Initial Testing
Mid America Motorplex, IA
May 2003



It's Alive

After almost two years of hard work on the part of the guys at Ford Advanced
Powertrain and HP Motorsport, Tiger Racing's all new, Ford Mustang World
Challenge GT car has roared to life. For a while there, I almost didn't believe it
would happen. It takes a lot longer to a build a real, race car than I
thought. There are always setbacks, delays and tuning glitches to contend with along
the way and I'm not known for my patience. I was told that it would be worth
the wait though.

Actually, it's more like I was warned. I was told over and over again about
how much power this car would make. Twice as much horsepower as my 355 F1
Challenge car and twice the torque. The Mustang is a front engine car, while the
Ferrari is mid-engine. Mustangs are head strong and have a push on the front
end, 355s are twitchy in the tail. My new car is a purpose built, race car
whereas the 355 was a street car doctored up for the track. I was told to work out,
gather my strength and be ready to learn what handling a real, race car is all
about. When I flew into Omaha last Monday to begin testing, I was prepared to
meet a monster. What I found was something entirely unexpected.

The Mustang was shown at SEMA in Vortech Supercharger's booth last November,
but wasn't actually running at the time. The car's been back and forth between
HP Motorsport's shop in Omaha, Nebraska to Ford in Detroit and our shop in
Southern California to finish the build and calibration for the paddle shift
transmission. I met the car and my crew chief, Paul Brown, in Omaha to finally
begin my part in the process. Paul had driven the car the week before at Ford's
test facility for the first time. He was very excited to get me into it, but
also a bit nervous. I haven't raced in almost a year and this car is a whole
new ballgame for me. I'd also never driven at Mid America Motorplex before. With
only one week left before my first race of the season at Mosport in Canada,
the learning curve looked steep.

As if things weren't stressful enough for me, it was raining on Tuesday when
we headed out to the track. I don't particularly like driving in the wet. Some
people do. Dad is one of those. Mr. Pragmatic notes that since a car slides
around a bit when you're really pushing it, that rain merely heightens that and
keeps you sliding all the time. Skippy for him. I don't think "hydroplaning"
and "road racing" belong in the same sentence together.

The track was damp, but it was only drizzling when we went out on track for
the first time. Paul drove so that he could show me the line and I could get a
feel for the car. I watched Paul slide around for a few laps and tried to
concentrate on picking out reference points and apexes, but part of me kept
thinking that whatever he was doing, I certainly couldn't. He's one of those guys
that makes driving look effortless. The car goes wherever he points it. I don't
know how he does it. Then again, I've had a few passengers say the same about
me.

Still, I was grateful for a slight break in the weather when I was ready to
go out myself. Just climbing into this car is a new experience for me. The roll
cage is much safer and the door bars come up higher than in my old car.
Climbing up and over is a stretch, but sliding back into the seat feels familiar.
Once wedged into the aluminum seat, I'm reminded of something that Paul has
said numerous times before. Real race cars don't have keys. My Ferrari still
utilized the ignition key to fire it up, but the body in white that was
transformed into this race car didn't come with keys. To start, I first turn the main
power switch on, then I flip the switches on the panel to my right for the
ignition and the fuel pump, hold the brake lightly and click both shifter switches
to put the car in neutral and then I hit the big, red, starter button. The
engine fires right up.

I've been anticipating that sound for months now. I really had very little
idea what to expect. American V8's tend to make a distinctive burbling sound
that is very different from the higher pitched song of Italian engines. This
Mustang is no exception, although it's a much deeper tone than I expected. It's
not that loud in the car at all. That bass note travels. It actually sounds a
bit flat to me, reminds me of dad's Maserati 450S. When you feed throttle in
though, that bup-bup-bup sound widens and deepens further and finally rises to a
full on roar. With the Vortech Supercharger, this motor pushes a lot of air
and I discovered that on the down shifts that roar has a slightly, higher
pitched snarl to it that can make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

With the sound of the engine rumbling in my ears and Paul strapped into the
passenger seat next to me, I pulled out onto the track for the first time. Even
though the rain had let up at that point, the track was still slick and I
knew that any off track excursions would be messy. Pulling the car out of a mud
hole wouldn't be any fun.

