BMWCCA Road Atlanta

Bit of a different crowd this weekend with BMWCCA at Road Atlanta. About a six hour drive to get there (not including the 40 minute traffic jam at the SC/GA state line), arrived in time to get set up in the paddock and meet a few people. Both days began with an early practice session, qualifying around lunchtime, then an afternoon race. Being my first time at this track I had hoped to get a ride-along with someone to learn the track but there wasn’t time, fortunately I had watched enough video to get a sense of things. Unfortunately it did not prepare me adequately – this is a scary track. Turn 1 is a fast disconcerting sweeper, turn 3 is blind until you’re right on top of it, turn 5 requires braking/turning/shifting all at once, turn 10 is at the end of a long straight ending in a downhill braking segment, and the infamous turn 12 is blind, narrow, fast, and has little room for error.

My first time out on Saturday I was just trying to learn the track and ran a 1:54, later in qualifying I lowered that to 1:50 which was good for third place out of five. Chuck Taylor and Eric Palacio were both much faster than me, qualifying in the 1:46 range. The race was uneventful, I trailed a E30 M3 for a few laps before he pulled away and I soloed the rest, finishing with a best lap of 1:49.2. That night Eric and I reviewed video and traqmate data, I clearly saw where I was falling behind and hoped to make up at least some of that the following day.

spec e30 road atlanta feb 2010 sat race from jason tower on Vimeo.

Sunday I experimented a bit during practice, found that leaving the car in fourth gear for turn 3 didn’t seem to hurt lap times much so that eliminated two shifts. I also wasn’t totally nailing turn 12 so my straightaway speed was down a bit enabling me to eliminate fifth gear on the front straight, I’d hit the limiter if i didn’t lift slightly but an upshift probably didn’t help enough to matter until I learn to carry more speed through 12. Still, turn 1 had me flummoxed and I never did get comfortable with it all weekend. In fact I went four off in turn 1 during qualifying, fortunately I kept it straight and drove back on without incident. Qualified third again with a 1:49.1, Eric’s dad Julio was driving today and he beat me buy a few tenths. The Sunday race was a bit more interesting, I followed Julio for a number of laps to see how he drove, put the pressure on a couple of times but he didn’t slip up or give me an easy pass. Eventually I combined a good run through 12 with a faster car passing us from behind and slipped by him in turn 1, from then on I drove clean and held on for second place with a best lap of 1:48.9, still far behind Chuck Taylor who finished first again by turning 1:46s. Hopefully I can find another 2-3 seconds so I’ll at least be in the hunt when NASA-SE runs here in three weeks.

spec e30 road atlanta feb 2010 sun race from jason tower on Vimeo.

While packing up I noticed that my front 888s showed significant groove of death wear, I highly doubt I’ll be able to run them much more before they become unsafe although moving them to the rear might help a little. Annoyed that I won’t get my money’s worth out of them, but at least I have a fresh set of RA1s sitting in the garage. Long drive home (fortunately no traffic problems) but judicious use of the load pedal and drafting semis yielded over 17 mpg, and I was able to fill up twice in SC where diesel is $0.30/gal cheaper. Plus my fantastically awesome wife Valerie had dinner waiting for me when I got home

Pics from Amber Eller Wooten (Shaun’s wife), thanks!

NASA-SE Winter Meltdown at CMP

Whew, what a weekend! NASA-SE held their first event of the year, the Winter Meltdown at CMP. For me it included comp school on Friday followed by a full weekend of racing on Saturday and Sunday.

Comp school started Friday morning with a quick on track session just to shake the rust off and get reacquainted with the track, fortunately I’m reasonably comfortable with CMP so it went smoothly. We then alternated classroom sessions and track time for the next several hours, similar to the BMWCCA comp school I did in 2009 but more brief. We had a good group of about ten people and everyone drove well, no incidents of any significance. School ended with a short mock race that was gridded randomly, I was the lead Spec E30 car (my buddies Evan and Colin were also participating) and we all finished without incident. Once that was complete we were effectively issued provisional or rookie licenses and allowed to race that weekend. The three hour enduro started early afternoon, it started snowing towards the end but we figured it wouldn’t accumulate much if at all.

We went to dinner in Camden with several of our fellow Spec E30 drivers (Travis Wilson, Brian Jones, Steven Canterbury) and watched it snow. And snow. And snow. By the time we finished dinner there were several inches on the ground and it was coming down heavier than ever. Someone (probably Travis) suggested we go find a bar and no one objected, meanwhile the snow continued to pile up. The group consensus was that Saturday was almost certainly going to be a bust so we might as well keep drinking. Evan and I in particular were dismayed at the weather, we had been looking forward to racing for nearly a year and the thought of it being canceled was almost more than we could bear. His girl Christina arrived in town and joined everyone at the bar, meanwhile I called it quits and retired to the hotel.

The following morning the sky was clear but everything was blanketed by 4-6 inches of powder, virtually unheard of in South Carolina. Two weekends get canceled at VIR and now this! Evan/Christina/Colin were sleeping off the previous evening’s activities so I rode in with my roommate, we got to the track around 0800. Despite the conditions NASA-SE director Jim Pantas was confident that we’d still run that day, albeit with a delay. He announced that anyone with a truck or street car should get on track and slowly circulate to break up the snow so the sunshine could melt it. I ended up riding around with my pal Nash in his F150 and I’ll be damned if it didn’t work, pretty soon the track was wet but nearly ice free and Jim said it would go hot at 10:50. I called Evan to make sure they were en route since qualifying was at 11:10. They arrived just in time, we suited up and went out. I snagged fifth, and Evan managed to get third. Didn’t really matter though since rookies start their first race at the back no matter what. Still, we were really amped up and ready to race.

