The weekend began a day earlier than a typical regional for the Off Camber Team, starting Thursday at the NCRC HPDE at Thunderhill. This year Off Camber Racing has expanded its operations to include two new rental cars. With three cars being new to the fleet this year and only one held over from last year, the OCR team knew the new cars were going to require a day of testing to be ready for the weekend. Neither Dave nor Justin fully comprehended just how much sorting would be required, as a variety of small issues kept them off the track until the time trial. Since one of the nagging morning problems would sideline Justin's personal car for the entire day (leaky water neck - no spare) Justin and Dave decided to run the rentals in the Time Trial. After 4 wheel drifting / sawing at the wheel through turn 2, Justin and Dave simultaneously realized they both forgot to check tire pressures...doh!!!!! All 8 tires were new and as any good tire shop will do they were well over inflated since its easier to bleed air off then add it at the track. After the session we found two of the 8 tires with over 50lbs of pressure with none below 42 lbs. Needless to say it was a spirited session with the cars impossible to control, like driving in the rain. They were able to get into the 2:17's, a full 5 seconds off OCR factory driver Peter Hsu's pace, but frankly it might have been the most fun session of the weekend. The rest of the afternoon went well with the cars all sorted and Dave and Justin thankful not to have to get all this work done at Sears.

The 2 new 42' Off Camber luxury sleds rolled into Sears on Friday ready to do some actual testing. Justin was particularly excited given he had 1/2 lap in his car the previous day at thunderhill before noting the water leak. Tires were well off at the beginning of the day given they were new and basically stickers, great patience was required to not start radically changing the suspension and stick with what was proven. Ultimately the patience paid off and the car came in proving that our year of data and research in 2003 was replicable – the secret sauce works! The day went well and most importantly was uneventful.

The intensity certainly picked up on Saturday with the field of more than 55 SMs with at least 6 professional drivers taking to their first practice around 10:40AM. Sure enough, that lasted a good two laps--Justin, Peter, and Dave were running in line through t3 and noted large dust clouds over the hill out of t3a. Expecting a big surprise all three lift and crest the hill to find an even bigger surprise than expected, with the 64 of Jeremy Burton perpendicular to the track recently t-boned by the 62 of John Stobba. Apparently the 64 lost it coming over the hill and 62 had nowhere to go. Both would DNS Sunday...but remember folks - 2 in in a spin!!!! Yes, the 64 continued rolling backward completely unpredictable as the OCR team crested the hill at probably 80% speed. Peter, leading, goes right into the grass, Justin follows and Dave figures right side is filling up and goes left into the dirt near the wall. Peter and Justin both get very sideways but manage to save the cars and re-enter the track near the t4 apex curbing. Dave gets loose and taps the wall driver's rear. Didn't expect to break out the rubber mallet this early into the season but the car was quickly fixed and ready for action. Thanks SM #5 Ron Thompson for the spare tail-light. Novice SM racer and quick witted paddock personality Chris Vendley coined Dave "Smackawally", hilarious at the time and even funnier that the name seems to be sticking, not so funny in terms of how prophetic it would be. Showing his greenhorn stripes, Vendley then proceeded to ask when we get to make up the practice time lost during the incident cleanup? Sorry rook, no dice. Thankfully the second session was uneventful.

Sunday morning was cool and overcast, normally perfect racing conditions except a low ceiling creating potential sound issues. Given Justin was getting 102db hits against a 103db sound limit during practice, team OCR collectively decided to switch back to last years exhaust configuration for qualifying. Because of the huge field chock full of novice racers lots of thought and strategy went into qual planning. Team OCR decided to get the cars to grid a full 3 sessions before we were called, and others seeing our cars heading out quickly followed suit much to the dismay of the grid workers. The front group mostly comprised of front pack racers talked before qualifying and all agreed to head out slow and bunch up the field to maximize clean laps. Terry McCarthy decided he didn't want to play ball and went out quicker getting around the OCR cars by t7. We decided over the radios that Terry would make a decent rabbit and collectively decided to chase. This was working well for a lap with (in order) Dave, Justin, and Peter in line following Terry. On the second lap we had caught and were essentially being held up by Terry. Justin overtook Dave into 11 and went around Terry, and shortly thereafter Dave went around McCarthy also as did Peter into t7. Over the radio Justin learned that he had a lap in the top 5 and decided to check up and see if he could get a tow from Courtney and Kirberg who were running 1-2. Peter was well positioned in p4 but wanted to keep working with Dave. Dropping behind Courtney and Kirberg out of 7, Justin proceeded to almost loose it through 10 all the while wondering "how the hell did they go through there so fast?." Mentally distracted trying to figure t10 out, and hopelessly trying to catch back up, Justin early apexed 2 and proceeded to spin. Ironically, while spinning Justin noticed Dave already firmly implanted in the tire wall. Justin was able to get back under way but the session went black to remove Dave. Brian, our trusty mechanic and radio man, announced before being booted from T&S that Peter was p7, Justin p8 and Dave p10. Knowing very little if any time would be left in the session by the time that Dave was removed, and the track was only getting faster, Justin decided to go to the back of the grid and let all other cars out in front of him to try for one last flyer if time remained. As luck would have it the track went green again in time for not one but two more laps and on the second lap Justin threw down his best of 1:56:871 to move up to p5 on the starting grid. Peter, in traffic, was unable to improve and dropped to p11 with Dave dropping to p14. Grabbing the pole with new track record obliterating the one previously held by Justin Hall was Marc Kirberg with 1:54:619 and teammate Mike Courtney close behind at :750. The top 4 qualifiers all went quicker than the previous track record.

