Update: The Honda Grand Prix of Monterey

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

September 8 - 10, 2000

The Full Story

Thursday August 31 -

Between events I made a brief appearance at the Boise Cascade Office Products branch in Menlo Park.

Thursday, September 7 -

Laguna Seca (depending on traffic) is just a couple hours south of Oakland. I started out for the track around mid -day and got caught in some traffic. My mom (Cherryl) started from Pleasanton a bit earlier and headed to the San Jose Airport to pick up Norton Gaston, my engineer / coach. My father, (Steve) left for Laguna from work in Walnut Creek roughly a half of an hour after I left Oakland. After numerous phone calls we caught up with each other and grabbed some lunch in Morgan Hill on our way to the track.

Back on the road about a mile from where we rejoined the freeway, my car (a 1965 Mustang - a rolling work in progress) decided to eat its fan belt. I smelled burning rubber, the alternator light flashed, and the temperature shot off the gauge instantly. I coasted off of the nearest off ramp, and parked the car. Luckily my mom and Norton were following, and Norton and I drove back into Morgan Hill in search of a fan belt, while my mom waited with my car. My father (who had taken off ahead of us) turned back and joined the "waiting party" at my disabled car. Some time later, Norton and I returned with a fan belt. Minutes later we were running - but with a horrendous noise. With the belt replaced, it was apparent that the cause of the belt failure was the alternator - more specifically the bearings that were no longer inside the alternator. I removed the smoldering alternator, and we headed back to the auto parts store in Morgan Hill where they did not have one. We were more successful at the second parts store we tried. We headed back to the car and installed the part. After an hour and twenty-minute delay, we were once again on our way.

We arrived at the track for the in paddock registration before it closed on Thursday afternoon. We also checked out our hospitality "chalet" located between turns 2 and 3 against the track. It was built and ready for action.

Friday September 8 -

The Barber Dodge Pro Series first driver's meeting was held at 7:15 am prior to our scheduled practice at 8:00am. It was a half-hour session interrupted by one five-minute black flag. It was somewhat uneventful. The car was slow to turn-in and was a bit loose at the corner exit especially in turns 5, 6, and 10. At the end of the session, I was 13th of 27 drivers.

Norton and I decided to add a bit of front toe-out to help heat the tires and quicken the turn-in. We also added one more step of rebound in the rear to alleviate the corner exit loose condition. The second session of the weekend was the first round of qualifying at 5:30pm. This session was also plagued with black flags. After three laps, the first flag came out to clean up an incident. Eight minutes later, the track was green again. After a few more laps, there was another black flag to clean another wreck. At this point in the session I was tenth fastest. The car was turning in better, but was loose. I felt like I was wasting a lot of time sliding sideways. On the out lap I got behind Sepp Koster, who proceeded to warm his tires in front of me between turns 4, 5, and the corkscrew. Going into the corkscrew he locked his brakes at the inside of the turn. I was looking to go around just after the turn, and held my car out wide to avoid him and get a straighter shot down the hill. I turned the car and got to the throttle a hair too soon, spun the still cold tires going down the hill and simultaneously started to rotate towards the outside of the corner. With the car unweighted going down the hill I was unable to correct the direction of the slide, and I drifted straight into the outside wall with the nose of the car at about 35 mph. That prematurely ended my session. My car was left against the wall for the remainder of the session, and the times picked up as the track got a little better and everyone's tire temperatures heated up. I ended up 19th. After the session my car was lift - towed in. It was late enough that the back gate to the pits from the track was closed and locked. It took five minutes to find someone with keys to let us back into the paddock.

Crumpled Nose Cone

The damage was (for the most part) minor. The front shock cover / nose cone had ripped in half and the front wings were crumpled. I also crushed the carbon nose. All four corners were intact - although I have been advised that the nose of the car is more expensive than taking off a couple of corners. As a result of this minor incident the Boise paint scheme was a bit altered for the rest of the weekend with a black nose and shock cover.

Friday night Norton and I had dinner across the street from the hotel. We discussed the car and came up with several changes for the second qualifying session on Saturday.

Saturday September 9 -

BCOP Turn 3 Hospitality Chalet

Our only session on track was final qualifying at 12:10pm. I arrived at 9:00 in order to meet up with the Boise Cascade / Bank of the West hospitality guests at our "Turn 3 Chalet." Boise Cascade had brought customers from AT&T, Foundation Health, LoudCloud, National Semiconductor, Harmonic Inc., Travis AFB, etc….

Before qualifying we brought several guests over to the car to explain the series and the particulars of the Barber Dodge car. Norton and I had decided to lower the rear of the car to the "low side" of the allowable ride height window in addition to a rebound change at the rear to combat the loose condition from the previous day.

