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Byron Fergusson is an archer of great skill. He shoots something like 40000 arrows a year, and is able to pick an aspirin out of the air with an arrow fired from a 75 pound pull recurve bow.

The target he’s sighting at is thrown by someone, against a backdrop (so there is contrast helping him). However, it’s still smaller than the end of the thing he’s launching. It is truly uncanny.

I’ve read that the way he describes the shot is a BIG mindgame. He sees the shot from the arrow’s point of view, in his head. He tries to become the arrow, as it is fired. It’s pretty zen for someone that was not raised in that tradition. He described looking at the aspirin and seeing it as more volley ball sized, and thus easier to hit.

Think about that for a sec: This guy is forcing his mind into a hallucination in order to allow his body to make a near-impossible shot.

I wonder if we do the same with the sensation of speed in a car?

I’ve described before the slowness of speed. When you have plenty of time to do anything you need to, as if a half second lasts many times longer. It’s just a matter of fooling your mind and body into doing what needs to get done in a very short time.

Mostly, we are not used to speed. Back in the old days, folks thought that going 60 mph would rip the skin off your face. A 30 mph train was FAST. As we’ve advanced, we have grown used to 60 mph, and most folks feel comfortable enough to talk on the phone or even eat, put on makeup, and so forth. Now, 120 mph feels fast to most folks, and in the future I’m sure that bar will move ever onwards.

Race drivers are a step beyond that. I believe that they are slowing down their perception of time in order to cope with the events around them.

I can also say it’s pretty cool.

So Byron Fergusson sees an aspirin the size of a volley ball, and we see a 100 mph turn evolve in slow motion. I rest when I hit the straightaway, and I enter that straight at over 100. At the end, I’m 150 or so, and finishing checking the instruments, tightening my harness, flexing my hands, and settling in my seat for the next turn. It’s leisurely, at least now.

It’s amazing what your mind is capable of, when you train it.

It’s shocking how much we are afraid.
I feel as if for the last eight years, I’ve been told that the Bad Things were at every door. Terrorists. Chinese. Mexicans (we’re building a border fence ferchrissakes!). And so on, and on. Every news broadcast reveals that there are predators behind every bush, waiting to steal our children away. Well, perhaps not every broadcast, but I started counting the number of fear provoking references I found in the news, and it’s at least one per night or morning broadcast.

Fear is one of the big motivators for us to give up our freedom, I think. After all, if you are afraid, and someone shows up with the answer and makes the Bad Things go away, you’d be grateful, right? No matter what they asked you to do.

Ben Franklin is often misquoted, so I looked this one up. The line I’m thinking of most often shows up as “Those that would trade liberty for security achieve neither.” That’s not what he said, as far as we can tell. There are variations, but most agree it actually was:
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Note the contempt. I share it. We’ve been idiots. We didn’t deserve them civil liberties, because we were willing to sac them in the name of fear.

I started to drive track events because of fear. I drove a 400 hp car and just about wrecked it three days after I bought it. I became afraid. I took a class at a racetrack and learned to not be afraid of the car, or more properly of myself in the car. I was no longer willing to give up the liberty of driving that amazing fun thing for the sake of safety and security. I ceased to be afraid of the potential. It’s liberating, in fact. Fear becomes just another factor. It doesn’t go away, it just becomes something you take into account. It becomes a choice, not a reflex.

Most folks are in the same boat. They are at the controls of their life. They are bombarded by fear all the time, and it shows. They make bad choices because of it, and thus never really live.

We elected a president based on fear, and then re-elected him based on fear of attack by terrorists. We made the vice president more powerful than he’s ever been, and allowed him to profit as no individual has ever done from a war that was launched on bad information and falsehood. We detained and tortured people in ways not seen perpetrated by a major world power in a very long time, all because we were afraid.

We are become the viscious dog of the world scene. We back ourselves into a corner, biting at the hands of everyone who comes near, because we never know if they hold food or a firecracker.

I listened to the inauguration speech today from President Obama. He didn’t talk about fear, but rather about hard work. About leading the world. About everyone pitching in. About how to do less was to disgrace the memory of those that went before. He did not, in short, pedal fear. He talked about work, and hard work, but not anything to be afraid of.

It was a good speech. If you are afraid, you never feel the wind on your eyes at a buck fifty. You never feel the tires break free then catch back on as you slide sideways over a puddle of water. You never have the reflex to hammer the throttle when you feel the back end break away.

