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Happy Birthday America!

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Back in the day a bunch of dudes said, “We’re getting taxed to death by the Man and what do we have to show for it? Nada, zip, zilch. And when we complain he sics his goons on us. Nuts to that.” They got their squirrel guns off the mantle and showed them what time it was. 200 years and some ‘change’ later and we have a government that wants to tax us to death and doesn’t listen to the common…never mind.

To celebrate our forefathers the NASA SouthEast road show had a one day race blowout at Lowe’s MotorSpeedway. The Lowe’s MotorSpeedway – you may have seen it on TV. We’ve done the oval thing before at Rockingham, which was fun until we almost got kicked out and subsequently banned. Comparing the Rock to this place is like comparing a Denny’s to a four star restaurant. It is MASSIVE, it has two go kart tracks inside of it, a dirt track outside of it, along with a drag strip and a huge RV dealership. The best part of going to the ovals, in my mind, is the sweet garages we get to rent / use. The one day event meant it was going to be jam packed with action. I had some routine maintenance to do to the car and since Craig has reclaimed his garage lift I had to roll old school with jack stands.

My extra small, crowded, and awkwardly positioned garage space, coupled with jack stands, and the 99+ degree heat made me dread this even though all I really had to do was replace some fluids (oil, etc) and change the brakes. Stuff I’ve done approximately 1000 times, that should take around 2 hours to complete, ideally. Unfortunately that 2 hours doesn’t include the 2 hours it took me to just unpack my garage enough to let me get to the car in order to jack it up. With that accomplished I remembered why working on jack stands sucks. Everything is harder to get to, and if you forget a tool it takes 5 min. to find it and get back to the position you were in when you realized you needed it. Not to mention the constant risk of hitting your head, or the fun of lying in a puddle of whatever it is you just drained out of the car. It took me two days to finish, but I triumphed in the end and only lost about 10 pounds of water weight in the process. My advice as usual is to pay someone to do this stuff for you.

[Speaking of hitting your head. Two episodes stand out in my mind. The first is pretty common I was concentrating on something under the car and my cell phone rang on the “workbench” that is really my trash barrel. I popped up and WHACK. But the worst, if you own a Bentley or Haynes auto mechanic DIY manual, the first step in any of their instructions is ‘disconnect the battery’. I was removing my power steering hoses and pump which are perilously close to the starter. Of course I didn’t disconnect the battery, inadvertently I touched the starter with an open end wrench which kicked off a massive spark and promptly scared the sh!t out of me. I popped up and WHACK. I was pretty sure I removed scalp with that one, but I guess my head is harder than I thought. Left a nice bump and saw some stars though which was cool. I climbed out from under the car and disconnected the battery…]

The Lowe’s folks apparently don’t value our business too much since they opened the gate from 4pm to 5:30pm. Now to get a car there so that you can finish your registration and unpack everything so that you’re ready to go at 8am the next day is a bit of a trick. Craig and I took about 6 hours to get to Charlotte,which should be a 4 hour trip. I can safely state that North Carolina has the ABSOLUTE worst drivers. Now you’re probably dismissing this as mere hyperbole. Examples – more people in the left lane doing below the speed limit but refusing to clear the lane than I can count, a man in a Cadillac on a busy two lane highway on a blown out donut tire not stopping but proceeding to drive along as if nothing was wrong, another dude that came to a complete stop in the middle of an intersection (in the middle of 3 lanes) with his turn signal on only to proceed to go straight once the light turned yellow stranding everyone behind him. It was so bad that Craig and I almost kissed the ground when we got to Lowe’s. Towing is a close second in sucky aspects of racing, right behind car maintenance, at least in my mind.


Threading the needle from the banking into the infield. If you hit that wall on the right (or left) you win a trip to the hospital and maybe a helicopter ride!!

Having gotten to the track in one piece we began the cannonball run of unloading, getting paperwork signed, etc. Craig didn’t have the foresight to rent a sweet garage so he was stuck out in the sun with the rest of the ill prepared. I think that was his punishment for not allowing my car on his lift. Since I’m a generous guy and you can squeeze two cars into a spot I let him park behind so he wouldn’t have to roast in the parking lot. We then did our obligatory race dinner at the local strip mall Mexican restaurant where the Rev. Al Taylor Esq. entertained us with his usual adventures in hoboism, and Brian Jones showed us his malformed elbow and attempted to buy liquor for high school girls. We retired for the evening at the luxurious (for track accommodations) Embassy Suites. It seems that when there isn’t a race going on Concord, NC has a lot of extra hotel space they aren’t afraid to let go cheap. Dave White rolled in around 11 with a night offering of 24 oz. PBR Tallboys. Not really the nightcap I needed since we had to be up at 5:30 ish to make our driver’s meeting and free breakfast.

[These are the things that actually make racing fun for me. I could sit around a table and listen to these characters BS and tell lies for hours at a time. Honestly, Al should have a spoken word album or something. I can attempt to describe him but it doesn’t scratch the surface of what he is like in person.]

Al was the only one of our crowd that had actually driven at Lowe’s before, and he was determined to make the most of it. He had a ‘new’ motor (as in used low mileage), a new paint job, and an Al first – NEW tires. No one had ever seen Al run new tires. He was clearly gunning for a strong finish. We lined up for practice and got ready to do a few yellow ‘orientation’ laps. The banking and NASCAR portions of the track are pretty straightforward, the infield road section not so much. It is like a parking lot with some stripes on it ‘suggesting’ the course. Once we did a few laps it all became clear, and actually was surprisingly tricky, much more so than what we had at Rockingham. I was right in front of Al as we pulled out but I let him go by after the yellow laps so I could follow and learn any of his tricks. As we got on the banking doing about 110+ I’m firmly attached to Al’s bumper and suddenly my windshield is filled with brown liquid. I immediately think Al’s car has blown up and I’ll soon be spinning into a wall. After that initial reaction I realize I’m not spinning but I can’t see. Reluctant to hit the windshield wipers since if it is oil it will just smear it around and make it harder to see, I’m left with no choice. Hmm, it just appears to be brownish water. Well with Al this could be anything from catastrophic failure to some type of amateurish smoke screen device or worse since he literally had to wet his suit and seat in a Lemons race after being in the car for apprx 15 mins… I go around him and continue to learn the track. As we’re pulling in I see Al and some corner worker dude pushing his car back towards the garages.

