How an innocent video game led me to start racing cars - Part 2

From Simulation to Reality

In my last article, I shared the story about how I built a car simulator at home during COVID and started to practice simulation racing more seriously. During that time I also started watching professional car racing like F1 and IMSA series. The thought of trying my newly learned skills on a real track was growing on me. The problem was: I really had no idea how to get started and it felt very much out of reach. So instead, I searched for go karting locations and found out that Sonoma Raceway had an outdoor karting track with classes. I signed up for their beginner and advanced classes called “Stage-1” and “Stage-2” starting with their slower karts to eventually get to drive their Tony Karts which go up to 70mph. Once you have completed the Stage-2 class, you can rent the Tony karts and join their open practice which happens every week. Although the racing lines, braking methods, and physics of a kart are different than for road cars, the general ideas are the same at a beginner level. Go Karting really helped me soak in key driving concepts and get used to speed and risk management.

In the spring of 2021, an incredible opportunity came up: an ex-colleague was looking for drivers to complete his team for an upcoming local car race: the 24H of Lemons at Sonoma Raceway. The race was affordable and the team wasn’t picky about the driver’s skill level.? Anyone with a driving license could race and the cars are built cheap which means I could afford any repair cost. It was my chance to get started. I raised my hand and joined the team.

The following weeks, I bought all the mandatory safety gear: a helmet, suit, a pair of gloves and a pair of shoes. I found it amusing that fire proof socks were also in the list of mandatory equipment. Some equipment I initially borrowed from the team to help cap my budget for this new pricey hobby I wasn’t sure I would love. People are generally fine with sharing equipment like the neck guard (which is quite expensive) and small things like mic and radio. Rarely though, people would share gear you sweat in such as the helmet and suit. Therefore I was very thankful the day I received a cool-shirt from my teammate at one race where it was extra hot, and as expected he wasn’t keen to take it back, even after a good wash.

Of course, I practiced the track on the simulator as much as I could. Before I knew it, it was the weekend of my very first car race…

As instructed, I arrived on Friday morning leading to the race weekend. I remember being extremely excited and nervous at the same time. For a couple of hours, I observed the mechanic preparing the car for practice and tried to help with what I could,? which was not much else but putting tires on/off, and helping “decorate” the cars with funny stickers. At the same time, the other drivers were helping me ramp up and sharing advice on what to focus on such as making sure to spot the marshal stations for flags awareness and locating the cars around at all times. We also spent some time going over how to operate the car and made sure I could reach the pedals with “made-on-the-spot” padding placed into the seat. Operating the car is not particularly straightforward as the interior doesn’t look like a normal car anymore, it’s completely stripped down to make the car as light as possible. You’re left with a lot of buttons of different colors and shapes and gauges that only the person that worked on the car knows what to use them for. I remember it was a lot of information to take in. Nothing terribly complicated, but a lot. Fortunately, I was able to practice all that on Friday so I could focus purely on driving during the race.?

Come Friday evening, I learned that it would be a good thing for the team strategy if I started the race. I agreed without really knowing what I was signing up for. I learned on the spot that the start of the race is when the most accidents happen and when a lot of cars retire. I was (randomly) positioned at the front of the pack with a pretty slow car doing a rolling start with about 100 cars behind me so the start was memorable to say the least. I was very busy looking in my back mirrors for the first 10 laps, trying not to hit or get hit. I somehow managed to run clean for an hour and 45 minutes, avoiding all incidents, and incidents there were!

As I was approaching the two hour mark, I knew I was getting low on gas but wasn’t sure how many laps I had left before pitting. After checking with my team on the radio, we agreed to keep going for one more lap and bring the car back in to the next driver.

Well, that’s the first thing that didn’t go as planned that weekend…

On my last lap, as I was going down the turn called “Carousel”, a long turn downhill to the left, the car ran out of gas and the engine stopped dead.? Oops! I was only 3 corners away from the pit entry and I wasn’t going to make it! I pulled a little bit to the side with the momentum I had left and stopped. I was still very much on the track and the other cars were zooming past me. Fortunately, the nearest marshall station located at the corner entry rapidly pulled out a double yellow flag to warn the approaching cars to slow down while I waited for the tow truck to come get me. I was devastated to finish my stint being towed back to the pit, after all I went through, but the team cheered me up and we made sure to not let it happen again for the next stints.?

Unfortunately, the rest of the Saturday race was a succession of gear box issues which kept the car in the pit for hours while the mechanic worked on the repairs. We raced Sunday with only three gears left to work with: 1st, 2nd and 4th, which was quite a challenge. The team spirit was strong though and I learned that weekend how much team determination and hard work racing is about.

I spent the rest of the year racing with that same team, building more experience: doing long races providing a lot of seat time, racing on different tracks, in different conditions, etc... We upgraded to a faster car which pushed me to have a more competitive mindset on track and to be more aggressive with my passing.

Fast forward to this year: 2023 and I am still driving with that team, but I also now joined a Canadian team TWOth Autosport Inc with whom I drive some of the Champ Car Endurance Series races. A couple of weeks ago, we had the chance to drive at a very famous track: Daytona in Florida. The track has a banking section with a 31 degree angle which is the fastest part of the track and incredibly fun to drive on. We finished the 14 Hours race in one piece but unfortunately, we had a transponder issue which means we will never know exactly where we finished.

You can check out the in-car video of my second stint here. It’s always interesting for me to review the in-car video to spot things I can work on/do better.

My next race is already coming up at the end of this month: the 24 Hours of Lemons at Thunderhill Raceway Park in California.

Wish us luck!

Claire