Rene came on to our radar last summer where through a friend of the shop, he wanted to come hang out and see what racing was all about during one of our race weekends. He volunteered to work car support just to learn and as the story goes, it was downhill from then!
We’ve continued to grow and Rene joined our team in April as a Race Car Technician and has been having a blast since!
Rene has been a car technician for the past 11 years, initially working for a small mom and pop shop in Southern California, helped maintain/repair city buses for the LA County, worked on high pressure valve blocks in oil refineries, was an air plane technician apprentice and most recently worked at Honda and Maserati dealerships.
His uncle worked for most of his career with Carol Shelby at Shelby of America, so motorsports is in his blood!
When Rene isn’t doing race car things, you’ll find him working on his golf game on the links.
For the third year in a row, we headed back to Austin, Texas for the second round of the Hoosier Super Tour at the beautiful and challenging, Circuit of the Americas. Thankfully, we avoided the annual winter freeze that hits southern Texas and while it was dry all weekend, it wasn’t “warm” except for on load-in day (Thursday) and Sunday afternoon. Perfect! (Insert thick amounts of sarcasm)
Prior to the race weekend Jordan, Memo, Bryce and Mark flew into Houston, TX where we had the cars and trucks stored to whip the cars into shape. Can’t say enough how grateful we are to have friends across the country that have helped us with space to park and work on the cars. Thank you Todd Joseph Farley (TMJ Bimmers) and James Walker Jr!
Jordan taking a big swig of Green Redbull to do a full engine swap on the 81 SE46 that decided it just didn’t want to run anymore, at Sebring.
For this race report, we’re going to do something a little different. Driving at these bucket list tracks, we regularly get asked which track is our favorite, most unique, most scary and/or most challenging? So for this report, we’re going to focus a little more on what makes COTA such an awesome and challenging track to tackle.
1. COTA is Big!
At 3.426 Miles and 20 corners (using the Grand Prix layout), COTA is a long track with at least 20 opportunities to make a mistake and decent distances after a corner, so that you have ample time to relive and think about the mistake(s) you just made. All the while, watching your predictive lap timer reinforce, with math, that you made a mistake. 🙂
The volume of corners in terms of learning the track is a challenge but to be perfectly honest, in the three years that we’ve come to the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour with now seven different drivers, not once have we had a discussion about “what corner comes next” or “the line” in terms of just getting around the track.
Each driver puts in the preparation work before the race weekend with time in a simulator, watching race videos and track walks – our drivers come to compete!
So “learning the track” isn’t a thing but another aspect of COTA that is a challenge is how wide the track is. This is a blessing and a curse. The track in general is wide enough to go three wide in multiple segments, which results in multiple lines that can be taken through a corner or sequence of corners. This gives us flexibility in racing conditions but it gives the same flexibility to competitors.
Ann Doherty in the #4 Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport trying to run away from a Touring 1 Camaro in the run to Turn 12
From the approach of turn 1 through the entry to the esses (turn 3) , it’s not just feasible but it’s common to see cars going 2 and 3 wide with only a marginal drop off in lap time.
Turn 6 is wide enough that it’s possible to attack another car from the outside, which then turns into the inside for Turn 7.
The entry into Turn 11 is like turn 1, almost an open runway with a lot of space to dive bomb into the corner but with the longest straight away on the tracking coming next, going two or three wide into turn 11, will punish your straight line speed down to turn 12. There are even lines to overtake someone on the outside in Turn 1, especially at the start of the races.
Turn 12 also is wide enough for at least two cars to go side by side and while not particularly fast, it’s possible and common throughout the weekend to see cars going side by side all the way until Turn 19.
Finally, Turn 20 can also easily allow two cars to go side by side but it will impact the exit speed and thus the time that runs all the way to turn 1.
2. COTA is technical. Really Technical.
Many tracks have some kind of bias due to the natural outcome of being “lap based” – e.g. at some point, the track will return back to start/finish. If a track has a clock-wise orientation, there will usually have more right hand corners than left hand corners. If a track is counter-clockwise (like COTA), vice-versa will be true.
So while COTA has a counter-clockwise orientation, it has exactly 10 left-hand corners and you guessed it, 10 right hand corners.
And yes, the three longest straight aways are setup by left-hand corners, which would normally make a team want to setup a car to be biased for left-hand corners BUT there are 6 different corners that are either high-commitment or high-duration (you spend a good amount of time in them), so it really pushes a team and driver to have a well balanced setup for both corner types, unlike what we’d for say Portland International Raceways or Lime Rock Park – pretty much all right hand corners.
COTA also has a wide variety of corners:
Short duration, slow speed and sharp angled corners: Slow corners make it really easy for drivers to over-slow on entry and if you don’t have the car pointed just right and at full throttle at the apex, the exit and the proceeding straight away suffer. Think the exit of Turn 1, Turn 11 and Turn 20 where the minimum speeds are in the mid to high 30’s depending on the car. Teams and drivers may be tempted to setup a car nice and loose on slow speed corners to get through these as quickly as possible but…
Medium/High-Speed Corners: Turn 3 (the entry into the esses), you enter near the top of 4th gear in the Spec E46’s (~105mph) and then need a well balanced car to carve through them.
Long duration medium speed corners: Turns 6 and the Carousel (turns 16 – 18) are both right hand corners where you are in them for longer than most corners. So how do you setup a car to both be awesome on slow quick corners but not too skaty through carousel type corners?
COTA beats up cars: Remember in 2019 when Sebastian Vettel had a suspension arm break on the exit of a corner? That’s from the bumps that form and change all the time from the ground/earth under the pavement. The dirt on which COTA sits isn’t super stable to begin with due to how dry the area typically is but then when it rains, it RAINS – think flash flooding. COTA has been repaved multiple times and it was repaved in time for the 2022 season (we were there) but in that one single year, the track has gone from a pretty smooth pavement, to having bumps all over the track.
Some notable bumps exist in the braking for Turn 1, throughout Turn 6, the exit of Turn 9, breaking for Turn 11 and right as you confidently exit the carousel of Turn 18, there is a healthy sized bumped waiting to knock you off your high horse, when you get too confident.
Finally, COTA has lots of FIA curbs, of which in the dry are awesome and to be used as much as possible but the repercussion is that the vibrations from curb usage travel all through the suspension and chassis, leading to increase amounts of brake pad knock-back and as I personally found in 2021, damaged suspension components. Expect to do a deep inspection of your wheel bearings, control arms, shocks and a full nut and bolt.
Thad Berger in his Spec E46, looking where he wants to go and hitting those apexes as hard as he can.
3. COTA is ROUGH!
Remember in 2019 when Sebastian Vettel had a suspension arm break on the exit of a corner? That’s from the bumps that form and change all the time from the ground/earth under the pavement. The dirt on which COTA sits isn’t super stable to begin with due to how dry the area typically is but then when it rains, it RAINS – think flash flooding. COTA has been repaved multiple times and it was repaved in time for the 2022 season (we were there) but in that one single year, the track has gone from a pretty smooth pavement, to having bumps all over the track.
Some notable bumps exist in the braking for Turn 1, throughout Turn 6, the exit of Turn 9, breaking for Turn 11 and right as you confidently exit the carousel of Turn 18, there is a healthy sized bumped waiting to knock you off your high horse, when you get too confident.
Finally, COTA has lots of FIA curbs, of which in the dry are awesome and to be used as much as possible but the repercussion is that the vibrations from curb usage travel all through the suspension and chassis, leading to increase amounts of brake pad knock-back and as I personally found in 2021, damaged suspension components. Expect to do a deep inspection of your wheel bearings, control arms, shocks and a full nut and bolt.
So, how did we do?
Ann Doherty was at COTA for the second time, having done the Hoosier Super Tour in 2022 as well and not only did she improve on her personal best lap times from a year ago, despite the track being in worst shape but she continued her streak of finishing right behind some experienced and very accomplished drivers! The raw pace is there, she’s getting faster and now we shift our focus to a little more on race craft as on the Sunday race, she lost positions on the start and got stuck behind a group of slower cars (in and out of class) and with a couple laps left in the race, she turned it up and got past them all.
Ann also showed serious grit as she got hit decently hard in race 1, lap 1 and turn 1! With a car that had a bent suspension and rear bumper falling off, she finished the race. We got the car put back together the best we could and she finished P5 but with lap times towards the end that would have been in contention for P2 and P3. Awesome job!
Thad Berger not just raced but drove COTA for the very first time at this race weekend! He made solid progress throughout the weekend, improving on just about every session and by the end of the day on Sunday, he was solidly in the mid-pack (P8 out of 13) and battling with MX-5 Global Cup cars and 350Z’s!
Simon Asselin had another busy weekend, doing double duty in his Touring 3 Spec E46 and GT2 Porsche GT3 Cup Car. In Touring 3, he finished P4 in race 1 and P3 in race 2 with AMAZING battles the entirety of both races. Check out his race video below!
In GT2, Simon was busy as well! He started from the back in Race 1 as a cone ended up destroying one of his front tires on the outlap but made his way through to P8 and in race 2, he continued his march forward and ended up P3 for two podiums throughout the weekend. Great job, Simon!
Dave Orem had to last minute pull out of the race weekend due to a family situation but we ran his car during the test day and it was a ripper! Dave will be back for Road Atlanta!
Thank you to the entire team who is behind the scenes and making it all happen! Memo Calderon, Bryce Allen, Jordan Allen, Reid Morris, Tyer Mayer, Tyler Campbell, Mark Farmer, Harry Mineer and our amazing coaches, Seth Thomas and Ray Phillips!
Thanks to the support of all our drivers and friends, Racer on Rails has been growing with the big move to our new shop space at Pacific Raceways, an expanded racing calendar (we are currently scheduled to be racing in all but on month in 2023 (December)) and to keep up, we brough on an additional Race Car Technician (Tyler Mayer) and now we’ve landed the second key role – Lead Service Advisor!
ce cTyler Campbell in action as developing data acquisition guy, race car engineer, slideways instigator and all around awesome team member!
Tyler Campbell, Lead Service Advisor
Tyler has been working with the team as an individual contributor and volunteer for the last year on several race weekends. His professional background is as Service Advisor and Project Manager in the automotive sector and will be leveraging those skills in the front end of the shop as our new Lead Service Advisor.
Additionally, he is an avid sim racing driver/coach with national level competitive experience racing GTD Class cars on various simulator platforms (iRacing, Assetto Corsa Competizione, RFactor2) and is a developing race engineer.
Welcome, Tyler! We’re grateful and beyond excited to have you on the team!
We made it! Last year (2022) we had Sebring as our first race of the year and first stop on the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour but epic levels of snow across the mountain passes had us locked in the Pacific Northwest but this year, the snow hit earlier in December and by the first week in January, the passes were clear!
The January 12 – 15 race weekend which included a test day on Thursday, qualifying on Friday/Saturday AM and two feature races on Saturday and Sunday, would not only be the first race of the year for the team, organizing body and the drivers! We came prepared with patience, positive attitudes and a singular goal: improvement.
Each of our drivers put in serious hours of training on the simulator, studying historical race videos and watching track walk videos from the likes of Ross Bentley, so that when they got on the track for the first time, they could focus on getting comfortable leaning on the car and not worrying about where to turn next!
Let’s just be honest; racing is just an excuse to get together with friends and have several meals in an empty parking lot/temporary village and an occasional restaurant like Chicane’s in Sebring, FL!
2023 Driver Lineup and a new addition!
For the 2023 tour, we continued with the same driver team from 2022 with Ann Doherty in her Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport but now competing in Touring 1 class (versus GT2). Starting in 2023, the Touring 1 SCCA class has changed to allow the GT4 race cars that are currently competing in SRO and IMSA series, a place to race in SCCA Club Racing. You might ask, but why? They are professional level race cars – shouldn’t SCCA club racing be about non-professionally built race cars?
Historically, that has been true and most would agree but a couple things are happening that have forced the hand of SCCA and we are in full support. First, for many years as Pro level cars have aged out of the pro series (new cars have shown up and the “old” cars are no longer allowed to compete in the pro leagues) they have been sold to amateur drivers and teams, who then drive them at track days and increasingly, club racing leagues. For example, many of the old IMSA/Grand Am Continental Tire Series Grand Sport (GS) cars that were retired from pro racing, trickled down into SCCA Touring 1. IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge GS class is the new version of the old Conti Challenge and the top class (GS) is made up exclusively of FIA homologated GT4 race cars.
Second, and the biggest variable, is that newer street cars come with advanced electronics that need to balance performance with emissions and safety regulations. These systems are so advanced that it has become increasingly difficult, cost prohibitive and in some cases, impossible to tweak the OEM controllers so that the car can run reliably in race conditions.
The net result is it is equally as expensive to build a Touring 1 level car from a street car and less reliable than simply buying a factory built race car, like the GT4 race cars. So in an effort to save the Touring 1 class, SCCA has moved to allow these cars in T1. Not only do we fully support the shift to the future for the class but specifically for the Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport, it’s inline with the spirit of Touring class cars (race on Sunday, sell on Monday) and it has a much better chance to compete at the front, compared to GT2 cars that have thrown most connections to the street cars, out the window (along with the windows!).
Ann Doherty piloting her Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport in the SCCA Touring 1 Class
In the Touring 3 class, we had Dave Orem returning in his #44 2001 BMW 330ci in Spec E46 trim, Simon Asselin in his #81 Spec E46, Gama Aguilar in his #109 Spec E46 and joining the group is Thad Berger in his #60 Spec E46! As you can probably tell, we love them BMW Spec E46’s at Racer on Rails!
Dave Orem in his #44 Spec E46 in T3Thad Berger in his #60 Spec E46 in T3Simon Asselin driving the 109 at Sebring
Unfortunately for Simon, his engine developed an issue on the very first test day session which sounded like an engine throwing the white flag so he jumped into Gama’s #109 to finish the weekend. Gama would end up sitting out the weekend and focused on coaching.
Speaking of coaching, we welcomed back Ray Phillips from Precision Driving Analytics and Seth Thomas, who coached the 2022 team to significant improvements, multiple podiums, some race wins and personal bests that simply couldn’t have been possible for drivers coming to the bucket list tracks we drove at in 2022.
Finally, Simon Asselin was not just piloting a Spec E46 but on the way to Sebring, we made a detour stop to pickup his new (to him) 991.1 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car that races in the GT2 class! While we normally would not advise anyone to pickup a race car on the way to running said race car in a competition weekend, we worked with Autometrics Motorsports out of Summerville, SC (who was the previous custodian of the car) to get it as prepared as possible for competition in SCCA GT2 class. A big thank you to Adam, Gordon and the Autometrics team for helping it a smooth transition process for Simon and our team!
Simon Asselin in a heated battle in GT2 with another Porsche GT3 Cup Car
Ramping up on new tracks fast and competing at the front
One of the biggest challenges of going on the Hoosier Super Tour, being based out of Seattle, WA and generally, the Pacific Northwest, is that these are all new or relatively new tracks for each driver. Drivers can’t lean on their thousands of laps at local tracks like Pacific Raceways (that is literally our back or front yard now!). The competition tough, the fields are big and track time is limited. Even with a test day.
So the drivers and we as a team have to figure out how to get up to a respectable pace fast and improve every session. As mentioned above, each driver put in 10+ hours on the simulator before the race weekend and little by little, each driver progressed, chipping away at lap times and every once in a while, taking large chunks.
The grid had a lot of HRSRS in the GT2 and T1 group!
Over time what has happened, especially for the drivers that were part of this tour in 2022, is that they got a lot of experience learning new tracks and they got better throughout each weekend. Over the races, they started developing not a library of tracks that they reference, but instead a library of corners. So a new track isn’t a completely new thing they haven’t driven before, but instead a track that is a collection of corners that some they have driven before. So for example, turn 1 at Sebring is a lot like turn 1 at the Ridge (high speed left hand corner where you float as much speed as possible into the corner). Turn 7 (Hairpin) is similar to Turn 11 at COTA – slow speed corner where there are multiple lines that can be taken and the exit is paramount due to the straight away that follows. The bumps at Sebring, especially the exit of Sunset Bend (respect the bumps!) is similar to the exit of Turn 9 at Pacific Raceways (respect the bumps!).
We find (and found!) that when drivers start thinking about new tracks in that way, they are able to anchor themselves to a familiar feeling of what the car should feel like and a sensation for the speed. It doesn’t mean that you treat the corners the same but it’s a high informed starting point to begin really leaning on the car and the tires. Because until a driver really starts leaning on the car and tires, the lap times won’t drop materially.
Touring 3
With a solid day’s worth of practice, Thad, Dave and Simon were set to go after a solid qualifying position to start the races. Qualifying 1 was rained out and with no further rain expected the rest of the weekend, most of the grid didn’t quality for T3 including Dave and Thad. In qualifying 2, Simon locked up P3, Dave had a time good enough for P4 but his transponder decided to quit on us so he would start race 1 from the back and need to make his way through the field. Thad started P6 and knew exactly what he needed to to gain positions and lap time.
Race 1 was close battling from start to finish! Simon lost some positions on the start but jumped back in, regained positions and while simultaneously battling T3, T4 and T2 cars, mustered out a P2! Dave let the lap 1, turn 1 mayhem happen and then got to work, moving his way through almost the entire T4 field, five T3 cars and came home in P3, on top of improving on his personal best time of the weekend!
Thad was in the thick of the front T4 battle but he took no prisoners, held his ground and took out 2.6 seconds off his qualifying 2 lap time. Let the big dog eat!
Simon (P2) and Dave (P3) sharing the podium at Sebring AND special bonus, Todd Clarke, also a PNW driver in P1. A full PNW podium in T3, in Florida!
For race 2, everyone started in better positions and the themes were similar. Hard racing the entire race for each driver, further improvements in personal bests and not a moment to catch your breath! Thad dropped a further .9 seconds off his personal best to a 2:32.7 and finished P4 in his second ever Hoosier Super Tour.
Thad Berger, riding into the sunset after an amazing first stop of the Hoosier Super Tour at Sebring International Raceways.
Want to pause here and emphasize what Thad did. Thad has been wheel to wheel racing for less than 1 year. He jumped into the deep end of the pool, competing against experienced/fast drivers, at the Hoosier Super Tour and at a bucket list track that he had never driven. On top of all of that – in qualifying 2, on the first flying lap, he had a real big moment at Sunset Bend (Turn 17) where legitimately almost put the car into the wall. But he didn’t. He gathered the car up, drove through pit lane for a quick visual check on the car – everything looked good and he immediately got back at it. That is something he and we all, will never forget. Great job, Thad!
Dave continued his progress through the field after losing a couple positions on the start, focused on consistency and dropped another .5 seconds off his fastest time of the weekend for a 2:31.4 and with Simon’s DNF, a P3 and a double podium weekend!
Dave Orem holding off a Global MX5 Cup Car in Touring 3 class.
Finally, Simon had one of the most intense races ever, battling T2, T3 and T4 cars again! And while he also took almost a full second out of his fastest time of the weekend for a 2:30.1 lap time, with a lap to go, he went a little hot into a corner, got the car sideways and was unfortunately collected by a really competitive out of class car. That unfortunately ended the race for him but he sustained no issues and the 109 has already been repaired – the incident did not detract from the weekend as a whole. Watch Simon’s race below (with picture in picture of the SCCA broadcast!)
Race 2 of the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour for Simon Asselin in the RoR #109 in Touring 3 class
Touring 1 and GT2
Lucky for us, both Ann and Simon race in the same group but in two different classes so we got lots to follow during their group race!
While Ann hadn’t been to Sebring, she has developed a reputation for ramping up quickly at each new track and by the end of the race weekend, competing towards the front of the grid or the front of the mid-pack and that was last year, in GT2! Well she did not disappoint! After missing qualy 1 as it was also a wet session and no forecasted wet sessions for the rest of the weekend, she qualified P6 out of 10. And while she finished P6 in both races, she finished only about 1.5 seconds off the race pace of the podium finishers and the five drivers in front of her were ex-professional IMSA drivers, current SRO drivers, multi-national champions and seasoned (and fast) Touring 1 cars/drivers. Lots of work left to get close to the top 5 type of drivers but her performance coming out of the gates and through the weekend were amazing!
