The Short Sprint and the Long Haul: Speed SF Attempts Western Endurance Racing Championship

For the first time in over a year, they could exhale a deep sigh of relief. Gary Yeung and Patrick Chio had decided to take a stab at the Western Endurance Racing Championship back in the fall of 2020, and between running regular track days and 1,000-mile treks to new events, they had full plates this past year. 

In addition to the incessant travel, the new roles and technical changes took a great deal out of them. As Yeung is the time attacker with plenty of records to his name, he was selected to do most of the qualifying. Chio, with five years of USTCC behind him, elected to start the races and establish a good lead. 

Shaping Up

While the drivers were strengthening themselves in their newfound roles, they had to determine the best way of beefing up their 350Z for the challenges specific to endurance racing. This Z had been set up for sprint racing in USTCC, and while their guess was that the platform was robust enough to handle the abuses of long stints, they knew that its current configuration wouldn’t work so well in a strategic sense. 

Some of the quicker competition—mainly BMWs—had already been tuned to maximize pace over the long haul.

To best suit the conditions they would soon find themselves in, they had to modify the car so that it would suit a conservative strategy. This fell largely into the talented hands of Yeung, Rob Fuller from Z Car Garage, and Joe Chang from Auto Logic.  

Over a long race, the rubber cannot be prematurely worn. For that reason they decided to realign the car for longer tire life at the expense of outright grip. They also revalved the Penskes for a little roll support, which didn’t necessarily help preserve the tires, but it did give the car a little more predictability.

Thankfully, the 350Z is a stout car, so most of the wear items didn’t need replacing. The only real performance-related upgrades came in the form of a differential cooler and bigger stoppers. The 3,100-pound GT car needed improvement in the braking department, but the main objective with the new brakes wasn’t outright braking power. 

A massive six-piston caliper and an incredibly thick pad meant plenty of material—enough to last a season.

The Stoptech Trophy Kit not only shortened their braking distances and gave better modulation, but it also helped the drivers conserve their energy. The original brakes, which they used for the first two events of the season, caused minor pad knockback and forced the drivers to tap the brakes with their left foot before every heavy braking zone. Over the course of three-hour stints, that additional effort would’ve sapped a good deal of strength from the drivers. 

Most importantly, upgrading to the Trophy kit saved them time in the pits. “We used to have to swap out pads after every two hours of track driving. After we installed the Trophy brakes and the thicker pads, we didn’t have to make a change all year,” Chio laughed. 

A Change in Mindset

With the importance of swift pit stops at the front of their minds, they recognized that what they did on the track was only so important; efficiency in the pits was what was needed to run with the decisively faster cars. That consideration drove them to modify their refueling system, which ended up cutting their refueling time by 75%. 

Unfortunately, in addition to sheer pace, the BMWs also ran with teams that had streamlined their pitstops as well as Chio and Yeung could manage. To make matters more complicated, they’d figured out a way to ensure their motors sipped as lightly as possible. “By the end of the season, we could match most of the BMWs on pace, but they usually had another 15 laps between stops.”

Strong Start Before a Stumble

The first three races of the 2021 season—Sonoma, Buttonwillow, and Willow Springs—went well. Well, they didn’t bring the right tires to Willow Springs, but they’d performed strongly enough to sit second in the standings. Then came the time for a long haul to an unknown track: Utah Motorsports Campus, better known as Miller Motorsports Park. There, the VQ35 engine that had carried the car through five years of USTCC competition coughed, sputtered, and eventually popped. 

That dampened their spirits some and set them back in the championship, but they came back a few months later at Buttonwillow with a new engine. They probably could’ve used a different set of lights, too.

Buttonwillow’s dust made a challenging race downright dangerous.

“That one was so tough. We had no light, and without really much wind around there, the dust would just hang in the air forever. The visibility was awful,” Chio recalled. “Sometimes you would just drive off the track because you couldn’t see where it went,” Yeung added. 

The final race of the season was held at Thunderhill. While the event didn’t go quite to plan, it demonstrated just what they could accomplish—even with a major mechanical setback. While we mentioned that most of the 350Z was sturdy enough to handle endurance abuse, one item ended up failing and bending the caliper. The front-right wheel hub broke midway through the race; forcing them to spend an hour wrenching in the pits. Prior to the failure, they were running third. When they rejoined the race, they were near last and moved up a few places when other cars retired. 

While it wasn’t the way they wanted to end the season, their performance that day still didn’t set them back much—it was enough for third in the championship. For a first season in a new category, that’s commendable.

“We never finished first this year, but we did well; we had plenty of podiums and one second,” Chio recounted proudly. For a mid-tier team learning the intricacies of endurance racing, that result was nothing to sniff at. Besides, the emphasis this year was on growth, and they gleaned a great deal from a challenging season that forced them to reconsider some of their choices when it came to racecraft. 

Lessons Learned

“Races aren’t won in the first corner,” Chio remarked. “I was always trying to drive a little more conservatively than I would in the sprint races, and I recognized that patience is really important. You never rush to pass; sometimes you will just draft behind another car running at a similar pace instead of risking anything. In some ways, the driving is somewhat relaxing compared to sprint racing.” 

Don’t forget to factor in the challenge of nighttime visibility.

But the strain comes from the greater complexity of everything and the need for total harmonization of the team. “This kind of racing relies more on the whole team working well together. We knew we could make any mistakes in the pits. Even a little fuel spill would cost us five penalty laps. We knew that practicing our pit stops and driver changes would give us the greatest advantage,” Chio added. “Without Gordon Peng, Jeff Tam, Edward Tan, and Melody Cannizzaro on board, we couldn’t have worked as a unit.”

The events demanded a lot more in terms of driver stamina. While Chio’s an active guy, he recognized the need to start an exercise regimen to sustain his performance throughout the three-hour stints. “I basically spend all of my free time mountain biking now,” he laughed. Yeung, a regular runner, found that seat time was the most important. “I would lose focus after ninety minutes at the beginning of the season. The more I drove, the better my concentration by the end of a stint.”

Next year, they aim to be in a more competitive position. Tire management is probably the biggest factor limiting their performance at the moment and, of course, fuel consumption should be improved. Perhaps the easiest way to remedy those problems would be replacing the 350Z with something a little quicker, lighter, and better balanced. 

Chio’s newest toy, a 987 Cayman built for NASA ST4, might just do the trick—but it still needs a little fine-tuning before he’s willing to put it up against the dominant BMWs. It’ll take some fine-tuning whichever platform they decide on, but auspicious results in their endurance racing foray, plus all the lessons learned throughout the 2021 season should bolster their confidence headed into what is only their second season of WERC.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed for these hard-chargers.  Their talent, combined with a good car and a little luck, is enough for a win in what is arguably the most challenging endurance category on the West Coast.