I was once told that, at meetings at Nestlé (the Swiss chocolate company), they start their presentations by showing the results first. Well, if I were to adopt this, I’d be happy to announce that I have won the 2007 COMSCC Championship in the SSC Class.

But wait! Don’t you want to hear how it went? Of course you do! So read on…

I first have a couple of quick reports that haven’t appeared in Velocissima yet. My August and October COMSCC events at NHIS were no picnics, and again proved that these stock car classes are very competitive.

Giro 6 – August 20-21 – NHIS

With 3rd gear popping out of place, I had to drive six of the twelve turns holding the shift lever, and it took a little practice. Precision goes out the window when your focus is either on maintaining the car in gear or on the line.

I also noticed a louder noise under the car and suspected that the exhaust had cracked … again! From the photo, you can see that it blew a square hole right after the connection with the manifold. The car felt faster (psychologically, probably because of the noise).

In the end, a Mazda prevailed in 1st place, separated a few precious hundredths of seconds from me in 2nd. But I had fun, and I’ll take that 2nd place finish anytime, under the conditions. [Click here to see a nice video of Stephan’s GTV coming off the back stretch and negotiating Turn 3 (3.3MB WMV video file)]

Giro 7 – October 20-21 – NHIS

The next NHIS event was pretty much a carbon copy of the July event. I fixed the exhaust, installed new stock springs to control some of the excessive body roll, and fiddled a little in the gearbox to see if the problem would go away.

At the Time Trial, I repeated something I did at Mont Tremblant: corded another tire! And I could do no better than 3rd place. Compared to my times of the previous NHIS event under same configuration, I actually did a little worse. The competition was still strong and the times still very close, but this business of holding 3rd gear in place, plus the tire issues, proved to be too much to go for 1st place. Still, I came out of these two events further ahead of the 2nd place car (the BMW) in points, because he had actually finished behind me in both events.

Giro 8 (Finale) – November 16-17 – Lime Rock

Given the long hiatus between the events, I had the GTV checked by Mike Wrigley, especially to see if the issues with the gearbox could be fixed. I was hoping that it was nothing serious (such is every Alfa owner’s wish, but it is rarely the case). Michael checked the trunnion, interference with the console, etc.—just about everything short of opening the gearbox (the worst case). New trailing arm bushings were also installed and the Alfa felt much better aligned.

At the first practice session, while hard braking coming into Big Bend and downshifting to 3rd gear, the expected/unexpected happened: 3rd gear popped out! So on to plan B: go fast through Big Bend in 4th gear and let the car scrub off speed enough to negotiate the turn, and hopefully not lose too much time in the process when needing power to come out of the second apex. It worked well—I was below the track record and very much enjoying this change, where I would focus on the line rather than holding the gearshift in place. [Click here to see a video of Stephan’s GTV at Lime Rock, taken from the car behind (separate streaming video web site).]

Rob Ready in the Miata was also within the track record pace and we were exchanging info on tire pressure and line. In the second practice session (prior to the Time Trial event), we went out together and had what I would call one of the most exciting "scraps" I have had in a long time. Sparing nothing, it was a "go for broke" session that had some of the club members stop what they were doing to their cars and watch the show. And what a show it was—felt great!

Most unfortunately, my rival BMW driver did not register for this event, so that made me the Class Champion even before Giro 8. But I only learned that on the second day, just prior to the Time Trial.

As for the Time Trial itself, on the very first lap I set out to just repeat what I had done in my previous session. But I must have come in a little too fast from the straight because, when braking for Big Bend, I locked up all four wheels and nearly went off the track. There was a huge cloud of white smoke coming off the tires, but I managed to keep it on the pavement. Lime Rock is a track of momentum, and I knew that I’d lost it when I locked up—there was no way to recover and get good times in just three laps. So I focused on getting good times as best I could. I kept on improving every lap, but not enough to be within the record pace. Rob in the Miata broke the track record, and I was happy for him. I was also happy that I finished no worse than 3rd and actually won the Championship.