Hey look at me!

I’d love to start this out by gloating and in general taunting everyone with my numerous victories from our Road Atlanta race, but due to sheer cowardice (my assumption) a lot of people didn’t show up. Steve DeVinney (which I think is French for dirty cheater, and he used to drive a miata - might as well wear a dress) and Robert Patton did their best to spoil my party, but after two years of racing the fates had finally run out of creative ways to cut the legs out from under me (foreshadowing). The worst thing that happened this weekend was stepping on my sunglasses.

Dog Update – thanks to everyone for their well wishing and asking about Indy. It will be awhile before we know for sure, but his leg seems to be much improved, and he had another minor surgery on his ear to remove stitches, and to drain another portion of the ear that had fluid but we’re hopeful he is now on the road to recovery. He was quite depressed for a few weeks, but got to go to the park last night so that and his short memory restored his optimistic view on life.

The racing administrators reviewed the timing and scoring records from our Barber “enduro” and ended up giving us the victory so despite the start mix up we managed to win. This was surprising and awesome since we’ve now won 3 out of the 4 races, however one of our JV team members got the call to attend the Varsity team match at Summit Point. It was a 12 hour event and my normal partner Dave White had committed to it before realizing he was double booked. Thankfully BimmerWorld World Challenge driver Seth Thomas has a flexible work schedule on Friday’s and was more than happy to lend a hand so losing Dave ended up being addition by subtraction. Since this was a double points race it was important to make a strong showing.

We were in our racer’s meeting around lunch when Seth made his grand entrance. Short of arriving in a helicopter I can safely say – if you want people to notice you, drive up in a bright red Ferrari.


One of these things is not like the other....

Seth determined that buying a Ferrari 430 was a good way to reward his recent World Challenge Sebring victory. Seth is one of 3 absolutely nice and polite people that I know (and that will associate with me), if you look up “Southern Gentleman” in the dictionary there is probably a picture of Seth next to Colonel Sanders.

[Interesting aside – During the VIR club race the BMW Club shares the track with a Vintage Group. Vintage racing is part racing, part renaissance fair / star trek convention. So you see some people ‘dressed up’ in weird costumes. This April we saw a man in a full tuxedo, with top hat and cane (alas no spats) and his wife was wearing a flapper-esque dress with some type of fox / rodent shawl. We also saw a crew chief wearing what appeared to be a doctor’s lab coat with some fancy embroidery. That night after several beers I suggested to Clay that in an attempt to make things at BW more professional he might want to get a lab coat for Jason Marks to help portray that level of cool efficiency and knowledge. We explored the idea further coming up with some compelling additions like piping and fringe tassels for the sleeves. Clay, however, remained unconvinced something about the tassels getting caught in a fan belt and workman’s comp. Knowing that he isn’t the man of vision that I am, I figured he just needed to see a prototype.


Craig was a child model for the JCPenny's catalog.


Paging Dr. Marks (BW Crew Chief) - notice the attention to details and quality!

Thanks to the power of the internet I was able to easily procure a bright yellow lab coat, and after interesting trips to a fabric store and an alteration shop this masterpiece was created. The Asian woman that spoke very broken English (and the entire shop) looked at Craig and me as if we had 3 heads as I explained the piping and fringe, but did stellar work. As you can see the coat is certainly reminiscent of Colonel Sanders with the piping. The deal was made that Clay would present this to Mark’s if they managed to win the 12 hour race at Summit. They did, I informed Jason it was dry clean only and to be brought out only for formal occassions.]

So I had Seth as my ringer, the usual suspects showed up and we adjusted our strategy to take advantage of Seth’s additional speed and ability. Using a tried and true Koni Challenge approach of one pro (Thomas) and one slow (Robinson) we decided to keep me out of the car as long as possible. Brendan and I also tried a new approach by thinking kind thoughts and not being angry to hopefully build up good karma. Thanks to my new 16 gallon fuel cell and two Full Course Cautions; Seth was able to stay out for 2 hours and 10 min. of a 3 hour race. Thus limiting the damage I could do to our position and allowing us to take a minimum amount of gas to get across the line. Our short pit stop and my workmanlike speed enabled us to cruise to victory and to a 3rd place overall finish. This kept us solidly in the E2 class lead, and leading the Series Overall Championship points as well.

