Matt's August Update: Preparation Key in Utah 6 Hour Victory
L-R: Drivers Matt Million, Sean Neel, and Peter Oneppo share 1st place in the E2 class!
TOOELE, Utah - Headed into this event, I knew we had a chance. What I didn’t expect was the perseverance it would take for chance to become reality! Preparation, resilience, and jubilation are the words to describe GOneppo Racing’s effort to perform a top Utah 6 Hour result. But result aside, it was simply a fun and rewarding experience!
Matt with co-drivers Peter Oneppo and Sean Neel win the 2021 NASA Utah 6 Hour for GOneppo Racing in the 7-car E2 class and finish 16th of 38 overall at the Utah Motorsports Campus. Continue reading to follow the weekend’s storylines from Matt’s perspective!
MY STORY
A quick catch-up; my name is Matt Million, I’m a 21-year-old aspiring professional racing driver and college student from San Marcos, California. I’ve been racing since the age of five, spending the next eight years karting across the state. In 2014, I transitioned to sports cars in Spec Miata finding success in the Mazda Motorsports ladder through Teen Mazda Challenge up to wins in the semi-pro Spec MX-5 Challenge in 2018. In 2019, I became a 25 Hours of Thunderhill class winner and in 2020 my long-held aspiration of racing touring cars in Germany was first realized. For 2021, my season commitment has become NASA’s Western Endurance Racing Championship (WERC). I drive for GOneppo Racing in a BMW Spec E46 and after 4 of 6 rounds we are tied for 1st in the competitive E2 class standings. I am also entering my final year of university studies with hopes to progress into professional motorsport within the coming years.
I love sharing these experiences with hopes that those who read them can find value in following my journey. Thank you for the support!
Setting The Stage
After the latest round at Willow Springs in May culminated in a third straight podium without a win, there was no question I wanted the top step in the next event, the Utah 6 Hour, more than anything to keep our championship hopes alive.
This is an important event for me, the team, and our paddock at-large. While it helps that Utah Motorsports Campus makes for a beautiful destination, it’s also the most important pro-am enduro in the West behind only the 25 Hours of Thunderhill. Coming from SoCal, a long trip and long race duration require planning months in advance. Both Peter Oneppo (team owner and driver) and I agreed we undoubtedly had to run a high-quality effort to go there with a chance at success.
A well-prepared car, well-defined objectives, and an experienced and motivated volunteer team. The first of those was taken care of at the Bimmerspeed shop in San Diego, the second accomplished in due course, and the third was as follows:
Each person knew one another and worked in prior events alongside us. Andrew (reliable and strong fueler), Spencer (all-around mechanical genius of the BMW E46), Owen (aspiring engineer and ‘runner’), Steve (crew chief and detail-orientated), Diane (wonderful helper of many things), and my parents (lifelong supporters of course!) Our crew would rock. I’d be racing alongside teammate Peter with the ‘rad’ and very experienced Sean Neel as our 3rd driver.
FRIDAY & SATURDAY MORNING
Before race weekends, I will spend time on my home simulator preferably driving the circuit I will be competing at. It wasn’t until the first session in Friday testing when I noticed how much it helped this time! Setting out to apply what worked on the simulator, I was immediately finding pace in areas I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. With long straights and varying smooth radius corners, this circuit can be tricky to get up-to-speed. Friday was a resounding confidence boost on pace!
It was satisfying to know we had speed to contend for an E2 win. But with six hours of racing, three to four pit stops, and my two teammates needing to also learn quickly meant we still had plenty of unknowns. Overall, Friday went smooth and the crew relished it. We returned to our AirBnB greeted by my parents who won ‘most valuable crew members’. A hearty dinner of pasta, salad, and meats for our 10 member team was excellent! I was happy knowing our crew would be well and ready for tomorrow.
With no warm-up, the first on-track session was qualifying in late afternoon. After our group photo and a long discussion, we decided to qualify on Friday’s used Cooper Tires set to save our new set for the race start. Sean Neel had the opening stint and we to give him the most confidence possible, taking into account it was his first time at UMC and in our #45 GOneppo entry. Plus, we chose to run Cooper’s for their longevity as well as being a grooved compound; crucial in rain!
