Edge FB Takes First Win at PIR National

[ghickman]

Hi All
Been a few months since I posted anything on the testing of our new chassis. Well testing is over and we won our first National today at PIR. It was an interesting race to say the least.

I'll post a detailed report tomorrow and I'll attempt to get my camera download working...should be some really choice in-car to look at.

Back tomorrow with details...going to bed after our 6 hour drive from Phoenix.

SEE RACE REPORT BELOW

Later
Gary Hickman

[glenn cooper]

Way to go, gettin' an early start on Nat 2009 entries!

[RussMcB]

Congrats, Gary. Looking forward to the race report and pics.

[ghickman]

Ok so I'm going to attempt my best Coop impression...on second thought maybe not... coop just can't be duplicated.

Friday Open Testing:
We missed all of the open testing on Friday...had too work. The Phoenix Race Works crew was there on Friday gettin' their groove on. I however thought I had an edge (no pun intended) in that I raced PIR in 1980..LOL...My memory recal wasn't as crisp as I thought, the course was way faster than I remembered it in my 76B March Atlantic.

Testing Problem We have been Fighting:
As most of you know we missed the 2008 ARRC race because of a clutch problem. I won't go into all the details but our 4th and final test day at WSIR a few weeks back our clutch problem came back to haunt us. We came home and proceeded to completely re-plumb our clutch hydraulics in hopes the problem would go away. As it turns out we didn't fix the problem...it raised it's uggly head again during Saturdays Regional. However my old High School buddy Chris Harrison (he preps cars for a living) came to the rescue along with Kevin Mitz from Rennwerks. I'll post another thread on what we found was the cause.

Saturday Regional / National Qualifying:
So we roll into PIR with what we believe was an hour to spare for the first practice session. What we neglected to realize was that Az. doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time. We needed to have tires mounted and at least scrub them in during the first practice....so we sat that one out. Got tires mounted and went out at around 11AM for the National Qualifier...so I'm on new tires and haven't seen this joint in almost 30 years (insert whining here). Turns out I was only about 3 seconds slower (with No Clutch I might add) than Phx. driver Brandon Wagener (sp?) who likely wasn't even born in the decade that I had last raced a National (insert applause for the "old guy").

Sat Regional Race:
It was like mid afternoon and the track had warmed up some. We opted for the 160 compound GY's which turned out to be a good call for Sundays National. I started the Reg. Race at the back of the pack since I had missed the qualifier earlier in the AM. The grid was a mish mash of FM, FC, FF, FB,DSR,FA. On the start I was able to get around all the FF, FC, and most of the FM's. I got the fastest of the FM's in my gun site and began pulling him in, believe I passed all the FM's but one of them. The Phoenix driver was way too far ahead for me to come close to gaining on him, just way too much traffic to deal with since he started at the front of the grid. By the end of the race (which was basically my practice session) I was able to shave another 2 seconds off my lap times. It was fairly clear that we were much faster on the Oval than the Phoenix which could have been that we were running almost no wing. By the end of the race I developed a low speed understeer around turn 2 which basically sets you up for the entire infield section of the track. My race craft was a bit rusty and I wasn't proactive in getting some rear bar in sooner...once the push got bad it was too late to dial it out. Speaking of rusty race craft...on about lap 15 of 20 when I was trying to get around one of the Rennwerks DSR's (not sure who the driver was) he got out of shape in T2 and I came smookin' in behind him and clipped one of his wing end plates...this was enough to punt him off course and I sailed on by (insert luck was on my side here). The car seemed to not be hurt, my wing was still in place and the tires were all facing the correct direction so I pressed on. Came around the next lap and the DSR driver was out of his car playing spectator....man did I feel crappy about that! By the end of the race I had battled with all but one of the FM's and those guys gave me a run.

