Motorsports Marketing Update: Miller Lite 200 at the Mid Ohio Sports Car Course

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

Dave Trimble Photo

August 10 - 13, 2000

The Shorter Story

A Second Round of Florida Testing: During the week following the Cleveland event, I was able to test the car at Sebring Florida. I brought Norton Gaston (the engineer that I have worked with in the past) to help me sort the car and make adjustments to suit my driving style. We made a significant amount of progress on the first day of the test, making several adjustments to the car that helped to build heat in the radial tires, which ultimately helped the car respond to steering inputs more quickly. The second day we tried several setups that did not gain the speed or positive feel that I was looking to achieve. Based on what we had learned during the first day of testing, we decided to bring the car to Mid -Ohio with similar shock settings from the test day rather than set to the series base line. (The series has a setup that the test drivers have developed for each of the tracks.)
Wednesday: I headed south to the track, in Lexington Ohio to check things out, take a look at the course, and find our hospitality area. I met up with my parents who decided to make a mini-vacation out of these two races and drove out from California in my father's Corvette hardtop. I was also able to bring Norton Gaston to these two events. I headed down to Columbus through an amazing thunderstorm late Wednesday afternoon to pick up Norton, then it was back to Mansfield Ohio, and our memorable accommodations at the Villager Lodge Extended Stay Hotel.	Norton Gaston
Thursday: The Barber Dodge Pro Series ran two sessions on the test day. We played a bit with the shock settings and ended up adding front and rear wing to the car to aerodynamically add grip through the corners. In analyzing the data from the sessions we began to notice a pattern of slow straightaway speeds. The car came off of the corner well, and then in third gear lost a bit of speed up through fifth gear when compared to the other cars. We dropped 1.2 seconds in the second session, but were still in the bottom third of the grid. Thursday night I looked at data with Norton, and we looked at data from other races and the test that displayed similar speed problems. The car was also a bit "pushy" in the medium speed corners.
Friday: I decided to add front wing to the car in order to gain more front grip for the practice session. It turned out that this was a little too much, as it was difficult to feel "the edge" of adhesion. Everyone went slower in this session, but my times increased more than the track conditions warranted. Friday's second session was the first qualifying of the weekend. I dropped the front wing settings lower from where I had them in the morning session. On the second lap with the tires still cold while coming through the Keyhole turn, I got to the throttle an instant too soon and ended up spinning into the grass. I came into the pits to clear the radiators, and then got back on track to qualify. The car felt better with less front wing, and I went over two seconds faster. The track conditions were better, and on average the field went roughly one second faster. I was asked to pull into the pit lane a lap early at the end of the first qualifying session so that my car could be cleaned for a television spot comparing the Barber Dodge car to an Indy Lights car to a FedEx Champ car. Look for that footage with the ESPN2 coverage from Mid - Ohio on August 31st at 6:30pm Eastern. In looking at the data, I was as quick and sometimes faster through several corners than the fastest lap times, but I was getting killed timewise on a couple of key corners and the straights. I had run 25th fastest in both sessions.
Saturday: Our only session of the day was final qualifying at 1:00pm. Norton and I came up with a couple of minor setup changes for the session. The qualifying session was black-flagged on the second lap for John Hall who manged to flip his car between turn 8 and 9. When the track went green our suspicions about the motor being soft were confirmed as the problem escalated in scale. On the second lap out after the black flag the motor refused to pull out of fourth gear going up the hill out of turn one. No misfire, no funny sounds - the engine was simply revving up through the range slower and slower on each consecutive straight. I brought the car in, and the crew checked the fuel pressure; it was abnormally low. I climbed out of the car and the crew brought one of the series backup cars down from the paddock. I jumped into the all blue car for the last seven minutes of the session. The car was adjusted for someone taller than myself, and I had a difficult time reaching the pedals. Nevertheless, I managed to turn a time slightly faster in the backup car than I had been able to turn in my own car. In looking at the data after the session, the blue car had a definite power advantage on my own car. Still, with only five laps in qualifying literally driving on my tiptoes, I qualified 25th of 29 drivers. The series wanted to check my car out in the morning warmup with their test driver, so I elected to drive the backup car fitted with my bodywork in the Sunday morning warmup. Scott McKinley (my mechanic) set up the pedals in the backup chassis so that I would be able to reach them in the morning session. The fuel injectors were changed on my motor - the problem was suspected to have been a clogged injector.
Sunday: Our warmup session started at 9:15am. I drove in the backup car (a blue chassis with my green bodywork on it, with baseline suspension settings) while the series test driver took two laps in my car to verify that the motor was up to snuff. In driving the backup car for more than five laps, I decided that I was not comfortable with the setup for the duration of the race, as the steering effort was a bit too heavy. Timewise I had climbed up two spots to 23rd. The series test driver drove my car for two laps, and felt that the engine in the Boise car was similar to the other cars. Later analysis of the speed graphs from the previous events showed that the car had shown symptoms of the problem all the way back to the first test in May.
The Race: The Barber Dodge Pro Series race was scheduled to follow the CART race. The pace lap was quite important at this particular event, as it determined the outcome of my race just before the bridge before turn one. On three separate occasions there were near crashes as everyone sped up and slowed down at different rates while trying to warm their tires. Coming up to turn ten on the back side of the course I came over the hill to find the track blocked by five cars all sliding to a stop with their brakes locked up. On the front straight in front of the pit lane the cars in front of me slowed abruptly. I slowed, but the car behind me (Scott Mayer) did not get himself hauled down in time, and plowed into the back of my car. I was hoping he hit me squarely in the gearbox - everything seemed to still be rolling, so I continued. On the starting straight, just before the green flag was thrown a car two rows in front of me veered off of the track into the grass and then rejoined the pack.
I made a reasonable start, going down the inside of the track into turn 7, passing a couple of cars over the hill in turn 8 on the outside, then picking off another car around the outside in the carousel (turn 14.) I noticed the car seemed pretty loose in the fast left hand corners, and I made several rear swaybar adjustments - softening the bar. The handling continued to deteriorate in the two fast left hand corners. By the third lap I had my hands full sliding completely sideways through turn 12 and turn one. On the fourth lap while turning into turn one, the car snapped loose and sent me spinning off into the gravel. I managed to drive the car out of the gravel and back to the pits, where the crew noticed that the right rear toe link was bent (from the impact on the pace lap) and was about to break. The damaged rear suspension explained my lurid slides and hasty exit in turn one. I watched the rest of the event from the pit wall, and was interviewed over the track PA regarding the incident. It did give me the opportunity to plug the Boise name several times.	My vantage point in the pits during the race.
That is racing - circumstantial incidents greatly affect the outcome from time to time. Onward to Road America at Elkhart Lake Wisconsin.
Post Race Loading - then straight to Elkhart Lake.

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