Schaut Speed Racing Blog

Hello Race Fans!

Stay tuned here for updates on all the Schaut Speed Motorsports racing happening!  The following posts tell the story of our 2013 One Lap of America adventure.

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Ben Schaut

This week has been full of fun, sun, miles and smiles.  Throw in a bit a rain to mix things up and a whole bunch of close racing with back-and-themselvesforth placing and we end up where we are now.  Day 6 is over, the last of the road-course time trials are done.  The only event left is the dry (as long as mother nature plays nice) skid pad back at the Tire Rack in South Bend Indiana tomorrow morning.

This has been a roller-coaster of a ride, with the Schaut Speed Racing M3 battling neck-and-neck with the BMW Performance Center M6, swapping leads and starting each day in a tie.  The Sparrow/Grace M3 has been a factor all-along as well, taking a few session wins and further adding to the excitement and fun!  And today the Treffert/Myers Panamara managed to sneak into the fray with a 2nd place finish in the afternoon….  It has been a long, fun week with a great group of competitors.

Today was not like the rest.  Not only did we start the day in the lead (albeit a only a mere 5 points!), we woke to a full-on rain storm.  We managed to find some garage space to unload our gear in - shortly after which, the rain let up.  The little cell of rain was past us, but had done its thing and thoroughly soaked the track - the first time this week when we would start on a wet track.

With me getting to play all day yesterday at VIR, Dan was first up to tackle the wet but drying track - with a breeze and the sun attempting to break through the clouds, the track was sure to dry out, but when?  Certainly not for the first group as the uber-fast GT-Rs and Vipers were kicking up rooster-tails of mist.  A dry line was just starting to form as the top 4 Luxury sedans all hit the track in the same run group, but the track was still mostly wet.  Dan headed out on track, leading the M6, M3 and Panamara.

A familiar sight, with the M3/M6 nose to tail...

Sliding around the track, especially into turn 1 to the pit-lane crowds enjoyment, Dan managed to complete the 3 laps in a very respectable 3:41.052 good for 14th place overall and 2nd in class.  Renner was able to eek out every last bit of grip from the M6 to run a blistering 3:36.006 god for 8th overall.  Running a few groups after us, the AMG used the drying track to his advantage to place 19th with a 3:43.356.  Next up was Grace in the M3, struggling a bit with the wet placing 24th overall running a conservative 3:44.604 - still better than sliding off the track!  Treffert came in 35th with a 3:50.915.  The morning session saw many of the cars that are normally at the back of the pack finishing much further up the order, being able to take advantage of a much drier track.  For instance, the 3 HHRs, normally placing in the 40s, were 13th, 18th and 22nd.

Front straight at BeaveRun, damp track

So we headed into the lunch break tied once again.  I guess it just wouldn’t be right if we didn’t have a tie at some point again today….   By now the track was dry (well, dry where cars should be driving at least!), and the decision was for me to run and try to get the maximum out of the car so we could finish the day in the lead.  After watching a bunch of laps to get my turn-in points down, I headed out for a track-walk/recon and to check out any wet areas / curbing.  The track looked good and I had my spots dialed in.  We once again got the 4 top Luxury Sedans together for the same run group, with me taking the point.

I knew what I needed to do; run a faster 3-lap cumulative time than Renner in the M6 to give us a 5 point lead heading into the dry skid-pad where we would try to hold on and at least only be 1 place back from Renner.  A tie at the end of this week will give us the win, since we have a lower total race-time over the whole week - While we have a lower time, after over 71 minutes of track time, we are only a few seconds ahead…..

I had my work cut out for me, since we all know that the M6 is fast.    But I managed and I knew I had run a good session. :D  Hitting my marks, using a lot of curbing and all the power I could put down,  I ran a 3:19.981 for a close 11th place (just 3-tenths of a second out of another top 10…), besting the M6 by 3.119 seconds!  Score, 5 point lead!  Robin brought his M3 home in 3:28.357 in 22nd, followed closely by Wilks in 24th with a 3:28.731.

I haven’t mentioned the Panamara yet.   For a good reason.  Much to our surprise (and delight!), Myers managed to slog the Panamara to a 13th overall in 3:21.652 to beat out Renners 15th / 3:23.100.  That great run by Andrew increased the gap to the M6 by another 5 points!  So, we head back to where it all began, ~3400 some miles, 14 (maybe?) states and 6-day of driving/racing/smack-talking/bench racing/sleeping/driving and more driving sitting in 1st in class with a tiny little 10 point lead and 6 second advantage….Talk about a battle to the end!

