A Rookie No More ...

And so ends season two. I suppose I can't really call myself a rookie anymore. I still had a lot of firsts this season .... they range from really getting to understand the "rush" of a good start (both rolling and standing), leading races, breaking parts, going pro and the highlight - running a street course with SPEED World Challenge on Belle Isle, Detroit Labour Day weekend.

There has been a delay since finals in adding this post to the blog because I really needed to decompress from racing for a bit. There is tremendous uncertainty about 2009 with Dodge on the brink, the Viper Racing League sold and the economy (especially the currency roller coaster) really adding to the mix. Having run several races with Lux Performance this summer in the World Challenge, we were hoping to explore a run at the Rookie of the Year at World Challenge for '09. Unfortunately, with the hopes of a Mopar sponsorship gone and the aforementioned uncertainty, we are in a holding pattern for next year. Moreover, one can't ignore the call to refocus on the businesses that allowed the racing in the first place.

Overall in 2008 we had a moderately successful year with top three finishes in all but one of our Viper Racing League races with an overall third for the National Championship. Our hiatus from the VRL during the summer to run pro had some impact on our points, however, I would not trade that experience for the world!! In our SCCA Pro Racing debut we had respectable results with our best at Mosport with a twelfth overall. I really do feel that I developed more this year as a racer than even my rookie year.

Racing at this level can become quite an effort. We ran twelve events in '08 which translates into a pretty hectic schedule. Our family had a chance to embrace the lifestyle and at times had to get home to get a rest!One of the most memorable moments of the year (besides narrowly missing a catastrophic crash at Mosport) was experiencing all that pro racing had to offer from the crowds, the competition and the chance to be on the other side of the fence with people and drivers that you admired when one was a spectator. It was really surreal to be next to Bobby Rahal in the pits as a competitor (he was managing his Aston Martin team) when I remember him winning the inaugural Molson Canadian Toronto Indy in the eighties as I watched my first live race.

I would like to thank everyone who has helped me in this journey .... to my friends at the VRL who brought me along nicely, to Skip Thomas and his family who introduced me to this sport in the most professional way, to John Archer and company for supporting our car and our team literally from "minute-one" and to Gary Johnson, Tom Francis, Mike Stevens and everyone through the Dodge/Mopar channel who helped me take the plunge into pro this year. I owe a special thanks to Cindi Lux who gave me the opportunity to paddock with Lux Performance and for showing us the best side of World Challenge.

On a parting note, I wish I could say that some really exciting things are in the works for 2009 but we really do not know at this point. The Viper program is for sale from Dodge, the auto industry is about to implode, sponsorships are non-existent and almost everyone you talk to in the racing business is kind of holding their breath. Who knows .... but with a 30% premium to race in U.S. dollars, I am not sure I want to hold my breath. Then again, like the very nature of racing, things can change in a heartbeat and we will see what we can do for 2009.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season and a fruitful "off-season" for my fellow racers!!

Please take a moment to enjoy some of the video below of our pro debut.

Three Pro Races, Two Near Crashes and One Big Decision Ahead ...

The past month has been a whirlwind. With the help of Mopar and the factory supported team of Cindi Lux, NayKid Racing and Lux Performance, we completed our three race campaign with the pros. Overall I would say that our efforts paid off well with a fourteenth, a twelfth and a sixteenth placing in those three SCCA Pro Racing events. The races gave us a chance to experience the technical challenges of Mid Ohio, the high speed demands of Mosport and the perilous walls of a street course at Belle Isle. While Belle Isle was our lowest finish, we would have placed better if not for a DNF due to a blown transmission just five laps from the finish. This in itself was another first for Roberts Racing as we had never not completed a race.

In retrospect, "knock on wood", we had no offs, no contact and no car damage throughout our journey. Of course, this is in keeping with our reputation and may have cost us a few spots for not taking just a little more chance in a sport where drivers can go from hero to zero in the blink of an eye. Ultimately, our goal was to take our somewhat "tame" World Challenge spec car and see if we could manage the stress and pace of the "big boys" and to assess where we might want to go next year. I would say that we achieved our goal in that we did reasonably well for our first attempts at pro, and those drivers in the SPEED World Challenge series have come to know that our driving is solid and courteous to those teams that are faster and in the hunt for points towards the championship.

