Bob Woodhouse
Enthusiast
A race report from the #13 Woodhouse Viper Comp Coupe windshield.
Still awash in “feel good feelings” from the 6th place finish at Infineon and qualifying 9th for today’s Portland Speed World Challenge GT race; had us pumped about garnering a top 10 finish.
To bolster that thought, I had the strongest fan club/cheering section in town. Twenty five Woodhouse “Kicken Grass” T-shirts were being sported about by these sincere supporters. Did I mention they were all relatives? (Hey, you do it your way, this works for me. The paybacks could be brutal though, you know, attendance at weddings and such.) So the stands were prepared to make as much noise as the cars.
The waiting for race time is excruciating, nerves feel like 10# fishing line with a 15# fish hangin on the end. Mid-afternoon comes and so does the starting ceremony rituals. The anthem is sung, the flag girls clear grid, and the race cars take their start boxes. The red lights glow on, my clutch foot starts to shake, breath deep, better; lights are out!, clutch drops, we go, Stu, our friendly GTO driver in front me is growing bigger in the windshield, throttle stays down and we slip past on the right, then the Volvo, this is good, we can do this, then the Cad CTS of Pappis makes an aggressive move to the right that chops our unfettered acceleration. At the top of 3rd gear around 100 mph entering turn three, comes the unexpected.
As if a giant sea-gull with diarrhea made a windshield hit with the mother of all butt loads. The windshield went opaque white. I began thinking the car in front blew up. As the wipers take a sweep, it looks like old faithful coming through the hood louvers. During the next few nanoseconds my brain is saying, “this is gonna get wild”. The back end of the car is swinging around like the loose end of a garden hose as the cooling system pukes liquid everywhere. There are race cars in close quarters on all sides. “Damn, I’m gonna wreck em all.” I try to stabilize the car with the throttle and spin to unoccupied territory.
Dan Lacy, the Motorsports Chaplain would tell you “it was the grace of god”. Somehow all those spinning cars managed to stay apart and get back to racing. They flew off every direction. I wonder if Speed Channel got it. Sorry guys, it wasn’t on purpose.
Radio to crew chief Rick: “We just blew something big in the cooling system, I spun, we’re done. I will nurse it to the pits”. As the emotion subsided, the rational comes back and Rick finds and repairs a separated hose connection. No water for refill, to the trash cans, where a dozen plastic water bottles are refilled and used by Nancy and Scott Rogers as a water brigade that keeps Rick pouring as fast as the engine will accept it. We’re re-fired and the Motec dash is reading like “man your battle stations” with blinking words and flashing red lights. Finally the temperature drops to 225 and Rick says, I can’t burp the air out so go run a couple laps and see what happens. Out we go for a half lap till the Motec goes back into a “Red Alert”. Next time we leave the pits the engine acts like it can deal with it, stabilizing around 230 degrees.
Even though we are now 5 or 6 laps down I am enjoying the ride, the car is an angel, entering and leaving corners well; well enough to place the fastest race lap for the Vipers. Just wait, the politics side is coming.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 out of the 33 lap no full coarse yellow race, I end up on the back side of Mike McCann. Mike’s Viper seems to be struggling and I notice drops of fluid hit my windshield so I pull off line and watch in my mirror as he creates possibly a Guinness record in white smoke plumes for the entire straight away. Later we learned he lost the engine.
Some time after passing one of the Cadillacs (being piloted respectfully) I became the trailer tow ball on the back of Jon Grooms’ AXA Porsche lap after lap. Jon had some creative lines in his corners, let’s see, you can zig but not zag? Let’s not start that, I will just say, Jon found a way to place his car in front of mine regardless of how far off line it was. OK insert politics here. The Porsche, has the ability to out accelerate the Viper, (SCCA “can you hear me now?”) leaving me with three full laps of high evaporation rate on my patience. So it is that we met in the last of the esses when Jon’s car again came off line and across my bow to find it nudging his rear bumper just an eensie bit. Jon spun and I went to the grass to stay clear of any heavy hitting. No regrets on my behalf Jon, I think you understand.
