Motorsports Marketing Update: The Motorola 220 At Road America

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

August 17 - 20, 2000

The Full Story

After a somewhat hectic beginning to the week (driving to Elkhart from Ohio to look at the track, back to Chicago for some Boise Cascade Office Products PR, and back again) I was ready to get down to the business of learning the Road America track at Elkhart Lake.

Thursday August 17th.

The weather forecast had been accurate, and we awoke to rain on Thursday morning. The Barber Dodge Pro Series had scheduled two test sessions; 10:00 am and 1:00pm. Road America is a very smooth track. The FedEx Champ cars can run incredibly low and almost polish the dry line on the track. Needless to say, the dry line is very slick in the wet. The best strategy is to avoid it as much as possible by running around the outside (maybe six feet off of the apex) of most of the corners. By doing this you can often find more grip on the pavement (there are less oils, fluids and rubber deposited in these areas) and when you do cross the dry line (at the exit of the corner) the car is mostly traveling in a straight line.

The first session was very wet. There was plenty of standing water all over the track. Everyone went out on the soft treaded rain tires. Many of the cars found the limits of adhesion, and flew off of the track throughout the timed practice. I was able to keep the car on the road, and was listed as 15th quick. The car felt a little down on power, but it was difficult to tell in the wet conditions. Testing in the wet was good for learning the sequence of corners, but I knew that the lines and the track would change tremendously in the dry.

The rain was relentless, and continued lightly through the day. The standing water on the track had receeded, but it was still plenty wet. We ran on rain tires again and it was still extremely slippery. The session was stopped several times to drag cars out of the gravel traps and the mud. The dropping power situation in my own car was now more than noticeable. I was passed like I was standing still at the end of the straights, and then was passing back and making up time in the corners. Near the end of the session I was a bit upset about the lack of power, and was trying to make up a little too much in turn one. I locked the brakes for an instant, got the car to turn, but was carrying too much speed. I spun off backwards into the gravel. I was in the process of inching my way forward to get back on the track when Sara Senske spun in exactly the same place and ended up backwards on top of my front wing. That ended the session.

In looking at the computer data on the last session, it was apparent that I was having a major engine problem. It didn't sound funny, or make any obvious noises - it was just down on power to the tune of 17+mph slow on the front straight, and 12mph slow on two other long straights. Despite losing 6+ seconds per lap on the straights, I was 16th of 27. The crew changed the motor in my car Thursday evening.

Talking with my mechanic Scott McKinley

Friday August 18th:

The car was back in one piece with a fresh 100 mile motor. The Barber Dodge series had two sessions on track; practice and the first of two qualifying sessions. Essentially I was starting from scratch on learning the track in the sense that the track was now dry. I was instructed to do a "systems check" lap and come in after the first lap of the morning practice in order to inspect the oil fittings and fluid systems of the car after the engine change.

The engine felt strong on the out lap, and I came into the pits. The crew checked for oil leaks and tightened one fitting that had seeped a small amount of oil. I headed back out, and felt a bit of a sinking feeling as I continued around the four-mile track. The motor felt weaker on the straights than it had on the out lap. The amount of time it took for the motor to rev to the limiter was increasing on each straight. On my second lap I pulled back into the pit lane. The crew tried to adjust the engine mapping for the electronic fuel injection. On the out lap, the car refused to pull to the rev limiter. It didn't sound funny, it was just slow to rev. On the back straight (normally taken in sixth gear) the car wouldn't pull out of fourth. The fuel pressure had dropped again, and I brought it in. At Mid Ohio Norton and I had discussed the fact that the problem might be in the fuel tank in the pump or the pickup line. It had seemed better after the injectors were changed, but it only ran a total of four laps after the incident on the pace lap. For the second time of the weekend, the engine was removed from my car; this time to gain access to the back of the tub and the fuel cell to replace the fuel pump and pickup line assembly. Unfortunately the car was still split in two when the time came to qualify. This week's backup car was silver, and was full of rocks from the previous session when another driver put it into a gravel trap. Scott McKinley, my mechanic, cleaned out the spare and we decided to set it at baseline suspension settings. I could reach the pedals in this car, but was warned by one of the Barber coaches that the guy who had driven the car in the previous session had complained about the brakes. Just setting in the car to test my fit, I could tell that there might be an issue with the brake pedal. It turned out that at one time the car had been set up for someone who was extremely tall, and the pedals had been rotated forward. To make them work in that position they had to shorten the metal rods that connect the pedal to the master cylinder. I could feel a clicking feeling on the pedal when it was first applied - because one of the rods would actually fall down out of the side of the cylinder, then catch on the side of the shaft. The pedal would then feel notchy as it was depressed. As a result, I did not have a tremendous amount of confidence in the brakes on this particular car.

