A few items to mention…
We swapped DMEs (aka ECU or brain) at the beginning of the weekend and while it worked just fine at two previous weekends, the Beertech car had a problem with the DME.
I was told by that DME owner, after the weekend, that his DME “idles a little rough but runs fine in my car” and I don’t doubt his word. And before the race, no one knew how the DME’s would be distributed so there was definitely no bad intention.
And after the Beertech crew made some changes, the last word I got from them was that “it’s not the DME” so I though everything was fine. They had driven the car around the paddock and all seemed well. However, in the race, the problems appeared again.
Therefore, for the Sunday sprint, I told the racers to go back to their own DME and the Beertech car finished first, due to some very good driving for sure, but also due to an engine that ran properly. The car owner - JP - was understandably disappointed with the Saturday issues but agreed that the intention of the program is good. Plus, every other racer had no issues.
We are working with the other Spec E30 Series Directors in each Region to design a program that works better, although it wasn’t a problem on two other occasions. Regardless, one problem is too many so we will review the program.
It was suggested that we have about five good DMEs, and that we pull five names from a hat for each weekend and issue the DMEs to those drivers. Obviously, it is easy to cheat with the DME so we need some kind of program that will let the racers know that they might not get to use their DME for the weekend, to discourage cheating. Thoughts from the group?
On another note, from my perspective, I got to experience a full range of emotions.
On Saturday, the car was good but I was stuck in traffic for the entire qualifying session and ended-up 8th on the grid. Bad.
Due to a punt that happened at the front of the pack, and some solid driving, I finished 4th of the 22 cars. Good.
On Sunday, we were gridded in the same positions as Saturday so I started 8th again. Bad.
During the Sunday sprint race, the car was better than it had been on Saturday but due to some driving mistakes and some bad luck, I finished 9th, I think. Bad.
During the Sunday three-hour enduro, we were second in the E2 class and 6th of about 30 cars overall. During the race, James Clay of BimmerWorld World Challenge fame and I ran about 10 laps, nose-to-tail and with me leading. Good.
Then, he out braked me at turn one and got by. Bad.
I was able to stay with him for several laps. Good.
I then went four-off and he got about 7 seconds away. Bad.
I was able to keep the interval at about 7 seconds until he went into the pit. Good.
A few laps later, and with a few drops hitting the windshield, my car started starving for fuel so I pitted and handed the car to Carlton. He did a great job in miserable conditions (the unexpected rain continued to the end) and we finished first in class and second overall, to an E36 M3.
I want to thank all the Spec E30 racers for a great weekend. While a few of us had some ups and downs, it was basically a clean and fun weekend.
I hope to see everyone again at VIR in March.
Carter
Knowing there was nowhere to go but up, I set my sights high and was gunning for Skeen. He must have been scared, though, because he never showed himself to me at the back of the pack.