Ayrton Houk: Learning, Adapting and Racing

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – It’s been a few days now since my first weekend with CSM and I have had a chance to really reflect on my amazing first experience competing in IMSA in the Michelin Pilot Challenge at Virginia International Raceway.

Coming into the weekend, I shared the same mindset with the team; use this as an opportunity to learn a brand-new car for both myself and CSM, take it easy while adapting to the new style of racing, and bring the car home in one piece.

This was the first MPC race both for me and Ismaeel.

Because I had never raced at VIR before, I wanted to make the most of every practice lap I could get to learn the track and get comfortable with it. Unfortunately, mother nature had other plans. Practice one came around and I was set to drive second, with my teammate Ismaeel Ellahi starting the session. As he was finishing his second or third lap, the sky opened and it began to rain… hard. This rain now added an additional layer of nerves to my already anxious mind. As the team was swapping tires, lightning in the area put us on a 30-minute hold. After the delay, Ismaeel got a few more laps in on the now wet track, and my time to get in the car finally arrived.

The track was now fully wet with cars throwing rooster tails left and right. I made my way out of pits and took a very slow first lap just trying to find my way around. I drove extremely cautiously, with my only goal being to staying on track. As I finally started learning the car and track a bit more lap after lap, the session ended. I headed back in and prepared for a, hopefully, dry practice two to end the day. As practice two approached, the track had dried out, and we were excited to get in a full session on a dry track. Yet again, our session was cut short due to an exhaust failure, I was able to get another 10 laps or so in before the checkered flag, this time on a fully dry track, but still many seconds off pace. That was it for practice and we knew we had a lot of time to find for qualifying in the morning.

I spent the evening watching video of one of my teammate’s laps who ended up in the top five of practice two, so I had a good reference to learn from. I was told I would be qualifying the car so I had to really focus on where my improvements needed to be made and just trust that the car could take those changes. A big portion of my time was found on brake release and throttle application in almost every turn.

The morning arrived and I was set to make my debut in an official session for an IMSA weekend to qualify the car for the afternoon’s race. IMSA has a much shorter qualifying session than I am used to, only 15 minutes of green flag running. I knew I would have to be quick to adapt my driving and find a gap. It took me about four laps to finally get a gap to set a quick time and I threw everything at it; deeper on the brakes, trusting the car to roll the speed through the corner, and much more aggressive on the throttle. I made a significant improvement over my previous day’s lap time, qualifying alongside the other CSM car with us starting 15th and 16th. This was a major relief as I was finally starting to feel comfortable in the car.

The pre-race grid walk was an amazing experience.

Even with qualifying behind us, we now had a two-hour long race to finish. Again, the goal was to learn and finish every lap. There was no expectation of finishing position or lap time; just go out and learn how this series races. But the true IMSA experience started before the green flag. I was apart of my first ever grid walk! I had an amazing time meeting with all the fans, signing too many autographs to count, and hanging out with everybody before the race. It really almost felt like a party before the race!

As the grid walk came to a close, I started strapping in, and it started to actually feel real for the first time. I really wasn’t nervous at all, the whole weekend I had been anxious for this moment, and as it was finally here! I only felt excitement to get out there on the track to race. The cars fired up, and the pace lap came around, and I start to focus on myself and talking with my engineer about our strategy for the race. As the green flag dropped, all I was focused on was making it through Turn One.

Admittedly, I was a bit too timid and dropped three or four positions immediately, but I would rather fall back than end our race before even finishing a lap. Cars started spreading out a bit and I began to get into a rhythm. My engineer noted that I was quicker than the group of five cars ahead and told me to be smart as I was catching them. One by one I picked them off by making smart but decisive moves when I could. I ended up catching back up to my teammate that I started next to and I overtook him as well before the chaos calmed. At this point I had been through about half of my stint and settled in to a rhythm with the goal of hitting my marks and staying clean to the driver swap. Oh, I forgot to mention, this was also the first time I ever made a pit stop and it was both me and my co driver’s first ever driver change!

The first outing for me and the team in an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 Evo went well.

I stayed clean and got the call to come in to pit about 55 minutes into the race. With my eyes set on pit entrance, I rushed off the track and drove deep into the pits and smashed the brakes while throwing the pit limiter on, and as I slowed to pit speed, I realized I was 100 yards too early! I turned the limiter back off and finished my drive up to the speed limit point and called to the team that I had entered pits. Pulling into the box, I threw my belts off as Ismaeel was swinging the door open and I jumped out of the car. The swap did not end there, as I quickly turned around and start helping him attach his belts and radio. We had been practicing swaps for days now and we absolutely nailed this one. We were done well before the car was even full of fuel, and as they pulled the fuel out, I jumped over the wall and Ismaeel took off.

The rest of the race was spent watching Ismaeel and anxiously hoping for a yellow to help us out on fuel strategy. We did end up getting the yellow we had hoped for, it was just a few laps too late. Ismaeel came in to top off our fuel with about 10 minutes left in the race and we fell down to 20th position. Unfortunately, this is where we ended up finishing. Although the result doesn’t speak for how well everyone contributed to this weekend, the whole team was incredibly impressed by how both of us were able to catch on so quickly and do our jobs in the driver’s seat.

While the final result wasn’t what we were hoping for, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to make my IMSA debut with CSM Motorsport and to share the car with Ismaeel. There was a lot to learn this weekend; from a new car and a new track to pit stops, driver changes, race strategy, and the pace and style of IMSA competition. I learned more in these few days than I could have imagined, and I know there is still a lot of room for me to improve.

My focus now is to take everything I learned at VIR, continue working with the team, and get a little better every time I get in the car. I’m excited to get back on track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on September 18-19, a track I know well, and put everything I learned at VIR into practice. Most of all, I’m thankful to CSM Motorsport, my teammates, Ismaeel, and everyone who helped make this opportunity possible. This is just the beginning, and I’m excited to see where we can take it.
-Ayrton