Racing is a cruel mistress and she had chosen Al and his big dreams to crush this time. He smelled rubber and thinking it was one of his new tires rubbing body work he didn’t slow down. Turns out it was a belt that came apart leading to a coolant hose exploding. Since he kept running a lap longer than he should of the engine effectively melted itself together. This would suck for anyone, but its extra suckage for Al, since he drives his car to and from the event. Thankfully he was able to get former SE30 driver Travis Wilson to come and grab him with his truck and trailer. Travis retired from racing on the Craig Geegar scholarship for nannies in training. He talked a big game about his impending return to the grid, we’ll see…. JP Coates also made a heroic appearance apparently taking a ‘long lunch’ from work to visit.


Travis coming to the rescue – cue Sanford and Son theme..

Qualifying was eventful, I started in first place but fell asleep at the switch and Johan Schwartz jumped in front. Content to follow him for a bit he had a 944 (or miata I forget some h0m0 car) hit and spin him out I was forced to mow the Lowe’s lawn to avoid hitting him in the driver’s door. With that out of the way and my toughest competition wrecked, I figured to start from pole. I came in a lap or two early and Robert Patton using Craig’s draft was able to nip me by a few tenths of a second. Getting a timing sheet when you think you’ll be on pole and finding you’re not is like opening a xmas present you “know” is exactly what you wanted and finding out its socks instead.

Starting in second was good enough, I had a rare poor start and Geegar mustering his every ounce of mojo (and probably cheating the start) pulled past 4 cars to wind up in 1st place. Another spinning 944 in the very narrow and very scary entry to turn 1 that bumped / hit me and then I bumped / hit Patton slowed us down further. Johan came screaming up from the back of the pack and got by, I settled down to closing the gap and getting back lost positions. Following Johan we caught back up to Craig who was clearly in “I’m in first place cruising mode”. He saw us coming and tried to get back on his game, but that allowed us to get in tight and using the draft I bumped Johan past and hoped to follow. I couldn’t make it happen that lap but eventually got around Craig and kept chasing Johan. We had a thunder roadster get in front of us and he balked Johan in the banking on the final lap. I kept my foot in it and we had a legit photo finish as we both split the roadster to cross the line. Johan ended up winning by like .003 seconds. But it was a great race and lots of fun. I awarded myself first place amateur division. With Skeen and now with Johan we’re facing guys that a) do some type of motorsports for a living and b) have tons of kart experience. You know the guys that race F1, they all raced go-karts since they could reach pedals. Johan FREAKING owns a karting company called EnduranceKarting.com , it actually looks pretty cool, one of these days I’ll get around to trying it out. I’m a once a month guy like the National Guard, these guys are like Navy Seals training day in and day out. Not really apples to apples.


WHAT a 944 spinning out, no way!

The second race used our finishing position so it was Johan, Me, Craig. I changed tires and managed to screw up a car that had been working well for me. Johan just drove away after the start and I struggled to keep up and keep Craig behind me. Craig was content to sit back and bump me on the NASCAR portions so that we could both make time. This was pretty cool, but once Craig caught me with the wheels a little cocked coming out of the banking at probably close to 125-130 mph. He smacked me and the back end started to wiggle back and forth while I closed my eyes and silently cried. When I opened them back up I was – due to my remarkable car control – still in a straight line but a little frazzled. Eventually Craig got by and I tried to get my heart rate back down to 200 bpm and stay close to make a move. Traffic intervened and it wasn’t to be so I had to settle for a lackluster – but safe and sound – 3rd place.


Too much bump drafting.

Dave White woke up around noon and came for lunch and our enduro race. Since it was only 1hr 30min. we didn’t plan on doing a driver change. He would go from start to finish. There was a small field but Dave did what he does and knocked out quick laps. We took the victory, keeping us solidly in 1st place overall for the SE enduro championship and the E2 class lead.

For some reason every 4th of July we run the Peachtree Road Race. This is a 10k foot race that I believe might be one of the largest in the country. I always comment on what a bad idea this is since neither Christine nor our friends, the Garretts, are what you’d call “avid runners”. In fact I avidly avoid running, since I hate it. It was an even worse idea after doing physical labor, racing all day, and getting home late at night after driving back from Charlotte. As far as I can determine we do it so we can go out for breakfast at the Waffle House afterwards, but as I’ve also mentioned a few times before I don’t really need to run 6.2 miles to eat waffles. I’ve tried training for it and I run it in around 1 hour and 10 mins. I’ve tried not training for it and I run it in like an 1 hour and 15 mins. I went with the ‘no training’ efficient route this time and knocked out my 1 hour and 15 min pace. I look at this like a mini cardiac stress test. If I can run 6 miles in the heat with no practice and not wake up in a hospital or die I must be healthy. Mission accomplished. We mixed it up this year and went to the Original House of Pancakes where I had an Apple Baby the size of a dinner plate. Mmmmm.

I then celebrated by unpacking the truck and trailer and taking a nap like an old person.

Happy Birthday America!

FYI thanks to the internet I can steal all these photos from other sites since I’m too lazy to shoot video or take pictures myself. If I use one, thanks in advance if you want I’ll buy you a soda or something.

Posted in Lowes, NASCAR, Pics, Race Recap, Rockingham | No Comments »

When Bad Things Happen to Bad People

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

(Editorial note: this is pretty half a$$ed in terms of narrative, it is more a stream of consciousness’ rendition of events, but hey it’s a start)

First off to put things in perspective, I have my health, a decent job, all four limbs. So this isn’t the type of story that is going to make Extreme Home Makeovers there are people much worse off than I am – go see Slumdog Millionaire or something if you like that stuff. Also this isn’t some type of desperate plead for sympathy either, if anything it is more of an excuse on my p!ss poor updates lately. At one point on our way from Virginia to Atlanta Craig stated “God hates you.” He isn’t the first to chalk most of my bad luck up to karma, but really at this point I’m not sure even that can account for the ankle biting madness that surrounds me since I’m just thoughtless and insulting vs. actually a serial killer – maybe in a previous life.