This is a great country, still. It can be a world leader once again, if we can only conquer the fear.

Well, it’s the holidays! Happy holidays!

I got thrown a curve recently. Two, actually, but the second was the biggest.

In November, I got the word that I was going to be laid off, along with all the other folks in my division. It is not a huge group; six of us all told. They gave me six weeks to find a new job.

Oddly, I’m not worried. I keep thinking of losing the back end at a buck fifty, or taking a sweeper ten faster than I had before, offline, because I just completed a pass. This is very like knowing you are going off road. You keep looking where you want to go, never stop driving the car, and don’t fixate on the wall.

It’ll work out. I have stopped doing driving events until I find some income, so it fucking better work out soon! I’m running out of track here.

I am recovering from Bell’s Palsy well. My face is almost back to normal, and my eye no longer rolls oddly when I blink unless I am very tired. It’s good to get something back that you normally take for granted.

I broke a hub last time on track, which was exciting. The right front let go, with the wheel held on only by the brake caliper and bracket. I was in the slowest section of the track, and the car went from turning hard left to going straight. I managed to get him stopped on pavement (a cross road) and waited for the tow truck. Then, we had to skid the bad wheel up on the hook, and then transfer the car from the tow truck to my trailer! We did this in a manner that was sort of like diesel vehicles mating, but it worked. I took the rig home and changed the hub in front of my house, under the oak trees.

One of the other reasons I love this hobby is moments like that. Warm weather, working outside in a light breeze, with the sounds of the trees all around me and the neighborhood cats for company.

On that same weekend, Sheri got MUCH faster. We put her on sticky tires for the first time, and she took to them like she born to run that way. She is way, way past the Porsche Cayman in her class, and working her way up to the Carerras. And she’s in an automatic trans car.

Going to take a crack at running all the NASA time trial events in 2009. I don’t think I can win the thing with the skill level I have, but there’s no way to learn except to drive the car fast. I can’t wait to make this effort.

It’s going to be a good year.

I ran my first time trial this weekend with the NASA organization. A couple of weeks ago I went through their qualifying school and got licensed. That event was fun and laid back, and the NASA Texas folks are great.

The event this weekend was at TWS, which is good for me. It’s the track I know best, meaning that I’d likely be consistent.

I’ve changed the car a little. Camber plates in the back push the rear wheels to 1.5 degrees of negative camber. Poly bushings now adorn all the control arms. I’ve got a new set of wheels, 18″ all round so I can swap any corner to any other. On the new wheels are a set of Toyo Proxes RA-1 tires in 305mm width, which is the most I can run and stay in a sane division in time trial.

In the first session, I set the fastest lap of all 26 competitors, in a TTA (TTA == Time Trial A) division car. There are two divisions above that, who should be MUCH faster.

I got asked LOTS of questions, including what mods I had made to the engine. The car was weighed. Heads were scratched.

I’ve got nothing to hide. It’s a stock 02 Z06 with suspension and tire mods to take it up to TTA standard. Even my air cleaner is stock.

That picked up the pace of the whole time trial! Folks started spending money on tires, redoing brakes, tinkering… I ran second through fourth the rest of the weekend, but I feel that that first run galvanized the group into better times. Indeed, I knocked two seconds off my previous best at TWS, and the fastest time of the weekend was a 1:55 set by Mike in his 2007 Z06, from the TTU class. He started the weekend at right at 2:00, so that’s a vast improvement.

My best was 1:58.4 or so. Not great; I think the car has lots more potential. I just need to learn to drive it better. The best in my division ran a 1:56, so I have lots of ground to make up. Sean is a very, very good driver in a very well set up car.

Now the question is: What next? Maintenance is to replace the power steering pump on my car; it’s finally starting to give up. Once that’s done, I want to think about how to get faster.

Modification is limited. I don’t want to bump up into TTS division, because that’s a class governed by weight/horsepower ratio. That’s a big money game, with engines, shocks, tires, brakes and so on all unlimited. Yet, TTA can be dominated by TTB cars that upclass.

The answer is to make ME better, I think. For that, I’m going to need a data acquisition system and more track time. I’m very happy with the car; it’s running well. I could blueprint the engine, as long as I don’t cross the line into TTS, but other than that, it’s good.

Will ponder on it. Comments welcome.

