Pete Gulick (center) cleans up in 2003... again...
Photo by Bob Harrington
(click to enlarge)

TEAM-LCR REPORTS

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Our last event of the year found us at a favorite track for what we hoped would be a really great race/party weekend. Unfortunately, we started off with news that Hamish Somerville would not be joining us (although his car did), as he was the latest casualty of our group to succumb to a kidney stone! Phil Meany was busy with his new venture. Pete Schultz, normally a VIR regular, had conflicting family obligations. Ed Mettelman had no excuse.  All were truly missed this weekend.

Test day got off to a very wet start. Paul Flowers made a session or two and Pete Gulick had a go later in the day. Robert Allred didn't join us until Friday. Chapman took advantage of the lack of customer participation to drive the two "works" cars in mostly driving rain. Getting to know the track again, he used mainly the Tiga with slicks fitted, having left full rains at home.  It was an interesting day.

Pete Gulick's weekend started on Saturday really, as he had not been feeling particularly well on Thursday and not much better Friday morning - choosing to sit the rest of Friday out.

Fortunately, he began to feel much better on Saturday morning - at least until the qualifying race. It was then that Chapman - in a surprise maneuver inspired by the devil - proceeded to take both Pete and himself out of the race (full story below).

Chevron B23 of Pete Gulick
Photo by Gordon Jolley
(click to enlarge)

Chapman in his Huron, forgetting that "the customer is always right,"
 is seen here stalking his best friend Pete Gulick in his Chevron B23
- just before launching his diabolical plan.....
Photo by Gordon Jolley

The field had gotten off to a slow start at the drop of the flag and Lee dove down the inside of everybody, as is his fashion. Pete was expecting something stupid on Lee's part and left them both a lot of room. Apparently not enough for Lee, however....  As Pete turned his Chevron B23 in much later than usual, Lee's Huron was already locked up and ran into Pete's right rear wheel. Pete then ran over the nose of the Huron, which flicked the B23 up into the air a foot or so. Pete continued around the track, but fearing further harm to his car, he came in. 

Meanwhile, Lee had spun out into the mud and was making quite a spectacle of himself gyrating in the bog in a hopeless effort to get back on the track. Not his finest moment, certainly, but wildly entertaining for spectators. A number of other cars had taken evasive action, spinning to avoid contact and hence contributing to the overall enjoyment of onlookers. Chapman demonstrated a real flair for making friends and influencing people on this occasion…. And so it was back to the paddock to face Pete, whose wonderful sense of humor was not at all apparent to bystanders.  That's motor racing!

At the end of the day, all was forgiven, if not forgotten.  After the annual dinner that night, Lee was obliged to take questions from all and sundry as to what made him think sabotaging his best friend and customer was a good idea.  His answers are still being analyzed, as is he.

[It should be noted that Gulick was offered equal space on this page for his version of the incident.  Alas, he has not as yet availed himself of the opportunity.  Stay tuned.]

 
Gulick in the esses in his Chevron B23
Photo by Gordon Jolley  
(click to enlarge)

In Sunday's feature race, Pete had a great battle with Alex Q, Fred Kaimer, Lee Brahin and Tim Gaffney, to clinch third place at the drop of the checker. Dave Handy won in the Big Mac; Alex Q was second.  The superstar of the weekend - Larry Connor in his Lola - went off spectacularly on Turn 1 of Lap 1. 

Once again, all but one of the competition had either 2.3 or 2.4 "2-litre" cars, and of course the McLaren was about 6 litres we guessed. So, once again, Pete did a superb job against much more powerful equipment.

Pete Gulick won the SVRA Group 7 and Group 9 Championships
for the second successive year. 
Congratulations Pete!       

Paul Flowers
driving the wheels off his Elva at VIR
(click to enlarge)

Paul Flowers' Elva had been prepared to the Nth degree to ensure reliability and give him as good a chance as possible of capturing the Endurance championship. At this event, the Enduro was split into two groups.  Unexpectedly, the Elva was moved out of the vintage group in which it had been participating and into the faster Historic car group.

