First of all - Spud Guns have been added to the agenda, along with 'dodge a tater'. I may have to go on anti-depressants after missing this weekend.

Anyway snuck over to Craig's at lunch today so that I could test drive the democross. It was reluctant to start due to a dead battery but we got it turned over. Wow it was loud, and backfiring!! Craig ran it around the block to keep it running, while Brendino and I walked to the front of the house.

A sweet (but nosy) little old lady walked out onto her porch and exclaimed "Do you boys know who is making that noise?" At which point I told Brendan there would be no more test drives and we were probably going to jail since right after she asked Craig came hauling a$$ around the corner in something that looked like a Mad Max prop car.

He hopped out and I explained the situation. Apparently he is somehow on good terms with this old timer so he went to smooth the feathers while I went for lap 2.

Our hard work had paid off. The car was no longer a horrifying death trap, it was now a horrifying death machine. The side pipes will be ripped off almost immediately since they sit about 3 inches off the ground. Fine for road work, but not rally style.

Craig will get plenty of pictures and there is the promise of a professional videographer to capture what will probably be billed as JackA$$ 3. If anyone knows Johnny Knoxville give him my number...

Labels: Democross

I decided today would be a good day to vote early since I will actually be out of town in sweet sweet Las Vega$$ next week for the election. Apparently so did 500-600 of my closest friends. Also like a moron I thought it would move quick and didn't bring a coat. It doesn't really get 'that' cold down here and for just walking to your car and back in a parking lot you can get away with this. Standing outside when it was 35 degrees with just a button up shirt on (and pants -fyi), not really a good idea. Thankfully it only took TWO HOURS! It really got bad when I had to pee about 1 1/2 hours into it. Luckily for me, my love of this great country and my hatred of taxes and big govt pulled me through.

While I did this Craig baked a cake for his cat's birthday and finished up the democross car. For some strange reason Craig loves this "Check Panel" that BMW put on all their 80's cars. It has various warning lights tell you things that are wrong with your car. Here is a news flash that you probably guessed, if you're driving around in a $500 car that is twenty plus years old, pretty much every light is always on. What are you going to do about it? One of the most gratifying days of building my 'real' race car was ripping this piece of crap out of the roof. Alternatively Craig decided not only to keep it, but to secure it with zip ties.

Also check out the fresh new xmas tree to make it smell less like BO and mold. AND the final piece of the puzzle, the awesome SKULL shift knob. It has an unholy glow all of its own letting other democross cars know its bad intentions.

O tannenbaum O tannenbaum...

NO SH!T my brake lights are out? Thanks BMW!

BEWARE!!!!

Labels: Democross, Election

Craig suggested we try and call this a 'Green' Democross car based on the fact that he was able to reuse most of the original exhaust when making the side pipes, however I think the fact that it has no catalytic converters and no hopes of passing even the loosest emissions test may not make Al Gore too happy.

It is disappointing but I think we've completed the democross car. There may be some quick 'style' updates but the heavy lifting is done. The master cylinder search took too much time away from the 'goodies' section. But we have a long list of things for next year and more time to find them cheaply like: NOS system, musical horn, smoke screen, flame shooting exhaust, air bags, exhaust through the hood, etc.

Thinking about the 'green' thing and the attention it gets prompted me to consider the election. I've stayed away from politics here because I don't think there is much point arguing it, no one ever changes their mind, but I'll mention a few things since this is my show. If you don't like it stop reading now.

Everyone worries about global warming and what will it do to our 'children', to be frank the democratic plans to redistribute wealth with the increase in taxes, and our government's policy (D and R alike) of deficit spending is much more concerning and probably a greater danger to your children than whether an African Night Owl is endangered or that an ice floe has melted north of Greenland. If Obama is elected he'll have a sympathetic Congress and look out for what comes next. I hope they stop at nationalized medicine but who knows. Nationalized healthcare, which I've heard described as the efficiency of the DMV with the compassion of the IRS.