In a short three races I would like to think that some of the off-track activities have yielded some positive momentum for our team, including an opportunity to get to better know the folks at Mopar and others that will be instrumental to advancing our cause next year should we decide to move to a more demanding pro schedule. As part of our last race weekend at Belle Isle, Detroit, I was asked by Mopar to speak to a group of several hundred Viper owners to share our story. Specifically, our story of how we have gone from sitting in a race car just a short eighteen months ago and now find ourselves competing at a pro level. I guess at the end of the day, the story has merit considering I was in such an audience just two years ago at a previous Viper Owners Invitational wondering what it would be like to race. And now I know.

So what is next for us? Good question ... we will finish up the year with a few last events with the Viper Racing League as any more pro events will forfeit my Rookie status with the SCCA and I want to retain this for next year should we take a run at the World Challenge. I know for sure that I want to develop some business opportunities from our pro efforts. We have been invited to participate with a team for the Rolex 24 hrs of Daytona in January and beyond this, we will most likely engage a few teams about support for next season. As a sensible privateer (another word for "funds everything"), we are going to keep our options open and leverage off of our relationships to optimize whatever next year may look like.

I owe a thanks to Cindi from Lux Performance/Naykid Racing for making me feel a part of the Mopar family, to Gary from Dodge for connecting the dots for us to go to the pros and to Mike from Mopar for such a warm reception and kind words along the way. Hopefully, some will hear of our story and reach for their own racing aspirations by way of this awesome machine called the Dodge Viper.

So now, it is time to start shopping for a new transmission and pay some attention to the points race at the VRL since I took my "eye off the ball" during my pro debut. We are scheduled for Spring Mountain at the end of the month, however, it would be nice to surprise a few of our friends and show up at Willow Springs ahead of that. We will see.

A Race of Lesser Mistakes ....

Well, we finally got it done. After many years of the "dream" (see one of my first blogs for details on the origins of the "dream") we went to Mid-Ohio for our first SCCA Pro Racing event with the SPEED World Challenge GT series. Our goal was to stay safe, be conservative, consistent, courteous to other drivers and above all else, dignified in our first outing. Now dignified can mean many things, but for us, it meant do not be intimidated by the aggressive driving of those veterans, do not be too far off of race pace and do not cause any incidents that would make the highlight reel. Phew, we did it.

Without going into great detail, the biggest difference at the pro level is that everything is condensed and at the same time, spread wayyyy out. The two official twenty-minute practice sessions were plagued with red flags and in one session, we only managed to log one full lap on the MoTec for analysis. Clearly, this type of short session is designed to test a set-up and by no means affords a driver to learn the track. The learning is meant to be another time and not during the official schedule. Our best practice actually took place during qualifying when all the veterans took a few flyer laps and vacated the track leaving me almost alone to run and finally get into a groove. We did not qualify terribly well due to coping with several big changes to the car like the Toyo DOT tires that we run with World Challenge. The tire change was the most significant factor in "re-learning" the car along with the "bullish tendencies" of my fellow drivers. After my first day of practice my arm was sore from so many point-by's (yes, John Archer, I am kidding ... sort of).

Adding to the experience was the fact that Mid-Ohio was also host to the IRL, the ALMS and IMSA this particular weekend that attracted probably fifty-thousand fans each day. With my coveted "Pro Racer Hard Card ID" we spent quite a bit of time driving our rented golf cart around areas that we had admired from afar in past years. Now we were one of "them". Wow. I should also mention that there were two moments of gravity for us. The first was the prayer session and helicopter medi-vac instructions during the driver meeting and on a lighter note, when we looked over to the next pit stall during a stop and Bobby Rahal was timing his car. I remember attending my first race ever at the inaugural Toronto Indy back in the late eighties where Rahal was the first winner. This is just a neat milestone and a million miles from good old Stonegate. This is an inside reference in case you don't get it.

Results wise, we were pleased to move up ten positions from our qualifying position of 24th to finish 14th. As the title of this blog alludes, my finish is really testament to two factors - one, I drove a solid and consistent race with no mistakes (translation - with no big risks either) and two, a lot of faster and more experienced racers made some mistakes that either took them out of the race or far enough back that they never recovered. The bottom line in my view is that you can't win races by being as conservative as I was, however, refer back to my prime mandate and we should all agree that we finished in a very dignified way.

Special thanks to NayKid Racing, Lux Performance along with Cindi Lux and her crew for doing everything they could to help me manage the rookie jitters and for taking such good care of the #89 car. Both Cindi and Matt also did an amazing job of enlightening me during our debriefs and I really look forward to developing further so that we might be able to seriously compete with the "big boys" in the future. Last but not least, a big thanks to the Dodge guys for coming down from Detroit and making me feel a part of the family.

