...I met Bill that night at registration for the first
time.  He arrived a couple hours later than we did,
so my running around asking everyone "Are you Bill?"
wouldn't have made any progress, anyway. We talked
briefly about a game plan for the morning, then parted
ways.  I took what I knew would be my last decongestant
on the way to the motel. I could drive on aspirin.
The other stuff turns too much thought to mush.

I pulled right up behind Bill at the track entrance on
the morning of the 1st.  We waited for an hour or so to
get into the track.  He and Richard, one of our weekend
crew, unloaded the car, dumped the trailer, and set up
the paddock space out of the back of the 24' Ryder
truck.

Meeting the other drivers, Terry Coates and
J.G.Pasterjak, went well. J.G. was familiar with the
track and talked Terry and me around it while Bill was
out in the early morning trying to find his own way
around.  Morning practice was long enough for each of us
to get a few laps.  Moroso isn't a terribly difficult
track to learn, competently. I'll leave commentary on
mastering to someone who's achieved that status. 
(Actually, turns 9 and 10 are baffling if you have
nobody to follow through the first time.  I came to the
end of the back stretch and was confronted with a huge
expanse of asphalt and no clue where to go.  Once I
found the track, it all made sense.)  Finally, I was
starting to feel human again, also.

Terry drove the afternoon qualifying session and
proceeded to put our 88 GTI on the ITB pole.

That evening, we were supposed to have a crack at
nighttime practice. Instead, we got a chance to replace
the clutch.  As Bill prepared to take the car out, the
clutch wouldn't disengage.  Exhasuting adjustment
options, we determined it was Bad.  Instead of much
needed dark-time expereince, Bill, Richard and
crewman-Brian frantically tried to separate the
transmission for the engine.  The clutch disk had turned
itself into a lots of black powder and a few little
chunks.

A replacement was in by the time the second qualifying
session started Friday morning.  J.G. and I split the
session, but never came near Terry's qualifying time,
which held to keep us on the pole.  The track time was
helpful, nonetheless.

At 2pm that afternoon, the green flag dropped on the
ABLS Longest Night of Moroso.  Terry started for us. 
J.G. was to be second in the rotation, then me, then
Bill.  Terry maintained a quick but conservative pace. 
While he didn't gain many positions, he didn't lose any,
either.  That's why we were concerned when the first
hour report showed us in third place in class, three
laps behind the leader.

Timing and Scoring did little to regain our confidence
through the night.  Positions seemed quite arbitrary,
and rather contrary to our own observations.

Terry handed off the car after almost two hours and J.G.
took off. We maintained our position, quite at odds with
T&S's reckoning. Around 5:30, J.G. brought the car in
and handed it over to me.

Hella donated two driving lights to the cause, which got
bolted on during this stop.  Combined with the stock
headlights and Wolfsburg's fog/driving lights, I guess
we were ready for twilight.  Or at least the car was
ready for twilight.  I was nervous as hell.  

At dusk, thing weren't a lot different.  That's as far
as I got.

Just as darkness was truly setting in, an hour into my
2-hour stint, the yellow lights came on around the
course.  I pushed to catch up to the packed until I was
motioned to slow down going into the 200-degree
left-hand turn 2.  I eased up and turned in.  Early on,
the car twitched and lurched.  My only thought was that
whatever was out there had dumped a lot of oil.  As I
got to the second apex, the car felt the same, but also
lost its drive.  I pulled to the grass at the inside of
the turn.  I tried to engage a gear and go, but nothing
happened.  So I sat.  At the exit of 2, across the track
from where I sat, a wrecker and safety crew tried to dig
a Spec Racer out of the tire wall.

Turn 2 is an interesting place.  When the drivers were
talking the day before, Bill mentioned there were very
few places you could get in a lot of trouble.  I
mentioned the exit of turn two was one of those places. 
Early apex just a little and you'll end up in the
tirewall at the exit.  That's where I was looking at the
Spec Racer.  That tire wall ate up several Spec Racers
and a 944 over the course of the day. Later on it would
just spit me out.

