Super GT Cup - Round 4 thunderhill - East (3-mile bypass)

By: Tommy Parry

The fourth round of the 2022 Super GT Cup season served as a reassuring reminder for several kinds of drivers. Those who had taken a racing sabbatical, newcomers to the series from other regions, and regular entrants ready to test some newfound skills all found success in the surprising conditions they met that weekend. 

Because the previous year’s event at Thunderhill subjected drivers to a steady downpour, the running joke was that this year, it’d be even wetter. Thankfully, the surface was bone dry, a nice thing to have in October, but the ambient temperatures were high. In fact, with long straights and the high average speed of Thunderhill in the Three-Mile Bypass configuration, drivers had to keep a careful eye on their dials as the temperatures climbed to 100°F.

Pauline Yruretagoyena returned to Thunderhill eager to try out a few new tricks. This marked her third trip to track. Thankfully, her last trip to Thunderhill was marked with the aforementioned heavy rain, which forced her to refine her inputs; driving smoothly in the wet is a must with so much power under her right foot. 

This time, her Challenger R/T had a few more modifications to suit her driving style, which itself had received some improvements in recent months. There was a lot to try this time around. 

After taking a two-day high performance course at the Radford Racing School, she’d been able to discover just how much better her big boat would rotate with the nose loaded properly. A lot of trail-braking combined with a short list of front-end sharpeners made her even more competitive than before.

Thanks to her husband Adrian’s handiwork, her Challenger received a set of wider 285-section fronts, BMR springs, an Eibach hollow swaybar, and Mopar strut bars. These helped give her the confidence to attack corner entries and, crucially, get the rotation done early to take full advantage of that big motor come corner exit. 

To improve matters, the track was bone dry. Plus, she really didn’t have to worry about anything cooking—other than her overloaded tires, of course. A Mishimoto oil cooler and a bigger set of SRT Brembos negated any potential thermal issues. 

“I was loving the balance of the car,” she began. “We tried adding a little camber in the rear, but the weight caused it to roll over onto the sidewalls and eat away at lap times. I knew I had about four good laps to put in a competitive time.”

With her husband following closely in his new Camaro, he could see that Pauline was getting everything out of her rear tires; sliding through most of the slow corners and laying stripes in sections where most folks would struggle to spin the wheels. 

Still, her first session was not so auspicious. Running a second behind her Street Class rival, she had to get those jitters out of her system and learn to truly trust herself. Adrian provided the pre-session pep talk, and Pauline went back out into the third session of the day with some much-needed pep in her step.

The only other threat to the win, Donald Kellogg, rolled out of the pits just thirty seconds before she had. “I saw him on the horizon and felt some extra charge to chase him down.” Donald pulled off from his charge early due to a low tank, but as Pauline passed the start-finish line, she could see that she’d managed to drop a second from her previous best. 

The tension built as the finalists were named by the organizers with their times first. “At the award ceremony, before I heard my name called, they announced a time followed by Donald’s name. I could finally smile since I knew I’d gone a little faster,” Pauline recollected. It really pays to have a hare to chase. 

The tears welled in her eyes as she took her first trip to the top of the podium and looked across. Standing beside her in third place was Adrian: her hype man, dedicated mechanic, and loving husband. For the first time in Super GT Cup competition, a married couple shared the podium.

Adrian’s third trip to Thunderhill could best be described as hectic. After moving on from his fully-tuned fifth-generation Camaro when he felt like he’d hit a wall in his performances, he decided to make a fresh start in an ‘18 Camaro SS. Fast out of the box, he had plenty to look forward to.

However, that didn’t mean success came easily. Between avoiding some spinners in the faster corners and learning the intricacies of heel-toe—this being his first manual track car—he had his hands full this past weekend. 

Though he wasn’t quite competing on-par with his wife and some of the more seasoned drivers this time around, he feels that that’s merely a matter of time. He was wise enough to enlist Frank Pacheco’s guidance this time, which helped him chop a full three seconds off his previous best, and the car, still much more capable than he’s able to fully exploit, has remained a constant joy.  

“I’m looking forward to being a contender. This Camaro is excellent—great power, better handling, more agile on worse tires than my last car—so I’ve just gotta work on myself as a driver now,” he admitted. Still, for all the concessions to humility he made, he could hold his head up high; he did fantastically well considering the circumstances. His lap time of 2:13.637 gave him a taste of success and a little hardware to add to the collection his wife has put together over the past year.

In Mod Class, Martin Riente returned after a year away to a delightful surprise. He’d put in three serious attempts at the title last year, and his mostly stock C5 Z06 was quick enough to nab second in the 2021 championship. For the 2022 season, he made a few modifications to the car and finally got it to his liking. 

