Jason Tower's Spec E30 campaign

NASA-SE Pit Bull Run at CMP

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Joy and pain. Then I am happy and sad for you. All sum up last weekend’s race at CMP.

Started off with beautiful (and hot) weather Saturday morning, practice felt good but I gridded late and didn’t get a clean lap in qualifying. Managed to get a 1:56.8, good for 12th of 17 cars. The race that afternoon was exciting, we did a standing start (my first) and everyone was clean, charging around the track without any first lap incidents. A lap later I got a little too aggressive in turn 14 and stuck a nose inside on Fred Switzer, spinning him out but doing no real harm. Sorry Fred! Eventually I ended up behind Alex Reznikov, I was a tad quicker than him but couldn’t quite get set up for a good pass, every time I’d get close I’d somehow goof and ruin my chances.

spec e30 at cmp, part 1 from jason tower on Vimeo.

spec e30 cmp, part 2 from jason tower on Vimeo.

An exciting moment occurred near the end when my steering wheel popped off on the back straight at over 100 mph, the car veered off track but I was able to reattach it in time for the kink:

look ma no hands from jason tower on Vimeo.

Chased Alex until the end and finished eighth with a best lap of 1:56.2.

Sunday was gonna be the day, I was raring to go. It was hot but I had my homemade cool shirt, car was running well, tires in good shape, got on grid nice and early for qualifying. Felt great in the morning qualifying session, I was behind Aaron Rankin in his E36, together we were turning nice laps and gaining on Brian Jones. Then this happened:

spec e30 crash from jason tower on Vimeo.

Aaron put two wheels off in turn 5 and spun, unfortunately I didn’t see it clearly since a miata was directly between us. The miata took evasive action, I did too a second later but not in time to avoid a collision with Aaron. Fortunately the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked, a bent control arm and some wrinkled sheet metal but nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

Adding insult to injury, the lap I turned just prior to the accident (1:55.7) was good enough for 4th position! And since one of the top three cars didn’t finish I could well have been on the podium that afternoon. We tried to find a replacement control arm but nobody in the paddock had one, guess that’s something to add to the spares list. Oh well, such is racing.

Stopped off at my friend Mike Whitney’s house on the way home to check out the damage. Put it on the lift, removed the control arm and hammered out the body panels, got it looking as good as new (well not quite for good enough for racing).

Turns out the damage was a little worse than we first thought, the wheel was bent along with the strut and shock. But the strut isn’t so bad that the camber plate can’t compensate, might be a little bit off but I’m gonna try it and see how it feels.