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".

2007 VRL Rookie of the Year!!

Over 8000 days ago (~ 22 yrs) a young man had a notion that he was pretty good at driving. It was 1986 and grade twelve might have been a more academically driven exercise if not for the usual distractions of a seventeen year old or the thirty hours a week to pay for the freedom and liberation of one very burgundy Camaro Z28. Those days, long before drifting was a motorsport, that Z28 could be seen drifting around the old neighbourhood and doing 720's into parking spots at Sherway Gardens. If those days were these days, that young man would surely be in jail. Well, as you might guess, that young man is now almost a middle-aged man and he is I. It was over twenty-two years ago that I had to request the return of my Spenard-David School of Race deposit from the then only Formula 2000 racing school close to home. Of course, I needed the money for yet another car. I always wondered how it would have gone ....

Fast forward to 2007 .... that young man is now a family man, a businessman and a middle-aged man (39 and close enough). Maybe so, but I have never lost my passion for performance cars or that nagging voice that asks,"what if I had only ...". Not many know my story of the abandoned dream of racing for a 1984 corvette back in the eighties, but most of you reading this will know of my abandonment of common sense with the purchase of our World Challenge Viper Competition Coupe last year. This would mean a lot of firsts in a short period of time for me .... but I knew that I had to make up for so many years lost. These firsts included: my first real race car, my first fire suit, first HANS device, first triple disc clutch, first competition licence, first fire drills, first world class tracks, first professional coaching, first wheel-to-wheel racing and most importantly, my first real recognition that I am reasonably talented as a driver. Even as a "never-gonna-be", it is nice to know that I can finally put that 8000 day old nagging question to bed. My first event in Button Willow California seems like ages ago already.

So, here is where it all landed at the conclusion of my rookie year in racing:

2007 Viper Racing League Rookie of the Year
2007 Viper Racing League - National Champion (GT-MC) - Third Place
2007 Michelin Challenge Series - Western Region Champion - Second Place Unlimited
2007 Michelin Challenge Series - Eastern Region Champion - Third Place Unlimited
2007 Michelin Challenge Series - National Champion - Third Place Unlimited

We finished every event this year in the top three, in class, including two Feature Wins (VRL), a Crusader Pole Award (VRL) and two wins in the Michelin Challenge and an unofficial track record at Reno-Fernley. We had no penalties, no collisions, no serious offs and we treated everyone with respect and humility earning Roberts Racing a good reputation throughout the VRL.

Overall, the year was very much a success with our pragmatic approach to every aspect of the sport. Walter Bobko, a great friend and business partner, was commandeered to "crew chief" for me and soon became as immersed in the process as I. Walter helped me achieve a life-long goal of racing and I appreciate all the support and help. It is great to see that Walter has managed to develop quite a reputation as the "go-to guy" for all MOTEC data acquisition questions and problems. Another best of friends that I need to thank is Ron Caicco for his enthusiasm and ongoing support. I also owe many thanks to Skip Thomas, founder and series owner, for giving me unwavering support and for welcoming me into the VRL family, to Neil Hannemann, my coach and new friend, for working with me from day-one to help enlighten me as to the limits of the car and how real racers ought to be thinking, to Micheal Greenberg (VRL National Champion yet again) for introducing me to the series as well as encouraging my development all the way (even when my headlights were in his mirror), to Jim Stout for letting me be a part of his team and for unfettered access to everything from data to spare rubber. Finally, my thanks to John Archer for helping me with everything it takes to "arrive and drive". If not for ARCHER Racing Accessories, I would be running a few local/regional events.

At the end of the day, my words can't begin to describe the excitement, the nerves, the adrenalin, the celebration or the various other emotions that one experiences in this extreme sport. For the record, I do not do this for the bravado or the bragging rights ~ I do it because I have always felt a connection with cars. If you find yourself looking back at your favourite ride a few times as you walk away, or gently running your finger over the A-pillar after a fresh coat of wax, or hold your RPM at just the right exhaust note under "the" bridge, then you will know why I do it. If none of this made sense, and to the majority it will not, I would simply say enjoy the festivities, the free Roberts Racing promos and wish me well!

Lastly, a special note to two racing converts .... my wife Claudia and her sister Silvia. Of course I owe tons of gratitude to Clau for putting up with this hobby, however, over the course of the season they became my biggest (and only) fans!! Thanks to everyone who has had kind words to me all year and stay tuned for more updates with a few surprises on the way for Roberts Racing in 2008....

Kansas Here We Come ...

So, here are a couple of firsts (we like firsts!).... my first entry into a blog, and, just a few days to go to our first finals at Heartland Park in Topeka, Kansas. We have had an incredible journey, in this our rookie year, with a pragmatic approach to learning the car, learning to read tracks and learning to understand the boundaries my personal "courage-factor". We have been rewarded for our hard work with top three finishes in all events and thirteen trophies to date. We are especially proud of two feature wins in the Viper Racing League (VRL) along with a Crusader Pole Award at our last event where we broke an unofficial class record at Reno-Fernley.

Now that www.robertsracing.ca is officially up and running, it is my intention to use this forum to log updated information and results of our racing affairs. As some may recall, in the beginning of the year, I was enthusiastically writing to friends and family the outcome of each event and individually emailing everyone. I quickly abandoned that process to find a more efficient means to keep everyone informed of our experiences and elected to go the website and blog route for a more professional feel. Well, with only a delay of six short months, we now have the appropriate tool to keep everyone up to speed, so to speak.

We hope that you will check back often and we will do our part to make sure that the news is updated regularly along with more photos and videos. Shortly after finals I will let everyone know how finals went and our overall standings for the national championships and the conclusion of our 2007 rookie year!