World Challenge Race - Round 2
Mosport, Canada
16-18 May, 2003

It's a Start... And a Finish

It was a rush getting to the Mosport race in Canada. It would be my first race of the 2003 season. I had driven the car for the first time at Mid America Motorplex only a week before. We also spent a few days at Ford's Dearborn Proving Grounds finishing up some calibration work on the transmission and shifter system. The engineers at Ford have helped us put together an awesome car. It's still going to need fine tuning, but out of the box, it's a solid car. The work done on the transmission is amazing. This is probably the most technologically advanced racing Mustang in private hands in the world right now.

I've never been to Mosport, but I've been warned about it. It's a fast, technical track. My crew chief, Paul, describes it as a rollercoaster. It's about 2.5 miles with some hard braking, tight corners that lead onto long, fast straights. I was nervous getting there, but luckily Paul knows people. We were paddocked right next to AER who has Rob Fellows driving their Roush Mustang this year. Paul's known Rob for about a decade and Mosport is Rob's home track. He was nice enough to let me follow him around for a lap or two and to keep an eye on me for the weekend, offering up suggestions as we went along.

Advice from the experts is a big help, but nothing could help with one problem I had that weekend. It was raining. Man, I hate the rain. I don't know anyone who uses a wheelchair who likes it. Your hands get all dirty. But that's nothing compared to managing a race car in the wet. It's a skill. One that I'm still honing. It was decided that with a brand new car and it being the first race and all, it wasn't worth it to risk it. So when the track was wet that weekend, I stayed off it. I only went out when the skies were relatively clear. I didn't get much track time, so the advice I got was really helpful.

The biggest problem I had though was that my clutch was slipping. Anything over 4000 rpm or so and the clutch would slip, causing the motor to free rev which means that you don't go very fast. With hindsight, I'd know that this would be the only problem we would have with the transmission all season, but at the time, it was very, very frustrating.

We did have help trackside from John, a Ford engineer, who was with us for the weekend. He determined that the stock, Aston clutch disk that we were using was not up to handling the power that was generated by the Vortech Supercharged 4.6 L engine we had in the Mustang. It was something we would need to look into later, but there was nothing that could be done while we were in Canada. So I had to drive around the problem. That meant shortshifting at 4000 rpm. On most tracks that would mean losing time, but on a fast track like Mosport, it was deadly to my lap times.

Not to mention how I was getting used to everything else on the race car. It was exciting though. Even with only half the power at my disposal, the Mustang was more car than I'd ever driven. I was used to being slow on the straights and while frustrating, it forced me to focus on other areas, like braking points and corner entry.

Even with the problem with the car, I was looking forward to the race. It had been almost a year since I'd seen a green flag wave in front of me. One of the great things about World Challenge is that they make each race an event. Each team has a flag bearer on the starting grid and there is a parade lap before the race where the field navigates the circuit with the drivers waving to the crowd. Passengers are allowed on the parade lap and since John was with us from Ford and he'd been such a help in getting this car running for us, we thought he'd be enjoy the ride.

He really seemed to. He'd never been to a sportscar race before and he kept saying how excited he was to be there, so I was hoping to give him a good show during the race. Alas, it was not to be.

World Challenge has standing starts. That means that after we finish the parade lap, the field lines up on grid and shuts down their motors. We finish tightening up our belts and checking the cars over and then you hear the announcer say, "Drivers, start your engines!"

I reached over to the panel at my right hand and hit that big red, starter button and... nothing happened. I pushed it again and nothing happened. I radioed to the pits that the car was dead and kept trying to start it. The rest of the field drove off on the warm up lap while my crew pushed me off the grid. We got the car running and I drove into the pit lane, but then the car died again and they had to push us down to our paddock to work on the car. My crew struggled for 20 minutes to get that car running while the race went on without us. When I finally charged back down the pit lane, the crowd cheered me thru. I was 19 laps down at that point, but I was fired up to do the best I could with the time left.

Unfortunately, I still had to struggle with the clutch slipping. I was lapped a few times while I was out there and had one off coming down to Turn 2. I saw a few cars coming up behind me and was expecting them to take me on the inside of the Turn. As any good driver knows, what is behind you is unimportant... mostly. But I saw Rob Fellows coming up behind me and I forgot that golden rule. I missed my braking point coming down to 2 and ended up sliding off track slightly into the dirt. Rob told me later that he saw me in his rear view mirror and that I had at least handled the off well. He said that my wheels were pointed in the right direction the whole time I was sliding down the hill.

At least I brought the car home in one piece. Despite the trauma of the aborted start and the troublesome clutch, I was actually pleased with a finish. It was amusing how excited John was at the end of the race. I kidded him that we got over that kind of "excitement" while we were racing the Ferrari. I felt bad when he looked crestfallen and promised me that he would work with the team to get the car working at 100% capacity for me.

I felt better when he kept that promise.