The math says that all we need to do is finish within 2 places of the M6 to take the win.  Not to say we are not going to get around that little circle as quick as we can….

Wish us luck.  4 in-a-row sure would be sweet!

This year’s One Lap of America has been spectacular.  Not only has the close competition been a blast, but we’ve had some pretty nice weather as well.  Today was NO exception, with a cloud-dotted blue skies and warm weather.  Just adds to the beauty of Virginia International raceway.

Today we got to run the South, North and Full courses here at VIR.  This is a fast, fun track with a few big-boy corners, especially the full course with the high-speed esses….

With our close battle with Mike Renner in the M6, the decision was to allow me to run all 3 events today to maximize our chances of ending the day ahead of the group, and not tied like we have been every single day this One Lap!

First event of the day was the south course - shortest one which uses the last half of the esses and the first 3/4 of the back straight, linked in with some tight corners and big elevation changes.  This was my first time out on the south course (I’ve only run the north course here), but I was able to get enough out of the car and not screw up too many corners to come in 13th overall with a 4:03.350 and 1st in class. Right on my tail was Mike in 15th with a 4:03.750 in the M6 and just a touch behind him was “Superstar Bobby G” in the M3 with a 4:04.002 good for 16th - his home-track knowledge/advantage balancing out the extra power and aero that we have.  Myers flogged the Panamara around to come in nipping at Grace’s heels with a 4:04.309 for 17th.  Wilks brought the Merc in with a 4:17.779 after trying an alternative line through turn 1, missing the turn-in point and having to use some extra pavement to get the car slowed, turned around and headed back in the right direction.  It happens to the best of us (more on that later…)

Next up was the North course, with run groups starting just about right away, so we headed back over to the other side of the track (VIR is a rather large facility).  I lined up behind Renner and we headed out on track.  On the outlap, we drove by a gaggle of geese (is that how you say it when there are 20+ geese wandering around?) just on the side of the track between turn 3 and 4.   Eek.  We take the green and head out, geese still there but luckily not a factor (yet…).  But unfortunately, near the end of the 2nd lap the #9 Mitsubishi Evo lost it in ‘hog-pen’ and ended up in the tire wall on the outside of the track (driver was fine, and the car ran the afternoon session).  These guy have not had much luck this week, taking out a tire wall at CMP as well - the one glimmer of silver-lining was that the hit the same corner damaged at CMP…..

The Session was black-flagged and we made our way back into the pit so the VIR crew could sclean up the mess.   Once release, we head out for another recon lap.  I come around turn 3 to see the M6 stopped on the left side of the track and geese meandering ALL OVER THE TRACK, with one sitting about 15 ft in front of Renner’s car, with some puffs of white down/feathers about - The bird managed to fly / walk off the track after a bit, and Renner’s car appeared to be OK other than the low-mounted camera being adjusted (can’t wait to see that video!), and he did take the green after a bit of time for the corner crews to clear the birds out of the area

The extra few hot-laps certainly seemed to help me get a bit of a handle on the track.  And it paid off as I managed to run a 5:11.771 good for 1st in class and 11th overall.  Renner was next with a 5:13.661 in 13th.  5 more points for our lead.  Robin ran the M3 this time, coming in 18th with a 5:21.006, followed by Treffert in 22nd with a 3-lap time of 5:22.964.  Wilks ran a 5:34.818 for 28th place.

After a nice lunch and a cool photo-op with all the BMWs under the VIR bridge (I’ll try to post that pic up here when I can find it online), we headed out for the full course.  The afternoon was not without drama as the Mercedes SLR driven by Todd Treffert over-cooked turn 16 (same place the Evo went off) and went off - and while he didn’t hit any tire walls, he did manage to find a ditch which tore off the splitter, popped both front tires, set off the air bags and did some other significant damage to the car.  There was a long clean-up / recovery break after that.