March is going to be a huge month! Three events, I think. The first was last weekend at TWS. Weather was great and the track was fast. Met four more new drivers from Austin who I will invite the the Spin Doctors. Always good to have more car folk.

I spent some of the weekend running with a lotus Exige that was very fast. The driver (Richard) has an amazing data acquisition system in the car, and he got some video of me. This is good, since it’s hard to see what mistakes one is making from inside the car. Sometimes, it’s better to see it from another angle, so I’m glad to have the data. He’s really, really fast for an Exige. Massive speed through the corners, and he never brakes (or so it seems). I had fun running with him. From my rough estimates, I gained about 50 feet per lap on him, so we were running almost the same speeds in very different cars. I’ll seek him out again, next event.

The next event is a NASA DE in Cresson, on March 15th. John and I will be learning how to run with that group, and how they do their time trials. I’ve purchased some new wheels in order to qualify for the TTA time trial class, and will see what I can do at the regional level. John is also going to the same event, so I’ll have at least one friendly face there.

Over easter weekend we’ll be at Harris Hill Ranch checking out their track. It’s a freebie, sort of a recon. Any chance to check out a new track is cool with me.

Lastly, on the 29th, Sheri and I will be heading for Eagles Canyon with the Driver’s Edge for the first event there. It’s also a new facility and so everyone will be learning the new place! I can’t wait.

Went to TWS in January. It was cold! 35 on Saturday morning, and 27 on Sunday. Glad it was mostly dry, or we would have had a very slow set of sessions.

The cars were happy. Cold air is more horsepower, and more boost if you are a forced induction driver. Thus, the blown Mustangs and late model Porsche had a distinct advantage.

The wife had a dispute with her instructor. She’s got a line she likes, where she’s confident enough to go fast. He disliked it, and thought it slow, so attempted to impose his view of the track on her. My wife is somewhat stubborn, yet also craves approval. So sh tried his line, was slow and was marked down for it. When we talked to the grid marshal we resolved the matter, and her instructor was cajoled into helping her with her line, but it got me thinking about going fast. I’m seeing it from a different perspective now.

There’s three ways I know to drive a track: Slow, pretty fast and really fast.

Slow is obvious: You are not pushing the car or your own ability. It’s often very controlled, but you don’t learn too much unless it’s a totally new track to you.

Pretty fast is just that: Pretty and fast. You hold a fast line through corners, and slide the car around the proper amount to go fast. It’s geometrically beautiful (pretty) and feels damn fast.

Really fast is a constant search for grip, from second to second. It’s losing the car over and over and catching it over and over. I know I’m at this level when my steering input is erratic, but my foot is pressing inexorably towards the floor. It feels anything but smooth. It’s work to drive at this speed, and it sometimes even seems slow. But it’s not. Were you to watch a pretty fast driver from outside the car, and then watch a really fast car, the latter car would look more balanced, despite all the stuff going on in the cockpit. It would be faster.

This is the level that we push ourselves, the point where the learning curve has taken us. The great thing is that we can go into some corners pretty fast, resting, and enjoy the perfect meaning of 6% slip angle then blast through the next looking for just that two inches of track we’re leaving on the table.

It’s the holidays, and I’ve not been driving since November. The next event is three weeks away, on the other side of the year.

It sucks. Steve McQueen was right. The rest is just waiting.

Christmas is good though. Some time off, some break in the normal routine. Chances to buy car-stuff gifts for folks.

One of my friends is getting a new 08 Corvette before the year is gone. He’ll have what he has always wanted, but seems somewhat intimidated by it. Heh. Hope we can convince him to take it to the track. It’s real easy to wreck that car doing ordinary things unless you understand what it can do.

I’ve had time to reflect on the last event and how things happened with my leadfoot friend in the last session. I was an idiot, and likely unsafe. Will not do that again, for sure.

Time to make a list. Not a christmas list, but a list of stuff to get before the next event. The prep goes ever onwards…

The car ran fine at Cresson, so I decided to take it to TWS in November. Better yet, Sheri can go too! The Austin Spin Doctors were out in force for this one, with five or six of us in attendance.

I have made major suspension mods to the car. Since last time, I managed to find some heavy sway bars (more properly, anti-roll bars, but no one calls them that) and some Bilstein Sport shocks. The combination of these two things has really made the car corner well. It’s on rails most of the time now, though I dread what it’ll be like in the rain on street tires. We’ll see!

