Motorsports Marketing Update: Tenneco Automotive Grand Prix of Detroit June 16-18 2000

By: Jeff Glenn, driver of the # 73 Boise Cascade Office Products Barber Dodge Race Car

Last minute strategy...

Race Summary - The Shorter Version

  Welcome to the Boise Cascade Office Products 2000 Barber Dodge Pro Series Racing effort. This is the first of five post - race updates. Things got rolling with this program in mid May, with my first test of the Barber Dodge Race car. For more details on the testing, visit the update from Sebring Florida.
  JAG Promotions put together a program with Boise Cascade Office Products, a wholly owned subsidiary of Boise Cascade Corporation, early in the year to test out the marketing value of a racing promotion with corporate hospitality in key Boise markets. Boise is joined by associate sponsors KJWL Radio Fresno, Bank of the West, and Top Shelf / Giannini Packing Corporation.
Going into this weekend, I knew that it would be "trial by fire" - in that I had only driven these cars once before at the test in Sebring, I had never been to Detroit, the course was a street course (notorious for eating cars with the close proximity of the concrete barriers), and I was up against guys who for the most part have been in these cars for two or three years. Realistically my goal was to survive, not destroy the car, and have the Boise guests enjoy the event.
  The schedule of events had us on track Friday morning and afternoon, once Saturday, and then the race after the CART race on Sunday. Thursday was an in paddock registration day, and would allow me to take a look at the track. For a street course, the track is not terribly bumpy. After taking care of registration I was able to walk the track and drive it in the rental car for a few slow laps. Steve Glenn, my father (and radio man / green flag spotter) arrived late Thursday night.
  Friday: Session One- Weather: Dry, but cloudy, under somewhat threatening skies. I went out on the baseline setup (in theory, all of the cars arrive at the track with similar settings and adjustments with regards to wings, shock adjustments, swaybar positions, and toe) to learn the track and continue learning the car. The track was pretty slick as we were only the second group on the track. I was still coming to grips with the car, which is a bit different than the Sports 2000 and Formula Ford 2000 cars I have driven in the past. Both of those cars are pretty lightweight, and don't have the heavy engine of the Barber Dodge car. For the first session, I was pretty far off the pace. I was 19th out of 26, still finding my way around, and learning the car. Immediately after the session, rain looked imminent. After looking at data (information on speed, throttle position and engine rpm collected by the car's on board computer built into the dash display unit) in between sessions, I decided to go up on the wing settings on the car, but start from the baseline and make adjustments from there. In the afternoon session, things were still dry - the threat of rain never materialized. The car felt a little loose on throttle. After getting a feel for things, I came in to add a little rebound to the rear shocks in order to calm the back down under acceleration. I went back out for a couple of laps, and felt that the car had developed a bit of a push. I came in again, and added a couple of clicks of low speed bump on the front shocks, but because of a crash, the session was red flagged a couple minutes before time ran out on the allotted thirty minutes. I had gone 1.4 seconds faster, but I was still looking to shave about 3 seconds to get down to the front. I felt a little like the slowest one out there, I ended up 22nd. After the session, I got the chance to take a look at more data, and realized that I was loosing significant time in the left / right transition of turn one and two. I talked with Norton Gaston, an engineer I had worked with on the Carbir project (who was in his hometown of Portland Oregon engineering several customers at a race), and he gave me several ideas with possible combinations to try with the setup.

  Saturday's only session was qualifying in the middle of the day. I kept the previous day's shock changes and added a significant amount of wing to the car at both ends, to try pick up my mid- corner loss of speed between turn one and two. The car felt pretty good, and I went another .7 second quicker. A mistake while overtaking a slower car in turn three led to a quick spin. I kept it off of the walls and got going again. At this point in the session, someone else had crashed and the track was black-flagged. I went back to baseline on the shocks, which I found I was not happy with when the course went green - the car felt too slow to react to steering inputs. Bottom line, I ended up 22nd again. After qualifying I met with the Boise Cascade Office Products guests, showed them the car, and looked at some data. Tammy Pruitt (from Boise) and I went to a "sponsorship seminar hosted by Barber Dodge late in the afternoon. I had a couple of lengthy conversations with Norton Gaston again on setup Saturday night, and what my plan would be in case it should rain.
  The RACE: Entering Turn One on the first lap.

The weather had cleared, and it was sunny and warm. After two pace laps, the field approached the flag, and with my stellar qualifying position, I heard my dad on the radio calling the green before I could physically see the flag. There was a crash ahead of me in the middle of the pack before we crossed the line. I think it was Michael Valiante from Vancouver B.C. who ended up backwards before the start line. Considering these circumstances, I got a pretty good start in - I threaded my way through the mess and got a good run down the straightaway up to turn three, and got by a couple of cars. The track went yellow for cleanup, and I was sitting somewhere around 18th. When we returned to green, I got a good jump on the car ahead of me, and moved outside down the straight after turns one and two. As I pulled alongside Jay Ricci (#22) I was blocked - into the wall. To avoid contact with the wall and the other car I had to brake, and I went to the other side, only to be blocked again. In the meantime, while the blocking /swerving festival was in full swing, two cars drafted past into the turn three corner. I expressed my displeasure with the car ahead to my dad on the radio. The rest of the race was pretty uneventful. I had a short battle with John McCaig, who ended up in front of me. I had started the race with the front swaybar set in the middle of the adjustment range, then when the car started to feel a bit loose I went stiffer on the bar and it helped balance it out. The car felt better than it had all weekend (I went another .4 second better), but I was still learning the car, trying to remember that I didn't have to lift out of the throttle to upshift, and things of that nature. I still have a ways to go before I am really comfortable with the car - a street course is simply not the best place to explore the outer limits of handling. A slight miscalculation usually leads to contact with a concrete barrier. When all was said and done, I had gone from 22nd to 16th, kept the car in one piece, and continued to learn the car.
  After the race, I met up with the Boise Cascade Office Products guests after the victory stand ceremony. (The series allowed Boise employees to hand out the awards- which went over pretty well.) From a marketing standpoint, for our first event, I think things went very well. The guests seemed to enjoy the event, and were able to see racing at the highest level, as well as a new perspective on the "other" events that make up the ladder that drivers, teams, mechanics, and promotional specialists all climb in trying to reach the top of the sport.
We left Detroit early on Monday morning; unfortunately several of my bags didn't make it home on the same flight. It took an extra day and a half to get several pieces of my checked luggage which visited Saint Louis for an extra day. The next event is the Marconi Grand Prix of Cleveland Presented by Firstar June 30/ July 1 at Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport.

Jeff Glenn
   
   
   
  Jeff Glenn's Detroit Photo Essay
   
   

/ home / news / updates / schedule / driver info / photos / services / sponsors / Barber Dodge Pro Series / tracks / contact