While I sat on the grass, a corner worker came over to
me and asked me if I was OK.  I told her yes.  She asked
me what the problem was. This was probably poor wording
on my part, but I said something like "I can't go."  Her
next question threw me: "Is it by your own choice?" "No,
damnit!  The car won't move forward.  I can manage any
psychological problems until the pit lane."  I didn't
say that, but that's what went through my mind.  Do
drivers get so wigged out during racing that they pull
off and tell the workers they can't go on?  Does it
happen regularly enough that corner workers ask if
that's what's happening?

The car got towed in.  The right front suspension had
decided to disassemble itself for no apparent reason. 
Damage was a couple broken spotwelds, a destroyed CV
joint, and replacing a bolt that someone could probably
find in the low grass around Moroso Motorsports Park.
Overall, probably about a hour and a half lost.

Terry drove for a while once the repair was done.  Bill
went out for a little while afterwards, but felt he was
having a hard time learning the track in the dark. 

I took over.  Some combination of fatigue and
overconfidence was a bad mix.  After twenty minutes of
driving, I made the same mistake I had mentioned to the
team and seen others' cars lost on.  I early-apexed 2.  
I hopped over the curb and saw a disheveled tirewall
sucking in more light from the 500+ watts of
illumination on the front of the car.  I hit the tires
and bounced right back onto the track.  I don't remember
choosing a lower gear, though I probably did.  There was
some vibration, so I headed fo the pits.

Bill and Richard could find nothing wrong, and the
vibration was gone when I re-entered.  I backed off my
earlier pace by about 5 seconds at that point. 
Nighttime driving is entirely new, and I also wanted to
try to figure out what I did wrong.

It didn't hit me at the time, but it has since: a lot of
what I use as braking and turndown markers tend to being
lining two objects up.  It allows the opportunity to be
looking where you want to go and using the coincidence
of two things in your field of vision as a consistent
marker.

Duh.  This doesn't working in the dark.  I could see the
near reference point, but was guessing at the distant
one.

Driving in the dark is a very different experience. 
Every corner becomes a blind corner.  Visible markers
change significantly.  Lights coming at you (as they do
several places at Moroso) are dazzling. Most of all, you
can't tell who's behind you.  One set of lights looks
too close to another.  Still, it was one of the most new
and challenging aspects of racing I've done in a while. 
One of the most entertaining things is to watch the
sparks fly when someone's brake pads are gone.

I drove for another hour that session.  The rear tires
started to feel a little slick, so I tried to take it
easy.  Things seemed OK until I went into 6, and 100-ish
degree right-hander onto the back straight.  The backend
came around like I was on sand.

I hobbled back to the pit to find the tread completely
gone from the left rear.

New Kumho rubber fixed the problem.  Through midnight,
into the wee morning hours, things went reasonably
smoothly.  An oil-pressure fitting leaking into the
clutch kept certain things going too smoothly.  Sealed
off, and a can of solvent dumped on the clutch, the
problem went away.

I got in the car at 4:00, having been warned that things
got weird in the early morning hours.  Massive amounts
of smoke and dust filled the driving lights.  Brake
lockup was a regular sight.  I saw two cars go off the
same place three laps in a row.  My hope was to get us
"out of the darkness" that go 'round.  Instead, the
alternator light flickered, and I decided to pit rather
put us permanently in darkness.

J.G. drove until the sun was well established.  When he
came in, the tire change resulted in two broken and a
couple stripped studs on the left front wheel.  Very
careful effort on Richard's part got the wheel to stay
on, but it was going to have to last 5 and a half hours.

It did, and at 2pm on the 3rd, the number 55 GTI took
the checkered after racing almost 24 hours.  The
Florida Region is as slow with results as they are with
registration, so we don't know the details.

My guess is about 35th overall and 8th in ITB.  We'll
see.

Thanks to Bill Sulouff for building the car and
organizing this. Very cool, dude.  Thanks to Terry and
J.G. for doing a great job of driving making a good
team.  Thanks to Cheryl Coates, Richard, Brian and
Brian's parents for the non-stop care and support help. 
Thanks especially, Linda, for making the trip and
helping.

andy
banta@abingdon.sun.com