Pimp my President? I thought Obama was for the kids? Where are the 22's? At least they're chrome, but no tint? What about the system, it better be bumpin!
Okay so you were too lazy to read any of the economy stuff that I linked to. Fair enough, after all you probably don't read 99% of what I put up. Well this dude is breaking it down smarter than a 5th grade style. He used Monopoly to explain why the Democratic economic policies are bad news. Its a little NJ-centric as he admits but it applies more broadly now that we're getting close to Obamatime.
It is funny stuff as well as educational, just the balance we try to achieve at DTOM. Like the discovery channel, sort of.
Out with the old, in with the new!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Programming note. I put this race report off on purpose since I had Dec. taken care of and in theory we should be racing again in Feb. This was designed to give you a full 12 months of DTOM coverage, in other words - your money's worth. There are some super cool pictures of my car from the Road Atlanta race that I've put up on the server at: http://dtomracing.com/photos/ Check them out, I wanted the quality so I didn't bother shrinking them and trying to post here since Blogger is cool, but it is designed more for words than pictures. I'll get us started with this 'not so cool' picture though since it starts the story.....
And there it sat. It is in roughly the same condition only it now sits in Craig’s garage, or what I call DTOM race car storage while I keep waiting for him to bring up rent. You would have thought that since the car broke the first weekend of Dec. and it is now mid-Jan that putting it back together would be a piece of cake. Well the pesky holidays got in the way and basically we need to rebuild the entire car.
The transmission is confirmed to be shot, and the motor had the oil light coming on repeatedly at Road Atlanta. The oil light is for oil pressure. If you ever see a light with a little oil lamp come on your dashboard – SHUT YOUR CAR OFF. Or you can do like me and run another race or so. Be advised you’re on borrowed time at this point for some very expensive repairs if luck isn’t on your side. Thankfully a piston didn’t come shooting through the hood or anything dramatic, but I really need to put a new engine in at the same time. Soo – checklist transmission, engine, and at the same time replace all the accessories and I bought a fancy new seat.
[In fact before our next little adventure started I needed to get something out of my car, Craig went to move his from under the premium lift spot my car is sitting in. Wouldn't start. This meant his garage had become some sort of perverse 1980's museum of non-running cars, since neither race car would run and his Porsche perpetually has a dead battery. He found a ladder and I climbed up so I could fish out my Traqmate from the car.]
Okay, the engine isn’t together (yet) but is being worked on, and the existing engine and tranny are still in the car. Did I mention our first race is 2/6 – 2/8th? It isn’t looking good but never say die! We’re going to pull the motor and what not out this Sat. hopefully so work will have at least begun.
The week after my car finally gave up, I had plans to go with Brendan Digel and co-drive his 1979 E12 race car. You’re probably saying things like 1979, E12 (what is that? well it is the first version of the 5-series, a 4 door family sedan), if you're thinking that all these words don't make sense together (race car, 1979, family sedan). Guess what? You’re right. Here is the problem with race cars, they’re a lot like marriages you get about one shot at things and if you’re wrong it will cost you a lot of money to make it right or tolerable. The smart thing for Brendan to do would be to pull any valuable piece off this car and sell the rest for scrap. BMW’s can be made into tolerable race cars, but they aren’t purpose built for racing. Now if you were going to pick a model from BMW’s catalog that is less suited to being a race car than a ’79 4 door car you’d be hard pressed.
However in Brendan’s defense things rarely start out that easy. It seems back in the day there were several people racing early 5-series (which doesn’t make it any more logical but when in Rome). Also the car was given to him for free. He had a buddy build the cage so that was ‘low cost’. Suddenly you’re getting married because she likes to drink beer and go bowling.
The problem with a 4 door sedan being made into a race car can be overcome; after all the BimmerWorld guys race the base version of the 3 series and it goes pretty fast. But just like their race effort, people don’t make a lot of off the shelf solutions for non-standard applications. In other words if you go down a path like this you’re walking alone. And you better like working on cars, and inventing parts. Oh and when you invent stuff you better be ready to pay someone to build it (and then really hope you’re good at inventing stuff since having a receipt doesn’t mean crap when you try to return a one off race part).
The key piece to Brendan’s race equation is the motor under the hood. However much like mine tough love had wore it out. So back in July he started to put things together and did a rebuild that was pretty basic and ‘low buck’ (as these things go). Fast forward to November and the parts are assembled and the engine is installed. Brendan goes to a BMW Club Race over in Birmingham and in typical DTOM fashion the car breaks on the first lap. Since Brendan is a mechanic it now becomes a point of professional pride to put this thing back together almost against better judgment. Now playing automotive CSI is difficult and to say what really caused it to fall apart is hard with any degree of accuracy after all race motors, especially the higher the HP versions, aren't known for reliability. The block of the engine (the bottom section) is the biggest, heaviest, and supposed to be the strongest. Well anything that is 30 years old isn’t as fresh as a daisy, and there is a tab on the block that broke on his first motor (necessitating the initial rebuild), and then on the second, and I believe again when they were machining the third. So it appears it may be a failure common to that model’s design (to paraphrase Unforgiven).
Okay, here is why we feel like the work on my car will come off without a hitch. The weekend before the 8 hour enduro while we were prepping my car, we took a few hours off and pulled the motor and tranny from Brendan’s. He then started on an ill advised shopping spree for motor parts and sent things up to the best machinist he knows – Chris Thurman at Sunbelt motors. Sunbelt motors makes pro motors for a laundry list of teams and series, Grand Am, SCCA Mazda, World Challenge, you name it. Well, being really good at something rarely means you’re cheap especially when more parts need to be invented and created as quickly as possible. Since Chris built the cage in this car, he took a personal interest and between he and Brendan and the powers of overnight shipping things started to come together.
Craig, and Bob (Brendan’s boss and owner of RWL German Imports), along with Brendan all pitched in at several points but it was a lot of late nights and stress to see if it would come together. Amazingly it did, and it started, and it seemed to run a lot better than previously thanks to some insight from the motor guys up at Sunbelt. Just in time for the BMW Club Race at Roebling Road. All Brendan had to do was finish one race and he’d be the National Champ in B-mod, which sounds pretty darn impressive! And keeping a 30 year old car together is as much part of the challenge as driving it.
We loaded up on Friday morning and headed over to Savannah along with Brendan’s buddy and another superb mechanic (now retired to insurance sales) Ted McMahan. Ted and I were as nervous as two cats outside a Chinese buffet in case something should break or go wrong. As we pulled up on Friday my buddy and fellow Spec E30 racer Robert Patton had an interesting proposition. How would I like to drive his second car (used typically by his daughter Laura). The plan all along had been for me to co-drive the enduro with Brendan and with his championship secure he would go somewhere and sleep. I would drive the sprint race on Sunday on my own.
I suddenly found myself in a unique position. I have never really driven anyone else’s car, unlike Clay or Seth or these hired pro guns that have enough talent to justify someone saying – “Hey break and or use up my stuff”. So here I was in demand! Wow what a feeling. I gleefully took Robert up on his offer since running the whole enduro by myself was more seat time than sharing an enduro with Brendan. To replace my awesome driving skills we sought out Mike Skeen.com since the guy he was supposed to be helping had somehow managed to get himself kicked out of the event. Brendan takes the car around for the last practice session and it runs fine and looks good. Ted and I start to relax.
** Interesting sidenote. Two years in a row someone has gotten in trouble for effectively the same thing. Ted and I happened to be going down the street from the track during lunch to get gas, when this race car comes roaring down the road in the opposite direction doing easily 80-90mph. Now the first thing they tell you at Roebling – DON’T SPEED. They tell you this for a few reasons. The main source of civil revenue in the greater Pooler, GA. and the surrounding area is generated through traffic fines and secondly the ‘neighborhood’ which is a loose collection of trailers and rural homes is eager to hate a bunch of fancy guys driving fast cars at excessive speeds outside their home and they’re probably justified in that thinking. Well apparently this dude didn’t get the message. As he blew by one house a few good ole’ boys got into the back of a pickup and followed him right after they called the sheriff. To save this dude a beatdown and possible arrest, the track mgmt. and race stewards kicked him out of the event. Strangely a similar thing happened last year when a guy needed a part down at autozone and decided to drive his TOTALLY non street legal car there complete with the loudest exhaust you’ve ever heard - at night. Showing that this may be some type of syndrome that afflicts racers they both had their girlfriends along for the rides. Neither car had more than one seat. **
Sat. morning arrives and it is chilly. I’m set to practice in Brendan’s car first thing, and then qualify Robert’s car (from here on called the Police car since that is what it looks like it even has working flashing lights, Patton’s other car is the “taxi” because – you guessed it, it looks like a taxi). Last time I sat in Brendan’s car was probably more than a year prior when it was like a fat man in a little coat. Brendan is a couple of inches shorter than me and an avid bike rider. So in other words the typical race car driver build. I’m slightly above average in height and don’t miss many meals. I shoe horn myself into the seat and find that everything is a little tight (ala Dave White) but manageable. I hit Roebling Road and it is worth the price of admission. HORSEPOWER it’s a helluva drug. Brendino’s car is probably making 280-300 at the wheels and weighs about the same as my E30. It also has big sticky tires and nice stiff springs. In other words it is more like a race car than mine. I can’t see through the frost in the windshield and the tires are slick as glass due to being cold, but I can tell driving this car is going to be a good time. I putz around a bit but don’t push it since the goal is to finish the race today, not for me to goof around.
I qualify the police car and find out what Patton is talking about when he told me ‘it doesn’t work right’, and here I thought he wanted me to drive it because I’m awesome. Turns out I’m a glorified test pilot, oh well semantics. The car won’t put power down coming out of corners and is spinning the unloaded wheel. I pedal as fast as I can but can only manage a 1.27 vs. the 1.25’s / 1.24’s I can do in my car. I spend the rest of the day bragging about what an awesome start I’m going to get and how much I’m going to kick a$$. I recruit Ted to help me make some minor modifications to the police car to see if we can help our cause any. The Green Flag drops and I’m caught in la-la land dreaming about something, in fact it takes me a second to register “Why are these cars speeding up”. I was so far back it was hard to see the flag station never mind what the dude had in his hand. No problem I’m awesome, watch this. Wait a minute why is this car shaking so bad it feels like it is falling apart? When Ted and I made our ‘improvements’ we added thin pieces of metal to the rear wheels called ‘spacers’ these can slightly adjust the handling characteristics of a car. Turns out they didn’t ‘quite’ line up with the rims correctly. I do one lap and then another and it isn’t getting better. If this is my car, I’d roll the dice. After all what is the worst thing that can happen? Oh Yeah the rear wheel can fall off. Instead not wanting to buy Robert a car I come in and get chastised for not trying to fix it in the pits and going back out by Clay, and Ted, and others.
The positive spin is I got to watch the race and Brendan came in and did a smooth hand off to Mike Skeen.com who proceeded to tear it up. The B-mod national championship was in the bag and all the hard work, expense, and late nights had paid off. Well kind of, since there really isn’t anything besides a plaque and rumors of an Al Taylor – home made possum fur coat for BMWCCR national champs. We celebrate by freezing our nuts off and eating BBQ. **I can’t begin to tell you how sick I am of pulled pork barbecue at these functions. I know it is a cheap way to feed a crowd but when you only marginally enjoy it, having it once or twice a month becomes excessive.
So Sunday is all me and I’m chomping at the bit to get some more seat time in a go fast car. I suit up for qualifying and I have to try and live up to Mike Skeen.com’s fast lap of 1.18 in a race, in a car he had never even sat in prior to the race. @#$@$@#
I hop in and tear off, first lap is a 1.21 something. Good get some heat in the tires. Third lap is a 1.20, looking good, looking real good. I’m braking at around 400ft going into turn one playing it safe and I figure “Hmm this car can certainly go 50ft deeper” as I race down the front straight at 140mph. My hypothesis proves to be incorrect as I find out dramatically how ABS must save my a$$ on a regular basis in my car. The front right tire locks up, I get off the brakes a bit and nothing happens. I turn in hoping to pitch weight on the front tires to give more grip and get it to bite, good in theory, in practice I slide off the track. 4 laps total. I go around slowly and head for the pits to make sure I didn’t break anything.
Everything thankfully checks out and I’m cleared for race launch. My qualifying time puts me about 10th on grid and I’m close enough to see the green flag drop and I’ll be d@mned if I’m going to have 2 lousy starts in a row. We take off in a group with all the big boys and run 3 deep in turn one. It occurs to me that this is all happening about 100 times faster than in my car. I pick up two spots and then get down to the business of absolutely making sure that I flat spot all 4 tires. I never feel very smooth but I manage a 1.195 in the race and win the B-mod class (of which I was the only participant). Still it earns me a few things 1) a sticker that says “Class Winner” 2) I beat Mike Skeen.com in the B-mod points battle, suck it Skeen. 3) I won a $100 tire rack gift certificate in a raffle and 4) I got a free t-shirt (well I would have got that for just showing up). BAM! Better luck next year Skeen.
So we had a happy ending, Brendan’s car held together, I had a blast driving something moderately fast, he won his championship, Ted had some beers and got to hang out and all’s well that end’s well.
Here is a picture of the sled from a happier time, with the Cobra as co-driver instead of me, Brendan was crew chief that day, and TJ used to race with us before he had a kid and stuff....
Now we just need to try and do it again for Feb.
The 2008 points were released I finished 4th overall, 27 of which did 4 or more races, so pretty respectable. Unfortunately that may be my swan song for points. Our NASA-SE schedule this year sucks, so I may make my own with a combination of any races I can con Brendan into letting me drive his car again, the NASA crowd SouthEast and Mid-Atlantic, and BMW Club Racing. Unless of course someone reads this and feels like giving me a few hundred grand in which case I’ll be in World Challenge or Koni destroying even faster and more expensive cars, but I’m not holding my breath.
Personality Faults - Road Atlanta Recap
Thursday, December 11, 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 4x9 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.
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.
Thanksgiving was spent, at least two days of it crawling around the car trying to guess what might break and fix stuff that was officially broken.
If you want to pretend you're preparing for an 8 hour enduro at home, go buy a 20 year old car (or older) and plan to drive it 4 or so states away as fast and as hard as you can. Then try and guess what might break in advance and what you could repair quickly using hand tools in a parking lot.
Sound like fun? Do it in December which since we're in Atlanta isn't really fair to complain, but still 40 degrees is plenty cold to make your hands hurt extra special when you knock it against cold metal or drop something on your foot.
I have solid page of stuff left to do, buy, organize and we're 3 days away!
Still looking for pit monkeys, I mean skilled labor to assist with our Friday, Dec. 5th enduro. Email me at j h robinson at bellsouth dot net (remove spaces and add the 'at' sign) for details!
The new ALMS M3 was at Road Atlanta doing some testing this week. This thing looks bad a$$!!!
#008 Dyno Graphs from 11/15 run
Monday, November 17, 2008
Went to the dyno this weekend to see how the car stacked up against some other SE competition. Probably at the low end of average is my take. I think maybe one car was lower, and two were pretty close, another 1 made a little more, and 2 others in the 160 range. Just gives me more excuses.
What happens in Vegas ends up on DTOM!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Programming Notes: I’ve gotten pretty lazy and haven’t ‘written’ much for this blog, falling into that old blog standby of just posting a bunch of pictures. Well you get what you pay for. The Democross will probably have another ‘final’ post when the video is put together DVDs are being mailed to Craig for compilation as we speak. I’ll post up a teaser clip below. In the meantime I’ll wrap up our SEMA / Las Vegas experience with some more pics and details. I’ll start classifying my ‘opinion’ stuff on politics clearly so that you can skip ahead if you’re just here for the awesome racing action. Also I'll post more pictures on Facebook so you can see more automotive lunacy there. [start Political Diatribe] Since we left off we now have a new president – Obama. His ‘change’ appears to be mostly hiring all of Clinton’s old cronies, what a crazy radical. I’ve gotten a few comments on my not so sly political commentary. For the record I’d characterize myself more as a Libertarian than a true Republican. I’m against government in just about any capacity (hence DTOM) and even more so against taxes. I couldn’t care less about things like abortion, church vs. state arguments, gay marriage etc. Live and let live is my motto there, just keep your hands out of my pockets. I can also tell that no one bothered to read my links to Man vs. Welfare and Economics in One Lesson. If anyone is smart enough (I’m not) to point out holes in Henry Hazlitt’s arguments please send them along, it all seems to resonate pretty well with me, but I’ll keep an open mind that running up a huge deficit, taxing successful businesses and people to sustain a bloated bureaucracy is somehow good for America, and the kids (don’t forget about them). [/end Political Diatribe]
I touched on this already but I’ll restate - SEMA is awesome, and from all accounts this one wasn’t nearly as cool as years past. Seems that the auto industry isn’t doing as well as it once was who knew. Still there are 5 main halls (I think?) each filled to the brim with every type of doodad and whiz-bang you can think of for your car. Since this is a trade show it is supposed to be Business to Business sales, but I certainly didn’t get that vibe until we walked over to the APEX show. SEMA is full of lights and girls in mini-skirts (or less) and chrome, basically designed to send you into ADD seizures. APEX on the other hand is the grim underbelly. It reminded me of Planes, Trains and Automobiles where Del Griffith (John Candy) is a shower curtain ring salesman. This place was full of Del Griffith’s - guys that make a living on 1% margin. Not pretty. Needless to say we spent maybe 20 minutes there vs. 32+ hours at SEMA.
What else did we do in Vega$ you ask? Craig and I stayed at Harrah's for the first part of the week, not a bad room but small and right on the MONORAIL (which rules -Were you sent here by the devil? No good sir I'm on the level). When the girls came we moved to the MGM Signature which was really nice (gated entrance - BAM!) and well we ate — a lot. So much that my last meal in Vegas was Sunday morning, I didn’t get hungry again until Monday night. After nearly 3 months of emails on where we were going to eat dinner every night during this week (seriously 3 months of discussion), we ended up about 50% for the list. I’m not much on the food channel but apparently Dave White, Clay, Craig and Dan are all big fans. I’d never heard of any of the places they picked but for the most part these guys know how to eat. First time I met and hung out with Dan Fitzgerald from www.diffsonline.com, super cool guy and has a disturbing knowledge of mixed drinks. Our itinerary if anyone would like to retrace our footsteps along with my comments:
Monday – Batista’s Hole in the Wall Italian. Not bad, big selling point is that every meal comes with unlimited wine. It tastes like communion wine, but it gets the job done.
Tuesday – Garden of the Dragon Chinese. We had a meeting here so no choice. In hindsight I would have preferred Diego’s which is where Dan and Dave went (Mexican).
Wednesday – Mesa Grill. I was leery of this since I’m not a big Southwestern fan, but it ended up being my favorite. I had a pumpkin soup that was delicious and a fat NY strip that is probably one of the best I’ve ever had.
Thursday - Craftsteak. Did you know you could spend $250 a plate on a steak dinner? Neither did I. Thankfully we didn’t since Christine had come out by then and it would have been $500 for two. Yikes. The highest quality Kobe beef is on the menu. I decided I’d rock the NY Strip again to do a heads up comparison. It was good, but I give the nod to Mesa by a smidge probably just my personal preference.
Friday – Sushi Samba. The only place I could have done without. First off I’m from the Midwest. Seafood to me is deep fried perch, raw fish is called ‘bait’. Secondly this place was uber-hip. Like eating in a night club. Loud pounding music, very dark, and they were showing an old Godzilla movie on the walls (which was actually the coolest part). None of this was conducive to a ‘cozy’ dinner or any conversation. I rocked the NY strip – AGAIN just to complete the circle, and basically that was the only thing on the menu I would have eaten. Result – 3rd place, but still not bad. **Sidenote, one of the funniest things all week. Clay ordered this super cool cucumber martini cocktail drink. Then gets up to go to the bathroom. It is delivered, and Crystal (Clay's girlfriend) proceeds to chug it dry while he is away. She finishes just as he walks around the corner. He sits down and looks at the empty glass with a huge chunk of cucumber on the side and can't quite figure out what the deal is (he has had several others by now). Before he can figure it out a bus boy walks by and snatches it almost from his hand. You might have had to witness it for the full effect but the look on his face and the timing with which it all happened made it seem like a TV Sitcom in execution. Good times and well played.
Saturday – Wynn Buffet. I’d been asking for this since our 3 month email began. The food snobs derided buffets as if I were suggesting the Golden Corral. We managed to convince Craig and Shelley that it would be ‘okay’ to eat there and I think they were surprised. It isn’t on the same level as a dedicated super fancy restaurant but 1. you’ll make yourself uncomfortably full 2. It is ‘reasonably priced’ 3. The deserts alone are worth going for 4. They always have roasted turkey even in July.
Sunday – Bellagio Champagne Breakfast Buffet. After gorging myself the previous evening (and past week really) we decided what a better way to say goodbye to LV, and yes for the record the champagne is unlimited.
What else did we manage to do beside eat and look at cars? Well on Thursday night baller Clay managed to score an invite to the Gran Turismo Awards. So after eating a light steak dinner we headed over to the Hard Rock Café where they checked to see if we were ‘on the list’. We got the 2nd class citizen wrist bands (no free bar access) and were let through the door. Here 500 of our closest friends stood around and waited for the show. Atlanta Rapper – Ludacris was scheduled to perform, which was awesome since I love Hip Hop rap and Atlanta. It was a weird crowd and I’m not sure that Luda was the best pick, but I guess I couldn’t have come up with anyone better. The first half of the show started awkwardly while a bunch of middle aged white drunk people swayed around and ‘threw their hands in the air’. It got better when Dave Navarro and Tommy Lee came out on stage. Since there were only a few hundred people, I was literally in the 4th or 5th ‘row expending absolutely no effort. Christine playing the role of hip high school teacher and official DTOM photographer weaseled herself next to the stage and submitted the pictures (attached). It was all pretty surreal, Tommy Lee has some issues. He SMILED THE ENTIRE TIME. Not a grin or a smirk, a full on both rows of teeth showing SMILE, and his teeth were supernaturally white. Navarro is roughly 5 feet tall, and they are both heroin skinny. Luda’s watch – if real – had approximately $1 million dollars of diamonds on it, and he was wearing a diamond earring the size of a marble. Atlanta truly is where the players play.
Friday night after our sushi nightclub dinner, Christine wanted to go down to Fremont St. to see the light show. This was described as 15 minutes and awesome, our references included an elderly taxi cab driver and a partially remembered experience while inebriated several years ago from Craig. In hindsight we probably should have done more due diligence. The ‘light show’ is maybe 3 min., 5 at the most, and it isn’t a light show it is a commercial for the casinos downtown set to music and projected on an overhead canopy. After seeing the dude that wet his pants in the john and having a falling over drunk girl accost me on the street I wouldn’t have called the strip ‘high class’. Well that shows what I know. The downtown scene featured a pretty crowded walkway full of people carrying around 70 oz beers in plastic cowboy boots, guitars, and faux ‘yard’ glasses. It also had a variety of gift shops that all sold the same 5 sweat shirts and 10 t-shirts. They weren’t even as inventive as the shop next to our hotel that had the “I (heart) to Fart” shirt we almost bought for Dave. My suggestion is to save the $50 in cab fare that it costs to get downtown and back and spend it gambling.
Saturday night after gorging on dessert and turkey at the Wynn Buffet we went to see Le Reve. Full disclosure here, I’m not a big fan of the French (SHOCKER), ballet, or shirtless dudes in Speedos. If you share those inclinations, I’m going hazard a guess and say that this show and Cirque du Soleil in general probably isn’t for you. My biggest problem was trying to figure out the ‘story’, if there was a story, and if maybe I was too stupid to understand what was going on. It turns out that isn’t what you go to these things for. In terms of some pretty amazing athletic ability this show and its performers have it. The entire thing is done in a large ‘swimming pool’ / stage surrounded by seats. They have these crazy trapeze things come down and pick people up, where they swing around and then dive into the pool while live music plays and synchronized swimming, and people dancing and doing gymnastics. If that sounds like a hot confused mess, well that is pretty much how it registered to me too. The entire time I wondered – what part could I play in this if I had to make a living since they all could do back flips (answer I’d starve), turkey makes me sleepy, wow there is a lot going on, what happens if that dude slips or loses his grip straight to a blow tube wheelchair, how do you practice this stuff, etc.
Like all good things Vegas had to come to an end, and that is where things started to go south. All the anger and vitriol that I dish out eventually comes back to me postage paid. Our flight was delayed two hours, thankfully Shelley is also a baller super traveler and had access to the Delta Crown Room where weary business people sit and pour drinks and peanuts into their bodies in an attempt to forget that they fly all the time to make a buck. Doesn’t sound so bad? Well it served as a constant reminder that she was flying first class, while Craig and I were not only in coach but in middle seats. Moral – NEVER let anyone book your tickets, since they don’t care where you sit. I barely fit in an airplane seat. I certainly don’t fit comfortably in a middle seat and not for four hours. To make matters worse, Craig finds his seat where the dude that was on the aisle WANTS to sit in the middle to be next to his wife. $#&*#$^%.
I have a good friend that used to work in Customer Service for the phone company. This was before cell phones became ubiquitous and everyone had to have a home phone. I used to joke at “customer service” in a virtual monopoly. I’d ask what do you tell people, “Tough sh!t Mr. Customer if you don’t like it we’ll disconnect your phone, and when you get sick of walking to the gas station everyday to make your calls, we’ll charge you $50 to hook it back up.” That sums up the airline industry. I honestly wonder if the govt. could do a worse job at running it. The same thing will happen to them that has happened to wireline phone service – who needs it now? Everyone looks at me like I have two heads when I say this, but remember in the 70’s no one knew what a cell phone was, and Pullman Sleeper cars used to be the height of traveling luxury. The absolute minute that people have a choice, not even a better choice maybe one that isn’t quite as distasteful they will run from airlines and all of those clowns will be hustling shower curtain rings and deservedly so. I’ll sit in my middle seat and wait.
BTW – here is a hot tip for the security people. When a 6 foot blond dude blows something up, I’ll submit to the strip search, until that time stick to the dude’s that look like terrorists. This isn’t racism, its common sense. Honestly I’d roll the dice just to keep my shoes on at this point.