Aftermath of DSR Punting Session:
When I rolled into the impound after the race everyone was hudled around the nose of my car. Hummm, what was up. Well as it turned out the nose was a bit Skewed...some torn glass where it mounts to the front bulkhead. They released us from impound and we began our search for Polyester Resin, a paint brush, 2 oz. mat, and a stir stick. Tony was able to round up all the goods. Special thanks to Kevin @ Rennwerks he donated the resin...even after I punted his DSR guy off...Oh well I guess that's job security for Rennwerks...LOL. Worked till just after sundown repairing the nose...all was good in the Edge camp that night.

Sunday Second National Q:
Went out and did the second qualifier Sunday morning. It got real cold that night and the track temp was about 45 degrees according to our temp gauge. The 160 comp. GY's turned out to be the ticket...went about a second quicker in Q but my second spot on the grid got bumped by one of the FM's. Oh and ZERO clutch problems I might add.

Sunday National:
I'll start this part by first telling all of you that the SCCA should never field FB's and FV's together...it's just flat dangerous...well that's what they did. We had FB, FM, FF, FV all in one nice little group. These FB's are way too fast for that pairing (rant over)

Well it stayed cloudy all morning and all the way thru race time that afternoon. I had a feeling that there might be some problems with the first few laps of the race because the track was so cold. My race craft was beginning to come back to me after being dorment for 20 years. I was third on the grid behind the fastest of the FM's driven by an 18 year old kid. Next too him was Phoenix driver (who I am told is a pretty good USAC Midget shoe and aspiring IRL driver). On the pace lap everyone was very violently weaving side to side doing the tire warm up dance...I however kept it cool...I had seen this senario play out before where over aggressive tire warming led to a PACE LAP crash. Well as it turns out my PSYCHIC POWERS were in full tune. Coming out of T2 and entering T3 the Phoenix driver got bit by the cold tires and too much power. His car pitched to the right and it looked like he was going to collect it up then it violently pitched left and slung HARD into the T3 tire barrier wall....his race was done and I was seriouly disappointed to say the least...no really I was.

After about 4 full course yellow laps (lost count) as they collected wounded Phoenix I was able to get my tires to come up to what I thought was race start temp. Came around the high banked PIR Oval onto the front straight and the pace car pulled out and the game was on. I pulled about a half car length on the Pole Sitter FM but I backed out (race craft came back...never seen a race won on the first lap) gave him room coming into T1. I gave him some space in the infield section so I could have a look at how well he and his car were handling. He seemed like he had it together so on the second lap coming out onto the oval I began pressuring him. I was clearly about 5 maybe 10 MPH faster than he was on the oval. On lap 3 I was able to make a clean pass on the oval and kept him behind me for most of the race. The two of us working together pulled way ahead of the field and by lap 10 of 30 I was passing most of the field. This is where my race craft came back....I was able to get some seperation from the FM in traffic and soon pulled a nice gap between us. On about lap 20 of 30 I came upon the QUADRUPLE MOVING CHICANE of FV's driven by men that could easily be my father (are there not any young FV drivers?) . That was actually some what fun as they turned a boring right hand 2nd gear turn into 3 turns. Ok so got around the geriatric group and tried to just mantain my gap and not do anything stupid. By lap 20 I could see on the AIM dash that my times where dropping as I got super close to that holly grale of sub 1min lap...best lap was a 1:01 flatish. by lap 25 my low speed push came back in T2 (I had swapped fronts side to side for the race by the way and dialed in 2 clicks of rear bar). The push never got out of control but I could see that sub 1 min. wasn't going to be in the cards for me on this day. The race ended and I took the checker and all was good in the Edge Engineering camp.

NEXT NATIONAL:
We will be back at PIR in late January for a Dbl. National. I spoke with Phoenix driver Brandon Wagener (sp?) after the race to see if he was going to return for another go at it. He said he was (I think he needs to repair his ego) and getter done. By the way...I very kindly gave him the "KNUCKLEHEAD KNOCK" to him after the race....probably wasn't necessary but I'll bet he won't make that mistake again.

