Chuck Christ Looks Back at the 2002 Blue-Gray Challenge |
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Crews
Last Updated: Mar 26, 2006 |
2/13/2003 The Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA) Blue-Gray Challenge is a 1-hour vintage racing ‘enduro’ event held annually at the Summit Point Raceway in Summit Point, West Virginia. Located only 70 miles west of Washington, D.C., Summit Point has become one of the best known road racing courses on the East Coast. It’s a challenging 10-turn, 2-mile long asphalt track that supports almost every form of motorsports competition. Chuck Christ and co-driver Steve Church competed in the 2002 event, held on August 3-6. The 850cc Saab 93 is one of the smallest displacement cars competing in the SVRA's Group1 (SVRA has eight car Groups). A common grid for this Group is made up of MG Midgets, Austin Healey Sprites, Austin Mini Coopers, Fiat 850 Spiders, Alfa Romeos, a few Formula V's, and numerous sports racers from the H-modified and D classes. All of the Group 1 cars and drivers are highly competitive. The Saab 2-stroke is a very competitive car, as well, but it’s not a car for tracks with long straights. It's a car best suited for tracks that are full of twists and turns. Over the course of a road racing season, historic racing events are run all over the country. So, some tracks favor the Saab and some do not. The SVRA usually runs the Blue-Gray Challenge with the Group1 and Group 3 cars racing together. Out on the racecourse, the closing speeds of the Group 3 cars onto the Group 1 Saab 93 are an incredible display of the difference between the Saab’s horsepower and the output available from 1500cc-2000cc engines. The larger bore cars can’t be touched when we’re racing down long straights! It takes great skill to concentrate on "running your race" while also being prepared to extend on-course courtesy to the other competitors who are constantly overtaking you. Watching for fast-approaching cars in your mirrors, and indicating to them an appropriate "point by," is common place. A "point by" offered by a slower car's driver indicates to an overtaking competitor that, first off, the slower driver knows the faster car is there. Secondly, the "point" direction (to the right or left) by the slower car's driver indicates whether the slower car's driver chooses to be passed on the right or left. The process is intended to give the faster car a safe passage. I always enjoy driving the 93F sedan, as it is a wonderful handling car. The fact that I race it in freewheeling mode adds a very interesting component to how you drive it at speed. In freewheeling you have no engine breaking to slow you down when you lift your foot off the accelerator. So, if you are running flat out heading for a turn, and lift your foot off the accelerator while in gear, you start coasting as fast as you were going under power. To the uninitiated this is very disheartening, because the only way you will get slowed down for the corner is lots of brakes (because the engine is not assisting in the deceleration)! Perfecting the technique was not an easy transition, or a smooth one, at first. Now it comes like second nature to me out on course. When explaining this to other race drivers, some are amazed at the way it works, and some just do not believe it at all. The experience is truly rewarding once you figure out the ‘how’ and ‘when’ of it! My father politely explained it to me not too long ago. He said, "If you get out of the car and you are not ringing wet, you are not doing it right!" He was right -- It’s a lot of fun but it is really a work out! Chuck Christ |