Schaut Speed Racing Blog

After a nice short 3 hour drive home, I now find myself sitting at the Detroit airport awaiting a flight.  Finally ‘done’ with the driving, I’ve had some opportunity to decompress and think about the past week a bit.  Once again, I had an absolutely awesome week driving around the country and visiting great race tracks with my Dad, and this year is good friend Stan.  I wouldn’t have it any other way - this is the week I am always looking forward to.

Year number 7 for me (and 14 for Dan) ended with some success and desire to have done a bit better (isn’t that always the case?).  I ran the skid pad earlier today; one that luckily stayed dry for the entire field.  We saw records fall and overall positions change.  Its amazing that after a week of racing, its down to the last few (and very short!) laps.  Its also amazing what these ’street’ cars can do.

The M3 felt very balanced out on the skid pad, and I ran a personal best (and Schaut Speed Racing best) 0.995 g’s.  JUST shy of that magic 1 g mark!  Perhaps next year?  But that is not the only record set.  Catesby Jones set a new all time street-tire skid pad record.  He ripped that Nissan GT-R around the 200 foot skid pad with a 1.120!!!!!

We went into the event 30 points ahead of Andy Hollis in his Honda CRX (with a Acura TSX drivetrain stuffed under the hood) and 35 points behind Jark Roush Jr. in one of the 2010 Roush RS3 Mustangs.  Basically, to get into the top ten, I needed to run a time that put me 8 places in front of Jack, AND no more than 6 places behind Andy.  The Honda had incredible potential, the Mustang an unknown…

As it turns out, my 0.995 g that put me in a 3-way tie for 16th, was better than the Mustang - but only by 4 places.  So moving up was close, but not quite enough.  And Andy ran a great couple of laps and was just shy of the old record.  His run of 1.094 put him in 3rd overall, and moved him up to a spectacular 10th place overall finish.  Congrats to those guys for a great run!

On to the awards ceremony, we were treated to some delicious BBQ chicken and steak.  The drivers all mill around, sharing stories of the previous week, and most are already starting to talk about next year - me included

So in the end, the Schaut Speed Racing Active Autowerke supercharged BMW M3 finished with a solid 1st in class and 12th overall.  As a surprise, BMW also sponsors a ‘Honored Marque’ award, and it was us that was called forward as the highest placing BMW!  Sweet!  I feel proud to be able to carry the Bavarian colors.

Over the next week, I’ll be taking some time to go through the rest of the MANY pictures I took during the event, and come up with some stories to go with them.  Stay tuned here for the stories, and links to some of the track videos (once I figure out how to post them).

Until then, keep the dirty side down - I’ll be dreaming about 2012….

Here we are, a week of driving and back where we started.

We are sitting in 11th overall still, and only 8 finishing places out of 10.  There is a chance!  it has come down to the last lap.  oh, and 12th is right behind us…….  we will see how this shakes out here in a few.

Its official!  With one event remaining, Schaut Speed Racing has solidified the luxury sedan class win!

Dan ran a solid second session at Autobahn; this time on the south track.  we are still waiting on results but he was fast out there.  Pays to know the course!    There is a chance we could break into the top 10, but its going to be close!

We are now on our way back to South Bend with a nice short 100 mile drive..  More  to follow later once results are up.

Dan is about to head back on track for second event.

this morning he was 11th overall, 1st in class.  we are now tied for 11th in points.  15 point out of 10th.

Today, we had the opportunity to drive on one the most beautiful tracks in the country - Barber Motorsports Park.  This place is fantabulous!  Not just a very cool and very challenging track and one of the nicest paddocks I’ve even been in, but also park-like grounds for the fans to enjoy.  There is so much beauty, greenery, landscaping and even art, that if you weren’t hearing the thundering sounds of race cars, you’d think you’ve stumbled onto some billionaires private sanctuary!  As and example, here is a very small taste of what can be found around the property.

