Who's going to the Thunderhill 25 hour

I'll be there, managing one of the 949 Racing cars. Who else is going to have a sleepless night next weekend?

Ah for some reason I thought you might be driving. I saw you listed on the team page. Good luck Keith! I hope they get to do the streaming as I wish I could go.

I'll be dumping fuel into an e36 m3 in E0

Keith Tanner wrote: I'll be there, managing one of the 949 Racing cars. Who else is going to have a sleepless night next weekend?

Ohhhhhhhhhh realllly?

That's kind of interesting!

In reply to laz:

First thought when I read this: "what kind of E36 M3"?

z31maniac wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: I'll be there, managing one of the 949 Racing cars. Who else is going to have a sleepless night next weekend?

Ohhhhhhhhhh realllly? That's kind of interesting!

I worked on the 949 crew last year too. Emilio's put together a pretty top-level group and is getting results. I've also worked for the Mazdaspeed team in the past.

Only two of us? That seems surprising. I'll bet JG or David will be mooching rides somewhere.

I know a good kid racing in a Mazda 2 with Charles Espenlaub. Kid's name is Kenton Koch. He's got a good future in front of him. Super nice kid

Sorry to disappoint, but we're actually not going this year.

I was thinking of going to hang out. Then I heard that LeMons is at Sears Point. Maybe I'll hit both. That'd be an interesting contrast!

Keith Tanner wrote:

z31maniac wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: I'll be there, managing one of the 949 Racing cars. Who else is going to have a sleepless night next weekend?

Ohhhhhhhhhh realllly? That's kind of interesting!

I worked on the 949 crew last year too. Emilio's put together a pretty top-level group and is getting results. I've also worked for the Mazdaspeed team in the past. Only two of us? That seems surprising. I'll bet JG or David will be mooching rides somewhere.

I just thought it was kind of cool you will be crewing a car for someone who sells a competing product!

So, that went well. We took 1st in E1 class along with 4th and 6th in E3. The two E3 cars would have done a lot better if they hadn't suffered some really odd failures. I mean, who breaks a front subframe on a Miata?

I was working as car chief for two or three cars all weekend, and I'm proud to say that it was one of "my" cars that took the win. I think I've found my favorite role on the endurance team, too, playing chess with cars and drivers and fuel. What a rush.

Awesome Keith. We've had threads on co-driving , setting up race teams etc. Can you give us some insight into what crew chief is like what are you doing etc?

Sure ting.

Basically, my job was to be responsible for the car, both before and during the race. I had to make sure it was properly prepared, that it got to tech, that it was on the track when it was supposed to be, etc. I didn't necessarily have to do the work, but if my list of to-do items included "replace rear spoiler supports", then I had to grab one of the mechanics and make sure it happened. If the driver had a problem with the car, he'd tell me and I'd make sure it was sorted out.

During the race, I was the one in contact with the car at all times. I'd make the call for fuel stops, for tire stops, etc, making sure that both the driver and the pit crew knew exactly what was going to happen. If a new driver was going in, I'd make sure he knew about any particular problems, such as one car that was losing 2nd gear or the fact that we expected radio problems and to watch for pit boards. I'd even talk the car into the pits, making sure they watched their speed in pit lane and getting them to do things like drop the window net if there was going to be a driver change.

I was also monitoring consumables and everything that had to be done to the car. We had a master strategist who was watching other teams and passing along information such as our lap time goals, but I was the one who interacted with the drivers. If there was a car problem, I was responsible for diagnosing it and making the call on what should be done.

When a car came in for a fuel stop, I'd give it a quick once-over and make sure there were no signs of major problems. If it came in with a problem, I'd do a fast diagnosis in the hot pits and make the call to fix it there or to send it back to the paddock for bigger repairs.

Obviously, you need to know the cars pretty well. Not just their species (Miatas, of course), but the individual cars. Each of ours was set up slightly differently in terms of switches, and they had little foibles. We had pictures of each dashboard up on the wall so I could sound relatively intelligent when discussing "the second gauge from the left on the top row" with a driver. You also have to be organized so that nothing gets forgotten or you don't get taken by surprise when a car radios that he needs fuel. I had a separate log for each car showing the time of each fuel reading, how much fuel or oil was added and when, unscheduled pit stops, etc.

I started the week with two cars in my care, but when one of the others died we were left with three. So I ended up juggling the three of them on track for much of the race. That kept me busy but not overwhelmed.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

Awesome description. When I was a young fan, I always thought Crew Chiefs were just folks who got too old to drive, and were clinging to the sport in any way they could. After I became a Corner Worker and started seeing racing from the inside, I finally understood.

And the thing with the pics of the dashboards is genius. Only times I've crewed were for a single-car SCCA sprint race (and I've never been Chief). I'd never even thought about what it would take to run multiple cars.

Very cool Keith thanks for sharing. Who was the "master strategist"?

His name was Brian. Umm, I'm not sure what his last name is He was trying to track all of our major competition to get an idea of when they were stopping for fuel, etc. The last few hours get pretty tricky as we try to make sure we have enough fuel to go for it but don't waste any extra time in the pits. Considering that it's 70-100 minutes between fills, it's a pretty slow-motion but very important part of the race.

Around 6 am, the window for the last set of tires opened up. The current ones hadn't fallen off yet, but we knew we had one more change to make and a change after 6 am would get us tires for the rest of the race. So as soon as there was a full course yellow (about 7:30, I think), we called the E1 car into the pits. While it was up in the air, one of the techs measured the front pads, did some mental math and declared we needed to change them. We could have probably made it in if we nursed the pads, but this let us go balls out for the rest of the race. That call probably won us the race. I think we managed to get the final set of tires on each car in full course yellow conditions, actually.

Anyone know how the Catfish did?

The Catfish had difficulties getting to the race. It arrived at the track at 6 am the morning of the race and still had to go through dyno and a few other things. They took to the track about 4 hours after the start. Their race was not without challenges - it was parked for quite a while and reappeared about 11 am for the noon finish, but according to Oscar Jackson Jr it was a lot of fun to drive. Needed more power, though. Well, yeah.

I know it did not have the v8 they planned and was running stock 1.8 miata engine.

I did not even know of Achilles Tire as a brand?

Apparently they had two pre-race press releases ready, one for the V8 and one for the 1.8. The wrong one got sent out I was rooting for them either way, it was really good to see the car finally show up.

Never heard of Achilles either.

I wonder what kind of Aero you could do on something like the Exocet, I know the Ariel Atom V8 has front and rear wings.