The car was all new and I'd never set a tire on track at Mid America before,
but at least the hand controls were familiar. It's the same brake/throttle
system that my father designed for me 6 years ago. You pull the ring behind the
steering wheel forward with your fingertips for throttle and you push the
steering wheel away from you for brake. The brake is still mechanical like in my
old car, but the throttle is fly-by-wire now. That doesn't seem to make any
difference when I'm driving though. The thumb switches for the shifter are what
I'm used to as well. I barely have to move my hand to shift, I just roll my
thumb in a few millimeters to click a switch. The right switch is for upshifts and
the left is for downshifts. The car's TCU does the rest.

What I do to shift the Mustang may be the same as what I did in the Ferrari,
but how the TCU has the car respond to that is very different. It's much
faster and much smoother. Shifting from first to second and second to third in the
355, you felt it punch you in the lower back. It's a brutal action and I've
got the mangled synchros to prove it. The Aston Martin Vanquish gearbox and
controls in the Mustang are a far more advanced mechanism though. There's not only
more power there, it's much more precisely controlled.

My first few laps I just cruised around the track getting a feel for the car
and taking a good look around. I need to learn how this car feels as it moves
and how it reacts to different conditions and input. The first thing I noticed
is how touchy the brakes and throttle are. Throttle is almost on/off, there
is no slack in the controls at all. With the brakes I wasn't quite sure if the
controls were a bit too light or if it was something else. Speaking of
brakes...

About the only thing that worked consistently and well in my old car were the
brakes. A well balanced, mid-engine car with huge, 14 inch brakes and ABS can
stop on a dime. I learned to brake very late in that car. Not that I had much
power to take it out of corners, but I could park it in front of just about
anyone. I was a bit worried that the new car wouldn't have the same ability and
that I would have become too used to that. As it turns out, I needed have
worried so much about the former, but I was spot on about the latter.

The Mustang is no slouch in the braking area. It also has 14 inch rotors all
around with 6 pot up front and 4 in the back. Properly applied, those brakes
are fully capable of bringing a 3100 lb. car to a standstill in a hurry.
Keywords are "properly applied." There is no ABS on this car. Now, I realize that
most race cars don't have ABS, but that doesn't really matter because I've only
ever raced one car and it did have ABS and it seems that I've become a bit
dependent on it.

Any idea how hard it is to flat spot tires on a car equipped with ABS? Do you
know how easy it is to do so on a car without it? I've discovered it's WAY
easy.

I've seen the smoke when other drivers lock up a wheel under braking, but I'd
never done it before I drove this car. Now I need to learn how not to do it
and fairly quickly as square tires don't roll very fast. We've got a list of
things I need to work on, but this is near the top. I can't use all the power
this car has if I can't brake effectively.

By the end of the evening I was worn out, but pleased with the progress that
I'd made getting to know the car. Tuesday was spent at HP Motorsport making
some changes to the car including a steering fluid leak that needed fixing and
some adjustments in my seating position. Wednesday we were back on track. The
Derhaag Trans Am team had an exclusive testing day planned, but they generously
agreed to share with us as long as we gave their driver plenty of room. No
problem. After racing the Ferrari for years, I'm used to looking out for faster
cars.

The weather had cleared up and I was feeling a bit more confident getting
into the car after putting a few miles on it the other day. So Paul strapped in
next to me again and we were off. The first thing that I noticed is that the
second gear shifts seemed a bit slow. Paul figured out that I was forgetting to
put the car into Sport mode when I rolled out, but even after that I was still
a bit surprised at how the shifts felt. As I said before, they are very
smooth. That's rather deceptive really as it makes them feel a bit slow when
they're really not. I was told that they would get even faster. We planned on
heading to Detroit to do more testing and calibration on the shifter system at
Ford's Dearborn Proving Grounds. We'll be working closely with Ford all season to
continue to improve the performance and reliability of this car.

I was getting more and more comfortable in the car and with the track and so
I started giving it a bit more throttle and driving a little harder out of the
corners. Talk about a rush! Half throttle in this car feels more powerful
than anything I've ever driven. Full throttle is something else entirely. I sort
of expected the Mustang to be very torquey at low RPM and to have a little
trouble getting used to that. Once again, this car surprised me. The power builds
progressively and is very manageable. It only gets a little scary near the
top end.

In most cars, you can feel the power dropping off as you reach peak RPM. In
this one, there seems to be no end to it. When we dynoed the engine, we never
found the top of torque curve. It just keeps climbing. So at 5000 rpm, right
when you're expecting the power to fade just a bit and you start anticipating
the next shift, an odd thing happens. It's hard to describe, but you feel almost
a sense of urgency, like a surge in power. It's as if the engine is just
hitting its stride at that point. That translates to an incredible sensation of
speed at the end of a long straightway. It feels like the car is ready to leap
out from underneath you, just when you need to rein it back in for the braking
point.