Barber is a first class track.  Built to be able to host pro level car and motorcycle racing, this 2.3 mile long track has 15 turns of smooth, wide asphalt and a LOT of elevation change!  A few blind corners and rises add to the excitement.  This is one of the big tracks on my (and Dan’s) to do lists.  And with the wonders of One Lap, we are here!

Dan took the first event, running his laps in 5:21.733.  This was good for 13th overall and a mere 0.158 seconds behind the #47 BMW in 12th.   Dang close.  After coming in, the first thing Dan said was ‘That was fun!  I want to come back here”.  Followed by; “The car is loose, I couldn’t get the power down”.  We’ve been fighting that issue as the week has progressed.  The extra power is very nice, but it takes patience and a lot of waiting to add throttle and get the car really moving.  This is something that we will need to address for next year.

Barber is full of art.  Sculptures and landscaping are everywhere.  Here’s Dan coming down the front straight, with one of the cool features in the background.

Over lunch, we had a chance to check out the Barber Museum.  If you are ever in the area and have any interest in motorsport heritage, especially motorcycles, check it out.  It was overwhelmingly awesome.   Barber is an avid collector and has hundreds of bikes covering the last century were on display.   They even have their own full shop in the basement of the museum where they restore their bikes and cars - mostly to showroom condition.  Absolutely spectacular.

After lunch, it is finally my turn to experience all that Barber has to offer.  The top speeds at this track are not very high, but the long, flowing corners are fast so average speeds are high.    Most of the tracks we’ve run on are 2nd or 3rd through 5th.   We only used 3rd and 4th gear at this track (and the top of 3rd at that).

I finished my 3 laps, feeling a little bit bewildered.  It may be partially due to the long weak starting to wear into us, but primarily this track is tough.  Definitely not one that you can learn in a few laps.  I’ve been playing over and over in my mind each corner, braking point and turn exit - analyzing what I did and trying to determine how I could have gone faster.   I exit the car with the same “I gotta get back here again!”  It is a very fun and very challenging track, and I’m up for the challenge!

All said and done today, I finished 16th overall and 1st in class with a time of 5:24.091.  We are holding steady in 11th overall and solid 1st in class.   Tomorrow we will be at Autobahn, a track that Dan knows very well from his years racing Spec Miata.  It’ll be tough to do, but we are not out of the running for another top 10 finish.  With Dan’s knowledge of the tracks at Autobahn, we have a good chance.

Today is also our longest transit.  690 miles.  Luckily, we left Barber fairly early and just cleared the Nashville rush-hour traffic without too much of a slowdown.  I believe we still have 450 or so to go, and are lucky enough to have some excellent driving weather.   Until tomorrow, happy driving! 

I am writing this post from the comforts of a new hotel just a mile or so away from Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds Alabama.  We arrived at the hotel with the final hints of sunlight just disappearing.  We have semi-celebrated Cinco de Mayo (can Quatro de Mayo be a holiday?) with a delicious meal consisting of chips, salsa, enchiladas and margaritas.   Ah, the joys of a short drive!   Last night at this time, we still had a good 300 miles to go.  On the One Lap, you learn to quickly cherish and capitalize on days like there (especially with our 690 mile transit tomorrow!)

Now, back to the results!  I drove the second event at the track formerly known as No Problem Raceway, determined to get a bit of retribution from my little slip up this morning.  I’ve reviewed data and video and played over in my head the earlier session.  With the knowledge, and new brake pads and rotors, I head back out on track for an uneventful second session.  A bit faster, I picked up time in a few key areas but lost some in others - lack of rear-end grip hindered throttle application.  But in the end, I still ran faster than the morning session and moved up in the standings.  my 4:20.294 put me in 14th overall and 1st in class.   Not as quickly as I would have liked, but better than the morning.  We’ll take it and move on.

