First donut

Sorry it has been a while since a blog update. Went down to Road Atlanta for the last event of the 2011 season. Entered in the NASA Santa's Toy Run with over 90 cars on track at the same time. Was a fun race and I netted a win, but I also got my first donut!

Car was having some weird air temperature sensor issues and something was keeping it from making full power between 5000-6500 RPMs. I think I have it figured out, but cannot test until 2012 season starts in Feb!

Video of my first donut: http://vimeo.com/33193206

First win in the new car!

What a wet, cold and rainy weekend at Watkins Glen. I did ok in the rain, qualifying on pole for the Sat race, but I eventually would finish 2nd in that race. The 2nd race of the weekend proved to be dry and I stepped it up. Unfortunately I forgot to check tire pressures in the rush to swap over from wet to dry setup. I got passed early on, but then reeled the competition in and passed him after he got caught in traffic slowing his momentum.

See notes in video: http://vimeo.com/29939291

Mid-Ohio Shakedown

What a weekend. Decided to make the last minute trek to MidOhio with BMWCCA for a club race to shake the car down. Spent a good amount of time a few days prior making sure the car was ready. Fresh interior paint, but didnt have time to do the exterior scheme but all in all the car looked great!

Ran the first practice session and immediately noticed an alternator failure. This is what shakedowns are for right? I ended up borrowing a battery charger from a fellow racer, Julie Wolf, THANKS! That was enough to charge the battery and hopefully maintain the charge for a 30 minute race. For those who do not know the BMWCCA rules, my car was automatically lumped into C-Modified thanks to some modifications that were on the car when I bought it. Namely, the carbon fiber roof and trunk. The car was really a H-Prepared car meaning the other guys had LOADS more horsepower and WAY less weight. I managed to finish w/ a respectable midpack order.

The most fun I had came in the "fun race" when I got to chase aforementioned Julie Wolf in an I-Prepared E36 M3. Unfortunately just as I was about to be able to do battle, my battery konked out. The lights started flickering and my dash reported 11.7Volts.

For the Enduro, I had Mike Skeen co-drive. He was about 1.5 seconds faster than I was and it was his first time in the car. Mike coaches a lot of people and I highly recommend his services (mikeskeen.com). We were on pace to have a 4th overall finish when more shakedown blues occured. The fuel pump and/or fuel pump relay died. This ended my race and I parked it for what seemed to be an eternity on the side of the track.

Goal for the weekend was to shake it down and look for minor issues before the car's real debut at NASA Hyperfest @ Summit Point. Fixing these problems and hoping for a troublefree NASA weekend!

Video from Mike Skeen driving

It's white!

Some updates...

Interior Paint!

Dropped off car about a week ago w/ Givens Collision. Looking forward to getting it back! You can follow progress of the job using their nifty Check Vehicle program. I am car #12223.

Car returns!

I got an email from James Clay @ Bimmerworld earlier in the week teasing me and telling me the car is near completion. He didnt say much more and I suspect it was an attempt to keep the suspense high for me. Super Dave Taylor arrived Sat night and delivered the racecar. Fantastic!

It was dark so I could not see much but I could not goto sleep. I wanted it to be daytime so I could pull it out of the dark trailer and have some sunlight! Sunday comes and it is a perfect and sunny 80 degree day. Below are some pictures of Bimmerworld's completed project. The welds are nice, and there were a few finishing touches that I did not ask for (nice pieces like the dead pedal, etc). The passenger side foot protection extends further inboard to give me added strength from a supported frame structure, there is a nice downtube from the doorbars that give me a jack point (unwelded), and there is a nice horizontal bar below the driver X for more strength and safety. They unverted the stock hood latch so now all I need to do is push it and viola! They also ditched the VAC floor mounts and custom made a seat mount tied into the cage structure. Im very impressed and highly suggested the skilled artisans at Bimmerworld who do cage work!

Next: The car goes back to Givens Collision mentioned earlier in my blog to paint the interior!

Mystic Monster cage update

Cagework progressing on my self-dubbed "Mystic Monster". Not much else to add so far, other than Bimmerworld is working hard. Looking forward to updating with more pictures soon.