Tyler Mcquarrie
In a season plagued with mechanical issues, Tyler and his crew finally got their Porsche dialed in at Jersey and took home Second Place. A skilled driver with years of track experience, it didn't come as a surprise for Tyler, all he needs to do now is keep his momentum...and his voodoo doll.
Our season had finally started with a Second Place finish in New Jersey and we rolled into Vegas ready to take the house down. I arrived at the track Thursday night for our Vegas-like late night practice at 10 p.m. and stayed until 1 a.m. Before we got started, I jumped on the track in my rental car and quickly realized that this track was pretty damn fast. It started with a 1,100 foot straight to a left hand corner into the first clipping point. Then it sent you to the outside clipping point by the judges' stands, which lead you into two tighter right-hand corners with a small left transition before the finish. On a map, it looked like a backwards question mark.
I used my first practice run as a sighting lap with no drifting. The second run I worked on the slower corners at the end. For my third, I worked on the entry and tying everything together. And at this point, I noticed that the motor was not running well at low rpm; at the starting line, the Porsche was bogging to the point that it was almost stalling. On the fourth run, I planned on running it at full throttle; my entry speed on this run ended up being close to the top speed for the entire weekend. The run was going well, and while hand braking into the third inner clipping point-the final right-hand corner-I was at full opposite lock to the left and my motor died! I tried popping the clutch, but the corner was so quick that the Porsche gripped and spun me around to the left. I locked down the brakes as fast as I could and the next thing I saw was what appeared to be a bright light calling me towards it. As I got closer, the bright light was actually a 5,000-pound K rail! Another two feet and I would have been good, but we ended up with some cosmetic damage to the front bumper and fender.
The next morning, the JIC Hankook team got to the track and the car would not start. After a long diagnosis we discovered the car had no fuel pressure; we determined that the fuel pump died on the last run. We called everyone in Vegas, and go figure, no one had a fuel pump for a 993 GT2. The team drove back to the shop in L.A., took the fuel pump off the other JIC Porsche GT2, drove straight back to Vegas, got the fuel pump on, and we had fuel pressure! I had my suit on, helmet in hand, and was ready to go, but the car had no boost. And when I say no boost, I'm mean zero! This was like the dealer getting three blackjacks in a row. The team was frantically tearing apart the car looking for the problem. They checked everything: turbos, intercooler, and still there was no boost. Practice came and went and so did qualifying. I've never had to bow out of an event without the opportunity to qualify. Vegas kicked our ass this time! I guess there's truth to the saying "the house always wins". What made it more difficult was our strong showing in Jersey and feeling that we couldn't duplicate that performance.
I left Vegas at 3 a.m. Sunday morning and drove to Willow Springs for Super Lap Battle qualifying, where I won overall and broke the track record in the C-West/BC/Hankook S2000 with a lap time of 1:23.141. At least some good came out of my weekend!
Tyler Mcquarrie
www.tylermcquarrie.com
Hankook Tire
www.hankooktireusa.com
JIC
www.jic-magic.com