Portland International Raceway has two distinctions that set it apart from other tracks. The lap times are extremely temperature sensitive, changing as much as 2 seconds from morning to afternoon. The other is how slowly she offers up her speed secrets. This track is reasonably flat, looks easy to learn, but alas, she is devious, making you look hard for the last two to three seconds. The local racers are usually a leg up on the out of towners.
On the politics: I usually say something about the balancing act being administered by SCCA to keep all the teams potentially podium material. Vipers were the underdog earlier this year, Cadillac was out front, with the rest of the professional teams between. Then came an adjustment to the Cadillacs which left them competitive but not dominate to the Viper. Now this is one man’s opinion who happens to drive a Viper, and I also know little about strategy for Championships and these are smart people. All three of the CTS-V Cadillacs are not being driven to potential at all times. Championships are not won on the race track alone. We’ll leave it there since I am so ignorant and stand to learn from all maneuverings. At present almost all of the race teams agree that the Corvette and Porsches are dominant and thinking an adjustment is eminent. We can hope.
How’d the Viper people fare? Rich Marziale popped a motor in practice. Al Becera came up from San Jose and ran a clean race finishing 14th. Al’s car is in new paint, lookin good. John Dearing did an admirable 18th in his GTS after a mechanical issue took him out 6 laps from the end. Mike McCann is probably the most disappointed since he was up front before his motor expired. Tim came in 7th and Tommy 4th, thirteen seconds back of the leader. And he owns this place shall we say, taking Championships here in the past, so you can relate to the dominance of the other brands. Jon Brobst, Doris, Don Roberts and his wife along with a host of other Northwest Viper Club people made our Portland experience peg the fun meter. Don is incredible, he hosted a Viper Supper with Kobe beef and Lobster. I had to miss due to family obligations, hey I’m not stupid all the time. But Don if you could dry ice that and send………..naa, there’s next year.
This race is broadcast Aug 7th, you know where to check www.speedtv.com
Check back here in a couple days, when the camera gets home we will imbed some through the windshield video and attach it to this story above.
Off to Denver next go here for the details www.world-challenge.com
Remember your next vehicle is at www.woodhouse.com
God Bless You Bob Woodhouse [email protected]
Still awash in “feel good feelings” from the 6th place finish at Infineon and qualifying 9th for today’s Portland Speed World Challenge GT race; had us pumped about garnering a top 10 finish.
To bolster that thought, I had the strongest fan club/cheering section in town. Twenty five Woodhouse “Kicken Grass” T-shirts were being sported about by these sincere supporters. Did I mention they were all relatives? (Hey, you do it your way, this works for me. The paybacks could be brutal though, you know, attendance at weddings and such.) So the stands were prepared to make as much noise as the cars.
The waiting for race time is excruciating, nerves feel like 10# fishing line with a 15# fish hangin on the end. Mid-afternoon comes and so does the starting ceremony rituals. The anthem is sung, the flag girls clear grid, and the race cars take their start boxes. The red lights glow on, my clutch foot starts to shake, breath deep, better; lights are out!, clutch drops, we go, Stu, our friendly GTO driver in front me is growing bigger in the windshield, throttle stays down and we slip past on the right, then the Volvo, this is good, we can do this, then the Cad CTS of Pappis makes an aggressive move to the right that chops our unfettered acceleration. At the top of 3rd gear around 100 mph entering turn three, comes the unexpected.
As if a giant sea-gull with diarrhea made a windshield hit with the mother of all butt loads. The windshield went opaque white. I began thinking the car in front blew up. As the wipers take a sweep, it looks like old faithful coming through the hood louvers. During the next few nanoseconds my brain is saying, “this is gonna get wild”. The back end of the car is swinging around like the loose end of a garden hose as the cooling system pukes liquid everywhere. There are race cars in close quarters on all sides. “Damn, I’m gonna wreck em all.” I try to stabilize the car with the throttle and spin to unoccupied territory.
Dan Lacy, the Motorsports Chaplain would tell you “it was the grace of god”. Somehow all those spinning cars managed to stay apart and get back to racing. They flew off every direction. I wonder if Speed Channel got it. Sorry guys, it wasn’t on purpose.