Getting the Z06 sorted was a must. Up front, he added an Aero6 big brake kit and a homemade birchwood splitter, and at the rear, he installed a broad APR GT-500 wing. After trying a few swaybars, he found that he minimized understeer and improved traction the most by removing the front altogether and setting the rear to its softest. 

Thankfully, Martin has enough talent from years of karting and Pro Seven to make reacquainting oneself with speed a very rewarding process. With a stable, reassuring, reliable car underneath him, he could focus his efforts on extracting the talent that might’ve accumulated a little rust during his time away. 

Thankfully, cooling was no longer a thorn in his side. He’d always been limited to about two flying laps in temperatures over 80°F the previous year, so he drilled a hole in the splitter to funnel more air into the airdam and put another hole in the license plate to feed the radiator. With only a drill and a little homebrewed ingenuity, he’d enabled the Z06 to run a full session without overheating. 

Not that it was really that necessary. Even with a set of worn tires underneath him, something in Martin clicked. Turned out he was able to find the pace in the matter of minutes—a testament to his experience. On the second lap of the first session, he put in a 1:58.261—enough to comfortably secure the Mod Class win by over two seconds. 

Spurred on by his recent performance, he went ahead and signed up for the next couple events. “I’ll be running the whole season next year,” he said.

Claiming the Race Class win and putting in a time just two tenths off the fastest all weekend was the result of another driver’s first stab at the 2022 Super GT Cup season. This event marked Cory Smetzler’s first competitive event in California this year, though he’d been running the OnGrid’s Shootout events in the Pacific Northwest. After a successful ‘22 ShootOut season in which he podiumed at Oregon Raceway Park, he was given an opportunity to come down to Thunderhill. Seeing as this is his favorite track around and that he planned on reconnecting with a few friends from APEX there, driving the eight hours there was certainly worth it. 

He’d tracked his C6 Grand Sport fairly frequently throughout 2022—mainly to break in the newer pieces that he’d added to it. Along with a Katech camshaft and complete valvetrain, he’d added Viking Crusader DA coilovers, AP Racing/Essex big brakes, Nine Lives aero, an LG lightweight vented hood and adjustable swaybars, and a set of Falken RT660s wrapping APEX SM-10 wheels. With an enormous contact patch and 470 horsepower at the rear wheels, the C6’s race weight of 3,500 pounds wasn’t too much of a hindrance. Some porkiness can be overcome if the sessions are kept short. 

Prior to this weekend, he’d run all configurations of Thunderhill—aside from the three-mile with the bypass. At least he had the general shock and tire pressure settings logged away in his notebook—although the newfound aero grip encouraged him to try and increase the compression and rebound settings by a few clicks. 

Cory saw four of the faster drivers from the Pacific Northwest had already signed up for the event, so he knew he’d better bring his A-game. To get up to speed in a hurry, he hired Joe McGuigan, a respected local coach who happened to be competing there that weekend in OnGrid’s Shootout series. 

Between sessions, the two reviewed video and Joe was able to lend some of his wisdom so that Cory could place the car properly and get to throttle at the appropriate times. For those reasons, he was able to adopt a slightly smoother style than he might’ve given the time constraints. 

“What I’ve been able to do for Cory in the past is review his data and offer some video coaching. What we did at this event, since I was present, was drive a few lead-and-follow laps before looking over his data. In that data review, we overlaid his lap and my lap in a Lexus ISF, which helped him see where exactly he could find more cornering speed. His car is lighter with better aero and similar tires, so he really had no excuse,” Joe described. 

Bolstered by a newfound confidence, Cory was eager to try and set a lap under the two minute-mark. Sure enough, he set a 1:59.9 his first session. Following a debrief with Big Joe, he lopped nearly three seconds off that with a 1:57.108.

It wasn’t that Cory didn’t have his fundamentals right. In fact, it was the ballsy commitment sections—Turns 1, 3, and 4 mainly—were where Joe’s guidance came in handiest.

“It’s the first time I’ve committed to a full season with one organizer,” Cory reflected. “There are two reasons: I love the people here and the way everybody is relaxed, both in the pits and out on track.” Another pleasing report from a newcomer who, with the right sort of preparation and support, was able to rise to the top of the time sheets. Clearly, the environment is conducive to success across the board.

For most entrants, the season is a little more than halfway over. Those taking a stab with only two races left on the calendar still stand a chance come the season finale at Buttonwillow CW13—the only repeated track this year. Perhaps those who’ve been able to put in the laps there will have some small advantage over those latecomers, but as this event has demonstrated, any driver who’s done their homework always stands a chance at standing atop the Super GT Cup podium.