The Observatory

Today was the first MCO Ice Race in about 20 years. Jay and I bought a car (1992 Honda Civic) in January with the express purpose to use it for this Ice Race; we were also part of organization team for the event. The rules of the event dictated that there must be at least three drivers for each car, so Jay and I asked a Quebec racer, Nicolas, to join us as he had been doing well in the MCO Slush-n-Slide series.

To prep the car, Jay had the bolt-in rollcage re-installed, along with a four-point harness for the driver. We debated changing the inside rear wheel from a 13″ to a 14″ tire. The thought was that it would put more weight on the outside front, improving turn-in. But during the event, we didn’t use the tire, but we did adjust the tire pressures to be asymmetrical for similar reasons.

Nicolas and I took some of the practice sessions in the morning. I felt bad because I stuffed the car into the snow banks twice, requiring a tow. There was also some bumper damage we had to repair. I felt I had good speed though.

In the afternoon, there were three heats. Nicolas took the car out for the first heat. The starting position was based on the registration order, not on a qualifying lap. I was very pleased to have the honor of being the official starter for the first heat – again the first Ice Race in our club since about 1991 or 1992. Nicolas did well keeping a good position through the race.

I took the car out for the second heat. I was a little nervous because the track was getting very muddy, making the visibility difficult. I lined up third or fourth in class. At the drop of the flag (for which I was not fully prepared for – I couldn’t see the flag very well from where I was on the grid), I managed to more or less keep my position into the first corner. Once the cars bunched up in the corner, the visibility was effectively zero (i.e. I could not see out of my windshield) from the muddy slush being thrown up by the other cars. I tried very hard to not hit anything, but by the exit of the corner, I was squeezed between two cars and received a small dent. The rest of the first lap I stayed in position while giving some space to the cars around me to prevent more contact. At the end of the back straight there was a big hit between the two lead cars, which then caused more pile-ups and completely blocked the track. I was able to avoid going into the back of the car in front of me by just a few inches – it’s tricky to stop in a hurry on the slushy-icy surface.

Because of the blockage with less than 1 lap completed, they restarted the heat about 10 minutes later with the original starting positions. I did better avoiding contact on the restart, as I stayed to the outside of the track. There was a little contact in the third corner where I pushed through to take a position. During the rest of the 15-20 minute heat, I dropped a position or two, but made up the positions again later with some skill.

The heats were being shortened due to the track conditions. They were originally to be 30 minutes each, but the track was deteriorating too quickly in the above-zero temperatures. By the end of the last heat (and therefore the end of the racing), there was basically no ice or snow left on the racing surface. The track was just a muddy, rutted mess.

Jay had a good heat and secured third place for our car. It was a thrill to be part of this event, when MCO has such a long previous history in ice racing, and to take some a podium spot was icing on the cake.

Today is the last work day of the decade for me. I’m still working in the office in Lab 9, as I have some work to complete before I leave on vacation. I end the decade only feet from the exact point where I started the decade.

Jan 1, 2000, at 12:00:01, I was here at work, in Lab 6, as part of Nortel’s Y2K task force. We were all carrying pagers, waiting by the phone and basically doing nothing. For me, it was a non-event, as our software had been updated in the months before, and patches sent out to all of our customers. At the exact moment of the new millennia, I was in the cafeteria, where Nortel had brought in some light snacks and (secretly) handed out glasses of champagne to anyone working to celebrate. I did wish I was downtown though – I’m sure it would have been quite a party.

At the start of the decade, the US elections were in full swing. I told anyone who would listen that Bush would set the US back by decades. Never did I expect that his performance after becoming president without winning the election would have been worse than I anticipated. Of course, no one could have expected 9/11, except for the US agents who specifically told Bush 4 weeks before that an attack against the US was being prepared. And who would have guessed that the US would have invaded a country who had nothing to do with the 9/11 tragedy, other than Donald Rumsfeld who said on 9/12 that the US should attack Iraq because “there aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan“.

The year 2000 was also the start of the layoffs at Nortel. The earliest reference I can find is that they started in October 2000. This was my life for the next 9.5 years. I made it through the first year of layoffs before my entire team was cut 2 months after 9/11. I returned and worked for CDMA, dodging more than a dozen layoff rounds before being picked up in the Ericsson purchase a few months ago.

The time at Nortel was good in one respect. I was introduced to the love of my life at Nortel: a blind date over lunch in the Lab 6 cafeteria. Rosa and I talked for 2 hours that day, and we knew immediately that we had found who we were both looking for. Seven months later we got engaged in Paris, and on Jan 3, 2007, we married in Rome.

