Motor sports: Corte Madera driver restarting career this weekend at Sonoma

Tom Dyer has managed to make a living off of racing since his days as an instructor for the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School at Sonoma Raceway late last century.

Tom Dyer has managed to make a living off of racing since his days as an instructor for the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School at Sonoma Raceway late last century.

The Corte Madera native, now living in West Jordan, Utah, does a little coaching locally at Utah Motorsports Campus in Grantsville, Utah, but his contacts within the sport see him on demand as a driver coach and co-driver in multiple pro series and at amateur events.

“There’s a client I have out there from time to time,” Dyer said of his local Utah track. “But most of it is kind of coaching professionally all over the country,” Dyer said.

But for 2024, it’s all changed for the better. Dyer has signed on to run the full SRO-sanctioned Pirelli GT4 America season with co-driver Todd Parriott in the No. 13 Connect Invest Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4. Their 2024 campaign launches this weekend as part of the Fanatec GT World Challenge America season opening rounds at Sonoma Raceway.

The pair will race in the Pro-Am category with Dyer as the Silver-rated driver and Parriott the Bronze, racing among 11 cars  of 28 in class.

It’s in Dyer’s role as a driver coach that this new direction in his career evolved.

“That’s how I met my co-driver. I worked with him in some Porsche Cup stuff. He wanted to get his foot into endurance racing and he asked me what the best pathway on that would be,” Dyer recalled. “I said to start out, the best progression is through the SRO series because you can get a lot of track time, get on a lot of race tracks around the country.”

So while Dyer will pair with Parriott in both Pirelli GT4 America races Saturday and Sunday, Parriott will also compete in solo-driver races both days in the GT America Powered by AWS series for Bronze-level drivers only. He’ll pilot a second No. 13 in his solo races, set up specifically for his needs, while the other car gets a slightly edgier setup that Dyer can excel with.

Parriott is only in his second year of racing at the national level, and the learning curve is steep. Dyer will wear his driver coach hat during those events, on the headset and making notes for the post-race debrief.

Parriott comes from the financial world, a place where numbers don’t lie. The same goes for the race track, with telemetry data and onboard cameras showing the tangible cost of tiny mistakes. Missed the apex here. Didn’t optimize exit speed there.

When asked if this kind of scrutiny is fun, Parriott said: “It is if it’s delivered correctly. When you start throwing it up it’s a little hard to digest. But what Tom has done a really good job of is tying videos of him or maybe somebody else then me doing it. Then he brings up the data so I can understand the traces to see what the difference is.”

With graphs of things like throttle and brake input, lateral g-forces, and steering wheel position time-synced with video, Dyer can explain where mistakes start and evolve.

“It’s not just the traces of the data, it’s when he overlays it with the videos that they all come to life for someone like myself who’s so new to this. It makes it comfortable, kind of homey, so I can see what it is, put it in my mind,” Parriott added. “It’s like OK, I can visually see it, so now I can understand what it should be like on the physical side. Data is great.”

But while progress is tangible on the screens, Dyer wants to capitalize on his own abilities to coach so that incremental steps are frequent and backed up. Like most of the amateurs that he’ll compete in the championship with, Parriott has to accept his current pace as a work in progress. And progressing.

“I think he’s quite good. He’s got a lot of potential and he’s come a long way in a short time,” Dyer said.

But being fast because you’re using the same line and braking points consistently only gets you through qualifying. Racing the clock is easier than racing lots of other people. Your entry lines and radii for corners change. You’re shooting glances in all three mirrors and weighing options, passing or protecting, all at once. There’s no substitute for that kind of experience.

“It’s funny. There’s learning to drive the race car then there’s learning to race the car against others. They’re two different sets of circumstances,” Dyer said. “You can be real comfortable with the car and then get out there with 30 or 40 others and all of a sudden all those things you’re able to do by yourself all go out the window.

“You’re not in the same spot. You’ve got somebody beating on your backside. Then there’s somebody beside you. Then all of a sudden the frenetic-ness of it all increases,” Dyer said. “When you get a year or two of this kind of racing under your belt, you can kind of get back to the kind of things you would normally do.”

Confidence is earned in racing, as those skirmishes are rehashed after the checkered flag. But this weekend, there’s nothing to prove. The big picture approach must be embraced.

“But we’ve got straightforward, basic goals: keep it clean; do good starts and restarts if we have to, and make sure we do clean pit stops,” Dyer said. “So all those things are absolutes when it comes to being a podium contender.”

Considering it’s Parriott’s third race ever in these cars, glory is not necessarily expected. But it could be accepted. With a car prepared and run by endurance racing titans Flying Lizard Racing, shots at a podium in class could be in Dyer’s hands if he’s faster than the other pros. The two drive about half an hour each in every GT4 America race, so they may rise or fall in the standings depending on who starts first or second in their rotation. If Parriott holds his own with the other amateurs, the team could score good points this weekend.

The GT4 America races run at 5:50 p.m. Saturday and 10:55 a.m. Sunday. The headlining Fanatec GT World Challenge races are at 4 p.m. Saturday and 2:15 p.m. Sunday.

Pit Bits

• Two familiar Marinites aren’t expected to be part of the SRO weekend unlike last year. Tiburon’s Memo Gidley hoped to back up the GT America championship he earned last season, but his team owner Dave Traitel is taking the year off leaving Memo without a ride. He drove briefly in SRO testing Wednesday but has yet to be officially signed to race.
• The second presence missed in the paddock is Kevin Buckler of Novato. His The Racer’s Group team is taking a year off, too, as Buckler focuses on opening a new Adobe Road winery and wine tasting site in downtown Petaluma.