Full luxury sedan class overall results are as follows:

1. 14th  - #30 BMW - 4:20.294
2. 21st - #59 Porsche - 4:25.445
3. 33rd - #54 CTS-V - 4:29.970
4. 44th - #47 BMW - 4:37.363
5. 45th - #10 S4 - 4:38.019

The #3 GT-R driven by Leh Keen is still kicking butt out there.  This was the first time Leh has even been to this track, and he still rocked everyone.  In other notable news, Todd Treffert (son of Bill, and a class competitor from last year) is doing spectacular in his STOCK Nissan GT-R, currently in 4th overall and placing consistently in the top 10 (usually top 5) at each event.

During the drive up, Dan and I discussed the handling a bit, and decided that the rear tire pressures were too low and is upsetting the balance of the car.  Target is 39 psi both front and rear, but the car came in at 40 psi front and 37/38 in the rear - this pressure differential can create oversteer.  The car is behaving a bit different than last year, and our starting pressures (based on data from last year) are not getting us to the hot pressures we were expecting.  So tomorrow we will try an increased rear cold pressure and decreased front to try to achieve that magic 39/39 split.

Tomorrow is Barber.  The track that I am most excited about from this whole week.   Beautiful facility, great looking track and one that has been on my list of ‘to-drives’ since I first heard about it and watched a Grand-am cup race on TV.    Gotta love the One Lap!  How else could you possibly get to run on so many cool tracks in a life-time - and here we are doing them all in a week!

It’s time to capitalize on the early night and make sure we have enough rest for a very long (and very fun) day tomorrow.

Signing out…

After a decent nights sleep, some breakfast and some confusion on getting to the track (looks like most GPS systems have no idea where Circuit Grand Bayou is - perhaps that is why they changed the name from ‘No Problem’?), we arrive at the track to beautiful sunshine and unusually cool weather.  I heard rumors that the high 40’s the night before were a record low for this time of year.

With Dan and Stan prepping the car, I take off for a recon run around the track.  We’ve been here for past One Laps, and little, if anything has changed.  This little road course uses the tail-end of a drag strip as the front straight; where the drag strip stops (and the gravel trap starts), the road course simply turns left and heads out for some twisty bits.  Technical, flat with a fairly rough/grippy surface.  the only thing to note is some wetness and a puddles on the front straight.

With the high attrition rate (the #8 Porsche GT3 RS is also out now, with a blown clutch at Daytona), I line up behind the #4 Porsche Turbo S driven by Rene von Crazyman (he’s a really cool guy - quite the character!) in the second run group.  Brian Hair is behind me in the #47 M3.  After our recon lap, I take the green and head down to turn 1.  The wetness and puddle I mentioned earlier is still present, and right on the driving line.  The idea is to straddle the puddle and wetness, brake and turn and make it through turn 1 at a high rate of speed.

This works great for the 1st 2 laps, but on the 3rd lap, I’m slightly off line to the right, and the left tires touch the wet pavement just as I’m stabbing the brakes to slow the car from 130 MPH to about 85.  Less traction = more pucker.  The car now does not want to slow nearly as well, or turn for that matter.  I manage to get the car slowed down enough to not take out a few cones (man, I must really have it out for those poor little orange things!) and get back on track.  On the next short straight, I look up in the rearview to see the blue M3 much to large in the mirror.  That little mistake cost a bunch in overall time, about 3 seconds for that lap.  Dang.

I finish out my 3 laps with a time of 4:23.052, 19th overall.  Brian on the other hand ran a blistering 4:11.781 good for 5th place!  He was moving, mistake on my part or not, he was going to kick my butt on this one!

Bill drove his Panamara to a 21st place finish.  Followed in class by the S4 in 43rd and the CTS-V in 48th.

Over lunch break we also swapped out the rotors (we had some pulsation starting at CMP, and worsened with the extreme speeds of Daytona).  This gave us a chance to look at the brake pads, which the fronts were worn down to the rivets.  A track day at Blackhawk farms and the events we’ve had so far have done them in.  The inner pads had even started to delaminate a bit.  Time to swap those out as well (and start trying to figure out a brake cooling solution for next year!)

Daytona results were posted by the time we arrived at Gainsville raceway for the drag races.  My time was good for 7th overall, and 1st in class - this puts us in 10th overall and 1st in class going into the drags.

