DRIVING THE WHEELS OFF

 

“It was awesome, just awesome, especially going through the turns,” is how Jack Roush Jr. (at left, Hi-fiving a “big” fan) described his No. 61 Roush Performance Ford Mustang Boss 302R on the way to a Friday win at Watkins Glen International with teammate Billy Johnson.

Friday’s Grand-Am Continental Tire 150 race at The Glen was pretty doggone awesome, too. Indeed, so much so that highly recommended is a tape-delayed review of it, whether via “live tape delay” scheduled for 5 p.m. Sunday June 12 on SPEED, or by watching an even still-later, self-recorded DVD, DVR, TiVo or 4-track cassette of the live tape-delayed show – or something to that effect.

“It was pretty brutal out there but a lot of fun. We were having a blast,” Roush added after he and Johnson finished atop the podium in the door-banging 59-lap, 142-mile Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race held near the southern end of New York’s famed wine-making corridor. The pair now have recorded five-consecutive podium finishes - including two victories - after failing to finish the season-opening race at Daytona International Raceway.

Finishing in second place was the No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GS.R of Matt Bell and Jon Edwards.

The No. 46 Fall-Line Motorsports BMW M3 of Mark Boden and Terry Borcheller finished third.

A pole-sitting (2:02.256, 100.118 mph) Joe Foster kept his No. 15 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang Boss 302R on the race’s point for the first three laps of the 2-hour, 31-minute race before slowly starting a backward fade – the nagging issue behind which would be appropriately diagnosed during a Lap-13 pit stop.

“We’ve got a cracked exhaust header,” a dejected Foster said as mechanics scurried around the car and under its hood after he climbed from the car and handed the wheel to co-driver Scotty Maxwell (at right, ahead of the No. 80 BimmerWorld Racing BMW 328i of David White and Bill Heumann at The Glen).

“It’s not terribly bad,” Foster said, “But you can hear it and the power just doesn’t quite come on like expected. It’s just enough to mess up the engine’s overall timing and gas mileage.”

“Huh?” your intrepid, all-knowledgeable reporter responded with conviction.

“The exhaust-gas leak creates an imbalance in the engine’s atmosphere exchange, creating a vacuum leak that negatively impacts the amount of air a related valve can move (push from the engine cylinder) the exhaust gases; the impacted valves being incapable of moving, or clearing as much exhaust gas from the chamber,” Foster (far left, in his “other” racing life with Patrick Dempsey, near left) said.

“Huh?” your intrepid, all-knowledgeable reporter responded with conviction.

“The less ‘clean air’ available for combustion, the richer, or greater amount of fuel must be burnt to get the same sort of engine performance, horsepower wise. It’s not the end of the world but it’s not an ideal situation, either, otherwise the Ford guys would build ‘em that way.”

As if the team’s self-imposed, if not intended engine penalty wasn’t enough, a race penalty of the official kind came along at just about the same time and left Maxwell scratching his head even long after race end.

“I never did find out the reason for the penalty,” the 47-year-old grizzled veteran said, “and didn’t understand what was communicated to me about it.”

“You know, you can waste time arguing and fuming about it to people (race officials) who aren’t likely to change their mind or kick ‘er in gear and roll. I’ve just kinda favored the latter for awhile now,” Maxwell (at right) said.

Sent on Lap 18 to the Grand Sport-class’ 31st and final available spot, of the remaining 41 laps in the 59-lap race Maxwell’s Boss 302R crossed into the top-10 on Lap 30 and into the top-five by Lap 42. Maxwell then captured third place on Lap 55 before lapsing slightly two laps later and settled into fourth, where he’d bring the evidently not-so-ill Boss 302R home minutes later.

“Not bad for an old guy,” Maxwell later quipped. “Then again, it’s not too bad for a Mustang that most everyone thought shouldn’t have run as well.”

Nor was the first-place finish for a couple of relative youngsters in the form of Johnson and Roush

(Left: at The Glen, the No. 61 Roush Performance Mustang Boss 302R “takes flight” ahead of the No. 00 CKS Autosport Camaro of Ashley McCalmont and Eric Curran).

“Scotty and I had a really good-handling car but, I swear, it seemed like every time I looked at Billy or Jack in that (No.) 61 (Mustang Boss 302R) it seemed like they were in cruise mode; one hand on the wheel and the other draped over the back of the seat, lazily driving down the road,” Foster laughed as he demonstrated the look.

Johnson insisted Foster’s observation wasn’t far from the truth while the Roush Performance team celebrated in Victory Lane.

“I have to give all the credit in the world to our guys on the team and back in the shop,” Johnson (at right, in The Glen’s Victory Lane) said. “They gave us a really sweet-handling car.”

Evidently a “hot” one, too, according to one Grand-Am official in the know.

“After the race the car was off-camber, the left front was a little low,” observed CTSSC series director Jeff Smallwood.

“We kind of wondered what was going on so we started tearing it down.

“Well, the left front brake rotor, the hub, bearings and spindle were all but melted. It was amazing that the wheel was still on the car.

“You ever hear of that expression, ‘he drove the wheels off?’ Well that’s darn near what Roush and Johnson did to that car; for real. It was among the most incredible things I’ve ever seen in all my years in racing.”

Later,

DC

P.S. A special “Thanks” to photographer Brian Cleary, who provided the spectacular images above, including the gratuitous “hunk-actor” shot of Dempsey, though Dempsey, not Cleary (nor Ol’ DC, for that matter) would be the one who does 200-or-more sit-ups daily so as to be that “hunk.”