Economics is confusing, at least it was to me in college, the best book that I've found that gives a clear explanation of the free market and why (for the most part) things should be allowed to run their course is written by a man named Henry Hazlitt in 1946. It is as relevant today as it was then and uses very clear examples of how economic principles work and why they work.

You can read the entire book online here Economics in One Lesson.

When you finish that if you're interested he talks about why taxing the rich isn't the answer to poverty here in Man Vs. The Welfare State.

If you can read both of those and still vote Democrat, I'd be shocked.

Labels: Democross, Economics, Election

Getting the car started was a little too easy. We knew at some point things would go south and figured it would be restoring the brakes. Then a master cylinder was gifted to us from Al and it looked again like everything was going to be downhill from there.

The master cylinder arrived in the mail and Craig feeling ambitious Sat. morning started taking things apart. Only to find that we had a 528 master cylinder not a 535. Whats the difference? Well the 'new' one we had wouldn't fit, even in a MacGyver it only has to work for a few hours type of way.

So we brought in the big guns and had our resident pro mechnanic B.Digel take a look. "Nope ain't gonna work", was the prognosis. That meant a trip to the junkyard.

As junkyards go "Pull A Part" is like an upscale mall whereas most junkyards are like a flea market. Even so, the clientele are the same folks you'd see at a county fair but it is a little more grim and desperate. I'll wager that we were in the minority looking for obscure parts for a car that we intended to demolish. I'd say most junkyard customers are driven by necessity. It isn't what you would call a happy place. Lets face it you probably aren't looking for spare tires or a battery at a junkyard because you're 'thrifty'. Thankfully for the junkyard set, Obama should be in office soon and looking to redistribute my wealth so that they can maybe grab a new seat or something nice for their ride instead of just looking to get it back on the road.

Now when we started our little adventure, it was figured to be a long shot at best. There were several things working against us finding the actual part we needed and only a few in our favor. First, junkyards in the US are populated mostly by.. US cars. Second the part we were looking for is pretty rare even among German cars, most braking systems (universally) are vacuum assisted vs. hydraulically assisted. Third, even if we found the car we were after, and it was the right model, a master cylinder is a pretty common part to fail and pretty easy to remove, and pretty expensive to buy - all of which means it probably would already have been taken by someone else. And lastly, its a junkyard, so even if we managed to get lucky there was still the large probability that the part wouldn't work, remember cars don't end up in junkyards because they're well maintained and in perfect working order.

In our favor, we had two things going for us, Craig is an old junkyard hand and BMW did use this system on 3 different models of cars - none of which are very popular among the junkyard crowd. We hit Pull A Part South, passed on the taco truck in the parking lot, and immediately started looking through the rows of cars. Mistakenly, as part of my 'no tool left behind policy', every tool box I own weighs approximately 30 -70 lbs. lugging it around a junkyard sucks. We divide to conquer and find a few BMWs, and even two 5 series of the right era, but being 528's they only yield the wrong part that was already mailed to us.

No surprise that we're out of luck. Team meeting puts a 2nd junk yard trip to a vote and its off to Pull A Part Norcross. We see a boyfriend / girlfriend in the parking lot, which always shocks me. Any parents reading this - tell your daughters - IF any boy you're dating takes you to the junkyard to buy parts for the car he drives you to the junkyard in - FIND a new boyfriend. The Norcross PAP is a little better organized but we quickly walk through the "German Import" rows and roll snake eyes again. The "Japanese Import" section is a little bit of a hike, but since we left the tools in the truck while we went scouting this time (lessons learned). I suggest we push on, citing the dedication to sorting accuracy I feel the average junkyard employee probably has, without the 30 lbs tool box dragging us down everyone agrees.

We're encouraged early on seeing a BMW, proof of my junkyard hypothesis. We find an 87 325i and a 1985 7 series right next to each other. We open the hood on the 7, which looks to be in really good shape (all things considered) and SHAZAM, there it is, the part we need. Craig draws the short straw and has to hike the 1/2 mile back to the truck for tools and lug them back. Brendino and I go over the 325 and pick out some gravy parts that we'll snatch to ice the cake once we're done with the democross business.