That afternoon we gridded at the back of the pack (I ended up being dead last, Evan and Colin were in front of me) and rolled out of the grid. Suddenly Evan pulls out of line and stops in the hot pits. Oh no! Our first race and he’s out before it even started! Turns out all six of his left halfshaft bolts loosened up and it literally fell out of the diff leaving him with no drivetrain. Fortunately it was an easy fix and though he was heartbroken we got it patched up and ready for Sunday.

The Spec Miatas started first and had a car spin off in turn 1 (unfortunately it was Nash who got knocked out by another car) which led to four laps under yellow. Finally we restarted single file but being last I was left for dead when the field strung out, the leaders got green before I even rounded turn 14 leading to the front straight. Due to the delay the race lasted less than 15 min but I managed to pick up several positions and finished ninth. I also set a personal best lap of 1:54.2, beating my previous time by 1.5 seconds.

spec e30 cmp feb 2010 sat race from jason tower on Vimeo.

Sunday’s first session was a qualifying race, meaning that it didn’t count but the results would determine starting positions for the “real” race that afternoon. I started ninth with Evan directly behind me, we got off clean and he passed me in turn 14 and started dicing with Brian Jones, eventually getting past him too. A yellow in turn 8 caused him to slow and Brian and I re-passed him, I was glued to Brian’s bumper for the next two laps before executing a spectacular 360 degree spin in the kink. Despite losing several positions I managed to keep all four wheels on the tarmac and kept going, but the entire race was red flagged less than a lap later due to another crash in 8. I finished tenth but lowered my personal best to 1:53.3. The top five cars were all in the 1:52s so I still need to find some time! Unfortunately I discovered afterwards that my camera power supply wasn’t working and it stopped recording halfway through, which meant I wouldn’t get any footage of the afternoon race either.

spec e30 cmp feb 2010 sun qualifying race from jason tower on Vimeo.

That afternoon I started in tenth as expected, this time we were in front of the Miatas and got a clear start. After a few position changes things settled down and I found myself dicing with Steven Canterbury for the majority of the race. We had what felt like an epic battle, four position swaps and just a little bit of paint trading. I made one last pass on the final lap and held Steven off for eighth place. We gave each other a big thumbs up on the cool down lap but were later called in to explain our contact which happened between turns 2 and 3 in plain sight of the NASA officials. It was ruled a racing incident and no penalties were assessed which was the correct call. My biggest disappointment was not getting the race on video, it would have been excellent footage.

The car performed flawlessly all weekend and everyone finished with big smiles and no serious problems. Colin had to leave on Saturday but Evan kicked ass, finishing fourth in the final race. Safe to say he was on cloud nine for the next several days, and I wasn’t far behind. Next week I’m headed to Road Atlanta for my first race with BMWCCA, it will be my first time at that track so it should be interesting.

Busy day

Picked up vinyl for a last minute sponsor (thanks Celito) along with a fresh set of tires from fellow E30 pilot Mark Cooper at Performance Chassis. First race is this weekend, I haven’t been on track for almost three months so hopefully I can shake off the rust quickly.

Weighting for Guffman

Needing to add some mass to the car in order to make minimum weight, I asked the folks at Kirk Key if they could make up something and they came through with flying colors. Today I received ten 15lb steel plates cut to my exact dimensions, mounting holes drilled, and zinc plated for corrosion protection. Beautiful work, and exactly what I need to balance out the car. Drilled a couple of holes in the floorpan and mounted the plates, fits like a glove. Thanks Kirk Key and Kirk Machine!

The other kind of hauling

Sold my 18′ trailer last month to make way for a 16′ (easier to maneuver in my driveway) with a removable tire rack. No more loading wheels in and out of the truck each weekend. I was hoping to put it to use this weekend for the THSCC event at VIR but it was canceled. That’s two weeks in a row, the third time had better be a charm next weekend.

Performing for Web Performance

Another very nice press release, this time from Michael Czeiszperger of Web Performance. Michael is not only a sponsor and friend but also a motorsports enthusiast, as is his wife Maria (he does rallycross in an appropriately named Subaru, she autocrosses a Mini). In fact I met Maria many years ago at TriLUG and she even wrote a book on my favorite topic, Open Source in the business world. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we’ll both be at the THSCC event at VIR this weekend, if I’m not mistaken it will be his first time on a racetrack! C’mon snow, you visited last weekend, go bother someone else for a while.

OpenNMS press release

A nice little write up by my friend Tarus Balog of OpenNMS, who was my first sponsor (well technically cerient was the first but that had a streamlined approval procedure). Thanks for the kind words Tarus, I’m already feeling the pressure to win!

It looks di-vinyl!

Eric from Extreme Vinyl came over today to install all of the sponsor graphics, along with driver name and car numbers. Took a little while to get everything lined up and applied but it looks great, I was so excited i took a bunch of crappy photos with my iPhone!

Afterwards my neighbor Josh stopped by with his fancy DSLR and took some far better shots:

Thanks Eric and Josh!

Keeping cool

Decided to flush out the cooling system since I wasn’t 100% sure what was in there. Opened the radiator and block drain plugs, the fluid coming out looked more like mud than water. I guess that’s what happens when no corrosion inhibitor is used, the block starts to rust from the inside out. Flushed it with three gallons of tap water, then filled with two gallons of distilled water and a bottle of water wetter. Now I just have to hope the garage stays above freezing!

Got video? Oh yeah!

Took advantage of the nice weather this afternoon to perform a quick camera and traqmate test, everything worked as it should. Still playing around with the camera and video settings but it’s pretty decent as is.

spec e30 camera test from jason tower on Vimeo.