Dave's car was towed to the boneyard where he quickly diagnosed a broken steering box (internal gears destroyed). This is not a common failure item and with Larry Oka not having one it was starting to look like a DNS was in Dave's future. But fortunately one was later located and it was off to the installation races! With the car back together and tech sticker reissued it was off to the paddock for a quick string box alignment. Something else on the car was obviously bent as the tie rods had to be buried into the rod ends for proper toe, but with the clock ticking the car was deemed "close enough" and we were off to grid.

Drivers were anxious and dare I say a bit nervous given this was the first race of the season, and as such the first green was waved off due to some overzealous moves pre green a few rows from the front. Second time around the green was waved with Ken Dobson (starting from p3) getting a bit of a jump on race leader Marc Kerberg and making an aggressive move to the inside. Marc maintained his line not leaving much room for Ken, collecting Ken into the wall and quickly ending his day. Tommy Olivier (staring in p4) and Justin Hall (p5) benefited from this activity dropping Marc back to forth. Marc made an aggressive move to the inside into t4 on Hall, with the two of them door to door through 7. Ultimately the inside move into 4 also results on inside line out of 7 and Marc assumed third. Next lap Marc made the same move on Tommy O to move into 2nd, and the 4 cars were nose to tail for two laps. Justin started badgering Tommy, forcing Tommy into a defensive line resulting in Marc and Mike breaking away from Tommy and Justin. This was creating some great racing for the fans with Mike/Marc battling for 1st, Tommy/Justin battling for 3rd, and not far behind Izzy Sanchez, Terry McCarthy, Peter Hsu, David Vodden and perhaps a couple other cars swapping positions. Great racing throughout the field! McAnaney was quickly learning that something else was in fact bent on his car because it didn't like turning right (later determined lower a-arm was taco'd) and Dave was driving his ASS off to maintain a top 10 position with skillfully collected offs in 4 and 8a. As previously mentioned, Peter was engaged in a fierce battle when a overly opportunistic (yet unfortunately typical) move from Terry McCarthy into t2 resulted in Terry hitting Peter on the right rear tire and rear bumper ending Peter's day with a blown differential. The driver of car #29 Terry McCarthy was given a three race probation for "dangerous and reckless driving." Terry is on the entry list for the next regional at Thunderhill, the collective SM community hopes he will clean up his act.

Back to the front, from laps 4-10 a large blanket could literally be thrown over the two cars of Olivier and Hall, with Hall quicker through most sections of the track and in braking zones but Oliver noticeably quicker through 8a. This prevented Hall from being close enough in 11 to convert in the braking zone. Even with Olivier driving a very wide, defensive car the two were clicking off quick lap after quick lap with Hall being held up and growing more frustrated by the lap. Around the ¾ point of the race Hall had gone to school on Olivier's subtly superior line through 8a and was closing the gap in this section and the next couple laps close enough to make a move into 11. Hall was finally able to get around and able to gap with race laps 6/10ths a second quicker than the now 4th place Olivier. Finishing order was Kirberg grabbing the checker closely followed by Courtney. Off Camber Racing co-founder Justin Hall stealing the last podium step followed by Tommy Olivier and Izzy Sanchez rounding out the top 5. OCR co-founder Dave McAnaney managed to wheel a bent car to 14th with OCR factory pilot Peter Hsu a disappointing DNF after running as high as 7th as a result of contact from another competitor.

Be sure to check out future racing action, our next events are the SCCA SFR regional round 2 at Thunderhill April 24 with Justin Hall also entered into the SCCA PRO Spec Miata rounds 3 and 4 race in conjunction with the Road and Track invitational at Laguna Seca May 1-2.

Official Race Results

Written By: Justin Hall
Photos Courtesy: Don Belval and Jeanine McAnaney