Strangely though I have a soft spot for dogs, I’ve never met one I didn’t like. And I can’t watch any movie that even remotely pertains to dogs dying. Like 8 below, it was a Disney picture not really hard core drama, couldn’t make even 15 min. in, pretty soft I know. One of my good friends recently had to put his dog to sleep (we miss you Norm) right before a lot of this happened and I can’t say that didn’t weigh on my mind as we continue(d) our struggles with our dog Indy. IF you have a pet and haven’t already, please look into getting pet insurance. We’re lucky enough to have the means to afford (so far) all the various surgeries and medicines however I’d hate to ever be in a position where my financial condition dictates how I care for my pets. We didn’t know it was an option when we got our dogs and I can safely say we’ve managed to spend more on our dogs than on my racecar and that is saying something. Our one vet who has become a friend was kind enough to point out that I could have gone to vet school for what we’ve spent surgery. Anyway enough about that.

I’ll try and condense the past 3 months into a few quick pictures and captions:

March – motor breaks unexplainably thus negating 3-4 months of work and putting the car back to where we started in December.

April – car goes to BimmerWorld for what, I had planned to be, “finishing touches” like safety stuff, paint, and fancy decals. They get it ½ done and I go up for a race and test drive at VIR, we confirm “Yep motor’s still broke”. Everyone inexplicitly shakes their head and says never heard anything like that before.


A rare site – an E30 coming off a pro team stacker transport!

An awesome track and fun time, especially since I got to drive Brendan’s car (we made some progress dropping nearly 5 seconds off his previously fastest time there). I’m second in the B-mod national championship hunt!

Fancy decal place semi-goes out of business. Engine comes out of the car stalling progress on fancy data / gauge solution, also means windows are stuck in permanent ‘down’ position. My truck overheats the day before a planned trip up to BW to pick the car up requiring a shuffling of plans. Mechanic states that this water pump failure is “uncommon”.

Craig and I make a pilgrimage up to BimmerWorld HQ the next weekend to see just how a pro racing team lives (the answer is they live much like I did in college). On the way home it is raining so hard that people are stopping on the highway and visibility is about zero. Since the windows are stuck down it is now raining inside of my ‘new’ car, complete with awesome new seat, and fancy new electronic dash. I’m imagining my car looking like an aquarium. It is here that Craig made his theological observations.

My wife takes our dogs to spring break 2009 and our one dog develops an odd sore on his leg. She goes to the vet and finds after 8 months his body appears to be rejecting a plate from his previous knee surgery.


Spring Break 2009 – Who let the dogs out!

He goes to the vet, who sends us to the surgeon. They take x-rays, plate needs to come out, bone might have a tumor. Surgeon says that less than 5% of dogs have this problem. Surgery goes well, biopsies go to the lab. We wait, I carry 90 lbs dog out into the yard every time he needs to pee, we don’t sleep much. Dog hates wearing goofy collar manages to take out stitches while we’re somehow not looking, new vet lectures me.


The big dog rolls in the grass after being carried outside.

May – car resumes its (rightful?) position in Craig’s garage. We do bare minimum to the engine to get it ready to go back in. Craig loans Dave White and I his car for CMP enduro race. We win and eat Mexican food. Brendan and Ted prep my old engine to go back in the car, I get sick with some type of mini-swine flu (despite first ever flu shot).


Dave White, the very pregnant trophy girl, and I, all hoping that black is as slimming as they say it is.

Dog results come back kind of, he has some type of crazy staph infection that requires 7 days of injections with an antibiotic that can cause kidney failure and hearing loss, also might have a fungal infection in the bone, but not cancer – still might have to cut leg off though. Surgeon and regular vet tell us the rarity of these types of things, especially the fungus. Christine becomes really good at collecting urine samples with those disposable Tupperware containers.

The Barber enduro is cancelled and we all sigh with relief since that gives us more time to finish things up. Barber enduro is back on, and we spend Memorial Day weekend pulling 8 hour days while Craig tries not to get divorced from his pregnant wife who is tired of us ‘visiting’ their house. Second lab result comes back, fungus isn’t in bone, but is present and needs anti-fungal medication that is very expensive 2 months worth, oh yeah by the way this will hurt his liver so we need to monitor that. Good news is full recovery expected, we sigh relief. Few days later dogs ear swells up with a hematoma (basically a huge fluid filled bruise, like wrestler’s cauliflower ear). They can’t fix it since his liver is stressed from the medicine so he walks around with a painful water balloon thing hanging from his head. He is miserable, oddly this is a common condition in Weims and the first time he has been ‘typical’ – regretfully so.


Is that a sausage in your ear or are you just happy to see me?

We get the car running, Brendan is now sick, I leave the car at RWL for him to finish a few things at work to make sure we’re ready for Barber. Since I felt that running the full weekend at Barber would be pressing my luck on a car that is almost 80% new and untested parts, I plan to just show up for the “enduro” race on Saturday. The “enduro” is now just an hour long, meaning it is a total joke, and a transparent ploy to get more money for NASA on what is a money losing event. Since I hate Barber and short enduro’s I complain a lot about this to no avail. See my feelings and description of Barber Motorsport’s Park here.

I pick up the car, and Brendan, bright and early Saturday morning. It is warm already and looks to be getting hotter, but at least no rain. We fiddle faddle with a few last minute things and load the car up for the trip to scenic Leeds, AL. The trip is 2 hours door to door and since we gain an hour with the Central time zone we’re there around 9am. We go to the gate to register and are told the entry fee is $30 a piece. Incredulously I inform them I’m racing in the event. The lady tells us it is $30 each, and please sign the waiver. This is kind of like your local county fair charging a $100 to get in; I’m $60 lighter just to entertain the ‘fans’. That spoils my good mood and brings back my “I hate Barber mindset”. I go to register with the NASA folks and they’re nice enough to refund me at least $30 for my entrance fee.

We still need to put stickers on the car, I had deliberately waited on this since I knew that Scott Mc MiniMe would be on hand. He is a true graphic artist (not like Craig who simply pretends). He is also really good at putting stickers on, however the festivities from last night have dampened his enthusiasm for working on my car gratis. I cajole him into the bigger harder stickers, but am left to fend for myself on the remaining. See the picture and see if you can guess who did what.


Don’t worry it isn’t finished this is just the ‘interim’ step.

Since we’re in first place overall (which defies explanation since there are much faster cars in the series) I should be starting on pole – meaning first guy in line. NASA, in a further attempt to stop the monetary bleeding, has let another group share the track with us, and they drive “Radicals”. (Really fast go-kart type cars with some flimsy bodywork on them.) They are a) very fast and b) incredibly hard to see in your mirrors due to being so low to the ground.