Mosport next ... let's hope we didn't leave all our dignity in Ohio.

Hot = VIR in July!!

Finally ..... the new engine is in! In sparing you the details, John Archer and his guys were able to install the engine one day before transport to VIR ... home of America's longest straight (so I have been told). Apparently, also home of the climate most like the rain forest, or center of the sun if you ask me. As beautiful as the track is, I preferred the comfort of the new villas that have been recently built on the esses. And I mean ON the esses ... you can just about reach out and touch the cars as they go by!

In keeping with the good old "that's racing", we had some challenges with the new motor right from the get-go but managed to work through them with some outstanding track-side support and collaboration between Dodge and Archer Racing.

The Saturday race was my most bizarre experience with several interruptions to the race, one of which saved me from going a lap down as the motor overheated and I had to pull over for mechanical instructions. Regrettably, Saturday gave us a third but by the time Sunday rolled around we had a car, and more importantly a motor, that was ready to go. And go it did with a start to finish lead for a very important solid win on Sunday. The car ran well, we didn't have one off-track or miss a shift and it reflected. This set the stage for our SCCA Pro Racing debut in Ohio the foll0wing week.

As pleased as we were with the results, we need to thank a few people for working hard to get us running on the weekend as well as scrambling to get the car prepared for the World Challenge debut including: John Archer and his crew, Tom Francis, Gary Johnson and Jim Stout (Jeff - many thanks) for the mechanical hospitality and logistics support to get my car staged for Mid Ohio.

All in all, it was nice to have one more thing knocked off the "handicap" list. Off to the big pond next.

Roberts Racing signs on with Lux Performance / NayKid Racing for Speed World Challenge

Roberts Racing is pleased to announce that the #89 Dodge Viper Competition Coupe, driven by Fred Roberts, will make the teams pro racing debut in the SCCA Pro Racing Speed World Challenge series this July at Mid-Ohio Raceway. Roberts Racing has signed on with Lux Performance / NayKid Racing for a number of races and will be teammate to Cindi Lux (http://www.cindilux.com/), a veteran driver and seasoned instructor currently competing in the Speed World Challenge in the number #2 Dodge Viper with factory support through Mopar.

With over thirty starts between the Michelin Challenge Series and the Viper Racing League, all resulting in top three finishes in-class, Roberts Racing is excited about this opportunity to work with a pro team and take our experience to the next level. After careful consideration, we felt that NayKid Racing was a great fit to work with our team and they genuinely want to help us through the normal rookie "jitters" in moving to a pro series. NayKid Racing has had an outstanding season, and most recently, Cindi qualified third at Miller Motorsports Park with an impressive finish in fifth in that same race.

Roberts Racing will continue with our full schedule in the Viper Racing League concurrent to running the Speed World Challenge GT with our second of three SCCA Pro SPEED World Challenge events at Mosport International Raceway in August.

The Great White North

My apologies for the delay in reporting back our results .... we are headed to Virginia tomorrow so I thought I better get this posted fast. Calabogie was a beautiful track and the facility has some excellent potential as they continue to build out the property. As all tracks do, there were elements that reminded me of other tracks. Overall, the track was nice and smooth with lots of elevations and a good flow to the turns.


Our results were mixed for the weekend with our team coming in second overall for the weekend by 1 point with a first place on Saturday, GT-MC pole and third by two-one-hundredths of a second on the Sunday. If I had any doubt that I am still a rookie, my simple mistake of hitting my brake and accelerator pedal simultaneously during the Sunday race for blips took away any of that doubt. By the time I realized what I was doing and fixed the problem, I had but four laps to catch the car ahead and made a valiant attempt to do so with my nose at the door at the checker. I wonder if the new engine would have helped as it was not ready for Calabogie and we managed to get eighty hours on the original motor without any failures .... hats off to Dodge for that!

We look forward to supporting Calabogie in the future and want to thank both Nick and Bruce for helping me out. Bruce - you have an awsome track and I think that you and your partners have put togehter an incredible facility with the best yet to come!

Virginia next .. then Mid-Ohio for my first pro event. That's right, I said it ... we are excited and I will post a stand-alone announcement next about our three race deal at SPEED World Challenge GT!!

If You Can't Beat Them ...

Mid-Ohio was perfect in terms of weather and we once again had a familiar track to work with. We had no serious complaints on car set-up over the weekend, other than contending with some significant push. We had installed a new Quaife differential with automatic torque bias control and the feel was different both entering and exiting the corners. Overall, we felt that our ability to get on the throttle early was improved and will continue to refine our set-up to adapt to this new equipment.

