Not so Secret Weapons for Nationals

 
In an effort to regain the lead in the bling bling spending wars between myself and Josh Smith, I decided to buy a sexy Bimmerworld Carbon Intake Box.  I was looking for a slight advantage here with increasing midrange torque and at the same time, adding a headlight duct to get some "off dyno" gains.  Ive run two events with this new modification and the car seems faster.  True test will come in about a week at Nationals.  Updates to come!

The dyno plot below is from an unrestricted tune that I have.   As shown, midrange power and torque rises a good deal.  The GTS3 detune pulls out the upper HP and leaves me with nice middle gains!  Unsure what added HP effect the headlight duct adds but even a few horsepower is better than nothing!

Summit Point Testing Update

Last event before Nationals and th car felt more dialed in.  Changed up some spring and alignment settings for this event and the car seemed to handle the transitions better.  Overall I am happy going into Nationals and hope to have something for my competition.  Hoping for a MidAtlantic 1-2 between me and Josh.

Sunday results were not posted online, but Im linking from here.  I got super lucky on last lap traffic to get around Josh.

Sunday Summit Breeze Results

MCS Mid-Ohio Testing

So an update from the last post.  Went to MidOhio to get some testing done with these new MCS gizmos.  My initial impressions are that these shocks absorb imperfections in the track way better than my prior Moton Street Sport Doubles.  Im not a suspension engineer, but the valving profiles might be softer?  The only way I can describe it is that it feels like Im driving a "Cadillac" in that the car feels less upset and smoother.  This allowed for easier (and earlier) power application.  I toyed around with different rear spring rate and that can be apparent when you look at the Sunday video compared to the Saturday (oversteer central!)

I was not able to do a lot of testing since it was wet the first day but I did get enough time under the suspension to finish on the podium in 2nd place behind Josh Smith (who is also on MCS).  On Sunday, I finished the same, but due to a weight snafu, I was DQd!  First DQ ever by the way and it was something nutty (70# under prior day with exact same setup).  

So one more race weekend left before Nationals at Summit Point this coming weekend.  Im going to try to do some more testing and fine tuning.

Here are the race videos from the weekend: 

https://vimeo.com/47432194 (Sat) 

https://vimeo.com/47474764 (Sun)

New Weapons

Welp, I couldnt resist the deal MCS was giving GTS racers for Nationals.  (See here).

Will install and test at Mid-Ohio next weekend and report back my findings.  Hopefully positive as I seek to gain an advantage over the competition and try to win this thing!

Just completed a weekend at VIR with Grassroots Motorsports UTCC (Ultimate Track Car Challenge) followed with NASA racing.

After finding success with laptimes at Summit Point the event before, I was looking on improving on my previous best laptimes.  With my unrestricted tune in place, I ended up firing off some low 2:03s!  My final time would end up being a 2:03.193 which was good enough for 12th overall out of 44 and 3rd fastest BMW behind James Clay's awesome E92 M3 and Steve Bassen's S54 E30.

Results: http://www.mylaps.com/results/showrun.jsp?id=2375869

On Saturday, I skipped qualifying since there was only 3 guys in GTS3.  Before the race, it rained and I had considered switching over to my intermediate tires.  In hindsight, I should have since in my haste of rotating tires, a hub centering ring got stuck on the hub.  Not knowing and thinking everything was torqued down, I lasted about 2 laps before my wheel almost fell off.  First DNF in a very long time :(

On Sunday, I decided to race unrestricted.  I ran in GTS4 and qualified on the pole. After snagging Josh Smith's GTS3 record at Summit, I was hoping to snag the GTS4 record from Omar Lopez.  Unfortunately, an out of class Porsche held me up.  Though I don't think I woulda made it happen anyways as these tires saw 2 UTCC sessions, 1 partial GTS3 race on Sat, qualifying on Sunday and now the race.  That was on top of the already 8-9 HCs on them!  The BFG R1Ss did great though and I came through with the win.

Stay tuned as I travel to MidOhio 8/10 weekend.  Hoping to test out some new secret weapons.  Soon to be disclosed here!

Hyperfest 2012

Hyperfest was packed and competitive as usual.  This year it was not as hot though and I was testing out some BFGoodrich R1S tires.  These are supposed to be similar to the Hoosier A6 compound.  They worked great on Saturday and I had a nose to tail fight with Josh Smith the entire race.  We both ended up turning laptimes within tenths of each other and with me snagging the track record over him by a mere 0.019 seconds.

On Sunday, I used the BFG R1S again, but they couldnt hold up to the stresses of a 40 minute race.  After briefly getting the lead from Josh, I got held up in traffic and he got by.  Never really could catch back up and he took the win.

Looking forward to VIR in July.  Battle again with Josh!

Video of Sunday Race: https://vimeo.com/44242838

Welp, I decided at the last minute to make the trek up to Watkins Glen for a BMWCCA Club Race.  I had just did some wrenching on the car to fix an oil leak and wanted to make sure I had fixed it.  Since it only leaked while on track, I did not want to wait until Hyperfest to see if the fix had worked.

The C-Modified class was light on the heavy hitters this weekend and I actually had a shot at winning it.  The thought of winning overall was enough to convince me to go :)

Unfortunately, the fastest CM driver there, Jean Luc Bergeron was actually way faster than he was in the past.  I did fire off a 2:03.8 in qualifying which was a personal best.  I knew I would have to stay close to Bergeron to be a factor since he could motor away.  In the race, he took the green and raced over to the left and got on the brakes early leaving a HUGE opening for me to take.  I did not hesitate and got in front of him in T1.  I held him behind me all the way up the esses, but he had way more power and I had to take a defensive line.  We played the game of who would brake later.  That was enough to force a mistake with Bergeron doing some lawn mowing.  I stayed fairly close afterwards but he slowly was pulling away.  Then all of a sudden, he started slowing down.  Something must have been wrong I thought.  Turns out, his grille was filled with grass and he was overheating.  He would have to pit in and therefore I got the win!

Video of start to Bergeron's pit in:  http://vimeo.com/41672520

Once again, I was on stock calipers with stock ducting.  No issues with fade at all with my Performance Friction 01 pads (available through www.brakeswap.com ;) )  I cannot say the same about my Hoosiers though.  After ONE 45 minute race, I ended up cording the left front.  I guess there was a LITTLE bit of understeer, but me forcing the car to turn killed the tire I guess :O  The picture to the left is the aforementioned front left tire and the left rear for comparison.

In the remaining races and enduro, I would be no match for Bergeron.  He took the wins in those races and I came in second. I thought I had a chance in the enduro because of a double yellow, but Bergeron also got the "golden pit" as they call it.  On the restart, I was a few cars behind and traffic kept us close.  Was some really fun times passing 3-wide up the esses.

Was super fun hanging out with all my familiar BMWCCA faces and look forward to it again.  Though next time it may be in GTS4 (or GTS3)