Once we got the green to go racing again, we headed out.  I lined up behind the M6 and M3, figuring I could learn something from them on the recon lap (both Renner and Grace have many laps here) - this was my first time seeing the esses at speed, entering them at about 130 mph… I didn’t know yet just how fast the car could make it through so didn’t have full confidence.  Following and watching seemed to help, and I was able to work up the confidence to blast up the esses with less speed reduction each lap.  Lap 1 to lap 2 gaps to Grace’s M3 were shrinking, but I didn’t know by how much or how I was comparing to the M6.  Lap 3, I only had to breath off about 1/4 throttle, which gave me 4-5 mph more - car handled it fine but I seemed to forget about the last little bend.  Coming out of the esses, I was positioned too far to the left and knew I couldn’t make the turn at the speeds I was doing (roughly 100mph…), hard on the brakes but out of position, I slid off the end of the track before the left hander.  Luckily, there isn’t anything to hit out there and I was able to slow enough to not leave the pavement too far behind me.  I just extended the turn a bit wider…..   I knew I had just thrown away a great run, but I didn’t know how much…..    Checking the Data Acquisition, the mistake cost me 4.8 seconds…..

Turns out I got lucky that Dan added in the supercharger and aero.  The power and corner speeds for the rest of the session were enough to stay close, finishing 12th overall with a 6:45.214 and 3rd in class.  Also luckily, Grace blasted around the full course getting everything out of the M3, running a 6:42.406 for 10th place, which put Renner’s M6 in 11th overall and 2nd in class with his 6:44.429.  The Panamara ran a 7:07.362 for 23rd overall, and the AMG came in 28th with a 7:15.254.

With Grace doing so well on the full course, it means that we only lost 5 pts in class due to my alternate choice of line through turn 10…..   AND it means that we end the day in 1st place in the Luxury Sedan Class!!!  It’s only 5 points, but we will take it!

We are now on our way up to Beaver Falls, PA for the last 2 time trial events at Pittsburgh International Raceway (formerly BeaveRun - which is a much better name for a race track that happens to be located near Beaver Falls….), and I have been enjoying the gorgeous drive and scenery.  64/81 and the Blue Ridge Parkway are must-see drives in my opinion.  Looking forward to a good meal with the rest of the BMW groups and then a good nights rest going into the last day as this tight battle continues!

Today we started the day once again at square 1, tied in points with the BMW Performance Driving School BMW M6.  And after a full day of racing 2 events at Carolina Motorsports Park and a single event at the BMW Performance Center, we make our drive up to VIR in, wait for it…….   1st place, tied with Renner in his M6!   I love me a close battle!  This one looks like it’ll go right down to the end….

We were greeted to sunshine, blue skies and green stuff all over the place at Carolina Motorsports Park.  We even had a good 7 hours of sleep last night AND were able to enjoy some bench racing with a bunch of fellow One Lappers over a pint of brew.   I knew it could be a good day.  And good it was.

I ran all 3 events today, as we are trying to gain some advantage and not lose any ground - when 1 driver can run both events at a track, as most teams do (Renner is the only one racing the M6), they can gain/keep an advantage just by having run the previous 3 hot-laps.  So as to attempt to not lose that advantage, I ran both at CMP.  This worked out to our advantage, as I was able to finish 1 place ahead of Renner in both session.  Those 10 points we knew that we needed, since BMW is his stomping grounds and we knew that Renner would do very well.

In the morning session, Robert Grace drove some magic laps in the other M3 to just eek me out for 1st in class.  His 5:22.709 was good for 11th place; half a second back, I was 12th overall.  Renner trailed us by just a few spots finishing 15th with a 5:26.618.  Next up was Wilks in the AMG in 25th with a 5:37.683, followed closely by Treffert in 26th with a 5:38.019.  So with this finish, we gained 5 pts on the M6, momentarily stepping into the lead…

Afternoon session was a slightly different course configuration, with a couple of tight right handers replacing a fast right-hand sweeper.  This time around I managed to beat out the rest of the class with a 5:34.778 for 13th, 1 place ahead (and 5 more points!) than Renner’s M6 with a 5:37.295.  The rest of the group had a mere 0.6 second spread, with Wilks in 20th with a 5:43.113 followed by Sparrow in the M3 in 21st with a 5:43.467 and Myers in the Panamara in 23rd with a 5:43.712.

It amazes me at just how close we tend to be in times after 3 hot laps!

So headed out from CPM for BMW, we had a 10 point lead on the M6.  But would it be enough to keep the lead at the end of the day?  We expected Renner, with his intimate knowledge of the BMW Performance Center track (he does work there afterall, and has MANY laps on the various portions of the track).  Robert was an unknown since he has never been to the facility, but has been showing his spectacular abilities behind the wheel of the M3….

