BMW CCA Oktoberfest Club Races at Road Atlanta

[rackeu]

What a week! I really enjoyed meeting everybody. Jim thanks for your assistance. Almost everyone was faster that me but I had a couple of great individual match-ups with Julio in the enduro (I was so upset when he went in for the driver change) and with both John and Natalie at different times.

I was so pleased to turn a 1:50 on Sunday but then had a brake line blow on the first lap of the race. Fixed that (thank you Scott) and then had a wheel wobble from a rotor replacement for the fun race and ended up missing that.

Nevertheless, what a week! The weather was great and I had a fantastic time. I am very much looking forward to competing and meeting more of the wonderful people in Spec E30.

Al

[ctbimmer]

Ranger wrote:

[quote]Chuck’s impact and my shortcut past turn 4 in Saturday’s enduro. http://vimeo.com/6921112

Last 2 laps of Sunday’s Sprint Race which shows Chuck charging up out of no where and me desparately keeping him back. http://vimeo.com/6919764[/quote]

After you watch Scott’s version of the enduro, try mine. Only 7 minutes of racing for me, but he and I had a good dice going while it lasted. http://vimeo.com/6925760

[ctbimmer]

rackeu wrote:

Hey, what about Al getting 3rd on Saturday!

Doh, I should have just posted the main link to the photos and left it at that. Sorry Al!

[Ranger]

ctbimmer wrote:

[quote]
After you watch Scott’s version of the enduro, try mine. Only 7 minutes of racing for me, but he and I had a good dice going while it lasted. http://vimeo.com/6925760[/quote]
Is really valuable to see yourself from the other car’s perspective. My clumsiness is far more visible in your video then mine. A number of times I took non-optimal lines because I didn’t have perfect situation awareness of where you were and what you might be scheming. I have to get better at that.

Your experience also tells in the videos. I made several bad decisions in heavy traffic that resulted in me getting bottled up and you sneaking forward. I need to be able to predict that sort of thing better.

[kishg]

ouch… les body blocked you eh? very nice driving tho…

[ukrbmw]

Seems like a good time had by all, even Chuck!

On the bright side, while you were all racing I was at San Diego Zoo looking at Pandas.

[King_Tut]

Steve D wrote:

I didn’t know that plastic shroud for the wires existed until I had to remove the one from my street car to do the timing belt.

I knew it existed when I got my car, but the plastic was so old it was destroyed and not doing its job. I’m glad someone posted the part number so I can buy a new one as I just have the CPS and 6th ignition wire sensor wires hanging between the crank and the engine currently. I was looking for a good routing solution, but couldn’t come up with one so I’m going to go back to OEM.

[IndyJim]

Part 1 of a special 3 part DTOM on my 2 weeks up at Road Atlanta.

Enjoy.

http://dtomracing.com

[IndyJim]

Part 2 is up now if anyone is interested.

http://dtomracing.com

[IndyJim]

Part 3 is up. Just glancing at the posts the actual racing I did compromises about 4 sentences out of 5 pages…

Who says B_ll Sh!t isn’t an art form.

Enjoy.

http://dtomracing.com

[csrow]

ctbimmer wrote:

Saturday - Got tangled up early on with a SpecE36 guy at T7 - video link here: http://www.vimeo.com/6908360

For those interested in the cast of this short clip, the Black 231 car was a KP car, and the E30/M3 with wing was something called F-mod. Not too fast. Ranger was back there lurking just behind the fray.

Anyway, after my contact with this guy, which felt pretty significant from the cockpit, I was major bummed about the fact of having the contact (this is CCA, not NASA, and they REALLY REALLY REALLY do not like contact. Even single-car wrecks are investigated and written up) After coming in for safety check, my race was blown so I retired. It turns out that about 3 laps later, the guy did the same thing to Clay in T6, but with far worse consequences (for the 068 SE36 car) He spun off at 6 and hit the wall hard, probably terminally damaging the tub.

I had video to illustrate the scene. The stewards first reaction was “he’s driving the DE school line and you were driving the racing line”. He had already been on probation for a single-car wreck at VIR this spring (read above) and now with two similar incidents in the same race they put him down for 13 months probation and recommended he go back to DE. That plus a destroyed race car was his reward for the weekend.

hmmm… did you see this post?

[Patton]

Olivia Newton John once sang about this racing scenario:

Tune up “Have you ever been mellow.”

Have you ever been pinched-down
Have you ever tried,
To find some race room on the inside.

Jeez…

I’ll be playing that song in my head all day.

RP

[ctbimmer]

No, hadn’t seen that one. I was told at the event the stewards (including the acting head of CR at the time) were going to make it a 13 month probation, so it was evidently reduced to 6 before they communicated with the driver. There was video (his and mine) of our T7 incident but no video that I know of from T6 that finished his car off.

I am staying out of these debates ranging on two boards now (that I know) as I have nothing I need to contribute.

My take on the steward is that he’s done a lot of events at Road Atlanta so he knows the track, he’s a tough old SOB, and don’t see any reason why he’d play favorites. He’s the kind of guy that’s nice as can be until you give a reason not to. Plus, with 6 total stewards working the event, I imagine there was some discussion going on among them all regarding these two hits

[Elephant4]

IndyJim wrote:

[quote]Part 3 is up.
http://dtomracing.com[/quote]

Thanks for sharing Jim, I really do enjoy your blog, keep up the good work.

[IndyJim]

Deleted scenes went up last night. Enjoy and thanks.