Vasser: On the Way Up

Jan 3, 1991 (Reprinted from SportsCar)
Jimmy Vasser Jr. is surely one of the most talented up-and-coming drivers in SCCA racing. From San Jose, Calif., Vasser is just 24 years old but, incredibly, already has more than 18 years of racing experience.

He started in the ranks of Quarter Midgets, then at the age of 18 graduated into Formula Ford. Vasser won the Formula Ford National Championship at Road Atlanta to crown a successful 1986 season and has since made his mark both in the SCCA Toyota Atlantic Championship and the Canadian Pro Formula 2000 series. In 1988 he was nominated in SportsCar‘s Star Search ’88 as one of the nation’s most promising youngsters.

This past season Vasser won five out of the nine races that comprised the Canadian “Export A” F2000 title-chase and also scored a memorable victory in the Toyota Atlantic East vs. West Shootout at Road America. He found time, too, at the end of the season, to contest the prestigious Duckhams Formula Ford Festival and World Cup, held each year at Brands Hatch, England.

“The Festival” has provided a launching pad for the careers of many young drivers. Among them are 1976 champion Derek Daly, who pursued a successful career in Formula 1, Indy Cars and, most recently, Camel GTP; and Roberto Moreno, the 1980 winner who signed recently to partner Nelson Piquet in the Benetton-Ford Formula 1 team for 1991. Geoff Lees, Chico Serra, Tommy Byrne, Julian Bailey and Johnny Herbert also graduated into F1 after achieving Festival success.

Vasser was invited to make the trip to England as a result of his versatility, competitiveness and perspicacity, and support for the project was provided by Ford, Galles Shocks, Jay Ivey Engines, SportsCar magazine/Pfanner Communications and Jonathan Holtzman Racing. His mount was a distinctive new Formula Ford contender, the Lanan 1604. The car was designed by Bill Bray, who worked also with the Middlebridge Formula 3000 team during 1990, and constructed largely by the experienced and successful former racer turned crew chief/race engineer John Bright.

Vasser realized before he agreed to undertake the venture that he was to face extremely long odds. He had never been to Brands Hatch, for example, neither had he so much as seen the car nor driven on the skinny Dunlop radial tires. And after flying to England directly from Laguna Seca where he raced his slick-shod, ground-effect Formula Atlantic Swift DB-4, there was sure to be a rude awakening.

Another obstacle for Vasser to overcome was a lack of time. He became acquainted with the car at Brands Hatch on Tuesday (directly after flying into London’s Heathrow airport at 7 a.m.!), only for a second test the following day at Snetterton to be curtailed by a troublesome engine change.

The Lanan team traveled back to Brands Hatch for Thursday testing, but such was the number of entries that track time was restricted to a single half-hour session. After that it was straight into official qualifying. In streaming wet conditions…just like you might imagine Good Old England to be in late autumn, in fact. For Vasser, ranged against drivers with extensive experience on the track and on unfamiliar tires — in the rain — was a tough proposition. But he acquitted himself well, qualifying 14th out of 24 entries for his first heat race.

“I was very optimistic because I felt the car had great potential,” he commented. “It was encouraging to go out and, straight off the bat, run times that were within a second of what the front-runners were doing. Also, I always progress with my driving and we still had great gains to be made in the car. I really felt they were there. So it was logical that we were going to go much quicker. But it just seemed as though there was always something working against us. Whether it was the weather, or not able to make the proper adjustment on the car, it never really clicked like I thought it would.”

The elements were not in his favor. Even some wet-weather practice would have been beneficial. Still, Vasser had qualified respectably, and with 14 cars progressing through to the next round of competition he was still in good shape. He created a good impression, too, during Friday evening’s special overseas driver forum, joining 1989 Festival winner Niko Palhares and others before a captive audience in the circuit’s large Kentagon bar.

Incredibly, given the relatively poor state of British Formula Ford in 1990, with a couple of races being canceled due to lack of entries, no less than 19 nations were represented among the 184 drivers who set qualifying times. On Saturday morning began the process of determining which of them would become the 19th Formula Ford Festival champion.

The time-honored format called for eight heat races on Saturday, with the top 14 finishers in each progressing through to the four Quarter-Finals on Sunday morning. Once again the top 14 would graduate to the pair of Semi-Finals, and the eliminations continued toward selecting 28 drivers for the Grand final on Sunday afternoon.

Furthermore, up to three drivers from each country were selected to score points toward the World Cup. The pressure was on. Vasser was ready.

He made a good start and was able to make up a couple of places. “I got away clean,” he noted. “The first time through Paddock Hill Bend was quite something. I had always heard the stories about the Formula Ford Festival, of these crazy drivers, and I’d seen pictures of projectiles flying through the air and mangled cars. So my first time through Paddock I got a little taste of that because I think we were three abreast — with me in the middle! I was a little concerned about the guys that were around me, but it was fine. The quality of the drivers is tremendous.”

Unfortunately, Vasser’s aspirations met an abrupt and premature end. At Druid’s hairpin, in fact, where he came into contact with the Reynard of German driver Eric Roest. Vasser had noted a problem with the brake bias on the warmup lap, which he was unable to correct in the car. Under heavy braking for the hairpin, on the inside line, the Lanan had tweaked a little sideways…just as Roest was attempting a brave maneuver around the outside. Both drivers ended their race in the sand trap.

The entire team was disappointed. A promising outing had born no fruit. But Vasser wasn’t alone. Highly favored British youngster Gareth Rees, in his factory-run Reynard, promising Italian Marco Vignali and Irish veteran Dennis McGall were all eliminated in the first round, as were two other young Americans, Tavo Hellmund and Andres Serrano.

Despite his frustration, Vasser stayed on to witness the remainder of what turned out to be a thrilling two days of competition. He was impressed: “he final race was just incredible. There were really some stunning drives.”

Afterward Vasser commented upon some distinct differences in the European way of racing: “The intensity of the drivers, for example. Not that the racing drivers aren’t serious in America, but there’s a only few guys — three or four or five guys — out there that are running well in each series and they are really intense, whereas at the Formula Ford Festival virtually everybody is like that. The talent is much deeper.

“I was really impressed with the international turnout, too, and the fact that the different countries support their drivers. Like the Racing for Spain deal, where they’re trying to take a young driver and get him all the way to Formula 1. We don’t have anything like that in the States.”

The cosmopolitan nature of the event has for many years enhanced the Festival’s distinctive flavor. For Vasser, success would have brought more than simply a personal satisfaction: “I was looking forward to doing well in the World Cup competition. That would have been neat, perhaps to move the U.S. away from the bottom of the pack.

“I think if we could go over there with a serious effort, arrive a couple of weeks early and run the races that lead up to the Festival, test in mid-week, I think we could do real well.”

Next time, perhaps….