Renner put on a show, hustling that big M6 around in a 4:16.331, good enough for an awesome 8th place overall.  Not too shabby on a car that weighs a bunch more and with less power than  many of the cars he beat out.  My run was what I would consider a bit rough….  Not my best drive, even for a first time around the track, and contemplated all the places I knew I should have been faster while on the cool down.  Unfortunately for us, and awesome for them, Grace had a great run, running a 4:21.704 to beat my 4:22.434, placing us 15th and 16th respectively.   And effectively erasing the 5 point lead I had hoped we would have been able to keep going into tomorrow.  Bonus for Grace/Sparrow is that with today’s performances, they are in 3rd in class with a bit of a cushion to the Panamara.

So as we head out way over to  Virginia International Raceway, we once again sit atop the leader-board alongside the M6.  What a week it has been!

4.5 hours of sleep.  To some, not nearly enough.  To One Lappers, well, it happens.  After a long transit of 650 miles last night, with a small delay to have a tire shop put our good tire onto one of our spare (and straight…) rims, we pulled into Daytona Beach around 1:30 AM.  We were not the only ones; despite only seeing 3 other One Lap cars during the transit, we pulled into the hotel parking lot along with 4 other teams and saw others still unloading and checking in or hanging out.

The cherry on top of the lack-of-sleep salad (yeah, I said salad) is that we are in Daytona Beach!  Which can mean only 1 thing; we had the awesome opportunity to once again blast around the Road Course at Daytona International Speedway!!!

Dan was first up today and entered the track on a beautiful sunny day, with just a few clouds dotting the blue skies.  The extra power that the Active Autowerks Supercharger really helps us out on a track like this - And apparently the aero, while slowing down top speeds (we only managed 170 mph this year, compared to mid-high 170’s in 2011), also helped quite a bit since overall lap times were much faster than last time we visited this great track.

BMW crew at Daytona

We ended up 2nd in class and 14th overall in the morning session.  Renner ran a 6:22.131 good for 11th place to Dan’s 6:25.567.  Treffert and Grace were neck and neck with the Panamara finishing 17th with a time of 6:33.073, just beating out the M3 in 18th with a 6:33.613.  The AMG of Wilks was a few more ticks behind in 21st with a 6:36.532.  These results dropped up to 2nd in class behind Renner and up to 17th overall.

Weeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!! That's 170 MPH right there!

After a quick bit to eat (mmmmmmm, fried chicken!), data/video review and a fun few parade laps (Dan driving, me in passenger seat), I suited up to take on this epic track for the second session.  Temps were about 10-15 degrees higher, which definitely impacted power a bit - My top speed was 169.2 vs. Dan’s 170.4 MPH.  But what I lacked in top end speed, I got back (and then some!) by knowledge gained with the data review.  We determined that the bus-stop could be taken much faster and in 4th gear instead of 3rd.  Ahhhhh, the wonders of aerodynamics!

I was gridded up right behind the big, white M6.  With the bogey in my sights I set off to see what i could do.  Fast and fun, the laps seemed to go by all to fast, and the M6 kept getting bigger in my sights.  Renner managed to improve his time to a 6:21.417, equaling his 11th place finish from the morning session.  I smoked that, dropping our time down 7 seconds for a 6:18.645, placing us 8th overall (and right on the heels of Todd Trefferts amazing SpeedConcepts Mercedes, which sounds, and moves like, a jet!).  Andrew dropped a bunch of time in the Panamara as well, finishing 14th with a 6:27.221, followed by Wilks in the AMG in 18th with a 6:33.632.  Sparrow cruised the track in a 6:45.106 for 26th.

The day was not without some drama.  The #1 GTR of Keen/Wilks blew a tire on their outlap in the morning session, and while they got it fixed/replaced and ran the session, they received a 10-second penalty for running out of order.  They still managed to place 3rd overall.  That car/driver combo really is that blazingly fast!  The #34 2012 Camaro (race car.  really), also had some issues with a blown half-shaft.

In the afternoon, one of the Vipers made contact with the tire wall in the bus-stop.  Driver is OK and the word is the car has only minor cosmetic damage.  Once the released the cars again, the Porsche GT3 RS that was in that same run-group also “had a moment” - I have no additional details other than that incident created a ~25 minute delay.   Hopefully it is an easy repair and we will see them at CPM tomorrow.