What is really radical about these cars is how bad the drivers are!

The race directors determine for safety to start them first. That means I’m now starting 16th. No problem, since these guys aren’t technically racing anyway. We manage to get most everything buttoned up and I go to the ‘gird’ where cars are parked in their starting order before proceeding out on track. There are numerous volunteers that work with the officials to get people in the right spots. The first girl confirms I’m looking for spot 16, I pull forward and the next guy motions me to the left row, I can’t see the numbers at this point so I follow his directions. As I pull forward I see that I’m not in the correct row and I need to be one over. The grid isn’t designed for parking lot maneuvers and you have a lot of people and cars moving around. I yell for help and a guy comes over. I mention the dilemma and he acknowledges and goes to talk to the head starter person. They chat for awhile and he goes back to staring at the sky. I yell again, he remembers me but doesn’t seem to have the answer for getting me to my spot. He walks off again. I holler one more time and he motions me into a blank spot #35. I’m thinking he is going to use this as a ‘conduit’ to the next row so I pull up. He is looking both ways to make sure I’m clear to advance. That is when the cars start to pull off the grid to begin the race. I’ve dropped from 1 to 19 before the first lap. I express my frustration on the radio and to the gentleman as I drive past.


“The Grid” imagine full of cars with me at the back instead of the front. I learned what Craig has felt like all this time..

Thankfully the race is uneventful despite being very crowded with fast cars / slow drivers that you can’t see in your mirrors and I manage to get past all of our serious competition and avoid manslaughter charges for killing any go-kart racers. Official results have me in third place, but we’ve lodged a protest since it appears that the top 2 finishers in our class didn’t do the mandatory 5 gallon fuel pitstop. So we may actually have won, we’ll see. I don’t have my hopes set very high since ‘unorganized mess’ is the best description I can come up with on how things are being run lately.


Is this the karma they’re speaking of?

We’re home by 6pm. Sunday rolls around and it seems warm upstairs in the house. I check the upstairs Air Conditioner and it clearly isn’t working. I try the AC repair tricks I know (very few) and nothing works. Monday and I call the AC guy to come out and check. He says “Well here is your problem — Good thing the house didn’t burn down, I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Well at least the car starts now.

To be continued…

Posted in Barber 08, Craig, Dogs, Pics, Race Recap, Trophy Pic, Video | No Comments »

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Monday, March 16th, 2009

CAUTION – Lots of Words ahead. 40 degrees and rain is bare minimum weather (no photos or videos). Let my scintillating prose craft the images in your mind.

In Spec E30 terms I’m like the New York Yankees you either love me or you can’t wait to see me fall on my sword. Either way is entertaining I guess. (ed – for the record this is just my perception, in fact most people may be and probably are indifferent).

I meant to type something up after we got the engine installed since a lot of people put forth a ton of effort to help me out but I got lazy and in the end there wasn’t much to talk about just a lot of hours. For the install we had over 100 years of pro mechanic experience so that left little opportunity for me to screw something up and/or hurt myself. So before I go into the Road Atlanta race weekend, let me give my sincere thanks to the following folks:

Craig – for the nearly unlimited use of his awesome garage
Brendan – DTOM crew chief
Jason Mascow – the cobra
Chris Thurman – who handled most of the ‘heavy lifting’ for the install
Ted McMahan – retired mechanic and insurance specialist
My friends at RWL German Imports and BimmerWorld for parts and moral support.

***Just a quick note. Being a mechanic is a hard job, people that don’t understand cars always assume that they’re being cheated, people that do understand cars are always thinking they can do it quicker and cheaper (but won’t). Mechanics are paid on ‘book’ time meaning when you come in and say “I hear a clunk in the trunk”, the mechanic gets paid only for the time the factory thinks it should take to fix the problem, not for deciphering what that means and the actual time they take to fix it. So not only do they have to know and be able to pinpoint the problem, they then have to work against the clock and ‘beat’ whatever time it ‘should’ take them in order to do more work and make a decent wage. It would be very difficult for a mechanic (or service technician) to make a living on 40 hours a week of pay. Some of the best can get paid for 100 hours per week and maybe only in fact put in 50-60. It is still hard physical work and anyone that thinks mechanics are dumb manual laborers should try it for a day and see how quickly they change their mind. And oh by the way, they own all their own tools, in fact most techs that have done this for any length of time may have up to $50k in tools, which they have to pay for on their own. Now for an example, during this endeavor Craig’s starter went bad. We decided to change it out in our spare time. This is a hard job on our cars but one that we’re completely familiar with. The factory (or ‘book’) says it’s a 2 hour job. It took us 4 hours, we pointed that out to Brendan and he said “Not bad, but there were two of you, so that is really like 8 hours”. In other words Craig and I would be poor and hungry if we had to pay our bills this way.***

So after 3-4 months of weekends and making the project much larger than it needed to be, in the end all that went wrong is the junk yard transmission I had bought turned out to be from an early 5-series car meaning it was the right ‘type’ of transmission but the shift linkage wasn’t correct so it wouldn’t work without extensive inventing of parts. Of course somehow no one realized that until it was installed. That cost us probably an hour or so and we got to lift heavy transmissions into place twice, which is good for the pecs.

The goal, ironically (foreshadowing) of all this hard labor was twofold – One, to build a car with a bunch of new parts so that nothing could break without a freakish coincidence and Two, combine my amazing driving talent with amazing horsepower to unleash an unstoppable Spec E30 force on the SouthEast NASA Region. I would dominate all of the remaining races and then look to retire undefeated at the end of the year. I kindly kept the car out of the first CMP race as payment to Craig so that he could win the first two races in return for his garage.

To ensure that this would be the end result I cajoled my loving wife into letting me instruct at a DE the previous weekend so that I could test and tune the car in order to make sure that all systems were go. The motor felt good, everything was in place, I had a minor electrical glitch in the tach and with some of the gauges that we traced back to a loose ground wire, but overall nothing serious.

