This was the weekend that had been circled on the Off Camber Racing calendar for over 6 months, and it was finally upon us. The BSI boy’s from back east had been advertising “Total Dominance” on the SM UBB. For this claim to be true, they would have to begin on Off Camber Racing’s home track, Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca, where OCR driver Justin Hall is the current SM track record holder and defending champion of the 2004 SCCA Pro Mazdaspeed Miata Cup race at Laguna. Would the claim of “Total Dominance” be sustained, or would OCR hold serve on their home court? Read on to find out…..

Friday:

Practice began on what would end up being a busy Friday, with two practice sessions and one qual session all on the same day. Like last year many teams were chasing their setup with the unfamiliar Hankook tire. The west coast guys are mostly on Toyo’s, with the fella’s from the SouthEast typically running on Hoosiers or Toyo’s. Justin and teammate Brad Rampelberg, also a 2004 SCCA Pro Mazdaspeed Miata Cup winner (Phoenix), applied some setup learnings from the previous year’s experience, making some small changes to the other OCR cars piloted by David McAnaney, Bob Michaelian, and Robert Karges. Early practice times showed David McAnaney running in the top 2-3 and Rob Karges running top 5, however many of the favorites from back east were still familiarizing themselves with Laguna. Additionally, Justin and Brad were experiencing “transponder failures” which would definitely be corrected by qualifying but leaving them off practice sheets.

With the transponders now fully operational :), the OCR crew set out for qualifying on Friday afternoon. Brad had experienced some delamination in the final practice, so the Hankook guys graciously offered a new set of tires. Wanting to let the tires come in slowly, Brad set out solo leaving Justin and Dave to knock out a couple of flyers. Justin continued to fight a bit of oversteer, similar to practice, and decided to come in ½ through the session, while in P3 for a swaybar adjustment. The adjustment worked, but Justin was unable to find space for the remaining time in the session thus unable to improve from p3. Qualifying ended with the BSI car’s hinting that their ‘dominance’ advertising might be well founded with Todd Buras securing the pole and Jim Daniels starting p2. Justin earned the inside of the second row, Tom McCarthy p4, and an all OCR 3rd row with Brad p5 and Dave p6.

Saturday:

The only on track session Saturday was Race #1 – both qualifying for race #2 of the double header weekend the race itself would be held on Sunday. The BSI guys had shown throughout practice and in the first qual that they had high quality cars and matching talent to be a force to contend with during the race, so Justin’s mindset entering the race was to get between the two BSI cars at the start and prevent them from working together, and at a minimum not loose touch with them if they were able to get through turn two in the starting order. Also of concern was the torque of the 1999 driven my Tom McCarthy starting p4 – Justin knowing it imperative to stay in front of this car to stay in touch with the BSI cars because the additional weight of the 99 would be a hindrance in the turns. With those goals in mind the pack rounded turn 11 remarkably well formed with the immanent green flag a near certainty given our formation. Justin noticed Todd favoring the right side of the track, this being Todd’s first front row start at Laguna he didn’t understand the importance of holding the inside line into t2 at the start – seeming to balance his concern equally between Jim and Justin. The moment the green was displayed Justin jumped to the preferred inside line forcing Todd to the middle slot three wide into turn 2! Ownership of the inside line allowed Justin to be controlled and deliberate into the braking zone needing to take a tight double apex line to not allow another competitor from behind to slip inside. Daniels experienced a braking malfunction entering t2 driving wide before collecting the car and would ultimately DNF. With the cars cleanly through t2 and t3 the top 3 cars were Hall, Buras, and Rampelberg! With two of the top 3 cars, including the leader, being OCR cars this might now be the type of “Total Dominance” that BSI had in mind <grin> but alas the race is still young…..

