GEAR GNASHING

 

Like “The Loves of Dobie Gillis’” character Maynard G. Krebs’ reaction to the word “work,” Penske Racing’s John Erickson similarly nowadays flinches whenever he hears “Rolex Series technical bulletin.”

With good reason.

Of the ten 2009 season-related “rules tweaks” issued since 2008’s season close, half have been aimed squarely at Penske Racing’s Verizon Wireless No. 12 Porsche-powered Riley. Or at least so believes Erickson, the managing member of the team which competes in the Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16.

When tossed an impromptu on-the-fly question about the subject while in the middle of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course paddock, Verizon Wireless drivers Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas could return only simultaneous, almost choreographed shoulder shrugs. 

Brumos Racing’s David Donohue - recently accompanied by a foreboding, lightning-filled personal raincloud overhead - will tell you the bulletins are aimed at he and Darren Law’s 2009 Rolex 24-winning No. 58 Brumos Porsche-Riley.

“What can I say to the media that can’t be anything but negative right now?” Donohue rhetorically responded when a “’Sup, dude!?” question was posed at Mid-O.

Throw in Brumos Racing No. 59 driving tandem Jaoa Barbosa and JC France and one has substantially included the Who’s Who of Porsche professional racing In the United States as among those affected by Grand-Am’s tech zingers. 

(Yes, Mr. Buckler, I know you and the Farnbacher Loles guys have some bulletin “issues,” too, as well as you clearly being worthy of inclusion in the ”Who,” but one - specifically, THIS ONE - can only maintain concentration for, oh, a nanosecond or two. And this already is starting to get way too deep.) (And, yes, there are those who say JC France is a “Trueman” sort of guy, but I’m here to tell you he’s a darn sight better racer than this amateur will ever be - and he and I together attended Skip Barber School wa-ay back when.)

Of the 2008 season’s 10 technical bulletins, four addressed Daytona Prototype topics in generalized form (“decals” here; “paint protection” there) and none were specific to any one car, much less powerplants or transmissions shared by one particular marque. 2007’s bulletins have faded from view with the intervening Grand-Am updated Web site and, along with other preceding years, are absent from the comparisons. However, while carefully first noting this writer’s imperfect gray matter, absent from memory are a similar-to-2009 occurrence in past bulletins - especially while only halfway into a season.

Inasmuch as more championship-winning teams haven’t won the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona as have (by a 3-to-1 ratio), it shouldn’t come as a big surprise to learn that Donohue and Law aren’t presently in the championship points lead. Yet, they’ve also almost free-fallen from first to fifth in Rolex Series points since the Verizon 250 at New Jersey Motorsports Park.

Still, belying Brumos and Penske Racing’s claim to clear harm arising solely from the rules changes are Bernhard and Dumas’ fourth-place standing in the championship points - despite twice shooting themselves in the foot with penalized, race-restart infractions at VIRginia and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Presently only13 points out of first place, absent those infractions it’s certainly arguable the Verizon Wireless drivers would otherwise be further up the ladder if not atop the standings. Furthermore, over the last three races Bernhard and Dumas have scored finishes of sixth or better (with one top-3) whereas Donohue and Law’s Brumos Porsche has finished 8th, 15th and 10th.

Some have opined the difference could be found in the respective teams’ gearboxes, where the former uses Xtrac whereas the latter puts its Porsche power to the ground through an EMCO gearbox.

Though not seeking to take issue with the quality of either - indeed many consider the EMCO box to be as close to “bulletproof” as any racecar transmission anywhere - the two boxes nonetheless differ substantially to their respective approach in channeling the Porsche Flat-Six’s power (a diagram of such being left for another day) and, in that regard, most sources give the EMCO gearbox a slight advantage in such applications.

Donohue doesn’t think it solely a matter of gearbox, though.

“We just don’t have the revs we need,” he said. “Stopped on most any incline plane found on most any racetrack, in first gear I’ll all but burn up the clutch as I attempt to gain forward momentum.”

One aspect not at all debatable in the multiple tech-bulletin deal is the cost those rules changes have had on a team’s bottom line. It’s been substantial, with at least one firsthand source saying the monetary impact per team is easily into six digits and the impact on one team has been so great that it’s now running close to being in the red - with six 2009 races remaining.

Say what one might about the nobility of keeping rules tight and equitable, such is of little value if one or more teams are altogether eliminated from a championship fight - exiting the series - by the process and not by on-track action.

 

SHADES OF VAN DER MERWE

Having only one race at Daytona International Speedway between the three of them, Sarel van der Merwe, Graham Duxbury and Tony Martin – South Africans, all – showed up for the 1984 Rolex 24 At Daytona (the “Sunbank 24,” then) clueless as what to expect at the famed track. No one else knew what to expect of your basic, everyday unknowns, either.

Besides, all the attention was focused on a new car Porsche’s Herr Norbert Singer brought with him - the bright-white No. 1 Porsche 962 of Mario Andretti and Michael Andretti. The previous time Singer showed up at Daytona with a full-on factory Porsche in 1971, Pedro Rodriguez and Jackie Oliver drove the Gulf-sponsored, John Wyer-managed 917K to victory (and not too long thereafter also earned a 1972 competition ban).

