For Immediate Release
Contact: Larry Mason
LMR Marketing - Communications

A Pair of Deuces Elevate Mason to Third in National Points!

Buttonwillow, CA– Larry Mason continued to make progress in his Team LMR Formula Mazda as he scored two, second-place finishes at the (Sports Car Club of America California Sports Car Club Region, SCCA/CSCC) Labor Day Double Rational Championship Road Races at Buttonwillow Raceway Park on September 1st and 2nd.

Business travel precluded Mason from getting any seat time on Friday’s open test; however he made it back across the country to be ready to go first thing Saturday morning. The two day’s schedules were each comprised of a practice, qualifying, and race. In the first practice session, Mason went out on old tires in order not to put heat cycles into the new tires the team planned on using for qualifying and the race. The rulebook states that you must start the race on the tires you qualify on. As it turned out, the Goodyear truck never made it to the track so Mason was stuck with trying to get the most out of the two sets of used tires he had. One of the sets (from the initial purchase of the race car) was two or three years old and the second set had seen too many heat cycles in Texas in July (not to mention the left front tire that went flat at the end of the race there).

Well when you get tossed a lemon, you can either have a sour outlook or make lemonade. Mason and the team decided to do the best they could with what they had and see how fast they could go. This weekend Team LMR joined with Team CER (Chris Emanuel Racing led by Mike Williams with Aaron Graham and Dean Winkelried). For those fans who have followed Mason’s racing career, Williams and Graham should sound familiar. The last time they teamed up, they scored two poles and two victories to clinch the 2008 Formula Mazda Challenge West Championship.

This particular course configuration at Buttonwillow (25A CW) uses a fairly long straight leading into the high-speed “Riverside” turn that really gets your attention. Although Mason likes to take the Riverside turn “flat-out,” the tires weren’t up to the task and some slight throttle modulation had to take place to keep the car on the track. “I knew the tires weren’t going to be the best based on past experience here,” explained Mason pragmatically. “There’s one section of the track where you’re accelerating hard in third gear and go over a little rise in the road. When you have fresh tires, you keep accelerating. When you have worn tires, you get wheelspin.”

For qualifying, the team put on the Texas tires and Mason was giving it a run for all it had. The air was still cool, the sun was out with heat in the track and conditions were good for going fast. As it turned out, a bit too fast. “We were hitting the rev limiter in 5th gear heading into Riverside and a couple of other corners,” explained Mason. During the break before the race, the team worked to find a solution. As it turns out, since this is a spec car, there is also a spec set of gear ratios you can run. The team decided that changing into the other spec fifth gear would hurt the performance so they made a wing change to add more downforce and drag. The idea being that the car would be slowed on the straights, yet the additional downforce would supplement the loss of grip from the old tires.

The car felt much more stable and Mason qualified second in class and third overall. At the drop of the green flag Mason made a great start and nosed his car into the lead in class and second overall into Turn one. Although Mason was able to get the jump on the other driver heading into turn one, the other driver made a Banzai move on the outside and chopped across Mason’s front tire to re-take the lead. Mason recounted, “I had to take evasive action to avoid making contact, but the in-car camera shows that the other driver indeed hit my right front wheel. No matter, I was confident that I could still get back by him. On the next lap, Emanuel spun his Formula Atlantic car in the “Buttonhook” corner and we just missed hitting him. This allowed the other driver to gain an advantage on me. The next time through the Riverside turn, I went flat-out in fifth gear at 134 mph because the car was feeling quite stable. All was good until I got about a fourth of the way into the turn when the back end of the car broke loose. I was able to catch it, but then it got into the marbles on the outside line and snapped sideways again. I slid sideways perpendicular to the track for about the length of a football field ‘till it finally came to a stop in the middle of the track. I put it in gear and kept going but that certainly didn’t help my well-worn tires any.” Mason lost too much time to really catch back up to the leader, but didn’t seem to lose any more ground either. In fact, the race results actually showed Mason turned a faster race lap than the winner!

The plan for day two was to run the really old tires for practice again and then, for qualifying, just put in one “flyer” lap to save as much of the Texas/spin tires for the second race. The plan was working out pretty well with a pole position in class for Sunday’s race and second overall to Emanuel’s Formula Atlantic. On the pace lap, Mason noticed that the front tires had a tendency to “lock up” while he was warming his brakes so he used the brake bias adjuster inside the cockpit to alleviate the situation. At the start, Emanuel led Mason and the other driver through the first three quarters of the lap. As they approached the Star Mazda turn (almost a hairpin 180 degree corner), Mason could see that the other driver was going to make a move to pass. Mason left his braking as late as he could but the fronts locked up again and the other driver was through. Unlike the race the day before, this time the other driver pulled away for an easy victory. Mason meanwhile struggled with handling woes and although frustrated, took solace with the second-place points once more.

The good news was that with all of the points Mason accrued between this weekend and Texas, he qualified for the prestigious SCCA National Championship Runoffs for the first time in his career! He also finished third in the final National points tally, also a career best. Mason is also currently tied for fifth in CSCC Regional points.

Mason has chosen to sit out this year’s Runoffs to make sure that he’s 100 percent prepared to put forth a winning effort. Right now the focus is to fine tune the car and driver to make an assault on the Championship for 2013.

Mason summarized, “I’d like to thank Chris, Mike, Aaron, and Dean for their support over the weekend. I’d also like to thank Moses Smith for delivering the car from Texas. Also deserving thanks are my good friend and historic IndyCar driver Jim Webb and his crewman Cheyne Lipfert who also provided support along with my wife Sonia. My new Bell Dominator.2 helmet proved its high speed stability and comfort, so thanks to Bell as well!”

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L-R: Mike Williams, Larry Mason, Dean Winkelried, and Aaron Graham.
Photo by Sonia Mason.

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