Thunderstorms...

...are the forcast for my up-comming weekend at VIR.

meh...

Some people don't like to drive in the rain. I love it. You can learn more about car control, fine tuning your feel for weight distribution, and your feel for grip in just one track session in the rain than you can in half a year's dry track driving. That was the case with me last March at VIR.

So I can't wait to do it again. I've learned to embrace driving in the rain, and hopefully that will give me a competetive edge when I finally start racing in the Spec E30 class.

In preparation for this weekend's event, I have replaced all of my soft metal wheel studs with hardened bullnosed racing studs, and new nuts of course. I'll be leaving my street tires on since the forcast is calling for thunderstorms, but will take the RA's with me just in case mother nature decides to play nice!

I'm hoping that my driving performance this weekend will get me a check ride in Group 3, as I'm really looking forward to more passing opportunities on track. Not only to pass, but to be passed anywhere on track. Group 3 requires extreme situational awareness, and an almost automatic ability to drive the car at 10/10ths.

A great weekend at Hyperfest '08

I arrived early Saturday morning to find a full paddock, including an enormous tractor trailer parked lenghthwise across an area "reserved" for HPDE participants. Had to paddock behind the OG Racing shack. It was warm... very warm for 6am in the morning. It was going to be a hot day!

The weather report was calling for scattered thunderstorms, but we didn't see any rain until very late in the day on Sunday, and it pretty much evaporated as it hit the track.

Saturday went well, worked on my line through T-4 & T-5. Learned to carry more speed through T-1 & T-2. My instructor Matt Rembold was a great guy who helped me to attain my goals for the weekend.

Saturday went by without incident for me, although I wish it were true for one of the other students in my group. There was an unfortunate roll-over incident during the second lap, of the second session on Saturday. The student (who was driving solo) had carried too much speed into T-4, and lifted off of the accelerator producing a lift-oversteer condition which he could not recover from. His vehicle went off track at T-5, hit the tire barricade, and rolled onto it's roof. He was for the most part unharmed thankfully, and was able to exit the vehicle through the passenger's side window. This is not saying that the student was a bad driver. Quite the opposite actually. In order to "drive AT the limit, you must OVER-DRIVE the car, then UNDER-DRIVE the car, then OVER, UNDER, OVER, UNDER, etc.... The average being THE LIMIT. Sometimes when trying to reach the limit, you go over the limit, and sometimes you crash. The incident did end our session after that second lap tho.

With his permission, I've poted the video below with a note from the driver as well.



I have not read your sight yet but I'll give you the strait poop. use it if you wish it could be very helpful to fellow compatriots. I use a traqmate data acquisition system . my past telemetry shows i do not need to lift and certainly do not need to brake from after turn 1 until turn 5 . so this was my first attempt at not lifting or braking . I decided to do it incrementally i did not brake but did lift before 3 and before 4 but got back on it in short order. the problem came as i did not break before 4 i only lifted and i did not adjust my turn in point . I began to run out of track to my left after 4 and frankly lost my balls ! So I lifted just as i was ending the turn but as i was at the limit of adhesion as planded... well the rear came around and I did not catch it fast enough. In other words Driver ERROR period .. I had put in some steering correction prior to lifting but way not enough. so the lesson is don't lift !!! and the faster you go the faster the mistakes happen ...

I will go check out you post now
All my best to you and yours

Ed

Ed,
Thank you for allowing me to post this. I'm glad you're ok. Hope to see you back at the track soon!

Could easily have been much worse.

I've also just contacted RRT Performance in Dulles, VA for a quote on a welded in 1/2 rear cage to replace my Autopower bolt-in roll bar. I figure later, when I'm ready to go racing with the Spec E30 crowd, I'll finish it up & add in the front half for a full custom built roll cage. More on that later....

Sunday started off with my instructor slapping a "solo" sticker on my windshield during the grid-up of the first session. Woooooo Hooooooooo! He went with me for that first session, just to make sure I was still being consistent, and hadn't suffered a loss of talent overnight! All went well.

We were supposed to have a red-flag drill during the first three laps of the second session, but that never materialized. I even pulled into the pits at one point to ask what happened to red flag drill we were supposed to have, and got a reply like "I don't know... they don't tell us about those things"...

oooookaaaay?!?!?!

Back out I went, and completed some pretty nice & smooth laps. Did a little off-line passing, and was generally getting accustomed to the great grip of the Toyo RA1's I was using for the first time. I love Comp R's!!!

The Third (and last) session of Sunday saw rain starting to fall about 1/2 way through the session, but it seemed to be evaporating as it hit the track, and I kept pushing the RA1's, but could not get them to break loose! I must need to carry more speed still! It's absolutely silly how much more grip there is over street performance tires! I can't wait until VIR!


Sunday, 2nd session, "solo" run.


Hyperfest_08 from NOT///MPOWER on Vimeo.

Dare I say...

... It's fixed?