Ann takes the green flag for the Touring 1 race and in the mix with a combination of new GT4 and historical Touring 1 race cars.
This was Simon’s first weekend with the Porsche GT3 Cup Car and we all came into the weekend with specific expectations: learn the car, get quality laps, and have fun! With a new car to the team and no testing beforehand, we had really no gauge for how the car and Simon could perform. However, we were all extremely pleased to get the car running by mid-morning of the test day. Seth Thomas drove it on it’s maiden track session under the Racer on Rails umbrella, to provide a baseline for how the car simply ran and once confidence built up, a gauge for the pace of the car.
The verdict? It’s a great GT3 Cup Car! While it wasn’t fully compliant to GT2 rules at the time (hadn’t added the full ballast required), the lap times Seth put down were well within the front of GT2 class range that we saw throughout the weekend and it gave Simon a rabbit to chase throughout the weekend. You might be asking – how can you figure that after a single person driving the car in one session/5 laps? First, the team has worked on factory built Porsche’s throughout the years so we had a solid foundation of what to expect re the machinery itself and setups. Second, Seth has driven a wide variety of race cars and including several Porsche GT3 Cup Cars (along with being somewhat of a Porsche nut himself) and he’s driven/raced at Sebring dozens of times, with likely thousands of laps at Sebring. So after he had 3-4 laps underneath him and the tires were finally in a working range, he was able to start really leaning into the car.
The results? Simon finished P5 in race 1 after a hard fought battle with another 991 GT3 Cup car and P6 in race 2 where his tires started to show signs of aging after taking a couple of qualifying sessions and a full race 1. All in all, Simon ended up ~2 seconds off the race winner but only ~1 second off the leading Porsche GT3 Cup car in the field. Awesome first outing and race weekend for Simon in the Porsche GT3 Cup Car.
Check out the in-car and live broadcast from Simon’s first race below!
Catch the next race report that recaps our stop at Circuit of the Americas!
And just like that, 2022 is gone and 2023 is here! And with the new year, comes some changes for Racer on Rails that have been in the works for several months.
We’ve moved to Pacific Raceways!
Starting tomorrow (Tuesday, January 3, 2023) we will be fully operating out of our new location at Pacific Raceways. We are in the new commercial buildings as you enter the Pacific Raceways main paddock on the left in bays 115, 117 and 119. There are two buildings – a “blue one” and an “orange one”. We are right in the middle of the “blue one”. Signs above the bay doors will be going up in January.
Official Address:
31001 144th Ave SE, Suite 115
Kent, WA 98042
We couldn’t be happier or more grateful for the new space and the multiple years of work Pacific Raceways and Proformance Racing School have done to get the development to this milestone. For those who have been to other major tracks across the country, having an ecosystem of automotive and motorsport companies on-site is invaluable.
Note: The signs above are rendered. Signs will go up in January. Find us in garage bays 115, 117 and 119.
The space is a big upgrade as we more than doubled the available indoor space to ~5,500 square feet. This will enable us to grow the team, add new race technicians (spoiler alert!), offer indoor storage, finally get our AWD dyno running in a dedicated garage bay (119) and all while being located right where our customers want to be… the race track!
Phone number, email and everything else stays the same. We will be setting up shop equipment throughout the month and kicking off a mezzanine construction project where we’ll have a dedicated customer lounge area, parts inventory room, clean room for engine assemblies and conference rooms. Crossing our fingers that this will be completed sometime in the spring/summer.
Welcome Tyler Mayer, Race Technician!
Tyler joins the team as our new race car technician and brings a wealth of experience and talent working on high performance cars in the Seattle area. Everything from alignments, corner balancing/setups to full custom fabrication projects, Tyler has worked on many projects.
But wait, there’s more! Tyler has been competitively drifting for the past 6 years, is Formula Drift Prospec Licensed, has been a drift instructor for the past 3 years and is an avid simulator driver/racer. We couldn’t be more happy to welcome Tyler to the team. He can not only work on almost any aspect of a race car but he has an in-depth understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish with motorsports.
