2007 Govenor's Cup

by Andy Bell

The 2007 Governor’s cup weekend was an interesting one for our solo program. The week started out with several phone calls, e-mails, and postings on the forum about the lot at OSU being resealed. There was a big question as to whether we could even have the event. We did not want to damage the work they were doing to the facility. After a few e-mails with OSU it became clear that the reseal had run very late and had been intended for July. In the end they got it down a week before the event, knowing that we would be there that following weekend. We did at least get them to stop short of painting all of the lines on the lot before we came out.

Bruno tried to lay out a course that would minimize any damage to the part of the lot that had already been painted, but the big question was how the sealer on the course would react to the heat that was forecast for the weekend.

Friday night we had a registration and tech session at OSU. I want to give a big thanks to all of the folks who came to help out Friday night. Aaron Ritch, Pete Bates, Dave Flemming and Scott Johnson came out to help tech the cars and Simi Dhillon, and Tonya Smith helped Tammy with registrations and staking out a prime area for our easy ups! Tonya also brought her big tents for the Saturday party and Mark Gleckler and I helped her put together one of the tent sections so we could stick stuff under it for the night.
A security car came around and I talked to the officer about the lot one more time to make sure they understood what we needed to do. She called while I stood there and again confirmed that it would be OK to run our event on the sealed lot. The Hoovers arrived a short time later and we all moved the barriers away from the lot so we could begin the course set up.

Saturday dawned with a hot and muggy forecast, but at least in the morning we had a breeze and it did not feel too bad. All of the talk in the morning was about the surface and how it would hold up in the heat at mid day. (There was also talk about how the people would hold up in the heat!) We were feeling pretty good halfway through the first run group. All of the reports were that the grip was much better than anticipated and few drivers were having any problems. By the time the second group entered the track the temperature was climbing rapidly and proportionally the grip was going away. We found that by the 3rd run all of our tires were coated with sealer and rubber picked up from the track. Once that happened, the driving experience was similar to being on ice. No matter where you tried to shift the weight transfer in the corner, all 4 wheels would slip making if difficult to get the cars to turn at all. Once the car did find grip, it often resulted in snap oversteer and a spin. Only a few drivers found there way around smoothly for the rest of the day.

Down in the kart grid we gave up trying to be competitive after the second run. At that point it just became fun to see who could make it around the track without spinning or getting a DNF. I felt bad for my co driver, Sean Tillinghaust, who had been invited by the Hoovers to try out an autocross. Sean is a club racing instructor for BMW and he had taken to the kart right away, but conditions were so slippery he really couldn’t put a solid run together which was very frustrating for him. We tried to explain that normally it wasn’t like this and we’ll try to get him back for an event at Cooper later this year.

The third run group was a bit better. Some clouds had started to move in from the high humidity which stabilized the temperature and the third group learned from watching the second run group to slow down to keep from spinning. Tire build up was still a problem and once coated, you really had no hope of a fast run. The chiefs all talked about it and looked at the course at the end of the day. A few more runs in the heat and we would be causing serious damage to the sealer. Would Sunday be as hot? Could we get the event in without hurting the surface any further and putting our lot in jeopardy?

We wrapped up around 4:00 which was perfect timing for the arrival of the Pig Roast/Luau party sponsored by Brian and Neva at Autobody Specialist and Mike and Brenda from Appearance Automotive. Once again they outdid themselves bringing in big helpings of delicious food for our competitors. For desert we had some home made goodies that Zsolt’s family brought. We also had several door prizes we gave out and as the party wrapped up Randy Hoover and Tonya Smith broke out the water balloons and squirt guns to cool us down.

At about 4:30 in the morning I heard the first pitter patter of raindrops on the tent. For those of us who stayed the night at the lot, it cooled down into a beautiful evening. The kids played and wore themselves out, the adults played cards, swapped stories, and had a few drinks together. We even had a fireworks display when the Picnic at the Pops group set off their display. By 11:00 I think everyone had settled down for the night.

At about 4:30 in the morning I heard the first pitter patter of raindrops on the tent. By 5:30 it was a steady downpour before letting off at about 6:00. It was an ominous sign of things to come for the Governor’s Cup.

When Tammy arrived in the morning, she gave me the weather report that rain was moving in and we could have heavy downpours starting at noon. Fortunately, the morning set up went smoothly and we jumped into the morning qualifier runs on time. This year we used a format where the class winners would be determined by summing all three of the morning runs together and whoever had the lowest elapsed time would be the winner. At the end of the first group the first rain shower set in and everyone in the second group scrambled to get their rain tires on. I believe I was one of the first to succumb to my own format when I promptly slid off the track on my first run thus insuring myself the maximum time penalty from which I could not recover. Overall everyone handled the conditions well and the morning qualifying finished on time. It was a challenge because every run it seemed that the track had a different condition ranging from soaking wet to almost dry and back again!

We took a lunch break to calculate the results and determine our competitors for the Governor’s Cup run off. As we finished up the paperwork, the skies opened up with a huge downpour! It passed quickly, but once again the course was soaked. We cut the field into two parts so we would have enough workers to safely cover the 64 car portion of the run off and quickly narrowed the field to 32 and then further to 16. Once again our top drivers rose to the occasion with Mike Smith, ZB Lorenc, Scott Johnson, Tonya Smith, Randy Hoover, Garrick Forkenbrock, Rhett Van Voorhis, Mike Herbert, Craig Distl, Buddy Cummings, Pete Bates and Mike Ucker all making the top 16. We also had some newer names in the mix such as Ron Jeffers, Jon Voegeli and Stanislav Ilin. We even had Dillon Packard from the Formula Junior program who was flying around the course in the wet conditions. As the field narrowed to 8 the drama continued to increase. Mike and Tonya moved on as did Randy and Dillon. Mike Herbert was running extremely strong and last year’s winner Garrick Forknbrock was edged out. The first draw of the elite 8 group was Randy Hoover against Dillon Packard.

Then the real drama kicked in. Dillon’s kart would not run consistently. We had about 5 people working to get it going, but finally had to let Randy go first since we could not keep the kart running. Randy had a momentary mistake and DNF’d his run. All Dillon had to do was make it around the course to move into the final 4. Randy prepared to park his car for the day. But Dillon’s kart would not start! We tried cleaning the spark plug, starter fluid, and everything else we could think of and just could not keep it running. Dillon finally had to concede and Randy was back in the race! His next draw was Mike Smith while Mike Herbert and Rhett Van Voorhis also paired off against each other. The track was rapidly drying out and times kept falling as each competitor went out. The runs were clean and fast but it came down to Randy Hoover and Mike Herbert for the final pairing. Both runs were just about perfect for their respective cars. We all held our breath for the final pax calculation and Randy emerged as our 2007 Governor’s cup champion after a roller coaster of emotions during the event!

I want to thank our sponsors, Autobody Specialist and Appearance Automotive again for helping us with such a great event and again for Brian and Neva for arranging for the party and letting me drive their spare kart. (I swear I will get mine running soon! ) I also want to thank Tonya Smith, Mark and Joyce Gleckler and Craig Wollenslegel who all helped me throughout the weekend with everything from getting door prizes, to figuring out my crazy qualifying scoring and entering the data by hand. I also want to thank all of the competitors who stuck around in the weather conditions all weekend.

Congratulations to Randy Hoover on being the 2007 Governor’s Cup champion!

2007, August