TA DA - nothing to it.

Red from Shawshank Redemption:
There’s not a day goes by I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone and this old man is all that’s left.

The airing of the grievances:

Not a very cheery way to start things off. 3 years ago – yep 3 years ago. I got lazy – since after every race weekend people would say “How’d you do?” I mistakenly mistook polite conversation for genuine interest and decided, “Heck instead of repeating myself 15 times a day I’ll just write it all down.” In the meantime I got to amuse myself and waste a few hours cataloging my free time shenanigans.

Then about a year and a half ago I had another not so good idea. Hindsight is 20/20 and there was a logical pattern to my reasoning, unfortunately as we’ve seen on the Spec E30 boards when you start with flawed initial assumptions any conclusion you reach is almost certainly going to be wrong.

Here was the main one:
For some reason one day I read the Grand Am rules and it slowly dawned on me. This wasn’t a World Challenge $500million car with bespoke invented pieces from the Space Shuttle parts bin that needed a Doctorate in engineering to understand.

This was naïve and knowing now what I should have known then, a rule book is a poor guideline to use in terms of a blueprint for a race car build. It is more like general suggestions. The car we ended up with along the way is every bit as complicated as a modified super type race car. The ONLY saving grace is the limit to motor modifications, and the relatively simplistic suspension.

Another horrible assumption was thinking we could use the stock electronics. BMW’s are generally good cars, however this experience has taught me one thing (simply my editorial) IF your race class requires significant engine tuning, modifying the engine, standalone engine management, extensive suspension modification – 1) get your head checked 2) pick another marque of car. Look for something American if engines are your thing, Nascar helps keep the cost down and knowledge up. Electronics, modifying the ECU, etc. Honda appears to be the easiest in this department. In general Mazda’s are a good ‘safe’ choice. This is simply because Mazda, unlike every other car company aside from maybe Porsche and Ferrari ($$$$) actually gives a sh!t about road racing. Their cars are in no way exciting and many times I have poked fun at them, but there it is – facts is facts.

We did realize (about when we got the car back from BimmerWorld) just how in over our head’s we were, but unfortunately the way out was paved with money. You can’t sell or use a pile of lumber as a house and you can’t drive, race, rent or sell a bunch of boxes of parts as a car. There were quite a few depressing months where I desperately wondered when the money pit would end, and exactly how we would assemble this thing into any semblance of what it had the potential to be.

Feats of Strength:

Thankfully, even though I despise using ‘luck’ and ‘hope’ as the foundation for any plan, they’ve rescued their fair share of mine. Seth Thomas (like many people not me) realized, probably more quickly than Craig and I, just how deep we were into this and mentioned to a friend Chris Smith that we might need help, or a buyer, or something.

Chris used to work (and sometimes occasionally still does work) for Kinetic (they run the Kia ST entries and M3 GS cars in Grand-Am) and had his own team racing at the 24 hour of Daytona race in the Rolex GT class. Long story short we were able to construct a deal where he would finish putting all our puzzle pieces together. Even with that agreement in place we still had a lot of work. For the past month up until 2am on Friday the 17th Chris and his guys, Electron Eric, and to a small extent, myself have been putting humpty dumpty together again. The goal of this was to be able to shakedown the car and get it sorted out so that we could potentially rent out a few seats for the rest of the Grand-Am, World Challenge, [Insert Racing Sanctioning Body Here] seasons. I’ll let the visual essay on FaceBook tell the story since pictures do a better job than me of showing and describing what had to be done (see almost a car album – facebook.com/dtomracing).

Almost Done

The June Nasa event became somewhat of an arbitrary deadline just so that we could get this thing into drivable / raceable condition. I informally mentioned to Steve DeVinney what we were shooting for and he said, “Well if that doesn’t work out you can race my Spec Miata that weekend.” I think he only made this offer because he had seen firsthand (to his amusement) how poorly I fit in a rental Miata back in December at Roebling.

