Indy Lights Racer Mark Olson's Blog

Going for the Glory at The Glen

After a ten hour drive from Indianapolis, we finally arrived at the rural Watkins Glen International racetrack. It’s not a very convenient venue from a logistical standpoint, but it is steeped in history. Originally held on public streets, Watkins Glen has hosted classic events in everything from Formula 1 to regional club races.

Back in May I was able to get in a few laps in a Skip Barber racing school car, but you can’t really appreciate the track until you’re at speed in a Firestone Indy Lights car. It’s got massive elevation changes, off-camber turns, decreasing radius turns, and Armco barriers right at the edge of the track. While very technical, it’s got a nice flow to it.

Anyhow, we were unable to attend an official test that was held at the track the week prior, and so we were at a huge disadvantage to the field. Unfortunately, we never caught up. I was way off the pace after the first practice session, but managed to trim large chunks of time each session … there just wasn’t enough track time for me to get where I needed to be.

The first practice was scrubbed due to deer on the track. Strapped into the car, sitting on pit lane, I couldn’t see the action. I heard that watching the track workers running around in firesuits and helmets, trying to capture the baby deer was more fun than spectating at a goat rodeo at the local fairgrounds. The league decided to juggle the schedule around and give us one extended practice session in the afternoon before qualifying (instead of the 2 scheduled practice sessions).

The track claimed a lot of cars in practice and in qualifying, and we spent an unnecessary amount of time sitting on pit road waiting for one mess or the other to get cleaned up. It was tough to get into much of a rhythm. I think that we were only able to get in 11 timed laps in a 45 minute qualifying session. My best time in practice was a 1:49.10. I shaved 1.4 seconds off of that for a 1:47.70 in qualifying. I think that the leaders were in the 1:39’s, so you can see there was still a lot of work to be done.

For race 1, a couple of cars had trouble on the warm-up lap, and the race was started under yellow. On the restart, there were a couple of different incidents and we went immediately back to yellow. On lap 10, another car ended up in the wall and the yellow came out again. The final 55 miles of the race stayed green. Very late in the race, the leaders put me a lap down. I stayed out of trouble, though and ended up in 15th place, with a best lap of 1:46.10 … another 1.6 seconds faster than qualifying.

Surprisingly, everyone who damaged their cars in the first race made the start of the second race. This time, we actually got to take a green flag start, but of course there was a turn one pileup. Starting 15th, I was the meat in a three car sandwich entering turn 1 with several cars spinning across the track by the time we got there. I managed to stay clear of all the trouble. On the restart, the 11 car passed me cleanly, but then inexplicably parked his car in front of me in turn 1. I was forced to lock up and I skidded into the back of him. My nosecone planned squarely in his gearbox, I spun him off the track. My momentum carried me straight off the track into one of the few available run-off areas, with very minor front wing damage and flat-spotted front tires.

I radioed that I was coming in for round tires, but CR Crews radioed me from the spotter stand to just drive through it. The vibration was rattling the eyeballs out of my head such that it was actually hard to see. But the vibration did seem to get better with time. Another incident at the 20 mile mark brought out a timely full course yellow. After a quick consultation, the team called me in for a yellow flag tire change. The crew changed both front tires and sent me back out. I almost caught the back of the field before the race went green again, but not quite. I was a bit disappointed with having to stop, until I saw the tire after the race. The flat spot was worn all the way through the inner core, and there was probably only a couple of laps of rubber left holding the air in the tire.

At about the 70-mile mark, the leaders were about to put me a lap down, when the 18 car hit the wall hard at the exit of turn 9. I was able to stay on the lead lap. While the pace car bunched up the field, I was able to run at speed around the track to catch the back of the field. After the restart, we just kept pressing, and I was able to keep the tail end of the field in sight … a small victory, considering how far behind we started the weekend.

The remainder of the race was uneventful. For the second race in a row, I was able to bring the car home intact, finishing 16th and on the lead lap. It’s a bit hard for me to celebrate 16th, but the improvement was tremendous. My last lap of race 2 was the fastest of the weekend, so we never quit improving. Consider that the front Firestones had almost 200 miles on them, the track conditions were probably at their worst, and that we ran 2 complete race distances in one day (with less than a 3 hour break in between) – posting that fast lap at the end of the 2nd race was a nice statement.

Next up for me is Mid Ohio Sports Car Course, located north of Columbus and south of Cleveland. It is my last Midwest race this year. The schedule looks something like this (in case you can make it out):

Friday, July 18th

· Practice 1: 9:40AM – 10:25AM

· Practice 2: 2:25PM – 2:55PM

Saturday, July 19th

· Qualifying: 11:00AM – 11:30AM

· Race #1 (100 miles, 40 laps): 5:25PM – 6:25PM

Sunday, July 20th

· Race #2 (100 miles, 40 laps): 10:35AM – 11:35AM

· IndyCarTM main event (Honda Indy 200): 1:30PM

Mark Olson