Radio to crew chief Rick: “We just blew something big in the cooling system, I spun, we’re done. I will nurse it to the pits”. As the emotion subsided, the rational comes back and Rick finds and repairs a separated hose connection. No water for refill, to the trash cans, where a dozen plastic water bottles are refilled and used by Nancy and Scott Rogers as a water brigade that keeps Rick pouring as fast as the engine will accept it. We’re re-fired and the Motec dash is reading like “man your battle stations” with blinking words and flashing red lights. Finally the temperature drops to 225 and Rick says, I can’t burp the air out so go run a couple laps and see what happens. Out we go for a half lap till the Motec goes back into a “Red Alert”. Next time we leave the pits the engine acts like it can deal with it, stabilizing around 230 degrees.
Even though we are now 5 or 6 laps down I am enjoying the ride, the car is an angel, entering and leaving corners well; well enough to place the fastest race lap for the Vipers. Just wait, the politics side is coming.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 out of the 33 lap no full coarse yellow race, I end up on the back side of Mike McCann. Mike’s Viper seems to be struggling and I notice drops of fluid hit my windshield so I pull off line and watch in my mirror as he creates possibly a Guinness record in white smoke plumes for the entire straight away. Later we learned he lost the engine.
Some time after passing one of the Cadillacs (being piloted respectfully) I became the trailer tow ball on the back of Jon Grooms’ AXA Porsche lap after lap. Jon had some creative lines in his corners, let’s see, you can zig but not zag? Let’s not start that, I will just say, Jon found a way to place his car in front of mine regardless of how far off line it was. OK insert politics here. The Porsche, has the ability to out accelerate the Viper, (SCCA “can you hear me now?”) leaving me with three full laps of high evaporation rate on my patience. So it is that we met in the last of the esses when Jon’s car again came off line and across my bow to find it nudging his rear bumper just an eensie bit. Jon spun and I went to the grass to stay clear of any heavy hitting. No regrets on my behalf Jon, I think you understand.
Portland International Raceway has two distinctions that set it apart from other tracks. The lap times are extremely temperature sensitive, changing as much as 2 seconds from morning to afternoon. The other is how slowly she offers up her speed secrets. This track is reasonably flat, looks easy to learn, but alas, she is devious, making you look hard for the last two to three seconds. The local racers are usually a leg up on the out of towners.
On the politics: I usually say something about the balancing act being administered by SCCA to keep all the teams potentially podium material. Vipers were the underdog earlier this year, Cadillac was out front, with the rest of the professional teams between. Then came an adjustment to the Cadillacs which left them competitive but not dominate to the Viper. Now this is one man’s opinion who happens to drive a Viper, and I also know little about strategy for Championships and these are smart people. All three of the CTS-V Cadillacs are not being driven to potential at all times. Championships are not won on the race track alone. We’ll leave it there since I am so ignorant and stand to learn from all maneuverings. At present almost all of the race teams agree that the Corvette and Porsches are dominant and thinking an adjustment is eminent. We can hope.
How’d the Viper people fare? Rich Marziale popped a motor in practice. Al Becera came up from San Jose and ran a clean race finishing 14th. Al’s car is in new paint, lookin good. John Dearing did an admirable 18th in his GTS after a mechanical issue took him out 6 laps from the end. Mike McCann is probably the most disappointed since he was up front before his motor expired. Tim came in 7th and Tommy 4th, thirteen seconds back of the leader. And he owns this place shall we say, taking Championships here in the past, so you can relate to the dominance of the other brands. Jon Brobst, Doris, Don Roberts and his wife along with a host of other Northwest Viper Club people made our Portland experience peg the fun meter. Don is incredible, he hosted a Viper Supper with Kobe beef and Lobster. I had to miss due to family obligations, hey I’m not stupid all the time. But Don if you could dry ice that and send………..naa, there’s next year.
This race is broadcast Aug 7th, you know where to check www.speedtv.com
Check back here in a couple days, when the camera gets home we will imbed some through the windshield video and attach it to this story above.
Off to Denver next go here for the details www.world-challenge.com
Remember your next vehicle is at www.woodhouse.com
God Bless You Bob Woodhouse [email protected]