John has also upgraded his car, in much the same way, though he’s gone a step further and put coilover shocks on his car. He tried to slip that mod around me, but his mechanic talked, and so I was able to go to John for help with my own suspension mods, since he knew how to do it. Very good times. It took about a half a day to get the shocks and sways on, and was fun.

We’re fast, fast now. John and I are in the second tier of the red run group, with only the massive horsepower guys and the dedicated race cars (and pro drivers) in front of us. It’s a good feeling. Now, we need to start doing some data gathering. John has a pyrometer, and Sunday his kids and wife were able to take tire temps and pressures for us. That data will show us if our alignment is right. So far, so good.

On the track, Sheri is getting really fast. She was promoted to yellow group, despite the fact that she has an automatic and a convertible too. She was even able to show one of the instructors a new line through the carousel! He was unsure at first…
“Hey! Where are you going? This isn’t the, wait… You don’t lose any speed here do you? And it’s a lot less track. Hmm. I’m going to try this line!”

That rocks.

Edgar lost a wheel bearing on the first run on Sunday. His right front wheel had almost an inch of play in it. We talked, and I offered to put his car on my trailer and get it back to Austin that way, rather than have him towed home. Faster and cheaper, though he did have to hang out the rest of the day with no car.

Time after time I found myself behind Tom, my friend with the 500 hp corvette. Tom is not his real name. He has so much horsepower that when I have almost half the front straight on him, he will catch me by the first turn at the end of the straight. The problem is, that’s the only place he can catch me. However, Tom is notoriously bad about giving passing signals. This is not a big deal; what I generally do when I find myself behind him is pit. One pass through the hot pits, and I don’t have to worry about him again, as we’ll have enough of an interval that I won’t catch him again.

Tom is hard to follow. He’s a point and shoot driver, meaning when he wants to correct his direction, he brakes, turns and accelerates as many times as he needs to in a given turn. That means that he’s sometimes braking twice or even three times in a given turn. Most folks brake once in a turn, then manage the throttle through the turn, controlling their line with that input. The second way is faster.

Also, when I’m catching Tom, I can hear him banging the rev limiter on his car. That means he’s mashing the right pedal to the floor, and ignoring his shifts because he’s not thinking about anything but the nose of my car getting larger in his mirror.

If I get close to Tom, there are two places I can get him to give me a passing signal, so in my last session, I followed him closely and he indeed gave me the pass between turns 12 and 13. So leading on to the front straight, I know that I will be holding him up. If I let him by me, I’ll just catch him again in the first turn, so I’m not going to signal him to pass.

Per normal, Tom caught me around mid-straight. I didn’t give him a passing signal, and he passed me anyway. That’s a very bad thing, and somewhat dangerous. I’m far past pit in, so I can’t just take a pass through there and let him go. He has also pissed me off.

Tom is outside of me going into turn 1, on my right. We’re both going around 130. He’s around two car lengths ahead. I like the low line into this turn, as it’s less track to drive. Tom and I will be going through the exact same place on the track at the apex of this turn. He’s in front, so he’ll be going in first. However, if I can get on the throttle faster, I’ll slingshot around him before the next turn. The bad part is that we’ll be crossing lines twice: Once on the way in and once on the way out.

Like always it’s like I’m in water, everything is slow and steady, and I have plenty of time. I brake down to turn in, and get back into the throttle, slowly. I feel the car wiggle for a split second then take a set into the turn, like it’s on rails. I see Tom come across in front of me, around four feet ahead, but he’s early into the apex. I’m on the gas and managing the throttle so as not to hit him. Even here, I have room to maneuver. There is no place he can go that I can’t predict. I can see all the possibilities at once. Tom has to feather the throttle to avoid running out of track, so I’m able to hold the inside due to a later apex, and pass him. The corner worker in the turn is waving a passing flag, at Tom! They just legitimized my maneuver, so no black flag for me. Yay, drama.

In the next straight, Tom is looking a little pissed, but he charges the corner while I brake early and sail through. With each turn, I open the gap a little more. The next time we come onto the front straight, he’s too far back to catch me, so there’s no drama. He does come within two lengths though, so we’re close as turn two corner workers white flag us. One lap to go.

As I roll through turn four, I note that Tom is really pushing. He was almost sideways in turn three, and is driving flat out. I can’t hear his car behind me, but he’s got to be at the top of his engine.