So I went into the Friday enduro with new tires, new brakes, a mostly new car and feeling pretty good about our chances. My illustrious teammate BMWCCR 2008 JP Champion Dave White was scheduled to take the start, I’d come in during the middle and depending on circumstances we’d see who would finish. At least that was the plan. Dave took off well and was comfortably in the lead after about 40 min. he radioed in to say the coolant temp was rising and he smelled coolant. He came into the pits and a hose had blown off the front of the motor spilling water. We refilled and fixed and sent him back out with a full tank of gas. After an hour he came back in to swap drivers and get a full tank of gas. I went to start the car and noticed the oil pressure light had come on, it flickered a bit and then went out, I shut the motor off. Brendan poked around a bit, I restarted and everything looked / sounded fine. I got on the radio and confidently stated that it was the old electrical gauge gremlin showing back up and that I’d do a lap or two and watch it.

I went out and ran two easy laps, the car felt fine, no lights or anything out of the ordinary. After about 20 minutes the temp started climbing up again on the back straight. I brought it back to the pits. The bleeder screw on the thermostat (another part of the cooling system) had come off and disappeared. We replaced with one from Craig’s car, but at this point with all the pit stops we were out of the race. I figured I’d go out and finish for points and to make sure the car was okay. It was and we finished in maybe 8th place.

Steve Foushee – spec E30 competitor – assuming he had the victory in the enduro stayed out after the checker for some celebratory donuts and burnouts on the front straight. Unlike TV and NASCAR no one at NASA thought that was cool. He was promptly DQ’d for his enthusiasm and forever earned the moniker “Donut King of Augusta” in the SE30 paddock.

Saturday came and it was cold and rainy. Standing in a parking lot with limited shelter and amenities while trying to work on your car in the cold and rain is about as fun as you would think. Like a dumba$$ I wore tennis shoes that were quickly soaked, I spent most of the day worrying about legionnaire’s disease or trench foot. By the time we went to qualify it was a full scale downpour and the track was like roller-skating on an ice rink with a blindfold on. You know how a semi-truck throws off mist on the highway multiply that by 5 and then do 120 mph with a stop sign somewhere up ahead. With 60 cars and 15 minutes you have to be quick and aggressive to get a clean lap, I was neither and earned an awesome 7th spot for my efforts. The race conditions didn’t improve and for some reason the NASA officials thought that combining all the different classes together would be a great idea. So typically I would have been 7 out of 20 because of this I was 20 out of 60. I would usually be racing people I know for points and cars that are about as exactly the same as rules and man can make them. Instead I got to race a bunch of dip sh!ts in 944 cup cars. Specifically Scott Campbell #82. I went to offer him some advice after the race but couldn’t find him unfortunately all racing people out of your class does is slow both of you down for no apparent purpose. (ed – as I pointed this out in my general b!tching and moaning that I’m famous for, an anonymous bystander pointed out WWSCD. To which I replied – Huh? He said, “You know What Would Scott Campbell Do?” To which I replied – Huh? The anonymous bystander explained “The sticker on the back of your car WWSCD, that is the dude, you didn’t know that?” To which I replied – Uh, no?. The anonymous bystander went on, “Yeah the 944 dudes printed those stickers up for him but I think it is an inside joke.”) Well Scott the secret is out of the bag, apparently a bunch of people think you’re a tool – I agree with them OSB – other sports beckon. Someone had put that sticker on my car (like most of my stickers) without my knowledge or understanding what it meant. I was too lazy to remove it, and now I’m glad I didn’t!! Hopefully he saw it when I finally got around him 2 or 3 laps from the end. (ed – A further editorial comment, I’ve had the most problems with stunts like this with the 944’s. Spec Miatas, despite being hairdressers of questionable sexual orientation, are generally good and considerate drivers. It could also be it is really easy just to stay close and overwhelm them with our awesome 150 hp down the straightaway. I don’t think the 944 guys have the car counts so they are always looking for a ‘friend’ to race with instead of realizing that we view them as rolling obstacles vs. a good time. In this specific example I was, generally speaking, 2 seconds a lap faster and when I went to make a pass through turn 12 (in the rain not cool) he came in on me and did even worse and more aggressive things to one of the Lasko / Walsh cars.)

We were scheduled to qualify Sunday morning early. I spent the entire night stewing over the race and my own p!ss poor performance. I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well and even more than usual since a lot of people had put a lot of time into giving me my best shot. I fully intended to be one of the first people on the qualifying grid, and any out of class cars that got in the way were getting the chrome horn. I went to start the car and get it warmed up while I changed into my monkey suit. When it turned over I heard a strange ‘clunking’ noise that I recognized all too well. I went and solicited several independent opinions on what that noise may signify and they all came back terminal – rod knock. I’ll have to save the suspenseful conclusion to this adventure for the future since at this time I don’t really know what happened. Our particular motor is notorious for having this problem with the number 6 cylinder. A piston is connected to a crankshaft by a rod, that rod is ‘suspended’ in oil. So when the car is running this oil provides a cushion that keeps actual metal to metal contact from happening (at least limits it). The number 6 rod may have been deprived of that cushion and then bad stuff happens. Of course I’m not an expert and I have thought things were “A” when they turned out to be “B”. So I have my fingers crossed that I didn’t screw things up too badly and I’ll wait for experts to weigh in with their opinions and judgment.

Of course stuff like this makes you sick to your stomach when it happens, more for the effort and help of friends that is seemingly ‘wasted’, unfortunately disappointment and general suckiness is a large part of racing. I think that is what makes this so addictive when you actually can succeed and triumph. You have to make your peace with these things or you’re in the wrong sport, but it is days like this that make it sometimes feel like a full time job (and not a good one) vs. a fun hobby. Of course it can always be worse, there were several cars that wrecked in the rain and one driver that was rumored to have broken an ankle when a wheel broke through the cage and got into the pedal box. I also thought a lot about when Clay and the BW team wrecked all three of their cars. They managed to put things back together and ended up winning the next race, so while this is a pretty big bump in the road and drastically alters how I envisioned this season working, DTOM will be back and better than ever.

Posted in Bad Attitude, Craig, Race Recap, Road Atlanta | No Comments »

Good Racing = Poor Blogging

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Warning this is pretty lame, I’d like to think it is my first ‘lame’ one but you guys probably know better. Stories about people that are warm, well fed, and rested rarely make interesting tales unfortunately (for you, but not for me!). I’ve tried to combat the lameness with cool pictures and some video.

