Don Bailey, owner of Mel & Sons Muffler in Concord, California,  had planned on campaigning his 1984 GTI-Cup VW Rabbit for the third year of NASA's grueling 25-Hour enduro but a wrench (more specifically a Spec Miata) was thrown into the works seriously affecting his plans for a E3 Class challenge.  In September 2005, during a GTI-Cup sprint race at Thunderhill, Don was punted by a Spec Miata in Turn 8, causing him to leave the track at about 100 mph.  His car slid on the dirt then hit a depression causing it to roll.  Don emerged unhurt but the car was a total.  With only two months until the 25-Hour the question was...could a new race car be built in time?   Don's GTI was well sorted and it would be hard to get a new car built and sorted in time for this monster enduro.  The answer was probably not..... since at this same time Don was neck deep in a remodel of his home in addition to running a busy radiator and muffler shop.  Instead the decision was to campaign Carlos Suarez's GTI-Cup car if two additional drivers could be found.  Two drivers were found in mid-October......GTI-Cup racer Dan Pina  founder of DP Racing and Dave Bongiovanni,  NASA NorCal's Chief of Timing and Scoring with racing experience in GTI-Cup, Pro7, ThunderRoadsters and Legends Cars.  Dave had planned on racing his newly-prepared USTCC Mitsubishi EVO in the 25-Hour but this endeavor fell through as his co-drivers had to back out at the last minute.  Carlos' GTI  is a  war horse veteran with 5 seasons of GTI-Cup racing, one season of SCCA ITB and two NASA 12-hour enduros under its belt.  So in October, after securing co-drivers, Don and Carlos embarked on getting the car ready which included a new engine (GTI-Cup Spec), tranny (5-speed close ratio), brakes (Mintex), wheel bearings, and various electrical upgrades.   Don asked GTI-Cup racer Scott Neville to handle crew chief duties since he wasn't available to drive ($).   The rest of the crew volunteers included GTI-Cup racer David Pina, former GTI-Cup racer Alex Castro , aspiring GTI-Cup racers Tony Virelas and Greg Lowry,  Mike Bongiovanni (Dave's Brother) and Robert Fuller (RobiSpec).  Also helping out the team were Scott's brother Craig Neville, Scott's nephew Walker Neville, Don's wife Cindy and Carlos' wife Gina.  This was truly a grassroots effort with friends and family all pitching in for the effort.

Don and Carlos arrived to the track on Friday morning and had signed up for pre-race testing time to make sure the car was running right and help break in the new engine.  They quickly discovered some oil leaks that needed to be fixed.   They had to cut short their practice time and after several hours of wrenching repaired the leaks.  They missed qualifying and were going to be placed at the back of the grid.  Grid loaction is no big deal in a 25-Hour race and being in the back of the grid is probably an advantage especially if there's an accident on the race start.  Scott arrived Saturday morning to find Don, Carlos and Robert performing a last minute front toe adjustment.  David and Dan Pina arrived shortly thereafter.  Dave Bongiovanni was busy taking care of timing and scoring for the race. At about 10:15 AM the cars were rolled out to the race grid on the main straight of Thunderhill.  One of the fun parts of the 25-Hour Enduro is being able to walk around the starting grid on the main straight-away as it has a real festival feel with all the cars, drivers, crew, friends and family gathered around the clean and shiny race cars which, in the next 25 hours, will be dirty, dented, broken and possibly wrecked.

The parade lap started right on time 11 AM.  The cars all followed the pace car on a warmup lap then went through the hot pits to the cheering crews and co-drivers.  The next lap would be the green flag and the beginning of 25 hours of racing.   We had only two competitors in the E3 class this year.  The Honda Factory backed OPAK-Spoon Racing Team driving a nicely prepared Honda FIT imported from Japan.  The Honda FIT is a popular sedan in Japan reportedly scheduled to come the the States in 2006 or '07.  The other E3 race team was Team Capri.  Team Capri fielded a 1971  ITB/PS3 Ford Capri with owner/driver Joe Craven leading the effort.  Joe also competes with us in GTI-Cup so a friendly rivalry was in place for the race.  NASA had warned all the drivers to NOT do anything stupid in Turn 1 during the start.....which they did as there were no problems at the start.  Carlos quickly settled in and was cracking off consistent quick laps (for a GTI-Cup car) in the 2:16's - 2:18's.  The thing we didn't know was how long we would have between fuel stops.  We knew it would fall somewhere between 1.5 to 2 hours per tankfull of gas.   We were hoping for 2 hour stints but Carlos came in for the first driver change and refuel right at hour 1.5.  Dan Pina took control and we filled the car with 9.5 gallons.  Since this was our first refuel not knowing what the car would take, our fuelers overtopped the tank spilling about a 2 cupfulls of gas on the tarmac which missed our catch pad.  We were assigned a 5-minute stop/go penalty for the gas spill.  Dan went around 5 or 6 laps before he was black flagged for the penalty.  Team Capri was still going strong pulling comparable lap times as our car and the OPAK Honda was running about 10 seconds/lap slower.  We completed our penalty (which was our first and last penalty of the race) and were back on track with Dan Pina driving hard...a little too hard in that on lap 64 he cracked off a 2:12.7 lap time....which is GTI-Cup sprint race fast.  We had him throttle back to our new plan of 2:18-to 2:20 lap times in order to conserve the car.   Dan came in at hour 3 and Don took over driving duties. About 5-minutes after Don went back out on the track the Team Capri came into the pits for what seemed to be a longer than normal pit stop.  It turned out that the Capri had burnt a piston and was out of the race with only 77 laps completed. Tough luck for Joe and his team.