We managed to make enough progress throughout June that the Nasa event looked feasible. In an attempt to salvage some feeble reward for all this time, trouble, and expense I gifted myself the maiden voyage. Chris busted his butt and called in more than a few favors to get everything prepped and ready. Friday morning came and the car ran under its own power, and even had stickers. I somehow managed to get the flattest tire ever on the truck going from the gas station to Chris’ shop (apprx. 5 min.). If I were superstitious that would have bothered me or maybe it was just to let me know that I still had that ole’ DTOM racing luck.

That ole' DTOM touch - still got it!

We successfully navigated the Nasa paperwork. 8am and we miraculously hit the track, the car even had stickers. The plan was to do one lap, come in and check for leaks, etc. As I entered turn 6 at Road Atlanta the steering went from pleasantly light to awfully heavy. I pulled in for our planned look over, as Chris popped the hood and the smoke billowed out, I knew we had a problem. Power Steering belt and tensioner had broken. I wasn’t too disappointed since this was pretty much meeting expectations. The team went to work and over the course of the day we got several laps in and worked on and off on the problems as they showed up. (At the time when I saw the smoke though – I won’t lie and say I didn’t wonder if one lap was all I’d ever get.)

Problem with the hyperdrive.

The aluminum pole(s):

We even managed to get Steve D. in the car for a session as a ‘thanks’ for all his hard work. Being greedy I had taken Steve up on his miata offer, figuring if the ST car didn’t work out I’d be covered either way. The ideal miata driver is a small man that is very flexible, roughly the opposite of me. After 4 laps in practice, and sitting for 15 min. on a brutally hot track (after our 1 lap qualifying was red / black flagged) it dawned on me that Steve’s race seat wasn’t the best possible racing position for me in terms of driver comfort. Thankfully I had a seat that fit just across the paddock in the BMW. Now making the RaceTech “wideboy” seat fit in a miata was a feat of engineering prowess and required equal parts optimism, invention, and stubbornness. Chris Smith once again fit the bill. OPM Motorsports was there supporting Steve, another miata driver Tom Hall, and myself. I had also gifted myself the present of being a gentleman driver. Since it was clear I wasn’t going to the pro ranks I’d be d@mmed if I sweated my a$$ off changing tires all weekend.

Now OPM knows miatas like a fat kid knows cake, there were three guys looking on as I pulled that seat out of my truck and none of them thought it would fit. I had a few surprises as I learned a little about miatas over the weekend. The first was pleasant (for Chris anyway) the top comes off a miata, this makes getting a seat in and out slightly easier than a car with a roof. It still wasn’t too easy since it took about 2 solid hours, but it made a huge difference and I could suddenly fit in the car. The second surprise was that spec miatas don’t have ABS, Steve has four square tires to prove it. The third surprise was taking a year or more off from racing doesn’t help you, I was slow – embarrassingly slow. By the end of the weekend I had gotten down to a more respectable lap time / last place but it was like learning to ride a bike all over again. The fourth surprise (not really) was that having people at the track to take care of the car – fuel, tires, brakes, help you get strapped in, pep talk you on the radio – makes the entire weekend more fun. I think I had more fun goofing around with the OPM guys than I did racing.

We even had a good time almost getting killed by a storm. On Saturday the forecast had called for severe weather, and around 6pm it looked pretty dark. We all pitched in and got everything safely put away or covered. The remaining ‘to do’ was to unassemble the huge canopies that provided shade and shelter to our little parking spots. No one was excited to do this, and since we figured it would just be a strong rain, having the canopy up couldn’t hurt as long as it was tied down properly. Then the wind hit, holy cr@p did the wind hit. I don’t have a strong recollection of the next ten minutes but at one point I think at least 3 or 4 of us were lifted bodily into the air holding onto the frame of this canopy. I do remember thinking “oh sh!t I don’t know that this going to end well” as I saw the face of one of the OPM guys with his feet dangling off the ground. It destroyed this canopy and about a hundred EZ-Ups and knocked over 4 or 5 port a johns. The next morning the place looked and smelled like a refugee camp.

The aftermath. Holding aluminum poles in a thunderstorm. What could go wrong?