Where to start? Usually these things write themselves since I just have to plan on a race and then try to remember all the goofy things [I do / that happen around me] I’m not naïve enough to think that this is a sign of things to come, but I’ll try to be optimistic. For once everything went pretty smoothly. Of course the secret to happiness is low expectations. I didn’t get to drive my own car since as you can see from the picture there is still daylight coming from places that should be filled with mechanical stuff like an engine.

My car has become the victim of ‘scope creep’, otherwise known as the ‘while we’re in there’ effect. When you take out a car’s engine and transmission, it is easy to get side tracked on other projects like – replace every other part in the car. That is effectively what we’re doing. It will be pretty much brand new and rebuilt except that the outside will still look like warmed up cr@p. Of course that has dawned on me slowly so ordering stuff, and only working one weekend day isn’t speeding up progress but it has kept everyone involved out of divorce court (so far).

The fact that my car won’t even roll in its current condition meant that I was going to miss our February opener. This sucked pretty bad, since technically I started this engine rebuild project back in June of 2008 (long time fans will remember the pool hall). Craig stepped up like the true gentleman he is and offered his car to myself and new enduro partner Dave White. Dave had his previous enduro ride sold out from under him by newly castrated JP Coates (formerly of Beertech Racing). Pro ringer James Clay’s and DTOM Racing’s 2009 contract negiotiations broke down over his World Challenge commitments and lack of providing a team coat to me. That meant I was looking around for another hot shoe. Dave was only too happy to oblige. And thus the BW JV All Star team was born. Dave is a single dude, who has I think several nursing home fraud scams going on in the North Carolina area, and with Obama beefy up govt. entitlement programs I expect to parlay this enduro deal into big things!

So we had a car, we had a team name, and I’d only miss the two sprint races (which under the new points rules I can drop as my 2 lowest scoring races I just need to win the rest of the season!). This worked out well since I was under significant spousal pressure to attend a charity event with my lovely wife on Saturday. The downside was that I’d have to leave Atlanta early morning drive the 4-5 hours to CMP, help Craig get the car ready, race for an 1 ½, help Craig get the car ready for the next day, and then drive the 4-5 hours back. That makes for a long day. To lend a helping hand our frequent DTOM chief mechanic Brendan Digel volunteered to make the ride up and back to keep me from falling asleep and also to watch the race.

The race itself was a lot more exciting than it should have been. Dave was set to start, and the grid was assigned by random draw, unfortunately we got the short straw and ended up at the very back. Our enduro class is once again the biggest in the field with 10 of the 16 total cars in E2. Steve Foushee taking a page out of my playbook decided to get into the enduro game and enlisted Mike Skeen.com to help hot shoe his ride. Dave took the green flag and within 3 laps was on Mike’s bumper. The sideline quarterbacks among us, figured Dave would hang around until it was time to pitstop and then I would hopefully get around Steve easy peasy. No one told Dave that plan, and he passed mikeskeen.com 5 or so laps later and kept him behind until it was time to pit.

The pitstop went smooth except for Craig and Brendan almost getting killed by a Mustang Challenge car that thought the pit speed was 110mph. I hop in and take off. Back stretch and they’re waving a black flag at me. I ignore it and keep going around another lap. They continue to wave, the car feels fine so it isn’t mechanical. I pull in and stop by the official. I crossed over the ‘blend’ line entering the track. Whatever. Of course that little conversation isn’t helping as people continue to drive past. Our comfortable lead is gone. I crank out my laps until the fuel light comes on and it is time to pit. Dave asks what my lap times are and I’m consistently a second behind his. I jump out and let him pull anchor duty. Still p!ssed about getting black flagged I tell the officials again what I think of them since roughly 3 other cars ignored any semblance of pit lane safety and my ‘crossing’ the blend line was questionable at best. I’ve given up on the retards running this show we’ll just have to do our best to work around it. Our 2 pitstop, and 1 black flag strategy doesn’t appear to be the fastest. Dave has to catch the Foushee #4 car and we’re running out of laps. White shows he is ready for anchor duty by pulling off a last lap pass and they race to the checker. Dave stays in front and 3 cars finish on the same lap roughly a second or so between them. Much more exciting than we wanted it to be. Team BW JV All Stars FOR THE WIN!

I reward the team with some cheap Mexican food, and myself with a big plate of fajitas. Winning a race and eating Mexican food is probably as close to heaven as I’ll get in this lifetime. Craig is nice enough to collect our trophy (see pic). Sometime NASA embraces their southern redneck roots a little too enthusiastically. Brendan and I drive back to Atlanta, I get to bed around 1:30am.

It was a great weekend for Craig, he put his car on pole twice and won the feature sprint for his first podium and first race win! He finished second the next day. Unfortunately there was plenty of car to car contact as the links and pictures below will attest to.


CMP Feb 8 2009 T3 Contact with #77 from Chuck Taylor on Vimeo.


Feb 7 2009 NASA-SE CMP SpecE30 from Chuck Taylor on Vimeo.

Posted in BimmerWorld, Craig, Race Recap, Trophy Pic, Video, Wrecks | No Comments »

Personality Faults – Road Atlanta Recap

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

Can you believe this crew won a championship that wasn’t part of the special Olympics? I can’t.

One of my many personality faults is being super competitive. I dislike losing at anything like a fat kid dislikes eating vegetables. That is partially to blame for the tardiness of this race recap. Only after a few days and prospect of another race this weekend allow me to put aside some of the anger and disappointment from not accomplishing, literally, any goal I had for our last NASA race weekend. Ideally I stood the chance of winning the 8 hour enduro race (at least in class), perhaps the enduro class championship, and remotely maybe taking 3rd in our season points for Spec E30. In fact none of those things happened for a variety of reasons.

Endurance racing is a strange discipline. After doing our 3 hour races all season I wouldn’t have described myself as a big fan, so much so that I didn’t really plan on continuing my enduro participation after the finale 8 hour. I’ve had to revisit that perspective after the 8 hour race. I can see why Porsche puts such a high emphasis on endurance racing. Unfortunately it is even less exciting for spectators than the normal boring sprint road race. At least with our short races you have the excitement of everyone bolting into Turn 1 trying to make a move on the start. In endurance racing it is difficult to know who is winning, most of the time we only had a vague idea of where we were and if you’re driving you have to alter your driving style from “fast, but don’t hurt the car” to “even faster, and don’t hurt the car – at least too bad”. Some times the instructions are even more specific like – ‘don’t use the brakes’ or ‘go easy on the left front tire’. Yeah right, you’re assuming a lot of trick shots I don’t have in my bag. I got “sorta fast” and “balls slow” at my disposal.