When I go onto the back straight, I look in my mirror and see a fireball. In the center of it is the front of Tom’s car. Oh, my God, I’m thinking. He blew it up. Is he ok? Next corner station I pass is waving a red flag at me, which means pull off line and stop, now. I see all the emergency trucks head towards turn six where Tom is. Eventually, the corner worker tells me to go on and pit in. Since we’re on the white flag lap, I just pit and shut down. I head over to where Tom is set up.

Tom blew his oiling system. The oil on the hot engine flashed instantly into flame. The back end of his car is fried, black and scorched. He comes over and shakes my hand.
“Well, it was fun while it lasted”
“Yeah” I say.
“Well, I needed a new motor anyway. See you next time?”
“Oh, yeah. Take it easy man.” I say.

Unreal. I wasn’t going to ask for an apology, since he would have given me one, and it would have meant nothing. So, best to part friends, I think. He’s not a bad guy, just real intense.

As I’m leaving the track, I see Randy wearing a t-shirt that says “It’s not a sport unless it can kill you” Heh. On that note, I fill up with fuel and leave the track for the real world once more.

I’m sitting in the paddock at MSR in Cresson, looking at the rising sun. It’s Sunday. Yesterday, I re-learned the track. It’s been forever since I came here, and I offered up a set of old brake pads to the gods of track memory.

MSR Cresson is a combination of an old 1.7 mile track that is well laid out and a newer section that looks like it was drawn on a napkin in a Ft. Worth bar. The whole is 3.1 miles.

There has been a good bit of development in the last year. There is now a gas station under construction at the entrance to the place, and there are more garage spaces taken up. The houses that are at the east end of the track are occupied and there are more going up.

Drainage is always a problem at Cresson. There are places on the track that are simply not usable when it rains. Even after the rain stops, there are seeps in the low spots that stay went for days. So it was this time, and there was one puddle at the turn in of the main lower course carousel that was kind of a dividing line: Inside of it was one line and outside was another.

I’d like to write more about the weekend, but it was really uneventful. No one crashed, there were a few mechanical issues. The best thing that happened was I ran with Mike for several sessions. Mike runs a mag red C5 and is much after my own heart. He has improved his car from the ground up, working on the suspension, and tires and seats, rather than the engine. He’s smooth like glass in the turns and knows MSR real well. He was a good person for me to lap with, as when he made a mistake, I could pass him, and vice versa.

We also ran with Tom. I’m not using Tom’s real name here. He’s got two cars in his road course stable, and at least one more set up for straight line. He love Vettes. His wife drives as well, in the yellow group. His cars are characterized by immense horsepower. Generally, Tom runs over 500 at the wheels. His current corvette is a C5 body with an LS7 engine.

Unfortunately, he blew that car up. Something on the front of the engine went bad; I think it was either the balancer or the main pulley, but the car was gone for the weekend. He resorted to driving his wife’s car, and thus was able to run with Mike and I. So for a couple of sessions, we were the three corvettes, blue, red and yellow, and everyone got out of our way. It was a blast.

So I helped the machine shop guy unload a multi-ton lathe and he bumped me to the front of the line for the head rebuild. I highly recommend Precision Machine in Round Rock for your engine rebuild needs. He’s fast, knows modern engines and the heads looked like new when I got them back. The rebuild took three days, and cost a mere $270, parts included.

Strangely, the motor went back together far, far easier than it came apart. Even the surly power steering pump bracket went back without a fight. It was as if the engine wanted to run again.

Before I knew it, I was looking at an assembled motor, with only a broken exhaust flange bolt in damage. I refilled all fluids, reconnected the battery, and turned it over.

Running rough, but strong, I watched the oil pressure climb for those first critical seconds. It stayed normal, so I drove around the block. Still good. I took the engine up to operating temp, then took it back to the garage to cool off for 24 hours, to temper the springs.

I’ve been driving around on the rebuilt motor for a couple weeks now, and it seems as good as new. Going to the track this weekend, and we’ll see for sure.

The experience of tearing down the engine and building it back up was a good one. I got some tools I needed, and learned a great deal about the machine I use every day. I also learned some good anger management. I’ve a pretty bad temper, and am prone to frustration. This project was a good way to learn to control that.

Oh, and I saved a load of money. The total cost of doing this myself was $750 or thereabouts, including all parts. I could have saved around $100 more had I used stock headbolts, but the ARP studs are just too good a deal to pass up, and are reusable.