Got the fan clutch installed - took all of about 15 minutes. Car seems to be running fine, and not overheating anymore. Bonus! Also got the RA1 scrubs mounted & balanced, and the alignment done. This will be my first track weekend running comp R's, so I'll be taking it slow to begin with, and see how far I can push 'em. I have no idea what their break-away characteristics are, and have heard that they give little to no warning before they break away, but I think my driving has gotten to the point now where I'll be able to handle it. I hope. ;-)

AAAARRRRGGGH!

Why did I have to metion having the cooling system sorted?!?
True to form, the 318 has presented me with yet another issue just prior to a track weekend!
I'm not really mad tho. After all, the car does have 220,000 miles on it, and it's used for track duty, and daily driver duty.

Driving the car back to work from lunch today the temperature gauge started climbing steadily toward the red zone. I managed to get it to stop it's climb about 3/4 of the way there by turning the heat on full blast. When I got to work, I popped the hood, and after a little investigative work found that the clutch driven fan could be stopped easily by hand.

I've ordered a fan clutch from Olympus Imported Auto Parts, and I'll install it tonight after work so I can get home!

... add another $75.00 to the total!

HPDE REAL-COST UPDATE

Since I started this little blog to keep track of my track habit expenditures, here's an update of the total so far which includes all car expenditures, & all track & club fees. (Anything related to tracking the car). Keep in mind this total is from expenditures starting in May of 2007 and includes the purchase price of the car & and everything I've replaced on it, or spent on tracking it since May of 2007. (Does NOT include fuel).

The new total is (drum-roll please)....

$17,164.99

The quickest way to make a small fortune in motorsports? Start with a large one!

Hyper for Hyperfest!

I finally got to the bottom of the drivability issue that has been plaguing me since VIR in March. Turns out the issue of a hunting idle, and rich running was due to a bad Throttle Position Switch. It was reading WOT (wide open throttle) all the time.

So, with the Cooling system back to normal, and the TPS replaced, the car is just about ready for Hyperfest at Summit Point Raceway this coming weekend!

A few little things still need to be done... oil & filter change, brake system flush, check diff fluid level, etc.

The agony...

...of defeat!

Well, I got down to VIR fine, the trusty F-150 towed just fine as it always does. Got the car through "tech" Sunday afternoon without a hitch. Then I dropped the trailer, got in the truck & drove into North Carolina to meet up with a Spec E30 racer who was selling his used Toyo RA1's for cheap! $75.00 for the set cheap! I was really looking forward to having them mounted up for the Audi Club's spring VIR event that I was down at VIR attending.

Upon my return to the hotel parking lot in Danville, VA, I threw the tires in the back of the BMW, and headed off to find a place to get them mounted. Being a Sunday evening, the only place that was open was the local Wal-Mart auto center, so I headed there. The car drove fine for a while but the dang Check Engine light came back on & it started surging again, and to top that off, when I got to Wal Mart, and parked, there was steam coming from under the hood!

I thought "this is new", and popped the hood to explore. I thought that I had properly tightened all the hose clamps when doing the repairs the previouse night, so I started wiggling hoses, and found that the coolant hose from the plastic manifold attached to the block had come free, so I went into the Wal Mart and bought a screwdriver to loosen the clamp, and re-install it, but found that the nipple that the hose was attached to had broken off inside the hose!

Great. Now I'm stranded at Wal Mart, five miles from the hotel, my truck, trailer, and tools, with a broken dealer-only part! Luckily I was able to get my buddy Erich on the cell, and he sent another buddy of ours up to bring me back to my truck. Thanks Moses! So, hooked up the trailer and went to retreive my crippled car. As it was now getting dark, I decided to wait until the morning to start the tear-down, and parts hunt, so we all went to our favorite mexican restaurant and consumed tasty margarita's for the evening!

The next morning we went to the track, and while everyone else was getting ready for their track sessions, I was trying to locate a new coolant manifold. Finally I located one at a dealer in North Carolina, and jumped back in the truck for the 40 minute drive to Crown BMW. I got the part, and got back to the track where I started the tear down, of the intake manifold assembly. The weather decided to not cooperate, and I was forced to make the repair in the pouring rain! I finally got everything together, topped off the coolant, and started the car. It seemed to be good! Maybee I would be able to catch the last session of the day, and run all my sessions the next day as well! All was not lost!

So, not wanting to cause any issues on track, I decided to tack the car on a nice long test drive prior to my on-track session, and really give the car hell. If the repair was going to fail, I was determined to make it fail off-track. I drove the piss out of the car for about an hour, and decided that everything was good, so I headed back to VIR. Just as I got back to the main gate, the darn manifold let go again! AAAAARRRRGH!

Upon inspection, I found that I had pinched the o-ring on the manifold flange, and it was now split! Needless to say, I spent two days at VIR with a busted car, and didn't even get to go on track! I was sooooooooo bummed!

Oh well, there's always next month!