Our Sunday race start was well executed and we were in P1 after turn one from an inverted grid. With over 70 hours on our "mature motor", we were able to run constantly enough to build a respectable gap to the pack. For almost half the race our #89 Direct Energy car led with Jim Stout closing the gap and eventually passing me down the back straight. After a couple of full-course cautions with safety car on track, the pack caught up and we finished second in class for the race and weekend.

On a rules note, the VRL has decided that the "gloves are off" as it relates to the rules for the GT-MC class that we compete in. In summary, the drivers, many of whom are veterans of the VRL, want the class to parallel the SCCA World Challenge specifications and this has been aproved. So, the McLaren engines are a go, sequential transmissions a go, and a host other goodies that can divert your kid's college fund quick enough. But alas, this is the sandbox in which I chose to play.

So, as they say, "if you can't beat them, then you might as well join them". If all goes to plan, we will have our McLaren engine with more power and torque for our Canadian debut in Calabogie. It has been fun being a bit of the underdog to an extent, however, it is getting a bit lame watching cars pull in the straights and having to play catch-up in corners. This new engine should remedy this problem.

Unfortunately, and this is the nature of racing at high levels, the competition is now two-fold: the first is on the track racing wheel-to-wheel, and the second, racing to spend capital chasing mechanical advantages. At the end of the day, we are only in our second season and we still have a long way to go in terms of driver development so we need to balance our quest for mechanical superiority over good old fashioned driver talent.

Lastly, stay tuned for an announcement from Roberts Racing about our SCCA Pro Racing debut soon....

A Big Bite Of Humble Pie ....

And they say golf is humbling. I suspect that there are plenty of racers that golf, but not as many golfers that race. Sebring brought us to our knees and served up a nice round of humility at a time when our team was really hoping for a strong showing. We went into the weekend with an extra day of testing and coaching with Tommy Archer. Tommy is well known in the road racing circuit and certainly amongst the viper community as the most experienced viper racer with more seat time both racing and factory testing then anyone in the world. After two days with Tommy, and the last two days with Neil working with the team, we just couldn't get the car optimized as we had hoped. With two full days of testing, and personally driving my car, Tommy felt the set-up was still "nervous". This is not a word I was fond of hearing with many, many concrete barriers and my first race weekend at Sebring.

Our goals for Sebring were to beat the best VRL times of last year which we did. Unfortunately, several other competitors did as well. The ones we knew would do well, did. So the whole bar was raised and while we didn't get embarrassed, we came home with a third in class. Overall, Sebring pretty much reminded us of so many things that we still need to learn. As the oldest track in America, Sebring is all about bumps, speed and changing surfaces. This combination created one of our most mechanically-challenged weekends ever with the Archer guys contending with the replacement of a litany of items like front and rear brakes, transmission, clutch, broken exhaust, blown header gasket, a rear view mirror that would not stick to the window, all topped off with a failure of my cool suit motor that triggered a literal melt-down of a switch in the dash that created enough smoke to give me my first real fire drill!! By Saturday, despite the fresh brakes, we were experiencing "long pedal" and tried to bleed out the air to improve the pedal travel that was now down to the floor. The problem with this (besides the psychological) is that the throttle pedal is positioned for a certain amount of brake pedal travel(for heal/toe) and when that changes so dramatically, your foot can simultaneously rollover the gas as the same time as braking. It is fair to say that between the brakes and no rear view mirror, the anxiety meter was running pretty good.

So, the good news is that I managed to knock several seconds off of my time from last year and broke into the 2:13's with a stock world challenge car. No McLaren, no dog box, no quaife, and no undisclosed "goodies". I am not sure how much longer I can hold off on some upgrades now that I feel I am chasing others in my class in what will be a tight points race. The reality is that I was not the only one with mechanical challenges and to put things in perspective, pro series generally get just a couple of 20 minute practice sessions - not two full days of test and tune. So what I am saying is no excuses. We played it conservative in the circumstances and came home with a clean car to race another day. It is what it is.

To conclude, we keep learning more and more about this sport. This past event was an important milestone for Roberts Racing as it marked our first full year of racing having started late last year. We have had twelve race weekends with 24 starts and have been lucky enough to never finish out of the top three in-class. We shouldn't dismiss this accomplishment, however, like all racers, we just want to win.

Ohio next with some big decisions ahead ...

Another Race, Another Lesson!!