Once again, all this activity and racing with more points being added to our total, we are still TIED for 1st with the M6.  This battle is gonna go down to the end!   Something is a bit screwy with the official results right now, so I am not sure where we stand overall, but I imagine the 8th place finish should help a bit

Monday.  While everyone else heading into work, packing up the roadways, we managed to slowly move our way through the traffic to find ourselves at the very new NOLA Motorsports Park.  This immense and beautiful facility is a bit of a gem on the south side of New Orleans, with a coutry-club type setting.  A few of the One Lappers have been here (like Andy Hollis, who helped test the new BFGoodrich Rivals) but this is a new track for many of us.

The track is flat and fast with some pretty technical bits.  And long.  2.75 miles is the configuration we used for this.  For this run, we split the driving duties with Dan running the morning and my the afternoon.

Learnign the track can be tough; Dan ran faster each lap but left a lot on the table in his outlap.  6:09.583 was the total time, 19th overall and 3rd in class.   Renner ran a 6:06.474 for 2nd in class and 15th overall.  Wait, what?  neither of us took top honors?   Nope, that honor goes to Grace in the M3 coupe running a 6:05.402.  There was some loud cheers and a very exuberant Robin jumping around his paddock area shortly after the results were posted - Kudos to Robert for runnign a great set of laps.  Wilks beat out Treffert, with 23rd and 28th being thier respective places with times of 6:14.014 and 6:19.158.

After reviewing video and data, I found a few places where I thought I could pick up time for the afternoon session.  I did find a whole bunch of time, but feel as I could have gone much faster in a key spot on the track.  On the recon lap, I added too much throttle too soon in turn 7, dropping a few wheels off the track - this unfortunately put a slight bend in the left front wheel.  I wasn’t sure what exactly was wrong, other than I had one heck of a vibration in left turns…   I thought maybe I hurt the right front tire, so was wary about left hand turns, especially the high-speed turn 9…  during the run, I over-slowed the car for 9 and had some grip issues with a few of the other left turns, this impacted my time, but not enough to keep me from smoking the rest of the Luxury Sedan class.

I crossed the finish line in a time of 6:01.580, good for 13th overall.  Next up, in 16th was Renner with a 6:07.479 with Myers on his heels in the Panamara finishing 17th with a 6:07.954.  Wilks nearly equaled his morning time with a 6:14.180 good for 22nd. Robin brought his M3 in 26th with a 6:19.120.

The spectacular day of racing is being capped with one of the biggest drives of the week.  650 miles across 4 states down to Daytona.  And we will start day 4 once again TIED with Renner in the M6.  Treffert/Myers are also now tied with Sparrow/Grace.  Good close battles!

Day 2, yesterday, had potential for weather making a big impact.  And it did.  The short of it, we all thought it would be raining in the morning, or at least rain while we were at Talladega Grand Prix Raceway.  Well, it didn’t rain there.  In fact, the sun came out and it was warm.

The rain did find us, but not until we were on our way up to the Alabama Drag race place…   As its much to dangerous to run a drag race in the rain, that event was cancelled.  Much to some’s dismay, but I’m glad we didn’t have to run it.  Not only is that type of event very hard on the cars, I think we have a disadvantage at the drag events due to a pretty much total lack of experience and a car that likes to light up the tires easily through 3rd gear - heck, with all the power you can get moving with no spinning, roll into the throttle and by the time the engine gets up to 5k RPM, the rear tires will break loose.  FUN, but not exactly fast - especially compared to the cars with paddle shifts and launch control.  So, we got a bit lucky on that one…

We entered day 2 tied for 1st with the entire luxury sedan class.  Yup, 5-way tie!   its good to keep the competition close…  We ended the day still tied for 1st, but now with just 1 other car; the BMW M6 driven by Mike Renner.  Thinking back through the years, we seem to always be in a tight, fun battle with the BMW Performance School guys - and I’d have it no other way!

We entered the day deciding that, with the unknown weather, if it was a dry session I would run and if it was wet Dan would run.  Turns out they were both dry so I piloted the car around the course for both - finally getting a chance to get used to the car and try to dial in the aero.  We started with the wing at about half-way to max attack angle, really having no idea where it needed to be.  Talking to a few of those with lots of aero experience, it is apparently easier to tune out understeer (too much rear wing) vs. oversteer (not enough).

In short, a bit too much wing the first time around, with push coming out of the higher speed corners. It basically created a situation where I needed to adjust speed during the 2nd half of the turn and wait for the car a bit, which is a little slow…   end result was a 3-lap total time of 3:22.861, just 0.453 seconds off of Renners time; we finished 12th and 13th.  Bill ran the morning session in the Panamara to a 19th place with a 3:26.156, followed by Robert in the M3 in 21st with a time of 3:26.540 - another incredibly close separation.  Wilks brought the AMG in 29th with a 3:30.482.

