All,
I thought I’d send in a report in on some of the goings-on this last weekend out in the California desert with the fine folks at NASA. No, this wasn’t a spec 30 race, but I was driving a spec e30 car so I thought I’d share.
The BMW CR was piggy-backing with NASA, and the GTS guys (actually, guy in this case) ran with the BMW group as well. This gave a group of 29 cars. Though I had mechanincal problems during the races on both days, there was some very close racing going on. (OK, I’m using the term "mechanical problem very loosely - tires losing grip due to over-cooking a corner resulting in sliding off of the track is kind of a mechanicial problem, in a very liberal interpretation of the term). Anyway, the subject line here mentions an enduro…
I remember the first time I watch an enduro at a NASA event. I remember thinking to myself "these guys are absolutely nuts". I knew right then that I wanted to try one some day! This weekend being the last enduro of the season, I figured I’d give it a shot
So, I recruited Jim Bassett to pour gas for me, Tom Bell to be on standby with a fire extinguisher (both from the BMW CR group), stopped at Pep Boys on the way to the track to pick up some 5-gal gas cans, mounted a camelback thing to the rollcage for water, and figured I was all set. I started to have some doubts when I saw the other cars lining up in the hotpits with light bars & actual pit crews (I had neither), but figured I’d give it a try - if it went too badly I could just pull into the pits & throw in the towel. I also drove it solo. One other driver - Brett Strom - drove his JS E30 M3 solo as well (and finished 2nd overall!!), whereas the rest of the entries had 2 or 3 drivers per team.
The race started at 7:15, after sundown. The random grid had me starting 6th out of the 21 cars racing. Being my first time racing at night, the first lap of the race was honestly the scariest lap of my life. No opportunity to ease into it by starting before sunset & having the sunlight gradually go away. I dropped from 6th to 15th on the first lap, and honestly couldn’t let the traffic go by fast enough. I seriously needed a few laps of "alone time" to get my bearings. I hit a low of 18th by the end of the 4th lap. Then, I gradually started feeling more comfortable, and started retaking some positions back. By lap 14 I was up to 14th, which is where I remained for the next 18 laps. During this time I really found myself hitting a groove, and started going faster with each lap. Once we hit 30 laps, I picked up more positions as cars started pitting for fuel and for driver changes, and by lap 42 I found myself in 7th place. Debris on the track then caused a 20 min red flag. And between this and my not running at 10/10th, I realized that I’d be able to go the distance with only 1 fuel stop. I then went in for one of the longest refuelings in race history. Apparently the nozzles on those gas cans I picked up at Pep Boys didn’t fit the E30 filler pipe very well, which resulted in an ~ 8 minute stop to take on 9 gallons of gas, dropping me back to 15th spot. I really wasn’t in this to win, though - my goal was to simply finish.
In the end, I finished 12th out of the 21 cars. I would estimate that of the 3 hours, I probably spent at least 1/3 of that time within a couple car lengths of other cars. Lots of close door-to-door racing, which takes on an entirely new meaning at night when you can’t see the cars next to you! Once I got over the initial fear from the first few laps, this ended up being an absolutely exhillerating experience. My best laptime during the enduro was within 2 seconds of my Saturday afternoon qualifying time.
The car, by the way, ran FLAWLESSLY! I went completely through a new set of carbotech 10 front pads over the weekend, and pretty much ate up a set of RA-1’s, but it was worth it. Highly recommended!