There's much to learn about this car and a lot of details to watch out for.
We had a little excitement at one point. I downshifted to second, made the turn
left, was easing back onto the throttle and was just starting to straighten
out the wheel when the revs suddenly pegged and the back end of the car came
around. Letting go of the throttle ring did no good, so I was trying to push it
away from the steering wheel and straighten the car out at the same time. I
finally slammed on the brakes and Paul reached over and killed the ignition
switch. As the car lurched to a halt, we both looked up to see how lucky we were
that we'd managed to stay on the track.

Paul said, "Big puddle."

Understatement. There was a car sized bog on the inside of the track just to
the left of where we were sitting. We didn't actually see any fish, but it
certainly looked deep enough.

We figured out pretty quickly that my leg had shifted as we cornered and had
jammed the throttle ring against the steering wheel. We'd forgotten to strap
my legs down with Velcro straps like we usually do. Once that was taken care
of, we got back out on the track and continued doing laps. I think Paul was a
bit frustrated with my performance at that point as I was still overslowing for
corners and turning in too early. I was getting a little frustrated with him
snapping about it though. At least by the end of the day I'd shown definite
improvement and he was pleased with the work we'd done. We'll need to work on
that communication thing.

Bob from HP Motorsport had arranged for three different, local TV stations to
interview us at the track that day and so we spent time going over the car
with each of the reporters and answering the usual questions about how I got
started racing and what our plans are for the season. It was a lot of fun talking
about the new car though. For once I could be really positive and not have to
avoid mentioning all the faults of the car that I'm racing.

That night at the hotel, we missed two of the broadcasts, but the one we saw
was good. The shots of the car moving around the track looked great and they
showed me talking about how the hand controls work. The reporter talked about
how I'm dealing with a new car and getting back into racing and about my
disability and how on top of all that, I also have to deal with my crew chief. And
then they cut to a shot of me in the car right after I came off the track,
complaining that Paul keeps yelling at me about braking too hard and overslowing
the car. That snippet of airtime made it all worthwhile. At least, I thought it
was funny. Paul was slightly less amused.

We weren't on track Thursday, so Paul spent the day working on the car at HP
again. On Friday, we shared the track with some motorcycles. I was finally
starting to get a feel for the place and was able to put a bit more heat in the
tires. I still late brake and that seems to make Paul a bit nervous. He's used
to being the driver, not the passenger and there were a few times that I
expected to look over and find ten holes in the dash from where he had made a
desperate grab. Considering how he throws a car around, I thought that was funny
too.

By the time the sun was setting over Mid America Motorplex, I was both
exhausted and exhilarated. The car's amber coloured headlights cut an eerie swath
thru the deepening dusk. I followed the path they lit back to our impromptu
paddock next to the media center and snapped the ignition switch off. In the
momentary silence that filled the space where the burbling V8 had been only a
moment before, I took a deep breath and pulled my helmet off. I think Paul was
surprised that I wasn't grinning like an idiot, but I hope he didn't take that as
a negative sign. I was merely overwhelmed at the experience I just had.

This car is so much more than I ever could have expected. I was excited to
finally have driven it, but also awed by the glimpse of the road that lay before
me. No more excuses. I finally have the machinery necessary to compete in my
chosen arena. This is one fire breathing pony car and the next race is coming
up quick. Nothing makes me feel more alive than racing and I have the feeling
that this car will produce many a heart pounding moment of excitement in the
season to come. I can't wait.

Just a footnote... As many of you know, Tiger Racing is named so in honour of my mother's love of the Sunbeam Tiger. She has owned a number of those cars and I was fortunate enough to be able to drive one on a regular basis as a teenager. Brilliant cars. More fun than any 17 year old should have. Little, match box sized cars with relatively monster-sized motors by Ford in them. I had no way of knowing back then that one day I would be racing a Ford Mustang under the Tiger Racing banner. And speaking of coincidence... I thought it was interesting that shortly after I finished writing this update, I came across an ad for the Tiger from when the cars were new in the 1960s. It seems that the writer of that ad felt the same way about the Tiger that I did after driving my new Mustang.

Tiger Ad