Some of the demands are more on the crew, not necessarily always on the driver, and it is much more of a team sport. Planning and being prepared are essential. The race being at Road Atlanta meant I could bring even more ‘stuff’ than I usually do. This meant nearly two full truckloads of cr@p for any potential situation. Towards the end it became a bit maniacal as Thursday night I lay awake at 2am trying to think of anything I could do to improve our chances. This could be called “taking things too seriously”. At one point I considered buying a junk car and towing it to Road Atlanta just to ensure that no weird switch, relay or wire would defeat our victory march.

Brendan and I spent two solid days over Thanksgiving crawling over the car and fixing little things that had come apart over the season, double checking anything we could think of. Then on Thursday as I pulled the car on the trailer it would barely idle and kept stalling out. I attributed this to having almost no fuel, but without a working fuel gauge it was more of a ‘best guess’. Unpacking a truckload of sh!t is about as much fun as it sounds. If you want to play along at home dig your spare tire out of your trunk, now move it from one part of your garage to another for like an hour. Want it to be more realistic? Pick a cold day when it is raining, and then do it at night since the gates opened at 5pm and it gets dark at 5:20.

Car comes off the trailer sounding just like when I put it on – rough. I fill it up with gas and stand back waiting to see my fine mechanical diagnostic ability at work. It stalls out again. I desperately try to convince myself it is the cold weather and that the idle will even out when the car is warmed up since the prospect of trying to diagnose ‘rough idle’ in the dark wet parking lot isn’t too appealing I focus on snagging our pit space and getting things setup as best I can in the dark. (Who says winner’s never quit!). I go to park the trailer and in my rush to not stand in the rain drive off and forget to disconnect the trailer brake light, electric trailer brake doo hickey connector. No problem it ‘detaches’ itself for me. I drive home and load up another truck’s worth of goodies to bring (and unload) in the morning.

Part of my master plan to win involved recruiting a ‘team’ that was much better at this than myself. Gleefully chuckling at how little I’d have to do to win, I begged two pro drivers Seth Thomas and James Clay of BimmerWorld, and Dave White (who is no slouch with a few BMW Club Racing championships under his belt), and then asked Brendan to be our crew chief and handle the mechanical aspects. Unfortunately I had forgotten a few things about the driving side of the ‘team’. 1. They are all notoriously late. 2. Unnamed members are notoriously lazy, and 3. They all complain. As usual life is a series of compromises. I had made a deal with the devil for awesome drivers. Friday morning I setup a little table, placed our portable heater, and unpacked the cookies and snacks I had thoughtfully provided for the ‘team’. Only to hear “I really prefer a hot breakfast”. Well, people in h3ll want ice water.

** Side note, some of you will remember the argument on the forums about the quick dump gas cans. I had been lobbying behind the scenes and gotten them ‘secretly’ approved. During the drivers meeting I asked a clarifying question where the approval was given to use. I then proceeded (in typical fashion) to taunt and gloat over my ill prepped competitors and the dude I was bickering with online. BAM! Being right never gets old!!** Craig would argue that everything you read from this point on is determined by Karma, he is probably right.

I mention that the car is running rough and get some dirty looks for my sloth, another half a$$ diagnosis of spraying brake cleaner in the engine bay to identify any vacuum leaks proves inconclusive. Magically as the car heats up the idle evens out and it starts to sound somewhat normal. We give Clay the first stint and since it is cold out, there are some spots of ice on the track. We wish him good luck and I go back to eating snacks. I’m slightly nervous wondering if the car will run or if we’ll have problems. Clay finishes his first stint while we encourage him with obscene messages on our snazzy pit board (kids at home, if you want a cheap whiteboard go to Lowe’s it is like shower board or something? I got a 4×9 section for like $10).

Dave White is up next, he comments that the car fits ‘tight’ (not the seat the car). Dave White is banned from further snack eating. We get a 1 minute penalty for pitting outside our spot, even though from where the car is leaking oil (normal oil leak not bad oil leak) you can clearly see where we stopped. I start to get heated with the officials and how stupid they are. But hey they’re volunteers and really how much can they actually care so in hindsight I’ll forgive them. Clay sees this and with his pro racing diplomacy takes over the discussions while I contemplate kicking a gas can.

Seth and I discuss who should go next. I can’t remember the logic but we determined he should go 3rd and I’d bat cleanup. At this point our nearest competitor is a few laps behind. The Malt Liquor Tech #800 car (who I maintain they ‘meant’ to call the penalty on we were #008) is having issues probably related to all the dirty cheating they routinely do. So Seth takes off and the guys complain that there isn’t any lunch. It is about 1pm now and I’m up to bat. Our pit stops are going pretty smoothly and we’re able to stay out about an hour or 1 ½ every stint. Unfortunately the Beertech Car #467 spins coming out of turn 12 and slams into the front straight wall pretty hard. It comes in on the hook and Craig and rest of the gang start working to put it back together. One of the front frame rails is bent which makes getting a new (junkyard) radiator in place difficult. Seth comes in and I’m off for my first stint.

It is fairly uneventful. We have our first extended double yellow of the day as 3-4 cars are in various states of disrepair. I try to conserve gas, brakes, and tires as much as I can while I’m lapped every 1.25 seconds by a Ford GT-R American LeMans car. Apparently this is a cheap way to test the car for their team and since it is a new build they took advantage of the opportunity. Driving a $500k plus race car around a high speed track with a bunch of amateur yahoos doesn’t seem like a smart move to me, but whatever, it sure was cool. It was so loud I couldn’t hear my car over theirs and it hurt my ears when it blew by on the back straight probably doing close to 200mph (I do 120-ish). Towards the end of my shift I see the #800 car smoking and heading for the pits. I figure again this is due to their cheating and general shifty nature. Apparently MikeSkeen.com (who they recruited in an attempt to counteract my stacked driver lineup) literally escaped from the car and with their plan to have him drive at least 7 hours foiled, Travis had to take over. He launched the car democross style somewhere on the course and cracked the oil pan among other things.

