LAMB: The Jump From ST to GS
July 12, 2008
-
In any sport there is a progression - a ladder of sorts - which takes an athlete from the early stages of development to the top levels of the sport. It's apparent in baseball, for example, where it all starts with playing stickball in the sandlot, then on to Little League, and to the Minors, then finally MLB.
Road racing has its own progression, and one of the rungs on the Grand-Am ladder goes from the ST class to the GS class in the KONI Challenge Series. I've been running in ST for the past few seasons, most recently with Bill Fenton Motorsports, arguably one of the most successful teams in the ST class. Fenton switched to new Honda Civics this season after Daytona, and the cars continue to get better and better each race. When I would mention to people that I ran a Honda Civic, inevitably one of the questions they had was "How is it racing a front-wheel-drive car?" My answer was always "If it's properly setup, it's not a lot different that a rear-wheel-drive car."
I have been itching to make the step up to the GS class for the last year. I believed that my experience and driving style would be well suited for the GS class, but being unproven, doors didn't open quickly. Then, as I was tallying up the ST points one afternoon, I got a call out of the blue from Kinetic Motorsports, asking me to come to a private test in their BMW M3 at Road Atlanta. When? NOW! An hour later I was strapping into the car, heart pounding, as Kinetic's co-owner Nic Jonsson explained the various switches and starting procedure. Russell Smith, Kinetic's co-owner with a fantastic sense of humor, gave me encouraging words along the lines of "don't wreck the car or the crew will string you up by your ..." Much to my amazement, I didn't stall it leaving pit lane.
Fast forward to the present, and I've just returned from my first GS race with Kinetic Motorsports. It was a combined race at Watkins Glen, with about 70 ST and GS cars on track at once. Nic and I had a great run, leading at one point and running in the top five most of the race. Now that I've had the chance to experience GS firsthand, I wanted to share some of the differences I noticed from a driver's perspective. High priced cars and faster speeds would be the obvious conclusions, but there's a lot more to it from behind the wheel.
TRAFFIC
In the ST class, I could be having the most intense battle with other ST cars and have it all fall apart by a faster GS car coming up in my mirrors and breaking up the pack. As well, that same battle could be ruined by slow drivers in GS cars who couldn't seem to pull away from the ST lead pack on restarts. In the GS class at The Glen, I was amazed at how quickly we caught some of the ST cars to lap them, how utterly unpredictable they were with some going completely off line to get out of the way and others seemingly blocking the progress of the GS leaders. Having now experienced it from both perspectives, I understand how this creates some on-track tension between the two classes, which inevitably leads to some unnecessary excitement when drivers get desperate. We all need to be reminded sometimes to have a little patience and leave each other room.
LAP TIMES
Much of the time the lighter ST cars can out-handle and out-brake the GS cars, which in combined races can lead to some real surprises in the corners. On handling tracks like Barber and Iowa, the difference in lap times is less than two seconds, whereas on horsepower tracks like VIR and Daytona the lap time difference can exceed eight seconds.
TALENT
In ST there are two halves. In the top half of the field there are a couple dozen fast ST drivers in good cars, either those looking to move up or those content running well within a modest budget at the ST level. The last part of the grid is generally newcomers in undeveloped cars. In GS there's a much larger talent spread, with the top drivers coming from the Rolex Series and the back of the field made up of "gentlemen drivers" with minimal experience, in good cars with good co-drivers.
TEAMS
In ST there are a handful of teams capable of consistently running up front, an equal amount that are capable of a good one-off showing, and a slew of teams there solely for the thrill of competition. Several of the ST teams are very professional in their appearance - Fenton, Freedom, Compass360, APR, and Classic BMW come to mind. Many of the other ST teams are modest operations that have just moved up from club racing.
In GS half the teams are capable of winning races consistently. The majority of GS teams are professional in their appearance - Kinetic, Turner, Automatic, and BGB are just a few that rival some of the operations you'd find at a Rolex event. The crews in GS are generally double that of ST, and you'll find more specialized data/suspension/engineering gurus in the GS paddock.
CARS
In ST there are a wide variety of vehicle brands, with a vast assortment of powertrain configurations - FWD/RWD/AWD, 4-cylinder and 6-cylinder, normally aspirated/turbocharged/supercharged. The disparity between the various brands is quite difficult to equalize and thus some cars have a significant advantage at certain tracks.
With only a handful of different makes/brands in GS, there is only a small amount of disparity obvious between them. Each track will still cater to a specific car's strengths, but the weaknesses between each are much easier to equalize given they are all quite capable cars off the showroom floor, and all normally aspirated.
So while there are significant differences between the two classes, being successful in either one is quite an achievement. Driving in both GS and ST has taught me a lot about working traffic and the differences in various levels of professional road racing. I thoroughly enjoyed my first race in GS with Kinetic Motorsports and I'm looking forward to Barber next week. In the meantime I'll be waiting for that phone call that leads to testing a GT car - the next rung on the Grand Am ladder - so I can report back.
|