Qualifying. We gridded the cars, and sat in the pit lane for over thirty minutes as track repairs were made to a damaged wall from the previous session. Our half-hour session was reduced to twelve minutes. This was my first real session in the dry, with the clicky brake pedal. With the length of the track, our twelve minute session amounted to a total of five laps. My times were less than stellar, and I ended up 23rd.

Friday night Norton and I discussed the car, looked at data, and made a game plan for the qualifying session on Saturday. We decided to back down on my effort in the car - I was having a bit of trouble with consistency in my car- I had done each of the corners well, but not all together. (We revisited this issue on Sunday Morning - when a logical explanation was found.)

Saturday, August 19th.

The car was back together with a new fuel pickup and pump. The only session for the Barber Dodge Pro Series was our final qualifying session at 12:10 - 12:40pm. Boise Cascade Office Products had roughly twenty guests at the event. We had secured a hospitality site at Turn 8, above the grandstand overlooking the track from turn 7, down the hill to 8, and into the carousel. It was quite a nice setup, although it was nearly 1.5 miles from the pits/paddock area. BCOP Promotions Specialist Tammy Pruitt brought a group of Boise guests to the car in the morning before qualifying.

The Boise Hospitality Box at Turn 8.... not too bad

Part of the Saturday Group

Norton and I decided to start close to the series baseline with the suspension settings due to our lack of track time on Friday. I was running a higher wing package than most to familiarize myself with the track. Finally the motor ran well. The engine felt strong and it would pull into sixth gear in spots where it would have been in fifth gear previously. I didn't try and drive the car hard, but chose to learn the track. I ended up 21st out of 26. The car was a bit pushy in the longer corners, and would change to loose at the corner exit. The problem was that the car was not consistent; the amount the car would push or slide varied from lap to lap, corner to corner. I also had my wings a bit too high, and hurt the top speed of the car on the three long straights.

After the session, Norton and I decided to drop the wings significantly in order to gain some top end speed. In the afternoon I headed over to our hospitality area to catch the second half of CART qualifying and spend some time with the Boise guests.

Saturday evening after the hospitality guests had left, we had dinner with Kevin Koertje, Clay Siemsen, Tammy Pruitt and and a couple of BCOP guests at Siebkins in Elkhart Lake. It is known for being one of the better places to go in Elkhart Lake to see the CART drivers. Celebrity sightings included Dario Franchitti and Ashley Judd, Christian Fittipaldi, Paul Tracy, Michael Andretti, and Jimmy Vasser. Norton and I ducked out right after dinner, as we had a session at 8:30am which required a 6:30 departure from our hotel in Fond du Lac.

Sunday August 20th.

The morning warmup session was a whopping ten-minute session. On the four-mile track at Road America the ten-minutes translates into a four lap outing. The wing changes were immediately noticeable. The car felt quicker in the 5th and 6th gear straights. On the second lap while still bringing the tires up to temperature the rear swaybar snapped in half as I turned into turn 13 under a bridge in fourth gear at roughly 100 mph. I essentially pushed straight off of the line, and exited the road over the outside curbing. I was able to get the car turned just as it hit the grass. At that point I became a passenger. As I careened along sideways, I thought I was going to collect the wall that runs along the track between turns 13 and 14. I actually passed a car (while sliding backwards in the grass going into turn 14, shot across the track and ended up in the gravel on the outside of the turn. I was surprised that I did not collect anything, and at the same time very confused as to why the car had suddenly developed a massive push. I was not aware that anything had broken on the car. Because it was a rear bar that broke, the chassis simply rolled and squatted more at the rear, which slowed the turn-in.

