 4, J.P. fought back hard all the way to the checkered flag, but I managed to finish just a few feet ahead of him! And even though the car was the worst thing I had ever driven, that was a really fun race!!!

Sunday morning we worked and tweaked on the car, made adjustments, changed wheels and tires, by the qualifying race, it still wasn’t perfect but it was considerably better, by the 4th lap I started to feel more comfortable with the car and started to push it a bit harder, I only had problems braking into the tower turn and a vibration around 60mph but it smoothed out after that. The car was feeling pretty good, I was sailing thru the back section and just when things were looking good, a hear huge knock, and a ton of smoke spews from the motor, just like that, my day is done.

I managed to blow an even bigger hole thru the top of this motor! Needles to say this will be the most expensive 2 days I have ever spent doing anything.

I stayed and watched the final race, Greg and J.P. were the only ones left in the class, Greg had problems with the suspension early on and was unable to be competetive, he ran the entire race anyway ( a true racer) . J.P. did exceptionally well, I watched from the bridge and could see the entire track (except the tower turn). John was very smooth and drove the line quite well. I have to say, he is going to be very serious competetion once he gets his FST! John Piggott takes first place in his first feature race at Firebird main, Congratulations John!!!

Now, despite the fact that I blew up 2 motors, cost myself a lot of money and didn’t get to race every session ( not to mention, Didn’t sell the silver car either). It was easliy the worst race weekend I have ever had, but it was still better than the best day I have ever had at work!!!

Thanks to Geno, Scotty, Gregg, Mauricio, J.P., Ron, Tom, C.K., Kurt, Nick and everyone else who helped out this past weekend, despite the troubles, you all made it fun!!!

See You All Next Month,

Fitz

P.S. I have a smokin deal on a silver FST!