The session itself was pretty uneventful. There were no black flag causing incidents, and we were able to run a full twenty laps. The car was more balanced than it had been on Friday, but I ended up qualifying 15th.

Back in the paddock Norton and I looked over data while the Boise guests took in CART qualifying from different vantage points around the track. Later in the afternoon we decided to keep the car as it qualified, in hopes that the track conditions would favor the current setup. I

would also try a slightly modified approach in terms of my corner entry technique in a couple of key areas; turn 9 and 10 in particular. We both felt that it would be quicker to roll into the two corners with more momentum and allow the car to scrub off speed in the corner rather than trying to brake the car and then immediately return to full power. I rejoined with the hospitality activities in the afternoon.

Boise Cascade's Clay Siemsen hosted a pre-dinner party and dinner for Boise Cascade Office Products' marketing and sales team members that were hosting clients at the event. Christine (my girlfriend) and I attended both. This was the most elaborate hospitality event we have conducted to date. The San Francisco and Menlo Park branches created a weekend event for their customers, including lodging at the "Sunbay Suites" - a resort hotel located inside the former Fort Ord military base. The pre-party took place in Clay's timeshare-like hotel room overlooking several holes of the Fort Ord golf course. The party then moved to Tarpy's Roadhouse, just west of the track on Highway 68.

BCOP Dinner Saturday

Sunday September 10 -

The Barber Dodge Pro Series schedule consisted of an 11:00 drivers meeting and the 4:15pm race after CART and Indy Lights. Christine and I arrived at the track after the main rush at about 9:15. We talked with guests at the hospitality tent for roughly an hour until I took a group of people over to the car to explain the details of the Reynard 98E. The in car camera was being mounted to my car for the race.

I then attended the drivers meeting, while most of the Boise guests received a tour of CART timing and scoring given by John Hughes, (who was involved in timing and scoring in the American City Racing League when I was running in that series. He kindly volunteered to give our guests a peek at how involved the timing process is.) In addition to the transponder /computer recording of lap times, timing and scoring has spotters assigned to each car with timers, and personnel keeping track of cars as they pass the start finish line.

After my meeting I headed back to the hospitality tent for a bite of lunch, to meet up with our guests, and to catch the start of the CART race. Later during the race several of us headed out to check out a couple of different vantage points from turns 4, 9,10, and the corkscrew. Towards the end of the race I ducked into the Skip Barber classroom to get out of the sun and noise. The Indy Lights race went as scheduled after the CART race.

The Race:

We got into the cars at 3:45 in order to roll to pregrid at 4:00. While gridded on the track with less than five minutes until the pacecar rolled, the in-car camera on top of my car was connected and turned on. After one pace lap the green flag dropped. Going up the hill, just before the starters stand I was squeezed into the wall by Kip Gulseth who qualified 16th and was next to me on the outside. He came over and gave me no room - my options were to stay in it, hit the wall and lock wheels with him, or get off the throttle and try and fight my way back. The loss of momentum allowed three cars to slide by before the braking zone in turn two. I made my way by one or two cars on the outside of turn three and four, and ended up behind Gulseth again for 16th place.

Traffc in the Corkscrew

Finding the edge of the track at the exit of turn 9

Six laps into the race the full course caution and pace car came out to clean up Jamie Menninga's car that had gone off avoiding another car in the corkscrew. After four laps of yellow the cleanup was finished, and the race resumed. We had missed a bit on the setup for the race, as my car was set up a bit too stiff for the greasy track conditions. My car was becoming more difficult to drive, and Tom Fogarty caught up to me and finally got by going into turn 11. I got a run on him out of the corner and caught him at the top of the hill. He ran a defensive line on the inside so I slid down onto inside of the white pit re-entry lines. Unfortunately I overcooked it and locked up the brakes. To avoid hitting Fogarty, I went inside across a bit of dirt, bounced over the inside curb and then flew across the track into the runoff area outside turn 2. I got the car pointed back at the track on the far side of the gravel trap. I kept it rolling and didn't sink into the gravel. I may have knocked the front toe a bit with my curb hopping /dirt driving adventure, as the car was slightly more difficult to point into right hand turns. As I wrestled with the car, Sara Senske (who was a lap down from a previous off track excursion) drove by me. By the end of the race I caught back up, but the checkered flag came out.

It had been a pretty disappointing run, after a somewhat promising beginning to the weekend. Immediately following the event several of the Boise guests came by the car to take a closer look from the cockpit. The hospitality event went well and I think that everyone had an enjoyable weekend.

After five of our scheduled five races for the BCOP racing program we will now assess the effectiveness of the program and the feasibility for continuation. Keep your fingers crossed.

This has been a tremendous learning year for everyone involved (myself included) in both racing and promotion. Thank you all for being a part of the effort.

The Laguna Seca race will be televised Monday September 25th at 6:30pm Eastern on ESPN2.

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