Since victory, however satisfying and welcome, is somewhat boring, I’ll just hit the highlights. I was able to qualify on pole Saturday, and despite poor traffic management that led to Steve D. and Laura Patton getting closer to me than I would have liked I managed to not cr@p the bed and went onto my first sprint race win. I informed Steve D of our Spec E30 custom of not looking the champion in the eye and addressing him (or her oddly enough) as “Sir”. Laura managed to sneak by Steve after aforementioned traffic balked us both and she kept him behind for her best finish (I think?) ever. She was quite excited and since everyone likes Laura it was a good result and finish for her to celebrate!


How much did those trophies cost? Really?

NASA decided to try a format shift out on our Sunday race and instead of normal qualifying actually hold a qualifying race vs. just going off fast lap. We were to go out at 9:30am and the race finishing order would determine the grid for the afternoon race. This sounded awesome in theory and Christine and her mom (who is in town for a visit) came up to watch the day’s activities. I’m super paranoid since Barber about getting to grid extra early so I was parked in my spot and ready to go around 9:05. Then, what I call the ‘snowsuit effect’ kicked in. Roughly translated as, having to pee when bundled up in a bunch of stuff that will take you 10 minutes to get in and out of. Figuring that once we rolled on track I’d be able to focus on other things I bravely ignored my bladder’s cry for help. At 9:28am I notice yellow flags and our Medical flag waving from the turn 1 corner workers. I think immediately “well there goes our 9:30am start”, and despite my need to relieve myself I’m content since in this case a shorter race gives me the advantage - being on pole already. The starters say 5 min., then 3 min., then 5 min., then something about a car on fire. I am looking at our watch and it is 9:40am. I start to contemplate wetting my pants. With the luck that never deserted me this weekend at 9:45am they call our race due to extended clean up efforts and we drive back to our parking spots.

I call Christine to see where they are, “We’re at turn 10a we saw a ‘vette catch on fire and burn to the ground.” Probably not what you want to expose loved one’s to on one of their infrequent visits to the track. Apparently when a newer corvette senses an electrical issue it defaults to locking the doors. This made getting out of the car a bit trickier for the driver than usual, but he got out of the window fine. It did mean that the hood remained latched tight and the fire guys had their hands full trying to pry it open to put the fire out. Class Action lawyers should save that little nugget for the future now that Obama is running GM its deep pockets are backed with sweet sweet tax dollars.

Since we lost our first race NASA decides to add 10 minutes onto our afternoon race, thanks? Its 90 degrees and my little cool shirt thing isn’t working. Clay and ‘pros’ mock these things but I hate being hot and since I’d gone to the trouble of hooking it up I would have liked it to work. Oh well what is 40 minutes of hard racing in the blistering heat. I started on pole, Robert Patton came from 4th(?) and eventually got around me as I waited for the tires to come up to temp. He thankfully had used up his brakes getting past me the first time so I was able to sneak by under braking into 10a and then put my head down and started to crank out fast laps. Traffic mgmt is always important and we saw plenty of it, I ‘think’ I was able to stick Robert behind a few slower cars at optimal times that helped my get away. Taking the checkered flag for the 3rd time (and win) of the weekend.

Obligatory thanks / commercials. I’m not really sponsored by anyone but myself, but I’m lucky to have some really good friends that do their best to help me out and while I’m a jerk it would be churlish beyond belief to not mention a few people that have helped me and to whom I owe (in no small part) these victories (and really any victories).

Special DTOMRacing thanks to:

Brendan Digel – German Car Mechanic, crew chief, and race fan extraordinaire

Ted McMahan – retired Mechanic, good sport, and awesome helper

Craig Geiger – car storage, on site trailer repair / cat nanny, and soon to be ex-racer

James Clay – BimmerWorld owner, parts supplier, advice giver

Seth Thomas – awesome driver, Ferrari owner

Dave White – enduro co-driver, eater of massive amounts of cheese

Labels: BimmerWorld, Craig, Road Atlanta, Trophy Pic