I’ve traveled more in the last 5 years than I had in my entire life. Rosa and I have visited Halifax, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Naples, Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice, Istanbul, Ankara, Athens, Warsaw, Krakow, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Jerusalem, Amman and London. In 2 days, we leave for our next trip: Berlin, Prague, Budapest and Vienna. Before Rosa and I met, I had also visited New York, Toronto, Montreal, Dallas. 2 years ago I had a business trip to Bangalore.

I seems like I have been racing for so long, but it was only in 2001 that I became a licensed marshal and 2003 before I received my race licence. I have raced in a 1971 Datsun 510 (“The Pumpkin”), 1991 Nissan NX2000, Nissan Sentra, Honda Civic, Formula-1600 and this year multiple Acura Integra Type-R’s. I also became a Secretary of the meet for 5 MCO Race Schools and 5 Ted Powell Memorial Race Weekends, including the first full race weekend at the new Calabogie Motorsports Park.

I’ve starting learning French, so I may become a bi-lingual Canadian. And I started to kayak.

I wonder what December 2019 will bring?

Over the Victoria Day weekend, I drove in the Sundowner 3-Hour Enduro at Mosport. I can’t say that it was very successful for anyone in Team 00, although Steve was able to place second in class in a wet race Saturday afternoon.

We went down with 2 Acura Integra Type-R’s, both now in bright yellow livery. They looked fantastic in the paddock, sitting side by side. There were three drivers for each – Dr Dolan, his son Pat Dolan, and Nick were to run in #00, which is a stock Type-R, while Steve, myself and Jay were running in #40, and ex-Speed World Challenge Type-R prepared by Real-Time Acura.

I signed up for the test day on Friday, as I had wanted to have time to learn the new cars. This was the first time I was racing since my big accident in the Team 00 Honda Civic at Calabogie 9 months ago. Although I owned a Type-R for about 18 months (I sold it to buy my first house), I needed time in the racecars to learn their handling characteristics.

Friday morning, I had 15 minutes in the #40 car, and Steve had a session in the car. After the second session, we noticed that there was a problem. There was smoke coming from the dipstick hole. We figured that the oil pump was toast. As the pump is inside the motor, there was nothing we could do – the motor needed a rebuild.

Now down to only 1 car, Nick gave up his seat in #00 and I took his place. I had two 15-minute test sessions in the #00 Type-R during Friday. I had a huge spin at the bottom of Turn-4. I was heading down the hill full-bore when I decided I wanted to be wider for the entrance to Turn-5A. I turned the wheel left a little and the tail of the car stepped out. I counter-steered right, but the tail whipped around the other way and I drove up the grass on the inside of Turn-5A fully sideways, looking out the driver’s side window at the marshal station. Luckily the car stopped before re-entering the track and it missed the paved ditch. The grass was deeply embedded between the tires and the rims. I drove to the pits, and took the chequered flag for the session.

Grass in the wheels

The team started making phone calls to see if we could find a replacement motor and eventually settled on Teknotik in Toronto. It was a good deal financially, so Steve, Nick and Pat put the #40 car back on the trailer and drove to Toronto. It should have taken only 2-hours, as Teknotik does 3-4 engine swaps a day.

The evening got late and those still at the track went to bed. In the morning, there was no sign of the #40 car. We called and found that they had been up all night long. The motor swap took so long as the fittings from Real-Time Acura were often different from the stock motor (the donor motor came from a street Type-R). In the morning, the swap was completed, only to find that the clutch was toast. It took many more hours to complete the clutch change.

Time was ticking. Steve came back and ran in the first race of the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship presented by Toyo Tires series (CCTCC). He placed second, which seemed to bode well for the Enduro.

Working on #00

The #40 car finally arrived back at the track just before 4pm. The Enduro started at 5pm, and there was much that needed to be completed on the cars. Both were refueled, the oil was topped up, tires changed, tire pressures set. The #40 car needed to have the transponder setup, and the radio put in. I worked on the radio, but we were missing parts (the push-to-talk button), so at the very last minute (literally), I had to cut out the non-functional radio. The #00 car needed to have a fan installed to prevent fog on the windscreen – the forecast was for rain during the 3-hour race.

Even with 5 extra crewmembers working full out, the #40 car (which needed more work) missed the mock-grid. That was not so bad, as we had no qualifying time – we would have started at the back of the grid anyways.

Steve and Nick took the first stint in #40 and #00 respectively. We pulled Nick in after less than 45 minutes, as he had had only 40 minutes of sleep in the previous day, as he was involved in the engine swap and clutch change.