Drag racing has never been our strong suit during the One Lap, and this year was no exception.  The track was fairly slick, and leaving the DSC on (BMW’s traction control) hindered acceleration in the first few gears dramatically, instead of helping just control wheel spin, for the low ET pass.  Dan’s result was a 14.079 second quarter mile at 108 MPH.  38th place overall and 5th in class.  Ouch.  I think before we see a starting line like this again, we are going to go take a drag racing school….

The bracket drag didn’t go much better, as Dan was out in the first round when he ‘broke out’ by a mere 0.02 seconds.  It was a tough race since Dan crossed the line only a few feet in front of his competitor - That race would have been a win of inches had Dan met his dial time.  But at least a last place finish was a tie for 7th place overall; and all of the Luxury sedan class lost in the first round.

At the end of the up-and-down day, we held on to our 1st place class position and 11th overall.

Drag racing in general is pretty interesting in the vehicles that it tends to bring out.  We found this car - just maybe the definition of ’sleeper’ - that belonged to someone who worked at the track.  It may look unassuming from the outside, but under the hood…

This one was a late update due to the long transit drive last night, which I took the first 250 miles or so.  Sleep was far more important than the blog after that, and rather unavoidable since I fell asleep shortly after we changed drivers.  Luckily, a time change and later start today helped us keep an adequate amount of sleep.  On to the next event!

Last time we were here (2 years ago, and in the same M3), I spun on the first lap coming out of the bus stop.  While I was busy gathering the car up and getting pointed in the right direction, Dan was wondering where I was - only able to hear the tires…   I was intent on not doing that again as I strapped in for my turn at the grand track that the Daytona Road Course is.

But I am also very excited to experience all the new power this car has, and go as fast as I can - not just for a better finishing position, but also because its just plain F-U-N!!!  And after this run, I’m going to have a little smirk and sparkle in my eyes for a while…

I am lined up 2nd in the second run group, behind an Evo.  We get the green and take off in our usual one-by-one fashion.  To make things easier and safer for the One Lap crew, we start on the straight after turn 4 (instead of the Nascar start/finish).  So we get to go through part of the infield before heading out to the oval.  On the back straight, to help keep speeds down and make things more interesting, we go through a left/right/right/left called the ‘bus stop’, at speeds around 80 mph.  After that, we are back on the oval all the way to turn 1 where we dive back into the infield.

Out on the oval, the extra power really shines!  Last time here, we had the speedometer showing 170 mph, and figured actual speeds were ~155.  With the supercharger pushing the extra ~200 HP, we were seeing over 190 MPH on the speedometer coming down the front straight at Daytona!

After 3 very fast, very fun and clean (yes!  no spins this year!) laps, I get the checkered flag and head back into the pits.  There is some very good potential to at least equal Dan’s placement from the morning.  The car is simply awesome.  It felt great on track - balanced, easily controllable and those high speeds are just incredible!  Data acquisition showed my top speed to be 173.955 MPH!  Wow.  That is by far the fastest I have ever driven, and a scant 2 mph faster than Dan :D.  Having this kind of opportunity is spectacular, especially when I can share these experiences with my father. 

The second run has tacoed the license plate even more, with the upper-left corner practically bent completely over….  And its shrinking…  The price you pay for an extra 200 hp.

We are on our way to Gainsville for the drag races.  I’ll be anxiously waiting for the results from my run…

Results from this morning were astounding!  Dan finished 6th overall with a time of 6:33.635!  Leh Keen was once again the class of the field finishing his 3 laps in 5:49.808, 35 seconds ahead of the next competitor!  The top 5 consisted of all 3 Nissan GT-Rs, the Porsche Turbo and one of the Roush Mustangs.

The luxury sedan class was spread out a bit.  The #47 M3 was in 9th, CTS-V in 35th, S4 in 46th and Panamara in 50th.

With our placement, we are up to 10th overall.  Very good place to be, especially with the low place at the beginning of the week.