After the session, I struggled to define what had happened with the car to push me off of the track. In general it was difficult to define the handling characteristics of the car. Later on, after a drivers meeting I returned to my conversation about the car with Norton, and we collectively came up with several shock changes. We decided to stiffen the compression at the rear of the car in an attempt to get rid of a pushing condition in the carousel turn by limiting the amount of weight transfer to the rear of car under acceleration entering the long right hand turn. After some more thought about the track, and the realization that most of the long fast corners were right handers, I decided to try and limit the droop of the right front wheel by adding rebound to the right front shock. This would help alleviate the push across the middle of the longer corners by holding the right front corner down after it compressed under braking or weight transfer into the corner, effectively tilting the car into the corner. As we relayed these changes to Scott, (my mechanic) he noticed that the rear swaybar was broken in half.

Scott McKinley

This was a revelation. When he pulled it apart, it was apparent that it had been bent for a while because there were two different length adjustor blades on the bar. This helped explain the vagueness in the feel of the car and my inconsistency between laps. With a bent swaybar, the bar yields and changes rate differently each time it is loaded. This means that the car may load the bar one way on a particular lap, and in the same corner on the following lap it could be different.

Tammy Pruitt ....... A few of Boise's Sunday Guests

It was after the swaybar discovery that Tammy brought most of the 25 Boise guests down to the Barber Dodge paddock to check out the car. Unfortunately I had to use another car to talk about the features of the car as the "Boise car" was parked behind several other cars next to Sara Senske's which was undergoing its' own engine transplant. After explaining the cars and the sob story of our weekend to our guests, I headed to the Barber Dodge "autograph session" in front of their racing school booth for about 45 minutes. I then grabbed some lunch at the trailer, and ate it on the way to our hospitality tent at turn 8. I was able to meet with the Boise guests and saw the start of the CART race. At the halfway point, I ducked out and headed back to the Barber Dodge paddock to get ready for the race. I Brought the group back to show them the bodywork, and the Boise car getting a new swaybar.

We got into the cars after the CART race ended, and rolled to the grid. Thankfully the pace lap at this event was less eventful than at Mid Ohio. There were fewer miscues and near disasters. Having said that, the first attempt at the start was called off. The field made it around a second time to take the green. From my vantage point it was a sea of cars into the first turn. I stayed inside and made by a couple of cars but was passed by Scott Mayer going into the second turn. I had a decent battle with Scott, who I got around and moved forward several spots to Tommy Fogarty. Tommy and I diced, passing each other a couple of times until the first full course yellow. I got by, then as the track went yellow for a second incident, he slipped by. I was able to pass him after the restart and made it up to 14th place. The car was much more consistent during the race. The car was a bit loose at the start. I made a couple of in-car rear swaybar adjustments during the race that helped calm the back down. The race was the first opportunity I had to put together any consecutive laps on the track, and my times improved by over two seconds from my qualifying time. I was pleased to have finished the race with a more solid result and some movement through the field.

Shots from the hospitality area during the race at Turn 8

After the race the Boise guests made it over to the car in the paddock and we shot some photos and put several guests in the car. We wrapped things up by 6:30pm. My parents started to head west on their trek back home. Norton and I hooked up with Kevin Koertje, Bill Freed, and Clay Siemsen for dinner in Milwaukee.

Monday August 21st.

Norton caught a flight out of town Monday morning. My itinerary for the day was to visit the Milwaukee branch of Boise Cascade Office Products before flying out in the afternoon. I saw a bunch of familiar faces, signed some cards, and met several of the sales managers.

I brought my filthy Pontiac Sunfire to the airport with an additional 2000 easy miles on the odometer.

Next stop for the Boise Cascade Office Products / KJWL / Bank of the West/ Top Shelf effort:

LAGUNA SECA, Monterey CA.

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