After an excellent BBQ Pulled Pork lunch (with some damn fine home-made BBQ sauce!), and despite weather sites saying pending rain and a drop in temps, we hit the afternoon session with dry track and sun still shining.  The track conditions (sunload/heat) meant a slower track.  We made an adjustment to the wing, dropping the angle of attack down to as flat as we could go.  The change helped, as the balance of the car was significantly improved over the morning session.

The change to the wing, and a bit better handle on the car, allowed be to drop my total time by half a second down to 3:22.258, although a few cars managed to get faster and overall finish was 14th.  Renner lost a few seconds, coming in 17th with a 3:24.146.  the young Andrew Myers nearly matched his Grandpa’s time with a 3:26.932 and came in 21st overall.   Next up was the M3 piloted this time by Robin, 3:26.363 was his total time coming in 25th.  Wilks brought his AMG in 27th with a 3:30.235

So, all said and done, we finished the day with more points, but still the same number as the M6.  With the cancellation of the drag strip, we were able to head down to New Orleans a bit early.  This also gave us a great opportunity to grab a nice sit-down dinner, which we did as a nice group.  Best part about the One Lap?  Sitting down for a nice meal and bench racing with the same guys you’ve been racing hard against!

We are currently having a nice Sunday Cruise on our way down to New Orleans, where we will spend the night before heading out to the new NOLA track for Mondays pair of event.  I figured I’d use this time to catch up a bit and tell you all about the competition this year.

The Luxury Sedan class is a bit smaller than it has been in the recent pass, but we have a good mix of fine German machinery.  3 BMWs, a Porsche and a Mercedes.  For this year, One Lap has allowed coupes to be run in Luxury Sedan IF the same car is also available as a sedan.  Therefore, we have a coupe version of the M3 and M6 joining us; I am glad for the extra competition (although I really wish BMW would have brought out a 4-door version of the M6, I was looking forward to checking one of those beasts out in person!)

We have a lot of familiar faces in the group, not all former Luxury Sedan drivers, but 7 of the 10 are One Lap veterans.

So, of course there is the #12 entry from Schaut Speed Racing team with Father/Son team Dan and Ben Schaut - For this year, we made a small upgrade by adding a front splitter and rear wing to our 2008 BMW M3 sedan.  Power is up from the stock 414 hp to ~580 hp thanks to the Active Autowerks supercharger.  More race-orientated suspension and Stoptech calipers with Cobalt Friction brake pads have been fitted along with some nice wide, sticky tires.  A potent package for sure!   And for your viewing pleasure, a glamor shot!

Schaut Speed Racing M3

Next up is the BMW Performance Center crew with Mike Renner (BMW driver trainer) piloting the #15 2013 BMW M6.  He is joined by Steve Maguire.  These guys are running in the “Stock Touring” sub-class; any sedan/economy car that is stock (tire/brake upgrade allowed) can run in this sub-class, and the top placing car will receive a trophy.  The M6 is a big powerful car with lots of fun electronic toys.  Its worthy of mentioning that Renner is likely the most well versed driver in our class, with many many miles driving these M-cars at their limits, and getting paid for it!

The Mighty M6

With a seemingly very small #26 on the side of their large car, Bill Treffert returns, along with his Grandson Andrew Myers in their 2010 Porsche Panamara Turbo.  This is, to my knowledge, the first Grandfather/Grandson team, and the first time 3 generations have been in competition (Todd Treffert, Bill’s son, is also here this year competing in a very cool modified Mercedes).  The Panamara is an amazing machine and able to move its large size and hefty weight around with unbelievable ease.   Those Porsche engineers must be pretty smart, since it sure seems like that car can defy physics!

Pannnnnnnaaaaaammmmmaaaaarrrrrrraaaaaaa

The second BMW M3, this one a coupe, is wearing a 37 on its side and is being driven by returning One Lapper Robin Sparrow, and one of the lap puppies (and SpecE30 racer) Robert Grace.  Lightly modified with a Dinan chip/exhaust, they came over from SSGT1 Big bore to join us in Luxury Sedan.  We met Robin years ago on the One Lap, and have become good friends - strengthened with both of us running BMW marque.

e9x crew

To round out our little field is David Wilks and Mark Pflaum (yeah, David is the brother of Doug Wilks, the guy who has built just a few amazing cars that combined with Leh Keen has been an unbeatable combination).  The #63 (or 6.3) is a TopSpeed (Dougs speed shop) tuned 2010 Mercedes Benz AMG C63.  Lots of mods on this beast with a bunch of power ( possibly 600+), suspension tweaks, upgraded brakes and one mean sounding exhaust!  One of the best sounding cars out on track.  This is a big change from David’s ride last year - the Media Truck  (a converted ambulance).