As usual nothing is ever easy and it takes us about 30 min. to get everything we need off the cars. This is due mostly to the fact that the 30lbs of tools I have in my box aren't really the ones you'd need for any job. Which, in my defense, is why they're in the Junior Varsity tool box to begin with. Keep in mind 30 min. to remove something in a junkyard is a lot of time. When you work on a car you care about you're not allowed to use tools like a 5 lb hammer, a pry bar, aviator snips, etc. In a junkyard those are the first tools you grab.

We get back around 5pm and call it a day. Craig takes the installation on himself and Sunday morning reports that everything has been installed and that the car has functioning brakes. He even gets ambitious and takes it for a maiden voyage through the hippie compound he calls home. Driving a democross car where he lives is kind of like me putting an Obama sign in my front yard in terms of how the neighbors react. You can see from the picture above - I thought the "Tag Applied For" was a nice touch. I'm sure the police officer would pass right by that, given the huge metal death bumpers, the no registration, emissions, or insurance,and the windows that don't roll down. But at least it could stop now if he got pulled over, which is more than it could do a week ago when we brought it to the garage.

Labels: Democross

Master Cylinder arrived in the mail today at 6th Place Motorsports HQ. Also - Craig, never one to leave the design aspects of a project alone - demanded a theme. Inspired by a sticker made up of the head of Jesus (with tear in eye) in a Heart surrounded by flames (a lot of disparate elements I thought too)that I saw at WalMart while shopping for democross essentials the name "The Heartbreaker" came to mind and it stuck.

So Craig finished fabricating the front bumper, added the "Heartbreaker" motiff, and he has the rear bumper ready for attachment to the car.

We've gotten several suggestions on the car, and one specifically for the democross format. Probably too late for this year, but Gary Forlenza pointed out that each car should have a passenger firing a paintball gun at the other 'teams'. Clearly fans of this developing 'sport' can see the wisdom in that. We'll be sure to pass it along. The democross organizers are sensitive to suggestions from their participants, unlike Spec E30. We've also heard mention of a canopy and flag, but that seems a little stupid.

Enjoy the progress!!

Labels: Democross

I think these pictures will speak for themselves. Also good news we are getting a new (as in junkyard) master cylinder shipped to us, so we might just have brakes.

Labels: Democross

Still brainstorming on the brake issue. Signs point to a bum Master Cylinder, which is shockingly expensive (even used junk yard versions) for this car. All signs point to us inventing some type of braking system, modifying the parking brake and using that alone (called the 'high risk' strategy), or getting lucky and it being something else (doubtful).

I'm trying to get everyone on board with my idea to add a NOS (nitrous) kit to this thing. NOS would give us that needed 30 or more HP to make the jump more spectacular and possibly blow up the engine in mid-flight. Since I won't be there to drive it, that probably makes it easier to suggest.

Notice key product placements / sponsors in the attached pics.

Labels: Democross

We got the car running today. Which took more than we initially thought. The fuel tank was empty. So we filled that, charged the battery replaced the spark plugs, and ended up buying a new distributor cap and button.

Carb Cleaner or Brake Cleaner can be used as a poor man's starter fluid but be careful of too much of a good thing. While hosing it into the intake it backfired (aka exploded) and blew a lot of the hoses off from the intake and probably didn't help the nearly 30 year old intake electronics either. It also scared the sh!t out of me since I was the one doing the hosing while Craig mashed the gas pedal.

Ultimately it was my 'italian' tune-up suggestion (run it a long time at high RPM) and a can of Sea Foam magic fuel system cleaner that got it running under its own power and on all cylinders again. We also took the time to shore up the vaccuum lines with electrical tape in lieu of replacing.

We then drove it from secret location 1 to secret location 2. I was the pilot. The car has absolutely NO brakes. It also isn't registered, or insured and the windows don't roll down. And the door ajar chime is constantly going off. It was a pretty stressful ride, but it all ended well enough.

