Sunday morning, we woke up to some light rain and rather wet pavement. Throws a nice twist into the day, but that didn’t phase me one bit. Today is the first day I get to really drive the M3. Wet pavement, dry pavement. doesn’t matter. It my first time behind the wheel in competition! Talk about a steep learning curve!
My first shot behind the wheel was at today’s autocross event at Turfway Park. Danny Popp and the Cincinatti Region put on a GREAT autocross course. What’s an autocross? Parking lot + cones (lots of them!) + some chalk = FUN!
And the weather broke enough to dry the pavement so I could get a good idea of just what this beautiful machine is capable of! The first run was rough. slow, lots of wheel spin as I learn the clutch and power delivery of this monster! And not nearly enough speed through the majority of course. Resulting in a 49 .013 second run. Comparably, the fastest Luxury sedan ran a 46.132 first run. Lucky for me, autocrosses are best of 3 separate laps. Now I know a bit, so time to push a bit and see what I can do. Final results are not up yet, but unofficial time for my fastest run time of 43.714. I felt pretty good about the run, and liked that I was able to take a few LARGE steps up that learning curve…
On course at Turfway. I managed to miss all the cones!
Hopefully official results will be up soon, but we are predicting 3rd in class and about 15th overall. Not bad for first time behind the wheel on a very challenging course in less than ideal conditions. I can’t wait until the first road course….
Official results are now up! 3rd in class and 15th overall with a 43.714. I take it for the first run in the car!
It certainly felt good to roll up to the first hotel (of many) last night. A decent dinner and a good nights sleep helped us to be refreshed for day 2! For some reason, I can’t seem to remember exactly which city it was…
Check out the results page, luxury sedan class results are up for the day!
So we had an issue with the rear axle boot, spent a good amount of time under the car (way more than should happen with this beautiful machine!), and ended up installing a “Quick boot” (basically a boot that is cut in half and then glued together on the axle) partially on with duct tape, to get us through to Atlanta where one of the other BMW teams (car # 12 -Mike Renner, Dwayne Mosley and Steve Maguire) has a shop and has been gracious enough to make sure parts and people are there when we show up later on Monday night.
But that didn’t seem to slow the Schaut Speed Racing team down, as Dan threw down a set of blistering and consistant 3 laps for a total time of 5:15.2 seconds. Which was good enough for 8th overall, and 1st IN CLASS!!!!!! Woo Hoo!!! Now that is the right way to start the week!
Other luxury sedan cars finished as follows. Babcock’s right on our heals in 9th, with a 5:15.6, the #12 M3 in 14th, Jonathan in his Dinan M5 in 17th, #69 CTS-V in 21st, and Stubbs hustling that Magnum SRT-8 in 49th.
Dan in Action, coming onto the front straight
Event 1 has come and gone, and so has our first (and hopefully only!) little issue of the week. Wet skid pads are an interesting thing, short, quick, just a couple of circles in 2 different directions. Good tires and a steady foot do well here.
Here’s the car in action, Dan driving on his way to a 0.836g average. Good for 4th in class (looks like we have 6) and 23rd overall (out of about 66). Things should improve out on the road courses, and with learning the car.
But on to the “little issue”. Set-up suggestion from the suspension guys was to disconnect the anti-roll bars. Which we did, on one side. There was enough roll and minimal clearance that the anti-roll bar moved, contacting the axle boot, tearing it. Requires replacement. But this is one lap, so the ‘quick’ repair was duct tape. Followed up by a semi-permanent ’split-boot’ repair kit. Real replacements will be Monday night in Atlanta. Thanks to the BMW guys for getting things set-up for us on that…
Repairs in progress, and what was left of the boot….
lesson 1 learned…
As Brock Yates likes to say, we will be driving around for a week in cars that are cleverly disguised as race cars! Thanks to Cr8tiv Designs, we have one of the best looking cars in the field! So without further ado, I now present Schaut Speed Motorsports #9 BMW M3!
The team is finally together - and I finally get to see the car. It is gorgeous! Here is a shot of what I’ll be living in for the next week.
2008 BMW M3
Its finally Friday! That means its registration day and I’m on my way to the Tire Rack (a nice short 200 mile “pre-leg”) to meet up with the rest of the team, get the BMW ready to go and have the last real sit-down meal for a week. And I wouldn’t have it any other way!
