A Minor Accomplishment
Those of us that follow the F2000 Championship Series have been watching a special story unfold since last April. In the days since the year-ending awards presentation I have tried find the correct words to adequately explain Tim Minor’s Championship. If I had to use a single word it would be Passion. The use of only one word over-simplifies the depth of the complete story.
At first glance we see an owner of a small auto repair business towing his own small trailer into the track each weekend and conquering many of the best established teams in small bore formula car racing in the United States. That is a gross over-simplification. Dig deeper into the story and you discover an intense program that demands the investment of much time and the efforts of many people.
After an unpleasant experience at the 2006 Runoffs Tim decided to put all his racing efforts into participating in the F2000 Championship Series starting in 2007. During the next 5 years he was always a front runner. He is respected by the other drivers in the Series, and on numerous occasions he has been asked to act as the driver’s advocate. He was on the podium many times, and was pretty much the leader of the Masters division in his Van Dieman. Yet he only scored one overall win in 5 years. For 2012 he decided it was time to make a major change. He acquired a relatively new Citation that Eric Langbein had custom built for himself. Tim entered the Citation in the 2012 races. The 2012 results were disappointing. With Eric as his engineer, they spent the year attempting to make incremental changes each weekend in an effort to make the car competitive. For Tim the car seemed diabolical. It had massive oversteer to the degree that Tim opted to withdraw from the last race of the season at Watkins Glen.
Tim had switched to the Steve Lathrop designed Citation chassis believing it had great potential because of such aspects such as extreme chassis rigidity and a favorable aero/wing package. Instead of giving up in October of 2012, Tim and Eric committed even more effort to the project. Eric knew that Tim was a good driver and had not forgotten how to drive, and believed the problem was the car. They spent great effort to borrow a Van Dieman chassis and measure its complete suspension geometry. Because Tim had been very comfortable previously in a Van Dieman, they thought that would be a good starting point. They also carefully measured the geometry of the Citation. From those measurements they started theorizing what could/should be changed. Each suspension change had to be machined and then track tested. Not every experiment was an improvement. Eric has said that they even learned from the failures. As all these changes were being tested the winter went by and they still had not arrived at a good solution. Then after much iteration, by the end of the winter at a test at CMP, very close to the opening of the 2013 season, all the work finally resulted in great results. It was one of those “Ah Hah” moments. They now had a car that tested better than the old trusty Van Dieman.
The results of the last test were so positive that Tim and Eric arrived at VIR in April for the season opener very optimistic. The weekend’s results bore out their confidence. Tim swept both races.
Ending the story at that point would be premature. To understand the passion of all the people involved in the program one must know what happened at Road Atlanta in May. During practice Tim had a left rear suspension failure at speed in Turn 1. Not the best place. Somehow, Tim controlled the car enough to not hit a wall. What became obvious was that now they had a car that could generate more lateral G’s that some of the suspension components could handle. New redesigned pickup points were needed to safely continue. It looked as if maybe they would have to withdraw that weekend.
Calls were made to Brandon Dixon and Wren Keith. Both were out of town on a business trip. Upon arriving back in Birmingham that night, Dixon and Keith immediately designed a new part, machined it, and then driving through the night with no sleep arrived at Road Atlanta with the new pieces for Eric and Tim to install. As reward for that effort Tim swept the two Road Atlanta races.
Another very important ingredient to Tim’s success in 2013 as compared to 2012 was the return of Tim Reedy to the team. Reedy had been part of Tim’s crew for many years, but in 2012 Reedy was too busy at his day job to be able to take off to go racing. In 2013 Reedy’s job returned to a more normal pace and he could return to his weekend duties on the team. Reedy is a quiet, behind the scenes sort of guy. But his role on the team is large. Most of us think of him as the team chef, one of the best in the paddock. But his cooking duties take a back seat to his other team duties. His presence in 2013 picking up so much of the routine tasks then freed up time for Eric and Tim to better analyze the data they were gathering during each session and make changes accordingly. In 2012 Eric had complained many times that there was not enough time between sessions to be both engineer and mechanic. Now, in 2013, with Reedy on board, Eric had enough time to analyze data and develop strategies.
It would be easy to ascribe Tim’s amazing season to just the superiority of his car. This would be an injustice. Tim has shown he is a very good driver. This season the Series had more wet sessions/races than any in the past. He came to each grid with the intention of winning, not cruising just for points. Yet, Tim completed the season with no damage to his car (other than the aforementioned Road Atlanta suspension). He accomplished his championship season while breaking or virtually tying every course record. He can drive. I believe that his synergy with Reedy and Langbein has made him a smarter and more patient driver than he was years ago. He may be the best we’ve seen in the rain. He also knows how to save his equipment and especially his tires for the full weekend. Tim does most of all his own mechanical work on the car. For example, as hectic as the July-August swing was through Mid-Ohio and Summit Point, Tim took the time to disassemble the Citation between the two Mid-Ohio events and check all the systems out. It’s that level of effort and attention to detail that lead to a hard earned championship.
Tim has said he plans to return to the Series next year and win another championship. Eric plans to return with Tim. At this point they would be the favorite. He is not one to rest on his laurels. There are more plans for improvement. They have yet to do much to the standard Citation aero package. Through Brandon Dixon’s strong showing in F1000 much was learned about aero at speeds exceeding what most F2000 cars can achieve. Evidence was Tim’s custom diffuser in 2013. I expect the car will be stripped to the bare chassis and reassembled. Certainly changes and testing will occur through the winter. Lots of time and hard work will be expended before they arrive at the first event next April.
In a series that is most certainly a “formula” series, and not a “spec” series, to win takes a total package of great car design, smart engineering based on data analysis, thorough mechanics, and a great driver. To compete against the likes of Tim Minor will require a team to have as much passion as he has.
As Butch Kummer is fond of saying, “If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.”
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Purple Frog
Rand and I made a command decision that if you were the Series Champion and finishing up at your home track with a lot of guests coming, you could paddock anywhere you wanted. (Rule 20 is a wonderful thing 
Minutes later, Eric comes over and tells me that as Minor's engineer, he really appreciates the favor we extended to Minor to allow him that paddock space, but we still shouldn't have done it. 