Back to the pits and we alter the rotation, Clay can’t do another stint since he has to leave for the airport and another endurance race in California – the 25 hours of Thunderhill. That’s right; he drove in our 8 hour then flew to California to drive in another race. Needless to say James is single. Dave White squeezes back in the car. We get on the radio and tell him to go extra extra easy on the brakes and tires, since another competitor has told us they’ve already gone through brake pads and corded their left front tire. We’re still in the lead for our class and just want to make sure the car stays in decent shape.

Getting increasingly concerned about the brakes we make tentative preparations to change pads on the next stop. This is the deal breaker since if it takes too long it will allow the competition to catch up. In real endurance racing there is specialized equipment for this not only the change, but modifications to the car itself. We’re allowed none of this. Next time you take your stock car in for a brake pad change. See if they can do the fronts in 10 min. That is how quick Brendan did it, and includes taking the tires off and jacking up the car. And since I bought the wrong types of gloves he is doing it holding a 600 degree brake caliper with less protection than your oven mitts. He gets blisters on his hands and the team MVP award.

I get in the car and take off, thinking the stop has gone pretty well. We put new front tires on and brakes but there is over an hour left and whether we’ll have enough fuel to finish is in my head. Seth comes on the radio – “DON”T LET THE WHITE CAR PASS YOU”. Around the same time I see a white Mazda Miata in my mirrors. I think – this ain’t my first rodeo, good luck hair dresser I eat Spec Pinatas for lunch. This dude catches up to me like I’m dragging an anchor as we go through the twisty stuff. We get to my specialty the back straight and I mash the gas and pull a quarter of a mile away. Whew that was close. Seth comes on again “DON”T LET THE WHITE CAR PASS YOU”. I go into turn 1 and like magic this dude is back again. #@#$!!@$ This goes on for what seems like 45 minutes. The little white miata manages to get past me 3 or 4 times but each time I re-pass him on the back straight. I’ve had this happen and it is the most frustrating experience in the world since it requires absolutely no talent to mash the gas pedal in a straight line. He finally hit me going through the esses at about 80+ mph, startling but no real damage and I don’t blame him. I would have hit me too. Oh well no replacement for displacement. I see him pull into the pits and start to breathe again thinking that was for the race and that we maintained the lead. The car starves out around 4:40 and we have to come in for a splash and dash. 2 laps later and its over. I’m pumped thinking we won.

Whoops. Brake change took too long and the pesky white miata team won in E2. We came in second or first loser. Ironically we still managed to be 5th or so overall out of 30 cars, two of which were legitimate pro teams – one ALMs and another Koni Grand-Am car? And had we been in E1 or E0 (the two faster classes ahead of us) we would have won. Instead we were in E2 which had 14 cars. That is the problem with racing, if you want to win it is easy to find classes and races where you can collect all the trophies you want to pay for, but in the end you haven’t really beaten anyone. In Spec E30 and E2 since they are some of the most popular you have to earn every yard of ground by being good. Unfortunately this means you lose more than you win. Also in racing you play against the field every time. There are no easy matchups, you’re playing in the playoffs and championships every time and it takes some getting used to. Especially since the guys that race tend to be egotistical over achiever types that don’t take losing too well. Since the MLT #800 guys managed to somehow finish the race this meant they won the E2 enduro championship and we were relegated to 2nd place there as well.

The sprint race(s) weren’t as exciting. I made a mistake during qualifying and while I was in the cherry spot of first on grid, I went too fast on the out lap and caught the tail of the field (think dog chasing its tail). As a result I had to deal with all the slow cars in the back as traffic and ended up 12th on grid. I had a great start and jumped up 4 or so spots by turn 1. Then with Craig in front of me, he got jammed up by a slow spec miata and I passed him coming out of turn 12 like he was coasting. For 20 some minutes I put my head down and cranked out as many fast laps as I could and started catching the front 5 or so guys. They were in my sights when a Super Cup 944 turbo #72 decided he absolutely HAD to pass me coming into turn 3 at the top of the hill. I looked for this dude in the paddock and didn’t see him, so if he somehow reads this THANKS JACK A$$. If you had waited a tenth of a second you could have gone around the outside into the esses with your extra 50 hp. Instead you jammed me up and I had to run off the track to avoid hitting you. Next time when you track out into me, you’re getting hit – COUNT ON IT! That bonehead move allowed Craig to catch back up to me and we had a good race onto the back straight, he popped out of the draft into 10A braking zone and I moved him over as close to the inside wall as I could. Giving him the inside line, but lining myself up for a faster run around 10A and hopefully the inside line into 10B and turn 12. Instead as I went to downshift into 3rd gear it wouldn’t catch and when I used ‘more force’ it got stuck but still wouldn’t engage. I coasted to the side and watched the final two laps waiting for the tow truck. You can watch the start and final action (at the 21min mark) on Craig’s video.


NASA SpecE30 – December 2008 – Road Atlanta – Craig Geiger #82 from Craig Geiger on Vimeo.

Sunday I spent watching from the sidelines waiting for Craig since getting a car with no forward gears up the two story hill my house sits on to its garage spot wasn’t a problem I cared to solve. Even getting it into Craig’s somewhat flat garage proved interesting, ultimately Craig got in his car and since the bumpers line up perfectly he bump drafted me into the garage spot. Our guess is that all of the tranny fluid leaked out as it got hot during the enduro through the breather vent and the gears may have just melted together. The starter won’t even engage the flywheel, so whatever ultimately ends up being the problem it is going to be pretty interesting. I’m expecting metal and nuts and bolts to come pouring out like an overstuffed closet.

The good news is that there was a pro photographer on site and he got some AMAZING pictures of the car. When he sends I’ll post up the highlights. In the meantime I’m off tomorrow to Savannah (ie Pooler, GA) and Roebling Road Raceway to co-drive Brendan’s fire breathing vintage 5 series in a BMW Club Race. Going to try my hand at something with more than 150 hp and see how it goes. After this we’re off until Feb. so I’ll probably just put up random posts about how trashed the car is and how we’re injuring ourselves fixing it. Stay tuned and Happy Holidays! If you want to buy your loved ones cool gifts go to BimmerWorld.com and donate some money to my buddy James Clay.

Here is what 2nd place looks like.

Posted in BimmerWorld, Race Recap, Road Atlanta | 4 Comments »

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