Racing News Archives
2004 Grand Bayou Road Race Series -
Event #5
November 13, 2004
By: Patty Poupart
Racing is Racing. Most of the time, it's more fun than you should
be allowed to have. Sometimes you wonder why you are even
there. Mike Poupart Motorsports is a group of people that pride
themselves on being prepared physically, mentally and mechanically to
the best of our abilities. It would not show at this event.
Mike
Poupart Motorsports arrived with two cars for the 5th race of the 2004 Grand Bayou
Race Series sponsored by the Subaru Dealers of
Louisiana
with John Walter in the Liberto Cleaners #98 Corvette and Mike Poupart
driving Allan McDonnel's #44 Viper GTS. Mike's sister, Shawn, and
her husband, Donald, would be attending for their first time to see
Mike road race.
As
the two cars were unloaded out of the trailers, Walter's Corvette had a
flat right front tire and the Viper had a flat left front.
Walter's spare front tires were not worth putting on the car, so he
plugged the tire and hoped it would hold. The Viper's tire would
not take a plug or a patch. It was trash. We had
spares. They were not great but would make it through the day, so
we picked the best and rotated it to the right front.
Next, it's
was time to warm up the cars and the Viper would not start. It
would crank, but would not even try to fire. Finding the problem
began to take a long time and it was obvious the Viper would not make
the practice session. While continuing to diagnose the problem,
the Viper mysteriously fired up. It fixed itself. We let it
warm up to operating temperatures and shut it off to wait for
qualifying.
The call
to qualify came just as Mike was getting into his drivers suit.
Again, the Viper would not start. Mike, who was determined to
"will" the Viper into starting, just kept cranking on the
starter. Again, it mysteriously fired. By the time Mike
made it to the track, there were only three laps remaining to
qualify. One to warm the brakes and the tires, one to clear the
driver's head and one to let it all hang out. Well, it
worked. Mike qualified on the pole with a new personal best lap
time of 117.202.
As the
Viper rolled back into the paddock, it died just as suddenly as it
started before. We started to look at the problem again and John
Walter informed us he had pulled off the qualifying session early
because of a bad exhaust leak. We stopped to check out that
problem and found the #7 header tube had broken about 2 inches from the
head. It was about this time that the camaraderie of the people
in club racing showed it's qualities. Offers of help came from
other racers and competitors for knowledge, parts or whatever they
could do, so we could make the race. While Johnny and some
friends gathered shade tree items to fix the header, we went back to
the Viper problem. All of a sudden, like a light bulb turned on,
we realized the problem and made the repair to the Viper. It
would be a temporary fix, but it would make the race. It turned
out to be a bad connection inside the battery shut-off switch that fed
the ECM. Next, we completed the shade tree repair on the header
with a couple of beer cans, some header wrap from the Shelter's GT1
Thunderbird and a couple of clamps. We hoped it would last the
whole race.
The race
looked to be exciting from the start. Mike Poupart was on the
pole in the Viper. Mike Shelter, in his GT1 Thunderbird, would
start on the outside of the front row. Randy Greff, in his
IMSA Porsche 930, would be right behind the Viper, with Walter's
Corvette right by his side. Following in the GTO class was
another Porsche, three Corvettes, a Ferrari Challenge car, and a GT2
RX-7, with three cars in the vintage class bringing up the rear of the
field.
Poupart
edged out Shelter's Thunderbird into the first turn after the green
flag. For the next ten laps the Thunderbird was a fixture on the
tail lights of the Viper. As they caught lapped traffic,
Poupart's experience allowed him to pick through the slower cars and
develop a comfortable lead on the Thunderbird. Walter's repair
did not survive and he had to give it up early. It must have been
the "Lite" beer cans that failed. Poupart drove the Viper to his
second win a row with a 14.3 second lead at the finish.
We
promised ourselves never to be caught with our pants down like that
again and practice what we preach. Preparation is the key to
success.
Mike Poupart with
brother-in-law, Donald Tusa, and his sister, Shawn Tusa. Patty
Poupart Photo