As the qualifying driver, I gave it my best but the circumstances weren’t ideal. Traffic was hectic as faster class entries struggled to get up to speed while a full course yellow ended the session after two laps to retrieve a stricken vehicle. I was a bit disappointed with how my laps turned out knowing a better time existed. However, to start 2nd in class and put Sean ahead of multiple E1 and E0 class entries was objective complete. P2 of 7 in class, P29 of 38 overall.
THE RACE
Dark skies looming and pace lap underway at 6:00pm. There would be a light shower during Sean’s opening stint with a thunderstorm lurking. We had confidence in his ability to manage this stint. If he stayed within reasonable range of the leaders and applied his masterful fuel saving ability, we’d be in good shape.
I took to the grandstands to be spotter for the next hour. Exciting, and slightly unnerving, to watch the lead four in E2 dice back-and-forth. I reconvened with the team and before long, Sean maintained within 15 seconds of the leader and was preparing to pit after a wonderful fuel stretching two hour stint. As he was about to stop, our pit setup (amongst other teams) was nearly blown into the track as stormfront winds hit like a brick wall. Undeterred, my eyes fixated on pit entry. Three, two, one, box box. A well-rehearsed driver change got me strapped in 20 seconds before fueling finished. Perfect stop.
Photo by Chance Hales Photography
It was 8:00pm, one hour to sunset. My introduction to the race was rather tame. A full course yellow came that lap for wind-scattered cones on the 900-foot main straight. I immediately began fuel conservation. Every ounce saved would help us avoid a late race splash. The 15-second deficit to the leader was now nullified. Steve, our crew chief, radioed in with “make moves as soon as possible. Once lightning rolls in, they could stop this at any point”. Time to turn the next few laps into a sprint! Think big picture, but move forward with intent and urgency. Locked into this mindset I found my way from 4th to 1st in three laps through a combination of focused aggression and conscious traffic management.
From here is when my job truly began. I had three tasks in mind; the first to build a gap large enough to relieve pressure off Peter Oneppo’s late stint. The second was to put fuel mileage in a three stop window rather than four. Finally, I wanted to show what I was capable of and make a statement through quick, consistent laps.
Photo by Chance Hales Photography
The fastest laps came just past twilight as distant lightning strikes lit up a purple sky. This circuit can be difficult to find a rhythm, almost like Le Mans in the sense of medium-and-long straights funneling into sharp, smooth bends. I found my rhythm and entered a ‘flow’ for those 30 minutes ahead of darkness clicking away laps and edging seconds out on our competitors.
But the rain quickly began to trickle in and I was searching for every bit of dry track. Over an hour in and the car reached fuel starve. Spotting another class leader off in the gravel of T11, it was a sprint to the lane to beat a potential full course yellow. The crew was drenched but performed flawlessly and I was away with a full tank! While the track surface wasn’t full wet conditions yet, visibility diminished heavily in the spray of traffic. A sign the surface was worsening came when the E1 class leader passed by to promptly then hydroplane off two corners later!
Now fully dark and fully wet with a fantastic rhythm. But 30 minutes following the pit stop… BOOM. Lightning strike three miles away made it daylight for a split second. Red flag. The crew put a tarp over me and I meditated in the quiet cockpit for 20 minutes until we returned to yellow flag conditions.
Green flag and I contended with the spray of 20 cars ahead. Visibility was extremely low but all the rain experience I’ve gathered in recent years gave me confidence to make the most of it. By the lap charts, I continued to stretch our lead. However it felt like time was slowing down. The intermediate-style Cooper Tires were overheating, the standing water worsened, and the remaining 40 minutes was an exhausted exhibition of car control and mental strength! After three hours in the cockpit, I pitted for our final scheduled stop to hand over to Peter with one hour remaining. My job was done and he was away with a one lap lead over 2nd place.