Before the Historic Enduro transpired, however, we watched Paul's main Enduro rival, Bruce Sutherland, start  from pole in his Porsche in the Vintage Enduro and after only a few laps come in with a shredded rear tire.  He had done a whole lap slowly limping back to the paddock, and we were sure we had clenched the championship.  All Paul had to do was carefully drive to the finish in his Enduro, rack up all the laps an hour would bring, and the championship would be his.  Relief turned to disbelief eight minutes or so later when Sutherland re-entered the fray.  Still, we figured he'd lost about three, maybe four laps.  If everything went well, Paul could still win.

The Historic Enduro started with Paul on pole, but on the first lap he came in with loose bodywork.  We made this our mandatory five-minute stop, knowing that Paul had more than enough gas for the remaining 54 minutes.  Spirits were still high - but then the rain started coming down quite heavily.  Although Paul is particularly good in the wet, it's not his favorite condition for racing.  The rain slowed the pace of the race dramatically, so much so that he could not make the number of laps needed to gain the points to overtake Sutherland. Curses! It was such a great effort.  We really thought Paul would somehow manage to pull it off here, much the same as Gordon had done to win 1st overall last year.  Nevertheless, well done Paul - it almost went your way and certainly not for want of trying!
 

Paul Flowers in his Elva, pursued here by Chapman in his Tiga
 

In the Toleman, Paul proved to be very quick, with Friday's practice sessions again establishing how good car & driver were against much more powerful, contemporary equipment. They looked to be a formidable combination this weekend. However, Paul had to leave VIR early (family commitments outweighing the remainder of the weekend). 


In his Elva, Paul Flowers won SVRA Group 5 in the 2003 MikeStott/UBS Paine Webber Endurance Championship, 2nd Overall.

Congratulations Paul!

Photo by Lori Pilati

Robert Allred was back in the fold this weekend, playing himself in gradually and making use of full wets for Friday practice just in case the weather persisted for the weekend. Unfortunately, his hard driving came to naught after finishing well up the pack in 3rd spot, as we were suddenly informed that because of the inclement weather, grid positions would be decided not by finishing positions, but by best time of the weekend up until the actual feature race.

Robert started the race placed further back than we had hoped.  He had to go through the same scenario of working his way by slower cars, but by the time he had done this the lead cars had pulled out an advantage that was insurmountable.

He did give Ross a good going over in the Escort.  In the end, Robert finished 6th overall, 2nd in class - looking longingly at the crossflow engine that now powers Jim Netterstrom's Super Seven.  Maybe a better grid position would have given Robert a better chance, but that engine is something else.

Photo by Gordon Jolley

Bill "Wonder-Boy" Pedersen, our young superstar, took command of the Tiga for the all Sports 2000 Race Sunday lunchtime. Starting fifth, he rapidly moved up to third spot, albeit with a spin at Oaktree on the first lap. (As our tires on the Tiga get older, it takes more time to get them up to temp.)  

Without the spin, we have a strong suspicion that he would have been in contention for first place the way he moved back up towards the front two leaders - Peter Krause and his man, Paul Tavilla.


Well done Bill! 
Another nice podium finish.
(Three happy guys - Bill on the left)

Photo by Bob Harrington
(click photo to enlarge)

Gordon Medenica was with us this weekend, making a guest appearance to drive the "works" Huron 2-litre car. He and crew chief Bill Pedersen shared the Huron for the Historic Enduro, starting well down the field (no qualifying times). Bill moved up through the pack, but as the rain came down, "wheel spin" was getting worse and worse. Trying to lay power down on the rain-soaked track led to the engine revs going up and down as grip came and went - or so we thought.  When Gordon took over at the halfway point, the "wheel spin" was really becoming unmanageable. Except it wasn't wheel spin. Turns out, the clutch had all but gone and was slipping like crazy. Before failing completely, Gordon pulled in. This left us with a clutch to change that evening  -  not the way we had hoped things would go for the Huron.

Gordon Medenica takes the wheel of Chapman's Huron on Sunday
with a diabolical plan to run himself off the road....
Photo by Gordon Jolley

Photo by Gordon Jolley
(click to enlarge)

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