LACK OF VIDEO:
Before we went out for the race we mounted the trusty CHASE CAM in the car. Before I plugged the flash card in I stuck it in my Laptop to see if the memory was clear...it was. I then stuck it in the car and tested the camera angle. Took the mem. card back to the Laptop and it told me the card needed to be formatted. Like a dummy I forgot to format it stuck it back in the camera...I missed what would likely have been some of the best video posted on Apexspeed...I hereby award myself the "KNUCKLEHEAD AWARD".

CLOSING:
Any FB drivers / owners in the Norcal and Pac. NW please make the trip to PIR in January. It's a DBL NAT. so we can crank up the car count for the class. We need to show these SCCA people that this class is for real....you wouldn't believe the comments we got at this race...as if they'd never even seen a car like this before. Sorry in advance for any spelling errors...not spending the time to proof this.

Regards
Gary Hickman

[billwald]

Congrats Gary. Great looking car too.

[Brands]

Well done from me as well. Car looks great and I'm looking foward to seeing it asap!
Ben

[Dave Gomberg]

Two small corrections: It is Kevin Mitz (one t) and his company is Rennwerks (not Rennsports).

Glad you had a good time.

Dave

[Tom Valet]

Congrats Gary. I cant imagine that too many people can say they won an SCCA National in a car they designed, built and drove themselves. That is a major accomplishment. Best of luck for the remainder of the season as you continue to develop the car.

Take care.

Tom

[ghickman]

Congrats Gary. I cant imagine that too many people can say they won an SCCA National in a car they designed, built and drove themselves. That is a major accomplishment. Best of luck for the remainder of the season as you continue to develop the car.

Take care.

Tom

Thanks Tom....at this National I got asked many times what chassis it was...sometimes I got the feeling people didn't believe me when I told them that Tony and I built it. Probably the weirdest feeling about driving this car is that if something breaks or falls off I only have myself to blame...

[Wright D]

Kudos Gary!

We look forward to racing with you again in January.

[Sean Maisey]

Nice work guys. Any time we see a F1000 car on the track it generates real excitement. Keep up the faith and we'll really show something special this year.

Sean M.

[Mike Holland]

Congradulations! Not only a good driver but a good carbuilder as well. For those that are building their own car, keep him in mind for fabrication and machining. I had some of my parts done by him and the parts look great!

[Scotty Segers]

Thanks Tom....at this National I got asked many times what chassis it was...sometimes I got the feeling people didn't believe me when I told them that Tony and I built it. Probably the weirdest feeling about driving this car is that if something breaks or falls off I only have myself to blame...


That's very true, but when it wins (and it did) you have youself to blame as well.

[cparsons]

CONGRATS GARY! Homebuilt WINS?! Totally awesome. It is a huge achievement. And to think I have some of your proven qualilty whizzy-bits on my car (well, almost car)

[ghickman]

CONGRATS GARY! Homebuilt WINS?! Totally awesome. It is a huge achievement. And to think I have some of your proven qualilty whizzy-bits on my car (well, almost car)

I guess calling it "HOMEBUILT" is somewhat true....seems like I live here at my machine shop. It's my other home.

So when are we going to get a look at your creation???

[ghickman]

In a few hours I'm going to post a picture of me standing next to my March 76B Atlantic (Chuck Willis BDA power) circa 1980.....this was the last car I drove at PIR prior to this past weekend.

Everyone on this thread should get a laugh out of it.....I'm going to scan it when I get home and post it.

Ok...here it is...check out the Frampton hair....chicks dug it!

And to think I traded my trusty March 76B for a PRSRH01 and some cash...hummm now how much is that 76B worth now??

Gary

[marshall9]

What chassis is on the blocks in the garage behind you?

[Joefisherff]

Vega in the background brings back memories too!

[ghickman]

What chassis is on the blocks in the garage behind you?

I'd like to say that's a Bird Cage Maserati but it's actually a FlyBaby wood fuselage Homebuilt airplane.

In my leaner days I shared an airplane hanger at the local airport. I was single and lived in an apartment. This was back in my days when I was trying to break into the VW/Bosch Mini Indy Series...plan was to then move on to F2 in Europe. My finances ran out and you know the rest.