Mad Merc

So there you have it.  Now that I have introduced the competition, please continue to watch this space for results and updates from the Luxury Sedan class.

Greetings race fans!  Here we are, early spring - temps are rising, grass is green and growing, engines are thumping and brakes are squealing.  Yup, it is time once again for Brock Yates’ One Lap of America!!!!!

I will once again be blogging about our fun and adventure as we cruise around the country, visiting great race tracks and putting the 2008 BMW M3 through its paces, defending out win in the Luxury Sedan class and make it 4 in a row!

We (Dan and Ben) are currently on our way down to Birmingham, AL for day 2 at Talladega Grand Prix raceway.  Good driving so far after a busy first day.

Like always, we started the day at The Tire Rack in South Bend, IN for a wet skid pad.  From there we headed down to Grissom Air base for an autocross.

The Wet skid pad certainly could have gone better.  We tried something new, running the DCS (traction control) on - not such a good idea, as the system cut enough power that I couldn’t utilize it to help rotate the car - result was a car that just wanted to push, and ultimately much to slow around the skid pad - 0.679 g’s, which was only good for 5th (out of 5, DOH!) in class and 47th out of 62 starters overall…   Not the best way to start - all I can say now is “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!”  David Wilks pulled a very solid .773 in his AMG c63 for 17th, followed by Mike Renner who is back in a new BMW M6 in 19th with a .760.  Bill Treffert (and his grandson Andrew Myers - 1st time 3 generations have been racing One Lap together) pulled .725 for 31st and Robin Sparrow / Rob Grace a .685 for 45th place.

A quick jaunt in good weather down to the base, I walked the track - a nice sea of cones.  Last time we were here, I may have knocked a cone around a bit with my GoPro camera.  Camera is now on the roof, so shouldn’t be an issue.   Fingers crossed?  ha!  1st run I may have picked up a cone.  I saw 2 down on course, but dont recall hitting any.  Meh, in the end it didn’t matter since each run was a second faster than the last.  I worked my way through the cones and managed to run a solid 58.566 second clean run.  Tied for 2th overall, and an easy 1st in class.

The most interesting bit of the autocross, as a class we flipped.  Wilks put on a great show with some awesome power slides out of the beastly AMG - but sometimes what looks cool is slow.  He ran a 61.889 only good for 38th overall.  Next up was Renner pushing the beast of the M6 through the cones in 61.152 seconds for 34th.  Myers piloted the boat of a Panamarea around the course coming in 31st with 60.800 seconds.  Rob sliced through the cones in the M3 coupe in 59.783 for 27th.   The end result?  Well, all 5 of us are TIED with 30 pts each.   So we basically had fun today and will start day 2 at square 1

Sometimes it just works out to be more exciting!

Until tomorrow…

Well, if you are reading this than you know that it is once again One Lap week!   Hooray!!!!!  And I once again will be blogging about our adventures and results throughout the week - Hooray again!

And you may have also realized that i pulled the ultimate drama TV show move, and left one heck of a cliff hanger from last year…   Year, I apparently completely forgot to close out the results from last year.   I’m gonna go with I was just so pumped from how the last few events unfolded.  We ended up tied in points for 11th with David Chow in the other M3 - we ended up taking the win based on total track time - in addition, we took the Luxury sedan class win.  It was all down to the end…  And exciting finish to a great year.

So now that I have that little bit taken care of, enjoy the 2013 edition of the Schaut Speed Racing One Lap of America Blog!

The drive in last night was tough.  The busyness of the week and the many miles have started to wear us (and some of the cars) down.  A good night sleep and forecast for beautiful weather made waking up refreshing, with a hint of excitement!  This is the one track for the year that I know very well, since it is one of the tracks that I frequent with my club racing endeavors.  Not to mention the years and years of spending childhood weekends playing at RA while Dan was racing Sprites and Formula Vs.  We had very good potential to do well here.  The long straights definitely help the power cars, which is both a blessing (more than 2 times the power as 10th place car) and curse (the rest of the top 10 all have 600-800+ HP….).  But track knowledge can overcome raw power.  For safety reasons, we ran the event using the “Bend”, a slow 90 degree left / 110 degree right onto the back straight, instead of the normal, high-speed ‘kink’.