Don drove until hour 4.25 (3:15 PM) without any problems and Carlos got back into the car.  We put Carlos in again to maximize his daylight driving time as he would not be driving at night.  At hour 5.75 (4:45 PM) the sun was down and Dave B. got in for his first stint during dusk.  We also changed our first of 10 new tires (Full treaded Toyo Proxies RA-1s) for the event.  At hour 7 (6:00 PM) Dave B. pitted a bit early as the instrument lights had gone out and he couldn't read the fuel gauge.  5-gallons of gas were added and we sent Dave back out.  He ended up driving a 2.5 hour stint and at hour 8.25 (7:15 PM) Dan Pina took another driving turn.  During Dan's stint Don and Scott engineered  gauge light with a a Mini-MagLight that would be installed during the next pit stop.  We had to drill a hole through the dash pad and, with a couple of zip ties and duct tape, attached the MagLight such that with a quick twist the driver could turn on the light to check the fuel gauge.  During Don's stint he noticed a thumping sound coming from beneath the car.  When he pitted at hour 9.75 (8:45 PM) an inspection discovered that one of the front sway bar brackets had broke and the flexing bar was thumping against the bottom of the car.  We didn't fix it at this time and sent out Dave B. for his second stint of the night.  We didn't have an extra sway bar mount to fix the problem so we decided the easiest solution was to remove the entire sway bar.  We decided to do this on the next pit stop.  We knew it would be easier to remove the sway bar with the front tires off so we also decided to R&R the front brake pads during this same stop.  At hour 13.5 (12:30AM) Dave B. brought the car in.  After jacking the car up and removing the front tires Carlos and Tony began working on the sway bar removal and putting in a fresh set of Mintex pads.  A new tire was added and a tire rotation completed then the car was refueled with Dan Pina back in the driver's seat.  This stop only took about 8 minutes.  Things were running smoothly as the cold night (low 30's) wore on.  Checking our progress against the OPAK-Spoon Honda we found ourselves with a comfortable lead of about 30 laps.  The OPAK-Spoon Team's strategy seemed to be taking the "turtle" role to our "hare" role.  They had reportedly broke a hub in last year's race and we were guessing that they wanted to take things easy with their car anticipating that our 21-year old GTI Rabbit would break.  Our lap times were about 10 seconds/lap faster than the OPAK-Spoon Honda.   With this time differential our car would pass the Honda 2 to 3 times during each driver's stint.  According to Dave B, the OPAK-Spoon Honda is capable of doing 2:09's at this track so we were expecting a possible late-race sprint with them.

Don drove without any problems until hour 16.5 (3:30AM) and Dave B. took controls for his third stint at this time.  Dan Pina took over for Dave B. at hour 18.25 (5:15AM)...fifteen minutes later we spotted Dan stopped on the track in Turn 4.  He radioed in that the throttle cable had apparently broke.  He was quickly towed in by the NASA emergency crew and an hot pit inspection showed that the cable was intact but had come off the pedal assembly.  The problem was only a five minute fix and after topping off the car with 2 gallons of gas Dan headed back out to the track.

At hour 20.5 (7:30 AM) Dan came in and Carlos took over for his third and final stint.  Carlos drove until hour 22 (9:00AM) and came in for 5 gallons of gas and a new R/F tire.  He drove until hour 22.5 (9:30 AM) and Don got in the car for it's final dash to the checkered flag.  Carlos reported that the car was getting hard to shift and he thought the clutch might be starting to go.
 
 

Don heads out for the last drving stint with the intent of taking things easy.  He leaves the car in 4th gear and doesn't shift at all during each lap (Thunderhill in a GTI is a 3rd and 4th gear track).  His lap times drop to about 2:25 but at this point of the race we're about 40 laps ahead of the OPAK-Spoon Honda.  This would be the Honda's best time to catch up if they realized out car was hurting.  But they never turned up the burners and seemed to keep on their previous pace.  This was probably the most dramatic part of the race....we had gone so far and now the possibility of a blown clutch was facing us with only 2 hours left in the race.  At hour 24 (11:00AM) Don came in for the last refuel.  The car took on 7 gallons and, during the refuel, Don reported that a CV joint might be making noise....more drama!  Now we had a weak clutch and a noisy CV joint with only one hour left in the race!   Could the OPAK-Spoon "turtle" beat our "hare" in the final 2 hours?
 
 

The clutch held...the CV joint didn't grenade!  We FINISHED!  44 laps ahead of the OPAK-Spoon Honda and 18th overall in a starting field of 58 cars!!

A big thanks to all the sponsors: Workpad.com, Mel & Sons Muffler of Concord, CA, German Sport European Auto Repair of Walnut Creek, CA,   Parts-4-VW of Temecula, CA  and  Graphtech Graphics of Daly City, CA.

Written by Scott Neville
December 9, 2005