June 21-23, 2018:

I’m pulling into Thompson a bit late to catch the “mandatory” driver’s meeting, but early enough to see several foursomes starting their game at the golf course next door. The golf course looks lush and beautiful. Thompson does not!

Thompson has the feel of an abandoned amusement park –patched up access road (actually the old road course abandoned decades before), old half mile track grandstand with huge, black & white faded photos of 1950s race action, pavements throughout a sorry mix of crushed stone and patched up concrete and bitumen. Forget about grass; and that “significant wetlands” that management was forced to preserve is the sorriest excuse for a wetlands you can imagine – not much more than a breeding ground for mosquitoes! Track amenities are few – indeed there is not even a proper false grid – and the course is tight and rough with virtually no run-off. The new garage building they squeezed in is nice, but everything else about the place screams out “SHABBY!”

But the track seems popular with the modern muscle car, track day crowd. I can’t understand why, but perhaps the reduced cost of a track day at Thompson when compared to say Lime Rock or Palmer is a factor in its popularity.

I have a lot of track time ahead of me. Thursday is a mixed group practice day. Each group has six sessions on the schedule. On Friday and Saturday, I will be running in the VSCCA group. Just 21 cars entered from the VSCCA. Three of us are MGAs – including my Nemesis, Jim Juhas, and Mike Clifford. I run four of the six sessions on Thursday. The big story is that my times are slow and my tires seem to be shredding. My best lap times at about 1:40 while the other two MGAs are running in the 1:38s. They are on 185-70-15 Avons, while I’m running on 165-80-15 Vredesteins with pressures of 31 psi cold. The shoulder of my right front tire has ne fearing that I won’t have the tires to finish the weekend.

Two VRG cars manage to stuff themselves into the wall. One was a beautiful Devon bodied car – perhaps MGA – who managed to hit the concrete wall in the off camber turn 6. The other was Wm Hall who managed to stuff his Formula V into the tire wall at turn 9. This is the car and driver that starred in my “Spider at Lightning” video last year.

Thompson has a long front straight where I can hit speeds in excess of 95 mph. But turns 1- 2 are almost a 180 degree hairpin that you must make! A brake failure or tangled feet would cause significant hurt. Turn 3 in a tricky off camber left hander followed by Turn 4, yet another 180 degree hairpin - very sharp and harrowing – but the slowest part of the course. Once again, brake failure is not an option. But mostly I’m in danger of both understeer and oversteer and finding myself in the trap rock at exit. Then it’s down a short straight to another wide 180 degree off camber turn under the bridge and onto the old oval. My tires scream here! Multiple lines through the far oval corner, then shoot down the “back straight” and back onto the road course for tricky left and right handers. Then a fast off camber turn 10 onto the main straight. After a few laps, I’m sweating profusely!

The wheel to wheel racing begins on Friday. I swapped my spare onto the front right wheel and raised my tire pressure to 33 psi all around. I qualified last! A smart guy would have switched the transponder to “on”. A qualifier race followed which had me gridded behind some slower cars. Nothing spectacular to my racing. The car was pushing through most of the tight corners. Until the final race, the best I could do was a few laps in the 1:39.5 range. The other MGAs were far ahead, running 1:37 laps. For the final race, I made a greater effort in the corners to track all the way out to the far edge of the track. This reduced the pushing. I was also driving aggressively and was sort of keeping up with the pack ahead. That was until I drove too deep, too fast into turn 1 and went off at turn exit. That was not only very disconcerting, but I also had to come into pit lane to report my miscue to the steward. So I was out of the race, but I had managed to run 4 laps in the 1:38 range, best at 1:38.138.

Given my troubles, the Nemesis offered to lend me his spare set of Avon tires for the two races on Saturday. I was suspicious, but Mike Clifford and I set about swapping out the tires. When we were all done, however, I saw that I had virtually no fender clearance - I was forced to swap back my old tires. They had held out OK on Friday and would have to do.

I decided to reduce tire pressure to 30 psi in an attempt to reduce the understeer. All was going swimmingly for about half a lap in the first race before my rear end kicked out in one of the higher speed corners. “Cold tires” I warned myself, but I was pretty ginger in the corners from then on, also being particularly careful to track out all the way coming out of the corners to avoid pushing and save the tires. The pack left me behind, but I was chasing Eric Logan in his Formcar. On about lap 6, I was passed by Steve Morici, driving a Cooper open wheel racer. After chasing him for a lap, his rear engine cowl suddenly flew off as we approached the braking zone for turn 1. Fortunately, I had just shifted right and was not in the line of the Cooper detritus. My fastest lap was a 1:38.8.

By the time we were called to the grid for the final race, many cars had departed due to attrition or other plans. Of course, the MGAs and Eric Logan’s Formcar were on grid. For the first time all weekend, I was able to keep up with the other two MGAs, driving 4 consecutive laps mid race in under 1:38. But as the gap to Mike Clifford’s car slowly widened to just over two seconds, I started to drive somewhat more conservatively, finishing about 9.5 seconds behind him. But I was still pretty happy. But for one lap, the entire race was run with lap times below 1:40. My best lap was a 1:37.544, making that the fastest that I had ever been able to get around Thompson – average speed 62.734.

I don’t believe that I have any decent video. Both cameras had sound problems due, apparently, to the rough track surface. The batteries were shaken out of both of my remote mikes – and I didn’t pick this up until too late.

But, by the end of the event, I had developed a warm fondness for Thompson. The track is quite challenging and considering the site restrictions the developers had to work within, they did a pretty good job establishing the new layout. I’m not sure that you will ever see a paddock full of big rigs, but for the low budget, open trailer racer like me, the ultimate shabbiness of the place is somewhat charming.

Great post. You almost made my stone cold heart shed a tear for that high speed autocross course.

You Tube

Signed up for Palmer on August 18th with SCDA. Rico is going too and Mike is planning to.

Club Motorsports is doing a live webcast starting at 10 AM of the VSCCA event on their Facebook page.

Alas, I did not watch it. In the AM I watched briefly. Jason, the bearded guy that’s the manager there was providing commentary. The drone was high so couldn’t see the cars too well, so turned off. I sincerely hope no one was injured. For one, I’d hate for that to happen, and two, I am not sure the track is staffed with adequate emergency personnel. You can post the video and mark it unlisted. That way only those that have the link will be able to see it.