The day started out with cool temperatures that heated up as the day
went on, both on and off the track, at the fourth event of the
2006-2007 Grand Bayou Road Race Series at No Problem Raceway
Park. In spite of the chilly weather, the overall turnout for the
event was about 65 cars. The Mike Poupart Motorsports pit area
was a busy, bustling place to be all day what with 2 teams to crew and
watch over as well as 3 customers who needed a bit of driver
instruction and car care. Our son, Robbie Poupart, was a
tremendous help to the effort as he took over driver communications
among other crew duties. Those radio headsets keep out so much
noise that when you wear them you don't realize how loud you talk to
everyone around you. Got that, Rob?!! Patty concentrated on
photography and keeping warm while Mike seemed to be everywhere at
once.
Let's talk about the teams and players for the
day. Johnny Walter, in the #98 Liberto Cleaners Super Production
Corvette, provided "home base" with his enclosed trailer. His
wife, Mary Pat, kept the lounge area warm and organized and the windows
on the race car clean. Their son, John, came out later in the day
with his girlfriend, Jackie, to support Johnny and watch the
racing. Johnny had his motor tweaked up a notch and added a new
Jerico transmission with different gear sets. His plan was to
learn the changes during warm-up and practice, but we know he would be
anxious to see how well his new improvements would perform.
Returning after a long hiatus while his car was
being refurbished, Christian Francois entered his #77 Corvette in the
GTO class. Christian was nervously looking forward to getting
behind the wheel to see how it handled with the coilover suspension
conversion Mike engineered. Pitted around us were some new racing
friends and customers, namely, Doug Boozer in the #20 Panoz GTS running
the the GTO class; Ray Tipton in his newly acquired #93 Corvette which
was entered in the Yellow Bracket group; and Mark Summers in a newly
acquired #92 GT-1 Camaro also entered in the GTO class. The
combined total of the Super Production / GTO / Vintage V-8 cars was
about 18 and made for quite a bit of exciting racing throughout the day.
To set the scene, Johnny, Christian and Mike have
been racing together and against one another for a long time.
They were always referred to as the Bayou Boys Racing® team back in
the day. On this day, Mike was crew chiefing for both of
them. Another ironic twist is that Christian's car, a 1977
Corvette, was formerly owned by Johnny prior to the building of his
1996 "super car" so, naturally, a lot of kidding, cutting up and trash
talking was going on. What fun! An agreement had also been
made between Christian and Johnny that they would run their old hard
tires for this event. No new rubber for either car. That
would certainly make it interesting.
During warm-up and practice, Johnny's car seemed to
feel good and handle fine while Christian's car ran great but handled
like crap. Just short of half-way through the session, Christian
brought the car in to the hot pit so that Mike could look it
over. Before we knew it, Christian was out of the car and Mike
was in the driver's seat to take it back out for about 5 laps to get a
feel for what might be wrong. Before the session, Mike made a
promise to Mark Summers to drive the Camaro to check the balance on
it. As soon as Mike brought the Corvette in, he jumped out of it
and into the Camaro and headed back out onto the track to squeeze in a
couple more laps before the session was over. Whew! The
Camaro felt great and Mike was able to give Mark a lot of confidence in
the car since no changes were deemed necessary. The coilover
conversion on the Corvette seemed fine, but the alignment felt
off. Time for
some quick changes and adjustments on Christian's car.
Christian was still a bit nervous about things being
worked out on the car and he asked Mike to take it back out and check
the alignment. Mike communicated to Robbie on the radio that the
car was feeling better with each lap. Christian urged him to
finish the session to make sure everything was O.K. When the
session was over, Mike qualified the #77 Corvette at P3 behind Johnny's
#98 Corvette which was on the pole and Ralph Wicker's #24 Monte Carlo
in P2. Unfortunately, Ralph broke his motor and the #77 Corvette
moved up to P2 for the race. During qualifying, the power
steering fluid leaked a bit
onto the header of the #77 Corvette causing some smoke. Robbie
replaced the hose and cured the problem before the car would go out on
the track again.
As the cars
pulled into the grid for their feature
race, the two Corvettes sat side-by-side for the front row. Nice
photo op! Johnny and Mike would go head-to-head with horsepower
against finesse. As the cars rounded turn 9 on the pace lap, they
waited for the green flag. And they waited. Finally the
flag came out and Johnny got the jump into turn 10 which put Mike
door-to-door with Steve Melton's #21 Corvette before he charged forward
to stay on Johnny's bumper. As the field rounded turns 10-14,
they began to stretch out a little with 3 Corvettes running 1-2-3
followed by the red Ferrari, the Mini Cooper and the Panoz. By
the 2nd lap past the reviewing stands, the silver Ferrari of Franco
Valobra made its way into 7th place. Not bad considering he
started the race late and was the last car to take the green
flag.
Christian's
car was running and handling great and Mike settled into a steady
rhythm about 6 car lengths behind the Liberto Cleaners Corvette.
Soon he was catching Johnny and the #98 Corvette was in the way.
Then the #77 Corvette was in
Johnny's mirrors - all of them. For two laps, Mike kept getting
beside Johnny but couldn't complete the pass. When Johnny &
Mike would go through turn 14 and onto the front straight side-by-side,
Christian would get VERY nervous! Valobra had his Ferrari in the
third spot but didn't have enough to get past the two lead
Corvettes. About 3/4 through the race, the older Corvette
passed its former owner in turn 5 and took over the lead. The
stands were going wild and Christian stood on the top seats with his
chest puffed out touting how good it was to be the car owner.
The race finished with the #77 Corvette taking the
overall race win and the #98 Corvette finishing in 2nd with the Super
Production class win. Valobra's Ferrari finished the race
in 3rd position and a 2nd place finish in Super Production. Mike
drove hard to enjoy racing with his buddy, Johnny, and his fastest race
lap was a 1:19.9?? which was 1/10th of a second faster than the
1:20.000 limit on lap times that forces GTO cars to run in the Super
Production class. Since the #77 was entered in GTO, Mike was
disqualified for the class win in GTO, which was then passed to Steve
Melton.
It was another weekend of good racing with friends
and everyone did well. Lots of fun with no damage and no broken
cars which is always the goal. Thanks to the team and crew
for the help and support. We'll be back for the next race on
February 25th.
