You can use a rock as a hammer, but that doesn’t mean it is always a good idea or that is what it is designed to do. That sums up the 5 series. It tries really hard to be a race car, and Brendan has done his best to make it act like one, but its almost 30 years old. They had a number of entries since this was a big event and so they split the race groups into slow and fast. Because the sled is technically a ‘modified’ car, it was put in the fast group. Brendan invested in some racing slicks to hopefully help the old girl stay on pace with the rest of the crazy cars in that group. To help non-BMW CR guys understand - the fast group probably has several cars that cost over $100k. They circle the track in 1min 29 secs for just over 2 miles. The sled is more like a 1:38.


The sled takes the green. Which of these cars is not like the others...

He went out for practice as I warned him to be careful and take it easy. Racing slicks are tricky and if you’re not careful heating them up you can spin out and wreck on the out lap, like Craig did with his 911 (although that was more a case of street tires and poor driving so really not a good analogy I guess). He went around a few times as we watched from pit lane, and everything looked good. Then as I saw him coming down turn 12 something looked odd. That wasn’t a drift it was a slide. I said “oh sh!t, oh sh!t, oh sh!t” with increasing urgency as the proximity between the sled and the wall got smaller. In one of the luckiest things I’ve seen Brendan remains one of the few people to lose it in that turn and not have the car hit the wall.

The next practice session and Brendan comes in after a few laps with smoke and water pouring out of the car. The little off road adventure had loosened some things up and one of the belts had flipped and cut a hose. Ted quickly fixed that and Brendan took the car back out for qualifying. He came back again after a few laps. Apparently that belt had stretched and wouldn't stay in place. I ran off to AutoZone to get a replacement so that he could make the race. With the new belt installed and everything (we thought) checked out, the fast group takes the grid.

I was still concerned about the tires, neither Brendan nor I are ‘slicks’ guys. I race on glorified street tires, I was worried enough to bring a set of RA-1’s to fall back on if the fancy tires proved to be too much. The green flag dropped and we watched the fast guys go. Two or Three laps go by and Brendan’s car is missing, I get that sick to my stomach feeling. The Black Flag comes out ordering all cars into the pits. This turns into a huge mess, as the flaggers messed up, and no one in the race or on pit road can make heads or tails of what is going on. Still no Brendan, but Steve Bassen, who is friend of ours and hand’s down the best Body Shop guy maybe in the world, is missing too. I’m getting sicker to my stomach thinking please God don’t let Brendan and Steve take each other out. One of the guys with a radio finds out that Steve has crashed his car and that is the reason for the black flag. No word on Digel.

Ted’s cell phone rings. Its Brendan calling from a corner worker’s phone. He doesn’t have a radio in the car so he borrowed a phone to call us and say the driveshaft broke and he is behind the wall. This seemed pretty absurd at the time, Ted almost didn't take the call! The race ends with more flagging drama, and the 112 comes in on the hook. The driveshaft (which spins at roughly the same speed as the engine) had broke free and knocked around in the transmission tunnel with such force to bust through the sheet metal around the pedals. Brendan is okay and lucky he didn’t take a knock on the leg, but the sled is done. Maybe permanently.

Now this is on Friday, and there are races on Saturday and Sunday, with no car - sitting at a race track loses its excitement almost immediately. My car is still holding a parking space hostage under the tent, so we devise a plan to put everything back together (hopefully working) and I’ll drive that for Sat. and Sun. With lots of help from Marks, Ryan, John, and Ted we get the wheelspeed sensor fixed and the dash put back together. I’m also missing the ‘required’ stickers so we track down a set of those from the super cool Mike Hinkley and then put them on like the dude that Clay got to wrap his car. Chuck Taylor and the other O'fest folks bend over backwards to switch around the paperwork needed to change cars.


More stickers, hastily applied, will make the car look less like sh!t, right?

There are some issues classifying my car – it is at separate points in time K prepared, Spec E36, and finally Spec E30 (but too late), long story short I qualify first in class ( about 18th or something on grid) and end up winning the enduro race for my class. This isn’t recognized at the time due to the above Timing and Scoring error, but whatever, little known fact - I get paid the same for first as I do for last. I take solace in that Clay jumps in to “co-drive” the last 6 or 7 laps of the “enduro”, and my fast lap is about 1.5 seconds better than his.

Proof is in the pudding - fancy Stack data!

[Ryan Kuhn who is Seth's car chief was nice enough to help out during the race. My radios were acting up, so the mic in my helmet was on the entire time. Ryan did an awesome impression of what it sounded like - vroommmmmm, upshift, vrooommm, blip, downshift, rumble rumble (curbing), vrooooommm..... listening to that for an hour, except for the occasional road rage profanity.]

This is probably the reason Dave and I are winning the NASA-SE enduro series. I explain “addition by subtraction” to James over the sweet sweet free BimmerWorld BBQ. Mark’s brother is some type of semi-professional barbeque guy. They literally towed his super grill down from Virginia and he stayed up all night Friday into Sat. cooking. Shockingly I think there was enough food for everyone. The super grill has a huge smoker / wood fired deal, a regular gas grill, and two keg fridges all on a trailer. It is a pretty impressive piece of engineering, and of course I don’t have a picture of it.

Sunday rolls around and I’m about as tired of being at the track as you are of reading this. (If you made it this far.) My truck has decided to start making a noise that sounds like a cat caught in the axles mixed with metal on metal. I show up late to the track, go and qualify and get hung up in traffic so I don’t get a clean lap which makes me mad. The car isn’t handling the way it should but I don’t have anything to fix it since I never planned on racing the car this weekend anyway. All of a sudden a nap, and not getting stranded at 6pm on 85 / 285 / or 75 with a broke truck towing a race car and trailer seems more important than racing. If this sounds soft, it probably is. But Club Racing for me is more about hanging out with friends / driving different cars, than the racing. The stuff we do with NASA is much more competitive and exciting since there are 20 or so cars all the same vs. different prep levels of BMWs coming and going. My mission accomplished I drive slowly home with the radio off trying to listen for the truck to break something while also trying ‘not’ to fall asleep at the wheel.

Side Notes -
Truck turned out to have 2 of the 3 U joints rusting together. The grease was gone and during the flood driving through huge puddles meant water had gotten in them and started rusting things up.

Congrats to Dave White on probably locking up like his 10th BMW National Championship. People like to think its just Dave's car that is fast, but he had some serious competition this weekend including Clay racing another guys car and proved he could handle the pressure.

Stay tuned later this week I’ll post up the deleted scenes: of the practical joke on Dave White that went horribly wrong, comments on Clay’s running, how I got screamed at by a safety official, and Clay’s practical joke on Mark’s that also went sideways.

Labels: Race Recap, Road Atlanta, Sled