The second stage of making the car cool now begins. We began this process by removing the entire interior of the car and screwing the fog lights 'rally style' to the roof.

Labels: Democross

I know you're asking yourself "Really Jim? The most amazing thing I will ever see is a POS 80's BMW family car? You're off your rocker."

Well here is what I know that you don't. This very car is currently in the Brand New Engine / DTOM skunk werks factory in a secret location rumored to be around downtown Atlanta. Unfortunately this post will be a bit light on details since we can't tip our hand to our competition so early in the game.

I will simply tell you to stay tuned since this will be something that you could never imagine.

What is this all about? Weird Al's Dirt Track DEMOCROSS and Firearms spectacular - imagine a man so visionary that he could think to himself "What would happen if I assemebled some of the world's best drivers, added an empty farm field, built a jump, and then added beer, guns, and fire?"

The answer? Probably the most awesome thing ever conceived. Unfortunately due to a prior engagement I won't be able to drive. But my excitement about this event is such, that I am still fielding a car and partnering with Craig and Brendan to pilot it to victory. Brendan is a very accomplished amateur demolition pilot, once jumping a car on the street so high that it nosed over and immediately destroyed its oil pan and cooling system in a very dramatic fashion!!

The man who created this most amazing race? Al Taylor - part time farmer, junk dealer, drifter, environmentally sensitive racer, dreamer, and hero to the common man.

I leave you with this video that will hopefully help you wrap your minds around the subject.

Labels: Democross

I’ve put this off for a week or so, mainly because I’m lazy. But I’ve had a few people pestering me to give my account of Petit LeMans so here we go.

I’m running out of vacation. That is a pretty big statement from a guy that gets like 5 weeks or something crazy, which is a lot for anyone that doesn't live in France. Most of it has been spent racing (as my wife will tell you). This simple fact meant I couldn’t make it out to Road Atlanta (the site of Petit Lemans) until Thursday.

Petit LeMans is a pretty big deal. It is a 12 hour race for the American LeMans series which is probably the most successful road racing series still around. It is major league ball. The guys that race at this level don’t have ‘other jobs’. Car manufacturers spend a few million a year to field teams and race. It makes it onto NBC and ABC once or twice a season. Pretty cool. The race is 10 hours or 1000 miles whichever comes first. When I first went a few years ago the fastest class had qualifying times of 1.11 for a 2 mile and change track. Now they’re down into the high 1.06’s. The LMP cars are ‘almost’ as fast as Formula 1. That is pretty d@mn fast. To put it into perspective my best time at Road Atlanta I think is in the 1.46’s? That is per lap. 40 some odd seconds each lap of which they’ll do around 500. Of course my car is also an order of magnitude cheaper. My entire race ‘team’ (car included) and season budget wouldn’t buy tires for one of the GT2 (slowest class) efforts in this ONE race.

These race weekends usually have several supporting races beforehand to keep fans entertained while the big boys take their practice laps, qualifying, etc. One of these supporting races was the Speed World Challenge series that my buddies Seth Thomas and James Clay race in. James was super cool enough to score Craig and me some free tickets. So we headed up Thursday to watch them qualify and hang out.

Usually going to the race track puts a spring in my step a) I won’t be working and b) I like race tracks and race cars. Win / Win – right. Thursday and Friday were a lot of fun, but it wasn’t exactly an ‘uplifting’ experience. I’d gone to Petit LeMans 3 or so years running but it was usually as a ‘fan’. This year I was going slightly more educated to what it takes to run a team and try to make a living at doing this. It was eye opening to say the least. I’ve always felt that I’ve done pretty well for myself. You don’t get a racecar without having some level of disposable income, however after sitting around the ‘minor league’ paddock for a day it certainly made me much more humble (read depressed). 17 year old punk kids driving golf carts around with their 17 year old model girlfriends after driving $100-200k open wheel cars that they didn’t pay for. In the little corner of the paddock that we were in probably 3 million dollars worth of cars in a space that represented maybe 1/100th of the total available area. That is just the cars. Not the semi’s or trailers, or support vehicles, or the 7-8 crew guys that need to eat and have shirts, …. How many internet millionaires did the 90’s spit out and why wasn’t I one of them.