And so the "big easy" came and went ... actually, No Problem Raceway, was, problematic. The track had earned a poor reputation from the previous year where the racers had to cope with poor track surface issues as well as rain, rain, rain. Well, no rain this year, but the track surface did chew up a fresh set of tires each and every day (so much for that budget). Add to that a flat tire and torn rears due to the rocks thrown onto the track, and as evidenced by the chips in my paint and new Lexan windshield, onto my car. If you know me, you know how that hurts.

Anyway, the weekend set-up reasonably well with Friday test and tune allowing me to familiarize myself with the track and to set some baseline telemetry to review for Saturday qualifying. With such a low turn-out, my focus was on Ben Keating who is very competitive and had bought Tommy Archer's development car in the off-season with his goal of winning the championship this year. Ben was quicker most of Friday during testing, however, I have worked on learning the tracks faster and to dial-in faster lap times earlier in the weekend. This effort paid off with our "Crusader Pole Award" for capturing the pole position and first on grid with the fastest lap of the weekend.

Long story short, I spent the entire weekend chasing Ben with our car outperforming everywhere except the straights where somehow Ben would build a comfortable margin. Then at each turn, I would close. This mechanical advantage is under investigation at this time and a bulletin from the rules committee is forthcoming regarding certain equipment that is not in the rule book. I would have preferred the checker flag, however, if all goes well, I will graciously accept the points towards my own ambitions of earning the championship this year.

In summary, we got fast quick with a 1:14.7 qualification, had no "offs" or accidents and had no other serious incidents. Note to this ... we did have to avoid a head-on collision with another car that came back on track after being disoriented and proceeded to drive in the opposite direction. My rough calculation would have put that impact at about 300 km's per hour. Another race, another lesson.

Sebring next .... stay tuned for some exciting developing news about Roberts Racing.

So Here We Go ... VRL 2008

After what seems like an eternity since finals last October, we returned to Button Willow this past week for our first race weekend of the 2008 season. This was the first track that we ever ran at last year and it was the first time that we revisited a track for the second time. The run configuration was the same except for the extended "Mazda corner" that we did not run last year. We estimated that the extended distance accounted for about 6+ seconds and our times were about the same as last year meaning we were that much faster.

Over the winter our team struggled with several issues that cropped up with respect to mechanical decisions to make our car as competitive as possible. In particular, we knew that several of our competitors had freshened engines with a newly approved McLaren rebuild of the engine that is said to add up to forty extra horsepower and a choice of two new transmissions with superior internals and altered ratios for better pull. After serious debate about spending $25 grand on such upgrades, we decided that "if it ain't broke then don't fix it" was our best, and most cost-effective, strategy. While the jury is still out on the advantages of these upgrades, we did note some superior acceleration performance in lower gears that we had to make up for in braking and corners.

The weather over the weekend was quite volatile and included everything from sun to rain and winds Saturday night in excess of 7o mph as reported by the local weather agency. Unfortunately, something as simple as a faulty spark plug wire cost me almost all of my Friday testing so the "rust" didn't have a chance to come off until Saturday. As a result, we were unsuccessful at hitting our lap time objective for qualifying that ultimately cost our team the feature win for the weekend. As always, this was a reminder that every element is critical to be fast from practice to qualifying to the race. Russ Oasis, who ran in the Daytona 24 hrs last month along with Jim Stout were my main competition for the weekend with Russ and I trading first places in the races. By out-qualifying me by about 4/10's of a second, Russ secured the feature win sticker. Congrats to him for the win and for his finish in the Rolex Daytona 24hrs!!

For those that were able to attend the event, they all agree that this race was my most aggressive and Skip Thomas, VRL founder, commented that this was also one of the most exciting VRL races in a very long time. For me, the highlight of the weekend was the comeback that we had to make in the Sunday race after overshooting a turn that sent the #89 car well off-track and into a tire wall that cost significant time and track-position. After fighting our way back for over twenty minutes, we were able to close on Russ and execute a "point-and-shoot" on the very last turn, of the last lap, that earned us the win by half of a car length at the checker flag. After reviewing the tape, I realized I hit the rev limiter on each shift of that final straight away!!

All things considered, we had a decent start to the '08 season and we reminded ourselves that we really want to build on the momentum of last year. We have an outstanding field of competitors in our class this year and we are determined to get faster and more race-savvy at each event (with the continued help of Neil Hannemann of course). Lastly, once we feel confident in our performance assessments, we might even invest in the upgrades for that extra little edge ... hopefully we won't need them and I can still send the kids to university. And that, as they say, would be a "win-win".