Sorry this is a little late I’ve been ‘swamped’ (flood joke, cymbal crash). I had a lady flip me off in traffic today. This happens about once a week. Somehow she took exception with the fact that since she was blocking the left hand turn lane, paying no attention since it was ‘make up’ time, and had about 3 feet to pull forward I took the liberty of driving my truck about 2 feet onto the median and simply going around her.

No point to that story just felt like sharing. I’m going to separate today’s DTOM entry into little vignettes in hopes of making this less than the normal rambling mess. 3 parts to this little entry covering about 2 weeks. This will cover the Petit LeMans WC race up to the BMWCCA Oktoberfest Road Atlanta fun. I actually had several people "recognize" me not as Jim Robinson, but as the dude who writes DTOM. Surreal and a new low for internet celebrity.


I asked Clay if he saved money by putting this vinyl wrap on himself. It wasn't appreciated.

Part I – BimmerWorld World Challenge Race
The BimmerWorld guys were up at Road Atlanta for the Petit Le Mans support race. I rolled up on Thursday to see qualifying. The chronology on this is a bit blurry since it happened awhile ago so I’ll just hit the highlights. I got there early and invited myself to the WC driver’s meeting. I was curious as to the difference between a ‘pro’ drivers meeting and the bush league versions I try to skip out on. I’ll point out the key differences.
Amateur / Pro:
Standing in the open or under a tent / Sitting in comfy chairs with AC
“Officials” that are like repressed stand up comedians / Ditto - except with real microphone
“Mandatory” / Attendance sign-up sheet
15 min. / 1 hour
90% of the meeting spent reviewing flags / 20% of meeting spent reviewing flags
No Boris Said / Boris Said
No opening prayer / opening prayer

[Randy Pobst was there too, he is a vegan? I think. Drinking what appeared to be a seaweed milkshake out of a quicktrip cup. It looked disgusting.]

That’s about it. I make the flag joke since inevitably in every meeting I’ve ever been in some yahoo has to ask about flags. If you have a race license and you’re not sure about flags someone didn’t do their job. In the WC’s defense the flag scenario had to do with pitting during severe rain and tire changes, etc. vs. our normal “What does the yellow mean again?” type question.

Clay managed to put his car on pole with a great lap. But due to some goofy marketing ploy the World Challenge guys do a coin toss in order to introduce some ‘drama’. The guy in pole position flips a coin and calls it. If he is right, the qualifying order stands, if he is wrong it is inverted from 1st to 5th place. The BW gang was in 1st, 3rd, and 5th. Before the toss I was liberal with my opinions on this hokey ploy. I honestly think that whoever came up with this wasn’t a racer. It is so hard to achieve something like that in a competitive field, which despite issues with World Challenge, the one thing you can say is almost all of those guys can drive, to then take it away on a coin toss is complete BS. Leave aside the competitive angle; there are also business implications as well. Clay had a huge sponsor of his in town, and had a special design on the car for them. The coin toss meant that he effectively went from almost certainly finishing on the podium to now being lucky to stay in the top 5. In terms of impressing sponsors and getting TV time this has pretty large ramifications. Jokingly I told Clay that if the WC guys wanted drama if he lost the toss he should proclaim this is “B_ll Sh!t” and punch the announcer dude. He toned it down and said he’d go after Nick (who was in 5th place and would benefit by moving up to 1st). Unfortunately? he didn’t share this with Nick. So when the toss went bad, he ran to tackle / grab / choke Nick who didn’t really know what the h3ll was going on. Pretty funny.


Clay shows off his cat like agility attacking Nick.

Ironically the coin toss turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the race. Nick started in P1, his first time ever, with Seth and Clay right behind them. The race itself was awesome, and the guys finished all on the podium and took every award they handed out (fast lap, hard charger, etc). Its cliché to say what a big team effort this is but I’m not sure how much people realize it, deep down everyone assumes the driver is the big hero. I can tell you having spent a fair amount of time with these guys that the crew plays a huge part and deserves an equal share in the success. Being the driver is easy, you get the fun / excitement of the race, you get the attention of people coming up and telling you how awesome you are. The crew guy gets to torque the diff bolts again, he gets to pack up the floor mats, and put away the awning. Playing both parts at DTOM of crew / driver I can’t emphasize enough how much having guys that want and can do those sh!tty things helps. The BW crew guys are all very cool and funny, and some of the hardest working dudes I’m around. For me it was cool to see the big payoff and hopefully they know what an important role they play in it. It was also very cool to see Nick do well. He had a rough time last year and is a talented guy, so it was good to see him up front and performing at a high level. He also has the coolest custom helmet ever, I'm working on a pic.



You're a big winner. I'm gonna ask you a simple question and I want you to listen to me: who's the big winner here tonight at the casino? Huh? Mikey, that's who. Mikey's the big winner. Mikey wins.

Stay Tuned tomorrow Part II - Enough of the BimmerWorld love letters what about DTOM?

Labels: BimmerWorld, Petit LeMans, Road Atlanta, Trophy Pic