Pat Dolan in #00

Steve came in around the hour mark and I took over.  However, as I was strapping in, I heard Vern (crew) yelling that there was a lot of fluid in the engine bay and Steve told me to short-shift. So heading out, I had no confidence that the car was ok, and was afraid that I would end up spinning on my own oil.

I had not been comfortable in either car all weekend. Either I was sitting wrong in the car, or the seat was in the wrong place, or the mirrors were set incorrectly. However, this time, it was perfect. I felt comfortable and could get on with racing.

It took a long time to build up trust in the car. My lap times dropped from 1:50 in the cold (Friday) to 1:46, which was showing improvement, but the car should have been able to reach much better times. The cold was effecting everyone, but in the #00 Honda Civic (107hp), I was able to set a time of 1:44.1; in good conditions the Type-R (197 hp) should be capable of setting sub-1:40 lap times.

Towards the end of my hour in the car, I feel I was pushing harder than I had in the Civic. I was not braking for either Turn-1 or Turn-4, and was only touching the brakes for Turn-2 and Turn-8. It felt like I was going faster than in the Civic, but that might also be because in the cold (it was only about 10 degrees and very windy) the tires had much less grip and I was closer to their limits.

Around 7pm, I was brought in for our only fuel stop and Jay took over. I found out after I got out of the car, that Vern had actually said there was “not” a lot of fluid. The reason for short-shifting (I was shifting at just over 7000 rpm, when redline is over 8500) I found out was because the redline would cut the fuel instead of a soft redline where the ignition is cut – this hard cut in a corner would have instantly spun the car because of weight transfer. I thought I was told to short-shift because there was a problem with the motor. Had I known, I would have shifted at 8200 rpm.

Jay did a great job in #40, posting lap times as low as 1:43.5. However, with 20 minutes remaining in Enduro, the replacement motor let go as he drove by on the pit straight. There was a hole in the block. We don’t know the root cause for loosing the second motor.

Steve in Turn-5

On Sunday afternoon, Steve started the second CCTCC in #00. However, he had a hard time, finishing last. The transmission would not stay in fourth gear, so he had to hold the shifter and the steering wheel in some of the high-speed corners – far from ideal.

So, I am disappointed that my lap times could have been better. I do feel good that I will be able to find that speed later this year with once we work out the kinks in the two Type-R’s. And towards the end of my stint Saturday afternoon, I was passing slower traffic, which was good experience. Once the reliability issues are resolved, passing will be easier.

Here are my goals for 2009.

• Become bi-lingual. I am already taking french classes for 6 hours a week. Je parle bien, mais j’oublie les mots.
• Win a race. In 5 years of road racing, I have had three 2nd place results, a few 3rd places, but never a class win.
• Write an essay. I have all these things in my head I want to say, but never had time to put anything down.
• Create a personal web site and gallery. Glad to say that this site is working the way I want it now. Although I would like to continue to improve the look of the site. And find a better name!
• Earn a small income from photography. This year I want to focus on stepping up my involvement in photography. I might look for opportunities to assist a professional photographer. Or I might offer my services; I have already taken photos for Les Petits Ballets, Ottawa Chinese Art Troupe and the Nortel Asian Business Council. One of my photos will be used for an ad poster for the ballet school this month. Another photo is being used on the cover of a CD for a friend.
• Add a light in the storage area. I’ve never done any electrical work, so it’s scary and challenging.

Tonight, I feel good.

I studied hard this weekend and I think I passed my French mid-term this evening. It was scheduled for 2 hours, and I finished in 1 hour. I didn’t panic and forget everything as soon as the test was handed out.

I finished creating this web site, and have a working web gallery. It’s secure, and it’s finally set up the way I want it.

I am still employed.

My to-do list is only 6 items long, two of which are repeating tasks (weekly status report to my manager and monthly computer backup reminder).

My in-box at work is empty. I am staying on top of the work-load instead of being swamped like I have been for years.

I had a successful requirements review this morning. I could have done better, but I still had a lot of work to complete over the last few weeks.

I have created a transition plan for one of my four projects at work. I am involved in too many projects and need to cut down my project list. The plan has not been approved yet. One of the other projects is winding down too as the team in Beijing is taking over as we near customer release.

This past weekend, I had enough time to watch a DVD with Rosa. It was the first time in months.

I have transitioned all my MCO organizational work to others so I can focus on my racing this year.

And finally, and most importantly, I am married to the most wonderful woman. She means the world to me.

When I have moments of doubt and low moods, I should remember this evening.