Anyway we watched qualifying and the BimmerWorld guys did roughly average. This was also pretty depressing considering how much work they put into the cars and that this track is Seth’s home and Clay’s home away from home. I immediately declare all of the other teams “cheaters”. That is a pretty basic rule in racing. If someone is in front of you they’re cheating in some vague way. More than likely though, it is simple economics. All of BimmerWorld’s competition enjoy financial support from their mother ship factories, in racing as in life money talks, bullsh!t walks.

Thursday night brings us an invitation from the Thomas family to join in a team “cookout”. We started the evening by shooting skeet, pistols, and an AR15 (think SWAT team). Seth’s dad was smart enough to have his entire property zoned as a ‘gun range’ so complaints from the neighbors don’t carry much weight! I think it helps that Seth’s family also pretty much invented Cumming, Georgia. We try to talk Clay into over eating (he has a second career as a competitive eater if he ever chooses to go in that direction), but his girlfriend is in town so he is on best behavior. We're provided some other lame excuse about ‘not healthy’, but we know the truth (cue whipping sound effects). The rest of the evening is spent lying about what awesome racers we all are, and trying to talk one of the BW pit crew into jumping in the pool fully clothed for money (it was maybe 50 degrees out).

Friday comes early and with the Touring Car race scheduled for 10am there isn’t much time for goofing off. Brendan Digel joins Craig and me for the fun, and we’re riding the shuttle bus into the paddock from the parking lot when the driver hits a building! Around Road Atlanta there are several, what I would call ‘pole barn’ out buildings. Our driver cut a corner too close and managed to scrape the entire side of his shuttle bus and pushes the corner of the building in a couple of inches. He doesn’t seem too concerned but around 20 people in the bus, most of them probably amateur racers like us are struggling not to giggle. It takes several minutes and multiple steering corrections to get us off the building, but no one else outside the bus seems too dismayed either. I wonder if anyone in charge will ever try and figure out how the building got hit?

I weasel a pit pass so that when the cars line up I’m right down in the action. Everyone is in ‘serious business’ mode so there isn’t a lot of joking around or smiling. I hang around until the cars line up for the standing start down on the track. Then it is off to turn 10 in a truck packed with 10 people. Road Racing requires more thought than other types of spectator sports from its fans. You can’t see the entire track so you have to be smart about where you set up. There are several good viewing locations for Road Atlanta but a classic spot is turn 10, at the end of the back straight away. Typically this is a good spot for passing action, even more so now since the main BW advantage is going to be their straight-line speed and braking. The nice folks at Speed TV have installed a super big jumbotron across the track so we can even try to keep up with the action at other parts of the track.

We’re green flag racing and Seth is in 5th spot and Clay is in 7th or so after the start. He is fighting with one of the Tri-Point Mazdas. For about 4 laps they come into 10a practically side by side with the Mazda on the inside protecting and Clay on the outside. The fifth or so time down, the Mazda tries to squeeze Clay over as they move into the braking zone and it appears that he locks a tire up under braking. Clay turns in and they get tangled up. Clay loses two positions but the Mazda is off the track and loses more. One of the cars directly ahead of him is another Tri-point Mazda piloted by Jason Saini. Its déjà vu as they come into 10a side by side for another few laps. Jason looks to squeeze Clay over even more aggressively to the point where from our vantage point it looks like he is in the grass with two wheels (coming down from 150+mph). They get tangled up and Saini ends up in the gravel trap and his race is over. Clay makes is around another lap or so before his car starts to overheat from busted radiator. #36 DNF.

You can see the first incident here Craig was taking some video from where we watched:

World Challenge Road Atlanta: Turn 10a: James Clay and Charles Espenlaub from Craig Geiger on Vimeo.