The End and Final Credits

So the weekend is over, the car is finished, now what?

I think it is safe to say that Craig’s racing career has come to an end, he is a full time dad now and like TJ, JP, Travis (sort of), etc. has found that trying or even wanting to balance racing with family responsibilities isn’t worth the effort.

And let’s face it I haven’t kept up with this blog much lately, part of that is my own lack of enthusiasm. If I haven’t hammered this point home, this project wasn’t a roaring success and it is has killed a lot of the fun I used to have doing something that I enjoyed and was moderately good at. The spec miata thing was a toe in the water to see if I still had any interest and right now I can’t say for sure. It could have been my disappointing performance, or maybe it is still too soon.

I can’t definitively say this is the end of DTOM until I’ve made that final decision, however if I’m not racing there isn’t much else for me to talk about. And really the fact that a racing team sponsored by a pre-pubescent girls book club has nearly 3x as many “fans” as DTOM on Facebook has clearly shown me the market for hard core racing blogs (also taking away our title of number 1 amateur racing blog in the SouthEast in the process) perhaps isn’t what I thought it was. It could just be that Evan Levine is the Justin Bieber of SE Spec E30.

For now we’ll say this is the end of this chapter.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t list out the people that helped salvage what we did manage to get out of this adventure, and that was a pretty kick a$$ car. It took longer than we thought, and cost more than we wanted, but truthfully without the help of the individuals below (as hard as it is to imagine) it would have been much worse.

Brendan Digel – poor BD had his own albatross project at the same time and along with helping with mechanical stuff we lent each other joint shoulders to cry on (very miata I know).
Ted McMahan – it took me years of knowing Ted to realize I’ve pronounced his last name wrong almost the entire time.
Jason “The Cobra” Mascow – Jason fell in love shortly after we tore everything apart, and even though he (along with others) questioned my sanity throughout the entire process, that never stopped him from lending a hand.
Craig Geegar – Even though Craig was my partner in crime, I talked him into this thing, the fact that Craig and I can still talk and joke around is pretty amazing when I think back on some of this.
BimmerWorld – specifically Ryan, Josh, and Dave. All of those guys (especially Ryan) were super supportive and did their best to answer any hair brained question I might have. Ryan and Josh were cool enough to even help put about half the car together in a day and drive 6 hours for the privilege. BTW I did forget Clay, Marks, Seth, DW, etc. everyone at BW helped out and shared waaayy more information than could be reasonably expected with a “competitor”…
Diffsonline Dan – Dan is a hoot, and knows more about car differentials than anyone should.
Scott Mc Minime – he went through about 45 iterations of comments from Craig and I on some awesome logo and creative stuff. I offer my sincere apologies that it won’t actually get to see the light of day. Scott is a super talented dude.
Eric Schieb – Electron Speed. Eric was awesome, he took the project despite his better judgment, and lived up to every promise he made and always went above and beyond. I can’t recommend him enough.
Chris Thurman – speaking of I told you so, Chris pretty much said I was bat sh!t crazy from day one, but still did everything he could to help us out.
John Eversley – he gave us some great advice coming from about a hundred years of practical experience, he also gave us some great work at an almost free price, basically because I think he took pity on us.
Steve DeVinney – Steve has been a great sounding board for some of the various decisions, he can be a surprisingly rational voice of reason. He also pitched into any project with the car that he could, for no apparent reason other than being a decent guy.
Robert Patton – besides pretty much talking both Craig and I into racing, Robert was kind enough to become DTOM Racing’s adjunct storage facility so we could reduce our expenses and still keep Craig’s garage ‘somewhat’ usable.
Chris Smith Racing – Chris is super enthusiastic and is a talented mechanic that has a great understanding of what it takes to compete and succeed at the pro level. The DTOMracing 328 E90 will be in his more (than us) capable hands from this point on.
DTOM ‘fans’ – all 128 of you on FB and the 1000 or so hits a month we get on the site. Thanks I hope you got what you paid for.

Chris hates these tow hooks, but I love my OEM fit and finish!