Photo by Chance Hales Photography
I had to relinquish my feeling of control and disconnect from being a driver to put on the ‘teammate hat’. How can I help? Grab a headset and go be the best coach/spotter possible! Peter had to get up-to-speed fast in terrible conditions and I wanted to relieve some pressure. On a mission for the top spot, the 2nd place Bitteracing Spec E46 was charging hard and finding tons of time as rain lightened and surface dried. Peter did fantastic to remain calm, pick up his pace gradually, and bring it home without a single mistake. Our advantage was too much to overcome. GOneppo Racing crossed the line at midnight to finish 1st in E2 and 16th overall! Honestly, it’s hard to internalize these things when they happen… our season’s effort was to be finally rewarded in champagne. Winning as a driver is special, but watching what it meant to the team was the real smile. Surreal.
REFLECTIONS
Preparation paid off.
The most striking takeaway was a better understanding of ‘team’. Motorsport cannot function without a group of specialized skillsets. Be it engineering, operations, training, pitting, etc. I put more responsibility weight on my shoulders to organize our weekend and find the right crew to become GOneppo Racing. Though it was this extra effort which allowed the metaphorical weight to feel lighter in the cockpit; knowing the car is meticulously checked over, the pit stops would be spotless, the crew chief knows exactly the calls I prefer to hear, etc. It adds up to make your lap times quicker!
I learned of weaknesses I had in understanding specific team aspects earlier this year. I strive to continue improving these aspects, my performance, my brand, and hope the progress is noticed.
Photo by Chance Hales Photography
My fourth race of the season, I’ve noticed sustaining pace and an ability to manage objectives over long stints has become better. Endurance racing is an artform of optimizing laps to the conditions, minimizing time loss, being smart, outmatching competitors deep in a stint, and so on. In the rain of this race in particular, it was easy to feel ‘on edge’ for a long time which was a detriment to my energy levels at times. While rain experience helped, I want to improve balancing conscious rain racing fundamentals with a natural reliance on feeling out grip levels.
At the end of it all, it was Peter Oneppo who left us with the lasting smile. The champagne bottle he opened in preparation for my podium sip accidentally sprayed in the middle of everyone. Forgetting about the pressure build-up at altitude, we laughed as overall winner Andy Lally chimed in with “it happens to the best of us”. Well Andy, I hope to one day have as many accidental champagne celebrations as you!
VIDEO
If you have a few minutes or hours to spare, I’d be elated if you checked out my full stint onboard video. It will be a challenge to capture another one this beautiful. The mountains, fading daylight, frequent lightning strikes, and a mixture of GT and touring cars. Click here to visit the video on YouTube.
Included in the video description is a list of timestamps to skip to the highlights. Unless you want to enjoy all three hours, then be my guest!
The #87 RKMotorsports Spec E46 I will compete in next month.
WHAT’S NEXT
August will be a month without racing. Hard to believe it’s the first month of 2021 I don’t find myself at a circuit! It puts into perspective how special the year has been so far. I plan to spend time with friends and family, enjoy the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and plan ahead for my senior year at CSU San Marcos starting in September.
My next race will be a number of ‘firsts’. I will partner with Ryan Keeley, driver in SoCal Spec E46 and our main competitor in Utah, in World Racing League’s 8+8 Hour at VIRginia International Raceway on the weekend of September 17-19th for RK Motorsports. It will be our debut in the championship as well as an exciting first visit to the storied Virginia circuit! Look for a race preview to be posted and sent ahead of race week.
Round 5 of 6 for NASA Western Endurance Racing Championship will take place in October from Buttonwillow Raceway where I will compete with GOneppo. More to come on that later.
In Closing
Thank you to everyone who follows and supports my journey. Whether it be through these reports, social channels, or in-person. Using my motorsport path as a means to create value for others is very important for me. If you enjoy these reports or are interested in supporting steps toward professional racing, please get in touch! Stay up-to-date on mattmillionracing.com and my social media. And until next time…
Matt Million
San Marcos, CA - 8/18/21