Seth is doing slight better and has managed to get into 4th place. The gravel trapped car brings out a double yellow hopefully giving Seth a shot at catching the lead cars and making a move for the podium. With the unfortunate BW luck that these guys still can’t shake he goes slightly off track in the famous ‘esses’ portion of Road Atlanta and somehow a tire starts rubbing and he ends up with the car overheating as well. He comes in early and it’s another DNF.

Nick Esayian the third car and a guy we met for the first time ends with a career high 6th place. Nick is a total hoot. He manages the Debt Cures book, infomercial, whatever. Look it up. He can really tell a story. He was telling us about some of his accidents and how in one you could see from his in-car camera when he hit the wall doing like 120mph or something crazy he got knocked out. You could see his arms go limp and his head slump over as the car kept going. He then came around (think guy waking up in bed but is really in a speeding car with no pilot) and grabs the steering wheel to get the car stopped. You’ll have to trust me when I say he made this all very funny. He had a good race and stayed out of trouble to end the season on a high note.

We’re back at the trailer going over the play by play of the race with the guys when Jason Saini comes up looking p!ssed off. Apparently during the awards presentation he had made some comments to one of the crew guys saying that the wreck was Clay’s fault. He then came up to James who respectfully disagreed with him. He is back and still wants to beat this dead horse. Keep in mind a) the season is over with this race b) we’re talking about 8th place or something stupid . They retreat into the trailer to watch the in-car footage. Nothing can be determined from that (at least to Jason’s satisfaction). Clay maintains that Jason squeezed him over, Clay held his position until they made contact, Clay then went to turn in. Jason ended up in a gravel trap. This is pretty much what we (the 6 or so people that watched from 10a) saw too. Jason leaves, but comes back 20 minutes later to keep the discussion alive. It ends up going to the SCCA officials that side with Clay. The rules of the series state that ‘racing’ room must be left for a car. You can’t drive into someone to move them out of the way. If they do, that car has no responsibility to move out of their established position.

Due to the broadcasting schedule with Speed nothing can be posted online (from the teams) until the race broadcasts on Wed. the 15th. I have the TIVO set so I can see the different angles but I’m pretty sure I know how it ends.

Saini – who from now on will be called “IN” Saini still wouldn’t let it go and came onto the main BMW forum to tell his side of the story. Unfortunately for him he didn’t convince anyone there either.

All it really did was make a lot of guys that probably would have been Saini fans see what an a$$hole he is. First you don’t yell at crew guys. They’re usually not well paid, and it isn’t anything they have control over anyway – they weren’t in the car. That is just chicken sh!t. When he finally screwed up the courage to talk to Clay face to face he lost a lot of his fire. Saini is a big enough guy, but Clay is probably 6’3 or 4 and anywhere from 230 – 250 depending on his relationship status (haha)… The bad part is Saini is a good story. Mazda is crazy about racing at the grassroots level. The Spec Miata series (which Spec E30) is based on, is probably the biggest amateur racing series today. They also give huge discounts on parts, contingencies, etc. You name it they support it. So why don’t I race Mazdas? Good question. It would probably make more sense. I hate miatas though. I really hate them. Who has ever looked cool driving a miata? No one. Anyway. One other super cool thing Mazda does is called their “ladder system”. In racing the only way you can get ahead at the top levels is to have $$$$$$$$$. Unlike other sports the best guy may be stuck driving around in a parking lot or beater series like ours. Mazda provides a system for guys with talent to move up the food chain. You win spec miata, you go to their semi-pro series MX-5 Cup, you win that, you go to World Challenge. And so on. IN Saini won the MX-5 Cup so they paid for his WC ride. That is a pretty cool story until you find out he is a total douche bag.

Labels: BimmerWorld, Petit LeMans, Road Atlanta, Wrecks

If anyone is looking to get me a xmas gift here is a little suggestion -

Here!

Sorry this has been lame lately. I have a few good stories from Petit LeMans but have been a bit busy so haven't had time to write it all down. Stay tuned.

Labels: Paul Newman