I had a great night’s sleep at the hole in the wall motel that no one seems to know about. The place is empty most of the time, and if you’re OK with the subtle overtones of the Bates Motel and can deal with the smell of curry, it is the perfect place to rest before the 25 Hours of Thunderhill. Reminds me a little of that mini-series that was on TV several years back called “The Lost Room”. Very twisted. No, seriously, I got a great night’s sleep!

So we all show up at the track early in the morning. It’s damned cold. The crew is working on the car and getting the last things done that need to be done. Typical morning of race prep. All the drivers got suited up and we climbed in the car one at a time to get our seating position perfect. Once each driver was strapped in and comfortable, the seating position would be marked and initialled. These marks would be used during driver changes so the person helping the entering driver would be sure of getting the new driver’s position just right.

Changing drivers is a pretty important part of endurance racing. In the ES class we can use a fueling rig which will dump 26 gallons of fuel into the car pretty quick. So if we’re double or triple stinting a set of tires, it’s either the fueling time or the driver change time that’s keeping the car in the pits. We like to make sure it’s NEVER the driver change time. As soon as the car is ready, it should be rolling.

To ensure we accomplish this, we do driver change practices. Marshall had determined that the driver line-up would be me leading off, followed by Mark Hotchkis, then Rob Holland would take us from dusk into the night and Dave McEntee would drive the first full stint at night. The way we do are driver changes, we have a crewman (Earl) jump in through the passenger door to assist (he’s literally squatting in the car where the passenger seat would be) and the exiting driver assists the entering driver on the driver side.

One of the things that makes this process pretty easy is if we can make sure that the lap belts never need to be adjusted. This means that the lap belts are never really perfect for everyone, but can be close enough to speed up the driver change. In our case it was going to be a bit of a challenge since Rob is a pretty tall guy. Mark, Dave and I all sit within a few clicks of each other. Relatively speaking, Rob sits in the back seat. So finding a compromise for the lap belts is pretty tricky.

After we’ve all cycled through the car once it’s time to practice our stops. This is a very busy time for all three guys involved, and practice is definitely needed. After driving on a racetrack for two hours straight, it’s tough to get into “change driver” mode as your brain is pretty grooved in on doing a very different task. But if you can get a bunch of practice in, it helps you get through the first few driver changes without fumbling around too much. In practice, we aim to get down to 40 seconds from the time the car comes to a stop in pit lane to the time the new driver is in, belted, plugged in to the radio system, net up and door closed. Oh, and Earl needs to be out as well. That would suck.

Here’s what’s involved. As the driver comes down the back straight he radios in to the pits that he’s on the back straight. Rounding turn 15 the driver radios again, this time with “Pit in, pit in, pit in.” The driver slows the car down to the 25 mph pit lane speed limit (2nd gear 3,000 rpm) before the line that marks the official start of the pits. At this point the driver can see the pit stalls still several seconds ahead. The driver has to loosen both shoulder harnesses, pull down the window net, unclip the cam-lock on the harness and flip the right side shoulder harness up over the back of the seat, all this while guiding the car in to a perfect stop close enough to the pit wall for the fueling rig to reach. Once the car is stopped, the driver pulls up on the seat slider release and pushes the seat all the way to the rear. As soon as the car has come to a stop, the entering driver is running around the back of the car and reaches the door handle just as the exiting driver has hit the rear stops of the seat slider.

By this time, Earl has entered through the passenger side and is getting situated for belting in the new driver. The entering driver opens the door, unplugs the exiting driver’s radio connection, flips the left shoulder harnes up over the seat and assists the exiting driver by guiding his HANS clear of any obstructions with his right hand while physically tugging on his suit with his left hand, virtually pulling him out of the car. The drivers change positions and the entering driver sits in the seat and scoots forward while the exiting driver and Earl ensure the lap belts are clear. The entering driver slides back in the seat the Earl and the exiting driver clip the lap belts to the cam-lock and anti-sub belt. The entering driver grabs the seat adjuster and pulls on the cage to pull himself forward while the exiting driver ensures he stops the seat right on his marks. If they miss, they work together to get it right. It is the exiting driver’s responsibility to get this right, and as you will soon see, they are very committed to this task.

The next step is for Earl and the exiting driver to get the shoulder straps over the entering driver’s HANS device and latched into the cam-lock. Earl gives a tug on the right shoulder belt while the exiting driver connects the entering driver’s radio connection to the car harness and the entering driver snugs the left shoulder belt. Earl is exiting the car while the exiting driver is putting up the driver’s side window net, ensuring the release is angled in for the driver to reach, then slams the door and gives it a tug to make sure it’s closed, then runs around the back of the car and back to safety behind the pit wall.

Under forty seconds is a good time for this process. But we sure don’t start out doing it that smooth. It takes may iterations to get everyone working well together, learning the details of where the other drivers’ radio harness needs to be, etc. As we begin this process, the driver changes can be in the minutes. Mistakes are made. Occassionally, injuries occur. Which leads to the next part of the story.

I’m first in the car, so Dave’s my assistant on the left side. We’re going slow, because it’s the first run through and we want to work out the bugs before putting some speed to it. Dave and Earl strap my lap belts up and I reach down and grab the seat slide release and pull myself forward. I go as far as I can and the lap and anti-sub belts stop me before I get to my spot, the furthest forward. I slide back again to get a bit of a run at it and Dave tries to give me a little help to give me some momentum. Again I come up short, but closer to our target this time. Dave tells us to “Give it one more go” and I slide back again. This time we’re determined, and Earl’s on one side and Dave’s on the other, both with a good grip. The seat propels forward like it’s a JATO. You ever see that old video of that crazy man strapped onto the rocket sled doing human G tolerance tests? That’s what came to mind as I hurtled forward to my doom.

My crotch hit the belts so hard that I greyed out. All the air left my lungs in a huge WOOOOOF and I saw stars. I felt something hit my spine and I’m pretty sure it was my right testicle. And to top it all off, my hand slipped of the release and the seat held me there, breathless in a bad way. Dave shouts, “OK, you made it!” and starts on my shoulder belts. I finally pull in a gasp of air and shout, “OW”. Dave asks me what’s wrong and I tell him that we just grew my inseam, halfway severed my right leg and I’m worried that it might take weeks for my right nut to drop. In falsetto.

I finally get a grip back on the slide release and ease my discomfort. Dave has dropped to both knees and I can see his helmet bobbing from him laughing so hard. He finally catches his breath and says, “Dude, I put everything I had into that one!” Earl’s gone, too, laughing his head off. I’m just glad I’m sitting, because if I took a hit that hard standing up, I’d be on my ass soon enough. It takes a few minutes, but I eventually recover enough to say “OK, that’s not going to work” and we get to readjusting the belts a bit to see if we can get things to work, amid occassional snickers from my “team mates”. The final compromise is for me to sit one click back further than I like with a little more slack in the belts.

The rest of the practice driver changes goes significantly better than that, and we eventually got down to our target times. We wrapped up with the call over the PA system that we had just 10 more minutes to get the car to grid. We were getting close to race time and we were ready. Well, mostly ready. I had make one more trip to the rest room to make sure all my parts were still attached.

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