In a few day’s time the three South Africans departed with the winning laurels after their Kreepy Krauly Porsche-powered March 83G by nine laps beat Preston Henn’s 1983-winning T-Bird Swap Shop Porsche 935L despite the latter’s all-star driving team of Bob Wollek, AJ Foyt and Derek Bell.

In shades of of that day, South African Airways-sponsored drivers Hennie Groenewald and Dion von Moltke will be making their Daytona Prototype debut at Daytona International Speedway’s 2 p.m. Brumos 250 on July 4 (that’s for you, too, Cleary). 

In a post-EMCO Gears Classic test Monday at Mid-O the two relatively unknown South Africans climbed in Kevin Doran’s No. 77 Ford Dallara and before long people like the aforementioned John Erickson were asking, “And just who are those guys!?”

Perhaps that same question will again arise in a week’s time at Daytona. It’s likely such will be okay with Groenewald and von Moltke, given history and all.

Look for the two at Daytona in Doran’s No. 77 Ford Dallara.

 

MID-O MIA

Among swirling rumors - one of which has him climbing into the SPEEDtv booth while another had him suffering a heart attack (another story, see below) - as to racing great Hurley Haywood’s present-day position in the scheme of things at Brumos Racing - “Too many chiefs and too few braves,” insisted one insider a few races back - came Haywood’s complete absence at last week’s MCO Gears Classic at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

“I was in Munich for the Porsche Panamera introduction,” Haywood said after returning stateside and while between Brumos Porsche school classes (buy a Porsche from Brumos and get lessons from Haywood; not too bad, eh? Too bad more Porsche drivers don’t buy at Brumos).

“It’s a beautiful car and with Porsche-quality and performance, through and through,” Haywood said  of the Panamera, Porsche’s first entre into the four-door passenger car market.

Rumor discussions were left for another day inasmuch as Haywood wished to return to instructing.

 

ROBBY AIN’T, MEA CULPA

Preceding the 2003 Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen International (as it will again Aug. 7), the Rolex Series Daytona Prototype was in its inaugural season and darn near gridding The Crown Royal 200 race when Robby Gordon at the last minute decided to go DP racing in the No. 3 Cegwa Sport Toyota-FABCAR DP of owner/driver Darius Grala and co-driver RJ Valentine.

Getting a seat-insert fitted while the No. 3 headed for the grid, Gordon hopped into a spare but fully outfitted FABCAR brought to the race by FABCAR owner Dave Klym. While the foam hardened, Gordon used the time to familiarize himself with the car’s switches, pedal positions, gearbox shifter, etc.

Taking over in midrace, all eyes were on the first turn one lap later when Gordon at full song took the hard right-hander tight on the inside line with a bevy of other cars around him. He didn’t miss a lick.

Before he climbed from the car at shift’s end - typically Robby, grinning impishly from ear to ear - Gordon had set the race’s fast lap, which no one in that race would surpass. And Gordon at that time had never so much as driven any DP for any distance whatever before driving away from the Cegwa Racing pits. Two days later Gordon also won The Glen’s Sprint Cup race. Maybe he was on a roll.

Still, that Rolex Series race at The Glen easily resides high on this writer’s best-ever racing remembrances and it likely got in the way when this writer in his last post stated Robby Gordon would on July 4 (for you, MC) be running a DP at Daytona International Speedway.

Though based on reasonably credible information that previously held otherwise, Gordon won’t be in the July 4 Brumos 250 at Daytona International Speedway.

For having earlier stated the opposite, I apologize. For having wanted to again see Gordon in a DP, I ain’t apologizing.

The way things are going, I’ll at any time probably also be retracting any and all recent “Garcia and Rice Together Again” stories, too.

So, then, while on a “roll,” let’s just throw out something like “IMS” and let everyone else run with it. Some say certain others in this biz recently did so on another front. Albeit, certainly a more “prominent” front. For now.

 

NEW ROLEX SERIES’ CARS/TEAMS?

Beyond Scott Tucker at Mid-Ohio taking delivery of a new Riley DP that’s slated to become a Ferrari, other teams reportedly now in the shadows preparing for some Rolex Series racing include another Porsche DP program and a BMW M6 GT.

 

HEART “ATTACKING”

During the week when he was to depart for Mid-Ohio’s EMCO Gears Classic race, Rolex Series technical consultant (and, um, fixture?) Don Hayward showed up for a routine yearly physical at his doctor’s office only to find himself unexpectedly being told to ready for a quadruple heart bypass. Well, let’s just say it was news to Hayward and others.

It also became “news'” to Hurley Haywood, though in a roundabout way.

At Mid-O, Brumos Racing’s media representative Patty Tantillo started getting bombarded with “How’s Hurley?” questions. Knowing Brumos icon Haywood was to be in Munich for the new Porsche Panamera unveiling, Tantillo nonetheless wanted to be certain Haywood was fine. That’s when HayWOOD learned of HayWARD and the latter’s heart bypass operation.

“I must’ve had a thousand emails and text messages asking me if I was okay after my heart attack,” HayWOOD said.

Meanwhile, HayWARD reportedly is doing just fine; considering his sternum was broken on purpose, and all.

And, PUH-LEEZE, nothing whatsoever above stated Haywood as having had a heart attack at any time.

We humans are a strange lot.

Later.

DC

Gratuitous picture of Patrick Dempsey so that all the search engines will hit: