Well as promised here are few additional things that just didn't 'fit' into the overall O'fest writeup but were still amusing enough as stand alones but first a message from our sponsor. Not really but I am going to grouse on the govt. for a bit. I can hear the collective groan of the audience. I feel like the teacher that promised movie day and gave a quiz instead.
Speaking of teachers, here is evidence that the govt. shouldn't run anything. I mean that literally, short of the military and maybe the police, I honestly think anything else would be better off in private hands. Eliminate all but the very minimum amount of taxes and let us pay ala carte. I'll call out the non-funny stuff with tags so you can skip ahead if you'd like.
[not very funny] Why do I say this? We take our dogs on a nightly walk / park trip and my wife announced she was tired of being a teacher yesterday and wanted to look for a new job. I can't emphasize how shocking this was. My wife was named teacher of the year at her highschool for 2008. Now I don't particularly like her job, but I will be the first to admit that I think she does it very, even exceptionally well. She is one of those lucky people that has known since they were a kid what they wanted to do and has always enjoyed her work and looked forward to it. As a further testament to her teaching skill she managed to teach me enough calculus that I got a C in my one last gasp at math in college.
So why the change of heart? Well here in GA since the schools do so well, they figured kids weren't learning math due to the curriculum and really the 'order' of how concepts were presented. So they completely changed everything mixing alegbra and geometry together (among other things), they've also added extra fun stuff on teachers like reading/writing in math class. Makes perfect sense to me. Now the math that you learn in highschool hasn't changed in literally hundreds of years, most of these concepts are old timey Greek civilization things. In my business mind to be efficient and good you assign one teacher a 'type' of math let them learn it up and down and that is what they teach, maybe 4-5 classes of it in a day. Pretty much learning by assembly line. What does the school system do? They give their teachers a bunch of different classes so they can't get in any type of routine and are teaching something new each period. This just creates confusion, busy work, added overhead in terms of preparation and grading, and you have some teachers that are more qualified than others in terms of the high level math classes so this 'equal distribution' means some students don't get the right people instructing them. So this is what has brought on her career crisis, right now she comes home from work around 4-5pm and spends an additional 3 or so hours grading papers and planning. All for the amazing salary that you could make managing a gas station, and minus the college and advanced degrees. Way to go govt.! Also all kids must now take college prep. math regardless if they want to, if there parents want them to, if they're not going to college they'll just sit there and fail it which will certainly help bring those test scores up! As with most govt. programs I'm sure this was based on good intentions, and like most of them no one will pay attention to the actual results. [/end not very funny stuff]
Okay on with the show.
Clay takes great pleasure in his jokes and for O'fest he had planned two that he (and I'll admit to an extent - I) both thought would be pretty hysterical. The first was a rigged raffle where Dave White would win a prize. I coordinated with Chuck and Patty to have this raffle done during the final awards ceremony where they're giving out trophies, prizes, etc. So there are roughly 50 or so people standing around. Dave's racing number is called to win a "Special prize from BimmerWorld" and he immediately knows something is up. Chuck hands him a plain brown box which he unwraps and quickly sees his 'gift'. No one else can see what it is and Dave isn't too pleased with our humor. So he walks off and no one in the crowd gets the joke. Clay has to awkwardly take the microphone and explain the punchline to an uncomfortable smattering of laughter and tense silence. Joke Fail 1.
The 2nd involves the crew and a horrible experience they had with an E30 3 series, very similar to mine. For a long time I had tried to get Clay to do some work on my car and he was very reluctant. It all stemmed from an E30 that had come to the shop with some 'electrical' issues. The geniuses that built the car had spray painted the interior white, but had neglected to cover up any of the wiring bundles. When trying to trace problems with wires, it helps to be able to tell them apart - which is difficult if they're all white. To further exacerbate the problem, they had removed all the car's fuses and simply jumped them together. Apparently Marks and the guys spent weeks trying to fix this thing. So what does James do when he sees this beauty for sale? He buys it and secretly arranges to have it delivered during the BW BBQ so that Marks can be horrified as he sees this nightmare coming back into his life. Unfortunately for Clay his clever plan fell apart when Marks informed him the trailer this car was to ride back to Virginia in had left about 4 hours eariler... Joke Fail 2.
On a more positive note, Steve Bassen who wrecked his car in the Friday race won the "Spirit of Club Racing" award. This is a very cool thing that the BMW Club Race guys do for each event. Every racer signs a flag and it is presented to the guy that has the best attitude and most closely embodies the 'spirit' of Club Racing, meaning he spent the most money on his car -- NO -- meaning an all around good guy, that is helpful and generally liked and respected by all. Anyone that knows Steve knows that description fits him to a T.
Next up at DTOM - our 3rd annual IFU race at CMP along with the enduro. Should have that out early to mid November. Some pics to entertain in the meantime -
Steve with his well deserved award.
My car parked 'uncomfortably' close to Dave White's fancy ride. Note Joke Fail 2 / finding nemo car in the background...
The amazing Mark's family grill. Smoker, gas grill, and 2 mini-keg fridge capacity. John in the blue shirt is ironically a vegetarian.
My awesome plan of taking down BW property values with the car on jackstands. I at least made sure the amateur body work wasn't facing the 'street'.
Whatever happened to that dude Rerun from that show? I think he became a minister and might have died. I'm tempted to google to find out, but my version of the truth is usually more entertaining than real life.
Anyway just a quick update on DTOM. Car is beat out and ready for bondo and paint. There is a slight (very slight) chance I'll do the work myself. If that happens I'll document the process, which will include me probably lighting myself on fire somehow, since if I do it, I'm going to use real deal auto paint not Krylon.
Craig had a baby - well not Craig but his wife as usual she did all the work (but I think she is used to that by now). Thankfully for them the little girl looked nothing like Craig. Since I'm thoughtful I took the liberty of signing Craig up for more information about the Routan (VW minivan) and offered up his 911 as trade bait. The salespeople have already contacted him a few times. High comedy.
Next week (9/24 & 25th) I'll be at Road Atlanta watching Clay and the BimmerWorld crew hopefully win a World Challenge race. After that 9/30 and 10/1 I'll be instructing at the BMW Oktoberfest DE at Road Atlanta, then racing in the club race with Brendan in the fire breathing 5 series. Oktoberfest is a big deal in the BMW Car Club world since it rotates to different locations annually. Supposed to be pretty cool with lots of neat BMW rides. If anyone makes it up Wed. or Thur. let me know I'll bring an extra helmet and we'll get you a ride.
I'm sure all of this will make for exciting DTOM reading in the coming weeks. Until then enjoy a few pics as entertainment.
That'll buff right out. Notice the miracle silver door find!
White bumper, but see if you can find the rest of the damage.
Congrats to Steve D. for winning (not the special Olympics) but 3rd place in the SE30 National Champion race out in Utah. If I told you the two men in this picture raced Spec Miatas would that shock anyone?
Long time DTOM fans will remember the HeartBreaker Democross project. Since it is getting around that time of year, Al was nice enough to send us an update on the car's status (below).
[I really really tried to keep this one short, since general feedback from the peanut gallery = ‘brevity is the sole of wit’. I guess I need an editor since I failed miserably again. Look at it this way – DTOMRacing gives you a lot of words for your entertainment dollar].
Shark week footage in progress. Dog update – Indy went in for surgery on Monday to fix his ear and get another biopsy on his leg. We are waiting for test results they take 10-14 days. He is wearing his mummy headdress while his ear heals nicely, but he is angry since it is very un-cool.
I didn’t want to race at Road Atlanta on Friday. I didn’t have the time to go over the car the way I like (read “need to” - I don’t really like it), and didn’t have the money to pay someone to do it for me. We went out for team trivia on Wed. to celebrate my wife’s few remaining days of summer vacation. That meant we got home late and that combined with work meant I was tired whaa whaa whaa whaaa whaa. Sometimes this hobby feels a lot like a job, but we wear the chains we forge in life.
My co-driver Dave White wasn’t coming down so I was faced with driving 2 hours in the hottest part of the day. The most dangerous thing I think we face driving on track is dehydration. Racing a car requires tremendous concentration, and nothing goes out the window quicker when you’re hot and your body is lacking what it needs to work properly than your higher cognitive processes. That sounds fancy but what does it mean? For me it means instead of thinking “brake here, watch for the shift light, check mirrors, etc” (or at least their instinctive counterparts) I’m thinking “man I’m hot, this sucks, what is that over there in the trees” or in other words your mind wanders and you’re not paying attention. So it makes driving and concentrating that much harder. It also means you have to strike a balance between drinking enough Gatorade to stay hydrated but not so much that you have to pee the minute you’re in the car. Believe it or not “Big Time” endurance drivers (or Al) pee in their seats a lot. I’m not sure how much money would have to be on the line for me to consider this…..
My race preparations consisted of putting the dash back together from my ill-fated attempt to diagnosis an electrical problem I was having (I stood as much chance of figuring this out as a monkey does of doing calculus, but at least I tried). That and packing the truck took the little free time I had left to devote to preparations. As I was getting ready to put the car on the trailer, I turned the key and nothing happened. Battery was dead. Now normally this is as much trouble as a cloudy day. Not sure if you’ve ever noticed but when you’re tired and grumpy the littlest things rub you wrong and everything seems to take twice as long. It was now 9pm on Thursday night and the last thing I wanted to do is screw with a non-starting car. My low maintenance plan was to roll it down the driveway and drop the clutch (known as ‘bump starting’ and one of the many awesome features of a manual transmission car). For some reason that didn’t work and now I was faced with a non running car that was at a 45 degree angle blocking our road outside in the dark. Run and find my jumper cables, bring the other car down to jump it since the truck was hooked to the trailer, etc. Get it running. Sounds loud and ‘racey’ too loud / too racey. Like I have an exhaust leak. M#@## F#@$%.
Wake up bright and early; convince Craig to move his 911 off the lift and into its proper home in his museum of non-running 1980’s cars. Amazingly the car still won’t start on the trailer. Jump again and send the battery off to Brendan to put on the charger. Shockingly the exhaust leak is a simple fix. Brake pads and tires aren’t up to Dave White spec, but more than adequate for Jim Robinson. Battery goes back in, and we’re off to the races. I thank God for small miracles.
Now each one of these posts are filled to the brim with my b!tching and moaning but to put it in perspective – I have little ankle biting bad days. Our buddy Ted was able to come up and help out on Friday. Usually Ted has to work, but it seems that earlier in the week Federal Agents raided his company’s headquarters and shut them down. The 5000 or so employees got an email around lunch time telling them – good luck finding a job. That is a legit bad day.
We got up to Road Atlanta secured our pitstop and got ready to go. One of the many things to fall by the wayside in terms of race prep was charging (or even finding) the batteries for the radio. We’d do this race in radio silence as a result. We’re in first place overall which meant I’d be in pole position for the start. Green flag flies and I get a good jump, the high horsepower cars get passed and I’m in fourth or fifth with a Vette right in front and a 944 in back. As we go into turn 5 the Vette checks up hard. I get on the brakes but the 944 behind me is too little too late and he hits me from behind. I feel the hit and then I’m 180 and facing traffic coming up the hill and waiting to feel the crunch of the wall. Miraculously I come to a stop about 8 inches from concrete. I watch as everyone drives past and then pull out on track. Car feels fine and I do a lap but Race Control black flags me so I have to pull into the pits. The rear bumper was loose so Ted and Brendan rip it off and out I go.
I’m surprisingly calm and ‘un-angry’. I decide to use this ‘alone time’ to focus on consistency and making lemonade. I’m clicking off decent 90% laps and turn the wick up as needed to make up time. A little after ½ way and I’m catching up to cars. I pull in for our mandatory 5 gallon fuel stop and that goes off without a hitch. Few more laps and I’ve passed class traffic and can see two guys I assume are in the top-5. They’re racing and therefore going slow. I catch up quick and make a good move going into turn 1 to get past both Jim Leive’s Spec E30 and another Spec Miata. Going into turn 3 – I’m suddenly sideways again and then crunch as the wheel is yanked from my hands. I sit for a second trying to figure out what the F just happened. I see the miata and Jim driving off and figure that the miata must have just punted me from behind and then hit me somehow again. I pull back on track and smoke is filling the cabin. I stop at the bottom of the hill not knowing the extent of the damage. Turns out sheet metal was crumpled on the rear wheel and the tire was getting cheese grated against it enough that the little Spec E30 that could – couldn’t finish the race. At the time we figured I had come from last place to a 2nd in class, only to get wrecked out with about 10 min. left to go.
Moral of the story - NEVER get a race car painted.
Street view of where it went pear shaped.
Clay showing how its done in a car. Not sure how you can get 'inside' on this line?
Aerial view. Green = good / Red = bad. I've seen some people try to pass here none have ended particularly well...
So now what. I get questions from non-racers about this so I’ll lay out what happens. Basically I’m SOL. No insurance on track, if you get broke you fix it, your dime, regardless of whose fault, why it happened, etc. The first guy that punted me came up and apologized he felt bad, of course me not being there allowed him to win so he probably didn’t feel ‘too bad’. But at least he made the gesture, we were in pretty heavy traffic and sh!t happens. I’m cool with a little rubbing since if you’re an amateur egg juggler from time to time you’ll have omelets. The Spec Miata guy I filed a contact form on with NASA. What does that mean? Roughly the equivalent of a complaint letter, with probably as much getting done. At the end of the day NASA is a business, so if they ban a racer from racing they just lost a huge chunk of change. So they have to balance the perception of caring (enough to mollify me) with not making the other guy mad so that he keeps coming back, but balance that with – is this A$$hat so dangerous that he will eventually kill someone and get us sued. IF this guy has been a source of constant problems NASA will tell him to sit the bench for awhile or pull his license and tell him to play somewhere else. Why did I complain in one case and not the other. Well Jim Levie witnessed the incident and said the guy basically just drove in the back of me. Also this guy didn’t come and look for me. I wandered a bit to see if I could find him to see what his story was, but nothing. He didn’t show up for the awards ceremony and people are parked over a 5 mile square parking lot. I had Ted and Brendan by my car in case anyone stopped by (like the 944) guy. So we’ll see what happens, I’m guessing nothing. In the meantime I’m looking for a discount bodyshop.
Another ‘to put it in perspective’, ironically (sad irony not funny irony) poor Jim Levie got victimized by a Miata during the sprint races in roughly the same place. Unfortunately he didn’t get off as light, and his car looks like a wadded up pop can. Thankfully he was all right.
What I did on my summer vacation...
Monday, August 3, 2009
Indiana Hoosier Hound in profile at the beach.
By Jim R.
My wife loves the beach, I hate the beach. I love race cars, my wife doesn’t. She told me that she was going to St. George Island for a week before school started and if I wanted to join her that was okay. I called her bluff and decided I’d give the beach another chance since I hadn’t really been since our honeymoon years ago. My last beach vacation I almost died from food poisoning and dehydration so you can understand my reluctance to go back. I’m pasty white and inclined to burn, I hate being hot, and I don’t like sand. Other than that I figured it would be fun. She left with the dogs on Saturday; I had to work for a few extra days and planned on leaving mid-week.
It’s about 6-7 hours from Atlanta to St. George Island and the quickest route there reads like a treasure map. One of the 24 steps from Map Quest says “Turn left on Bob Bodkin Road”. I was running a bit late since looking out for all these goofy little roads meant I couldn’t make good time. Map Quest was also decent enough to be off on their mileage by about 10 to 20%. They say go 55 miles on GA27/1 South, they really mean 63-ish. This didn’t help improve my mood as I hunt and pecked my way through rural Georgia. Then I found a hidden gem of a road called FL65. Its 60 miles and straight as a ruler and flat as a board, it’s in the middle of a national forest and has no real place for cops to hide. SENTENCE REMOVED ON ADVICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL... you can do the math on why that road might appeal to a guy that races cars for a hobby...
SGI is a pretty nice place, and it really wasn’t that bad. I actually had fun. With my wife there to remind to wear sunblock I didn’t get burned. The wind, I can’t really call it a breeze since it was quite strong, coming off the gulf kept the temperature around mid-80’s which after spending years in Georgia passes for comfortable these days. Our little rental place even had its own pool so I only had to suffer the beach sand when we took the dogs down to do their ‘swim’ in the morning before the families arrived.
The last day I decided it might be cool to charter a boat and see the rest of the island. If you wiki SGI you’ll see that only a portion is available to regular folk. There is state park at one end, and a gated community that is rumored to house Kid Rock and Hank Williams JR. among others, it even has its own runway so you can land your private plane. Since we couldn’t get past the gate I figured we’d go Omaha Beach on them. Unfortunately the weather conspired against us, but “Capt. Jack” was cool and said lets try and do it before you leave on Sat.
The rain let up just as we were resigned to cancelling the trip altogether that morning. Capt. Jack met us at the dock and we loaded up the dogs and headed out to sight see. We quickly saw dolphins up close and personal which for some reason Indy started to bark at thinking he was going to play with them or something? We saw big houses, and then on the way back saw a shark feeding frenzy. That was pretty wild. Jack said in his years growing up and working on the water he’d only seen it once before. My words won’t do this bit justice, but thankfully I have some shaky and poor video I’ll put up eventually that got the dolphins and shark stuff.
Look I'm a dog on a boat!
I should have suspected things were going too smoothly at this point. As we pulled into the dock Indy decided he would jump out of the boat and be the first on land. Thankfully Jack was close behind and was able to drag him out of the water before he hung himself on his leash, drowned, or was crushed by the boat smashing him against the dock. As he sputtered and coughed we noticed he was favoring the leg that he just had surgery on. We had been watching it lately since it seemed to be getting worse, and sure enough it was bleeding / weeping again just like it did prior to the antibiotics, crazy fungus medicine. I hosed him down to get the fish cannery smell off for the trip home and we started the easter egg hunt in reverse.
We made it about 5 hours into the trip when on 85, construction caused traffic to come to a stop. I was following Christine in the Lexus and had to jam on the brakes to keep from hitting her. Unfortunately the dude behind me wasn’t so lucky and hit me doing about 20-30 mph. We had to drive about 5 miles to find a safe place to pull over and the GA. State Trooper was waiting for us to fill out the paperwork. As he was completing the forms I went over to the truck to talk to Christine and see the dogs. Rubbing Indy’s head I noticed his ear was swelling up again too. So he was right back to where he was 2 months ago.
Nissan 0 - Lexus 1
Anyone know a good insurance agent - @!$!%!!#$ State Farm
Today we took him to the vet, and they knocked him back out sewed his ear up and took another biopsy so we know if he needs more / different antibiotic, or more / different fungus medicine, or if its something else entirely. I called our great insurance company since the Trooper assured me all I had to do is give them a call and give them the report number and they would take care of the rest. State Farm said they’d be happy to take care of it, minus my $500 deductible. I questioned this since I was clearly not at fault. The chuff girl on the other line said I was welcome to sort that out on my own with the other guy’s insurance company. When I questioned what exactly was the value they added, she again stated they’d be happy to help if I wanted to claim it on my own. Needless to say the first thing I’ll be doing after this gets straightened out is change all of my insurance over to someone else, that will probably be equally unhelpful and incompetent but at least different.
In the meantime I should have stayed home and worked on the car. We have a race at Road Atlanta this weekend and my car is in pieces in the garage and I’m not very motivated to put it together.
Shark Week video and Road Atlanta race report next week, stay tuned..
Good Racing = Poor Blogging
Tuesday, February 17, 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.
Petit LeMans – Road Racers go “NASCAR”
Monday, October 13, 2008
I’ve put this off for a week or so, mainly because I’m lazy. But I’ve had a few people pestering me to give my account of Petit LeMans so here we go.
I’m running out of vacation. That is a pretty big statement from a guy that gets like 5 weeks or something crazy, which is a lot for anyone that doesn't live in France. Most of it has been spent racing (as my wife will tell you). This simple fact meant I couldn’t make it out to Road Atlanta (the site of Petit Lemans) until Thursday.
Petit LeMans is a pretty big deal. It is a 12 hour race for the American LeMans series which is probably the most successful road racing series still around. It is major league ball. The guys that race at this level don’t have ‘other jobs’. Car manufacturers spend a few million a year to field teams and race. It makes it onto NBC and ABC once or twice a season. Pretty cool. The race is 10 hours or 1000 miles whichever comes first. When I first went a few years ago the fastest class had qualifying times of 1.11 for a 2 mile and change track. Now they’re down into the high 1.06’s. The LMP cars are ‘almost’ as fast as Formula 1. That is pretty d@mn fast. To put it into perspective my best time at Road Atlanta I think is in the 1.46’s? That is per lap. 40 some odd seconds each lap of which they’ll do around 500. Of course my car is also an order of magnitude cheaper. My entire race ‘team’ (car included) and season budget wouldn’t buy tires for one of the GT2 (slowest class) efforts in this ONE race.
These race weekends usually have several supporting races beforehand to keep fans entertained while the big boys take their practice laps, qualifying, etc. One of these supporting races was the Speed World Challenge series that my buddies Seth Thomas and James Clay race in. James was super cool enough to score Craig and me some free tickets. So we headed up Thursday to watch them qualify and hang out.
Usually going to the race track puts a spring in my step a) I won’t be working and b) I like race tracks and race cars. Win / Win – right. Thursday and Friday were a lot of fun, but it wasn’t exactly an ‘uplifting’ experience. I’d gone to Petit LeMans 3 or so years running but it was usually as a ‘fan’. This year I was going slightly more educated to what it takes to run a team and try to make a living at doing this. It was eye opening to say the least. I’ve always felt that I’ve done pretty well for myself. You don’t get a racecar without having some level of disposable income, however after sitting around the ‘minor league’ paddock for a day it certainly made me much more humble (read depressed). 17 year old punk kids driving golf carts around with their 17 year old model girlfriends after driving $100-200k open wheel cars that they didn’t pay for. In the little corner of the paddock that we were in probably 3 million dollars worth of cars in a space that represented maybe 1/100th of the total available area. That is just the cars. Not the semi’s or trailers, or support vehicles, or the 7-8 crew guys that need to eat and have shirts, …. How many internet millionaires did the 90’s spit out and why wasn’t I one of them.
Anyway we watched qualifying and the BimmerWorld guys did roughly average. This was also pretty depressing considering how much work they put into the cars and that this track is Seth’s home and Clay’s home away from home. I immediately declare all of the other teams “cheaters”. That is a pretty basic rule in racing. If someone is in front of you they’re cheating in some vague way. More than likely though, it is simple economics. All of BimmerWorld’s competition enjoy financial support from their mother ship factories, in racing as in life money talks, bullsh!t walks.
Thursday night brings us an invitation from the Thomas family to join in a team “cookout”. We started the evening by shooting skeet, pistols, and an AR15 (think SWAT team). Seth’s dad was smart enough to have his entire property zoned as a ‘gun range’ so complaints from the neighbors don’t carry much weight! I think it helps that Seth’s family also pretty much invented Cumming, Georgia. We try to talk Clay into over eating (he has a second career as a competitive eater if he ever chooses to go in that direction), but his girlfriend is in town so he is on best behavior. We're provided some other lame excuse about ‘not healthy’, but we know the truth (cue whipping sound effects). The rest of the evening is spent lying about what awesome racers we all are, and trying to talk one of the BW pit crew into jumping in the pool fully clothed for money (it was maybe 50 degrees out).
Friday comes early and with the Touring Car race scheduled for 10am there isn’t much time for goofing off. Brendan Digel joins Craig and me for the fun, and we’re riding the shuttle bus into the paddock from the parking lot when the driver hits a building! Around Road Atlanta there are several, what I would call ‘pole barn’ out buildings. Our driver cut a corner too close and managed to scrape the entire side of his shuttle bus and pushes the corner of the building in a couple of inches. He doesn’t seem too concerned but around 20 people in the bus, most of them probably amateur racers like us are struggling not to giggle. It takes several minutes and multiple steering corrections to get us off the building, but no one else outside the bus seems too dismayed either. I wonder if anyone in charge will ever try and figure out how the building got hit?
I weasel a pit pass so that when the cars line up I’m right down in the action. Everyone is in ‘serious business’ mode so there isn’t a lot of joking around or smiling. I hang around until the cars line up for the standing start down on the track. Then it is off to turn 10 in a truck packed with 10 people. Road Racing requires more thought than other types of spectator sports from its fans. You can’t see the entire track so you have to be smart about where you set up. There are several good viewing locations for Road Atlanta but a classic spot is turn 10, at the end of the back straight away. Typically this is a good spot for passing action, even more so now since the main BW advantage is going to be their straight-line speed and braking. The nice folks at Speed TV have installed a super big jumbotron across the track so we can even try to keep up with the action at other parts of the track.
We’re green flag racing and Seth is in 5th spot and Clay is in 7th or so after the start. He is fighting with one of the Tri-Point Mazdas. For about 4 laps they come into 10a practically side by side with the Mazda on the inside protecting and Clay on the outside. The fifth or so time down, the Mazda tries to squeeze Clay over as they move into the braking zone and it appears that he locks a tire up under braking. Clay turns in and they get tangled up. Clay loses two positions but the Mazda is off the track and loses more. One of the cars directly ahead of him is another Tri-point Mazda piloted by Jason Saini. Its déjà vu as they come into 10a side by side for another few laps. Jason looks to squeeze Clay over even more aggressively to the point where from our vantage point it looks like he is in the grass with two wheels (coming down from 150+mph). They get tangled up and Saini ends up in the gravel trap and his race is over. Clay makes is around another lap or so before his car starts to overheat from busted radiator. #36 DNF.
You can see the first incident here Craig was taking some video from where we watched:
Seth is doing slight better and has managed to get into 4th place. The gravel trapped car brings out a double yellow hopefully giving Seth a shot at catching the lead cars and making a move for the podium. With the unfortunate BW luck that these guys still can’t shake he goes slightly off track in the famous ‘esses’ portion of Road Atlanta and somehow a tire starts rubbing and he ends up with the car overheating as well. He comes in early and it’s another DNF.
Nick Esayian the third car and a guy we met for the first time ends with a career high 6th place. Nick is a total hoot. He manages the Debt Cures book, infomercial, whatever. Look it up. He can really tell a story. He was telling us about some of his accidents and how in one you could see from his in-car camera when he hit the wall doing like 120mph or something crazy he got knocked out. You could see his arms go limp and his head slump over as the car kept going. He then came around (think guy waking up in bed but is really in a speeding car with no pilot) and grabs the steering wheel to get the car stopped. You’ll have to trust me when I say he made this all very funny. He had a good race and stayed out of trouble to end the season on a high note.
We’re back at the trailer going over the play by play of the race with the guys when Jason Saini comes up looking p!ssed off. Apparently during the awards presentation he had made some comments to one of the crew guys saying that the wreck was Clay’s fault. He then came up to James who respectfully disagreed with him. He is back and still wants to beat this dead horse. Keep in mind a) the season is over with this race b) we’re talking about 8th place or something stupid . They retreat into the trailer to watch the in-car footage. Nothing can be determined from that (at least to Jason’s satisfaction). Clay maintains that Jason squeezed him over, Clay held his position until they made contact, Clay then went to turn in. Jason ended up in a gravel trap. This is pretty much what we (the 6 or so people that watched from 10a) saw too. Jason leaves, but comes back 20 minutes later to keep the discussion alive. It ends up going to the SCCA officials that side with Clay. The rules of the series state that ‘racing’ room must be left for a car. You can’t drive into someone to move them out of the way. If they do, that car has no responsibility to move out of their established position.
Due to the broadcasting schedule with Speed nothing can be posted online (from the teams) until the race broadcasts on Wed. the 15th. I have the TIVO set so I can see the different angles but I’m pretty sure I know how it ends.
Saini – who from now on will be called “IN” Saini still wouldn’t let it go and came onto the main BMW forum to tell his side of the story. Unfortunately for him he didn’t convince anyone there either.
All it really did was make a lot of guys that probably would have been Saini fans see what an a$$hole he is. First you don’t yell at crew guys. They’re usually not well paid, and it isn’t anything they have control over anyway – they weren’t in the car. That is just chicken sh!t. When he finally screwed up the courage to talk to Clay face to face he lost a lot of his fire. Saini is a big enough guy, but Clay is probably 6’3 or 4 and anywhere from 230 – 250 depending on his relationship status (haha)… The bad part is Saini is a good story. Mazda is crazy about racing at the grassroots level. The Spec Miata series (which Spec E30) is based on, is probably the biggest amateur racing series today. They also give huge discounts on parts, contingencies, etc. You name it they support it. So why don’t I race Mazdas? Good question. It would probably make more sense. I hate miatas though. I really hate them. Who has ever looked cool driving a miata? No one. Anyway. One other super cool thing Mazda does is called their “ladder system”. In racing the only way you can get ahead at the top levels is to have $$$$$$$$$. Unlike other sports the best guy may be stuck driving around in a parking lot or beater series like ours. Mazda provides a system for guys with talent to move up the food chain. You win spec miata, you go to their semi-pro series MX-5 Cup, you win that, you go to World Challenge. And so on. IN Saini won the MX-5 Cup so they paid for his WC ride. That is a pretty cool story until you find out he is a total douche bag.