Justin was able to keep the point with Todd closely tucked in behind for the next three laps. Over the course of these laps, Todd gave Justin a number of bump drafts showing Justin his intent of wanting to get ahead of the pack before dicing for the lead. Entering t2 on the 4th lap Justin overcooked the entry by a couple of feet and rather than fight Justin decided to lay back and draft for a while and continue the mutual effort of extending a lead over the pack before the fight for the center step of the podium is contested in earnest. After following Buras for a couple laps Justin sensed that Todd really did have a strong package, so it might be time to try to hold the lead. Justin was able to get a nice launch up the hill out of t5 and seeing a decent lead over Brad, Justin decided to pass into t6, knowing it would cost the leaders exit speed exiting t6 but the run up the hill was good enough that the pass could be executed cleanly. This sent Buras a clear signal that it was ‘game on’! Justin was able to lead for 2-3 more laps before Buras was able to get a great run out of t10 and close. Justin, noticing this run, placed the car center track to defend, but Buras would hear nothing of it and stuck the nose down to the inside cleanly forcing the issue. In seeing this, Justin tried for an outside run out of t11 but Buras was able to maintain the preferred inside line into t2 and again regained the lead…….but only for a couple more laps. A slight loss of rear adhesion out of the world famous corkscrew was all Justin needed to recapture the lead which would be held for the balance of the race, but not without numerous challenges from Todd. This report cannot capture just how close and exciting this race was, fortunately in car footage is available at www.specmiatavideos.com . The race ended with Justin finishing .8 seconds ahead of Todd, with OCR teammate Brad Rampelberg finishing 3rd.

Sunday:

Sunday would prove to be a busy day with qualifying in the morning for race #2 of the doubleheader in the afternoon. The high of winning the previous day was diminished to some extent by the daunting task of having to try and do it again, not to mention the residual fog of the previous nights celebration! We arrived at the track early and of course were in the cars before we knew it set again to qualify. Justin was able to get a decent time on the books early in the session topping the time charts p1, so he devoted the remaining portions of the session to work with Brad and Dave as a bump drafting partner. The large 44 car field at this point was dispersed fairly evenly around the track, making space for the faster cars harder to come by. The session ended with Jim Daniels on a flyer just barely edging Justin from pole and relegating him to the dreaded p2 off pole starting slot. The OCR cars of Brad Rampelberg and Dave McAnaney ended the session starting 5th and 7th respectively.

The Rolex sportscar series (Daytona Prototypes and GT cars) were on track a full 3 hours before our race, and in watching the first 45 minutes or so of this race, and considering some handling challenges Justin continued to face, changes were made to Justin’s #12 OCR machine with the intent of handling better on a rubbered-in track. It undoubtedly sounds unusual to make wholesale changes to a car that was good enough to win on the previous day, but it was clear that the track would be fundamentally different from Saturday and as the old saying goes if your not moving forward then your moving backward…….and unfortunately Justin realized almost immediately on the outlap that the car might be off. Hoping that it was simply an issue with letting the tires come up to temp, focus was returned to the start. With Daniels getting the jump on the green, Justin settled into p2 before t2, not willing to push a bad situation and risk falling back and out of touch with Daniels. The two would settle in nose to tail for only 3 more turns, with Justin claiming the lead getting a jump on Daniels out of t6 benefiting from cold tires. The lead would be short lived with the same benefit turning to detriment out of t10, Justin’s car so far out of shape he had to literally point Daniels by and back into the lead. Two laps later Justin would fall into the very unfamiliar p3 being overtaken by the #29 car of Terry McCarthy, which appeared to be as well sorted and well driven as Justin had seen in a couple years from Terry – in making this observation Justin quickly realized he would have his hands full with not just one car but now two and would have to make something happen soon! Two laps later Terry would close on and overtake Daniels, this battle allowing Justin to close on the two drivers. Shortly thereafter Justin overtook Daniels into t11with the running order now McCarthy, Hall, Daniels!!!! The back and forth action would continue a couple laps later with Justin fighting an illhandling car through t5 and t6 allowing Daniels to overtake into t8 without defense from Justin. Justin would only be in p3 for two turns as out of t9 McCarthy gets loose on the exit and in an attempt to save experiences snap oversteer spinning big directly in front of Daniels and Hall, neither lifting at all. The remaining 10 minutes of the race would be and ebb and flow of distance between Hall and Daniels, between .1 to 3 seconds between the cars at various points, with Jim doing just enough to maintain the lead – or Justin doing not enough to recapture the lead depending on perspective….. The race ended with Daniels taking the checker a mere .3 seconds ahead of Hall, and Todd Buras claiming the final podium spot.

OCR would like to thank friends, sponsors, and supporters for a great and successful weekend: TC Design, Sunbelt Performance Engines, Mazdaspeed Motorsports, Capital City European, Bavarian Motorsports, justracing.com, MPME, SP Induction / Iron Canyon Motorsports, Applied Racing Tech., and Kim Ouye for the last minute run to FedEx!

Photos courtesy SpecMiataWest. Used by permission.