With temps in the mid-60’s, sunny skies and a paddock full of vipers and corvettes (we were sharing the track with a car club), Dan lined up the M3 on grid.  The big 4 mile track can safely handle more cars without concern for overtaking.  8 car in the first run group meant we were out in the 2nd.   After a touch of excitement on the warm-up lap (the ZR-1 that was 10 pts behind us) appeared to be moving off-line, but instead was starting to swerve to warm up his tires, as Dan was passing.  Some quick avoidance move meant only the mirrors touched…  Left one this time!  This actually shuffled the starting order, as Nate in the #47 M3 passed both, while Dan passed the Vette.  With the excitement done, green flag dropped and Dan pulled away, hoping to chase down the other M3 while keeping the ZR-1 at bay.  3 laps latter, Dan crossed the finish line, but no #47 M3 in sight.  Nate had run out of gas on track, coming to rest just after turn 12.  This was David and Nate’s first snafu of the week, scoring a DNF and 0 pts.  Dan meanwhile had a great run placing 11th overall and 1st in class.

One event can change so much.  Just as we had dropped all the way back to 48th at the start of the week due to the 10 second penalty from hitting the cone at the oval, the #47 car lost its points cushion.  After the 1st event of the day, we were now tied for points in class.  It is amazing how we can go an entire week, drive thousands of miles and race so many events, only to have the class championship come down to the last 2 events!

Unfortunately, there was some more carnage today.  Our good friends in the Rochester Evo blew their engine; simply let go on the front straight.   And Dubler in the CTS-V wagon lost brakes going into turn 8.  To try to slow the car a bit before hitting the tire wall, he moved track left to try to use the concrete barrier to scrub some speed.  This worked, but still wasn’t enough, as he made it through the gravel trap in 8, and ended up rolling over the tire wall.  Thank goodness the Caddy has stout chassis, as the driver was able to walk away with only a minor scrape on his hand.

With this being the last road course and the track being just simply awesome, I got to drive the afternoon.  With both of us having good knowledge of the track, there was little concern about losing time to our competitors from morning to afternoon ( most drivers improve a bit from morning to afternoon, just by learning the track a bit, which we both already know very well).  I lined up and noticed that David was riding his bike around, which meant that Nate was going to be behind the wheel - they decided to put the better driver in the car to try to get 1st place back going into the skid-pad.  I’ve been close in time to Nate earlier in the week, and we can only run as fast as we can, so I put that behind me and headed out on track.

The power of the M3 certainly makes Road America a different track when compared to racing the Spec Miata.  Speeds are significantly higher, hitting 155 mph in the M3, vs only 120 in the Miata.   Both the car and the track bring a smile to my face - if it wasn’t for the helmet, everyone would have been able to see me beaming after that run was over.  A fast, fun track and a session that I felt good about.  And like father, like son, I came in 11th overall and 1st in class.  And even more amazing, my total time over 3 laps was 8 minutes 11.824 seconds.  Dan’s time this morning was 8 minutes 11.800 seconds.   Not too shabby!

Apparently, there was even less reason to worry about Nate running a faster time and pulling back ahead of us.  Running out of fuel in the first session triggered some check-engine codes which were not going away and has seemed to have impacted the engine.  Dave ended up running the event, and the car didn’t sound the same and was off pace.  Hopefully it isn’t a terminal issue and we see them at the skidpad tomorrow.

Dave ended up finishing 35th overall and 5th in class, but at least he was able to finish and the car is still running.  Renner placed the M5 in 14th, followed by Dawn in the Panamara in 22nd and Rene had a good run to 24th.  Eric was 42nd the #55 S4, and the remaining CTS-V (which incidentally, was the driver/car that lost brakes 2 years ago going into turn 12 here at RA) in 45th.

With today’s results, good on our part and unfortunate on others, we have managed to break into the top 10!  We now have a 20 point lead in Luxury Sedan class and are in a tight battle for 9th place.  We are tied in points at 5570 with the ZR-1, with the ZR-1 edging us out in cumulative time, and Andy Hollis in his CRX is a mere 5 pts back in 11th.   It’ll be a tight race to the finish with the skid-pad tomorrow.  Andy should do well and will likely jump ahead of us.  But with the ZR-1, it could be anyone’s game.  Stay tuned!!!