After some good results in the heat races, the PCMS racing team finished a disappointing 14th due to some bad racing luck. But as the say, the results don't always tell the whole story. While we did not finish where we wanted, we did have some good heat races, worked well together, ran safe races, did not damage the car, had a great time, and helped a good cause. So all and all, the day was a success.
The CART division that PCMS competed in had a total of 17 teams. Based on the luck of the draw, the PCMS team started the 4 heat races in 9th, 1st, 17th, and 8th place. A team's best 3 results in the heat races determine the starting position for the final championship race. The heat races are 10 laps long and the championship race is 15 laps long. Each race has a manditory pit stop complete with a driver change and single tire change. Each lap typically takes just over a minute to complete.
Heat 1
Drivers Chris, Pat
After a starting in 9th position, Chris had a great first lap putting him in into 6th position at the end of the lap. A minor spin in the wet hairpin drops him back 8th place. Chris buckles down and starts regaining his lost positions. Between passes, taking advantage of other people's misfortune, and other teams pitting, Chris works his way up to 2nd place. On his last lap before the pit stop, the hairpin once again bites Chris. Between that and the pit stop, Pat takes the car back out in 9th place. Pat drives a clean second half of the race, getting into 8th place for two laps, before getting passed on the last lap, putting him back in 9th at the finish.
Heat 2
Drivers Mark, Glen
In race 2, we have the pressure of starting on the pole position, in 1st place. Once again, we have a race of ups and downs. We lose a position on the first lap, and several more to trouble in the wet hairpin. After the pit stop, Glen goes out in 9th place, and works his way back up to 7th place.
Heat 3
Drivers Andy, Pat
Starting in last place, Andy has no where to go but up. His plan is to drive clean and take advantage of other people's spins and wrecks to gain places. On the first lap, after the predictable first turn pile up, Andy picks up several positions, between that and a pass in the dry hairpin, Andy is in 10th position at the end of the first lap. By steadily working his way through other team's wrecks and some selected passes, he works his way into position 2 for the pitstop. After a fast pitstop, Pat leaves the pits in 4th place. A clean pass gives Pat a 3rd place finish, our best yet for the day.
Heat 4
Drivers Chris, Mark
After a good finish, the team is pumped up. Chris takes out the car first, starting in 8th place and starts moving up through the field. He is in 5th at the end of the lap 1, in 4th at the end of lap 2, and in 2nd at the end of lap 4. Our pitstop is fast, less than 9 seconds, and we only lose one position on the stop. Mark drives a clean race, but is not able to close the gap to the next car. We finish in 3rd. place.
Championship Race
Drivers Andy, Glen
Our best finishes of 7th, 3rd, and 3rd, give us a starting position of 3rd place. Unfortunately, this will be our best position of the race. After some light wheel banging, Andy loses a position in the hair pin on the first lap. This unfortunately set a pattern for the start of the run. Andy has trouble getting a clean run through the wet hairpin, and between that and some aggressive passes by other teams, Andy loses several more positions and is down to 8th place. On lap 6, the team signals for mid race driver change, Andy completes that lap, and goes into the dry hairpin turn getting ready to turn into the pits when disaster strikes.
The Amgen team rams PCMS once, and then a second time in the turn. The second time their front tire wedges into the rear of the PCMS kart, hooking the karts together. Andy looks back to see the karts hooked together and tries to shake Amgen loose by swerving back and forth as he dives into pit road. Andy thinks the karts are freed up as he turns into his pit stall. As he slides through his pit, Andy realizes that not only is the Amgen car still attached, the Amgen driver is keeping his foot on the gas, not letting the two karts stop. The hooked up karts go back onto the track, and through turn one, the wet hairpin, before track officials convince the confused Amgen driver to take his foot off of the gas, and onto the brake. It turns out that the wheel of the Amgen kart is tangled up in the throttle cable of the PCMS kart, which makes it difficult to free the karts from each other, and the PCMS team loses 2 laps to the field.
With the karts freed up, Andy jumps back into the kart which is apparently no worse for the wear, finishes the lap, turning the kart over to Glen. While we have a fast (9.5) second pitstop, we are laps down from the leaders. We finish in 14th place out of 17 teams, ahead of Amgen, Andersen Consulting, and one other team.. WKRC, Channel 12 was the race winner.
Race Wrapup
I'd like to thank the team drivers, Pat Mefford, Glen Meredith, Mark Lander, and Chris Smith for their efforts this year. All first time drivers, they drove clean races, made fast pit stops (8 - 12 seconds), and were a great bunch of guys to team up with. I'd like to thank Meshell Giblin for handling the promotional details, the shirts and car graphics look great. Thanks to Danny Brown for helping organize the practice and the banquet competition.
And special thanks to Mark Frankovic, our primary sponsor, for footing the bill once again for this fun charitable event.
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| A new name and new graphics. A look at the car before it goes out to do battle. | ||
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| Some teams take the event more seriously than others. Tide has multiple sets of team uniforms, and a special body just for practice day. | Friday practice takes place at the Comair hanger at the Cincy airport. | Mark Lander, calm, cool, collected. |
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| Glen looks like he is taking this pretty seriously... Lets take a closer look. | Yup, he's serious. | Chris gets ready to start the first race. |
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| He is through the first turn safely, and the race is underway. | You can tell that this is early in the day for channel 12 WKRC, they still have one wing left. Despite some body damage (maybe because of it) WKRC won the CART division at the end of the day. | Pat takes over from Chris in race 1 |
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| Mark, ready to start in pole position in Race 2 | Turn 1, lap 1 is always an adventure | I hear you knocking, but you can't come in. |
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| Glen takes over from Mark. | Yep, he's serious. | We start race 3 in last (17th) place, and it is pileups like this that allow us to move up to 2nd before our pitstop. |
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| Pat squeezes into the car to take over from Andy during a fast pit stop, around 8 seconds. | Unfortunately, its not fast enough, and KMK flashes by into 3nd spot before we are done. One car in front of us pits later, and we claim a 3rd place finish. | Another exciting and successful race, we move from 9th to 3rd with Chris and Mark driving. |
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Click here for an MPEG movie of the champ race pitstop. (large file, 3.4 meg) |  |
| Our champ race pitstop, after we free ourselves of the Amgen car. | Not a bad pitstop, in and out in around 9 seconds. Our best was around 8. | Nothing left to do but wait. |
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| The 2001 PCMS Datafit Race Team | ||
