Introduction and looking for Carter

#1

Greetings,

My name is Lance Richert, I live in Washington State. I also race a spec-type E30, though in an E30 Series out here in the Pacific Northwest called Pro-3. Very similar to SpecE30 but with a few more mods allowed. Anyway I wanted to congratulate the SpecE30 series on the incredible turnout at VIR. I saw a few pics and the field looks awesome! Congrats to everyone that is fielding an E30.

Also, I had a couple things to chat about with Carter, but I’ve lost his e-mail. If Carter could contact me via cell phone or e-mail, that would be appreciated. Carter probably reads every post (LOL) but in case he’s dozing, if someone with his e-mail could direct him to this post, I’d appreciate it.

Lance Richert
#135 Pro-3
425-443-2188
Lance@Richertnet.com

My car!

#2

Nice looking cars ! Wes Hill races in that series right?

For Carter’s info see last 2-3 messages of this thread:

http://spece30.com/component/option,com_mamboboard/Itemid,68/func,view/id,9490/catid,12/limit,10/limitstart,20/

Igor

#3

Igor, thanks!

Yes, this is the series that Wes and brother Ken are in.

Wes’ car:

#4

Welcome Lance!
For those that don’t already know Lance Richert, he’s an M3 fanatic (the REAL M3) and makes some of the coolest T-shirts and DVD’s with M3 content. I’ve never met him personally, but have enjoyed his posts on the M3 SIG for a long time.

-Vic
#325

#5

Lance, can you give a compare/contrast to the two series?

How large are the Pro-3 fields?

Do you run with NASA?

Opportunity to grow?

Thanks in advance, Robert Patton

#6

Hi Robert, I can probably put it in a nutshell.

PRO-3: More open suspension allowance (no remote reservoir shocks allowed though), min. weight 2,650lb, ABS banned (starting this year), uni-chip allowed. Spec tire Toyo RA1 tire, 225 width allowed.

SpecE30: Spec Spring/Shock, weight 2,750lb, ABS allowed(?), stock ECU, Toyo RA1 tire, no wider than 205.

The Pro-3 (Production 3) was started in 2003. We had 4 existing cars in ITS trim and wanted to start a spec class. If we had known that Carter was ramping up SpecE30 we would have probably compared notes with him and looked at detuning the suspension to what SpecE30 has. But we literally had 4 owners with existing cars and if we tried to detune the cars too much, then they wouldn’t have agreed to start the series. So the compromise was allow the suspensions to stay on the cars, but remove the hot cams and MAFs that a couple of the cars had. Thus Pro-3 was born.
:slight_smile:

Last year Pro-3 ran 13 races and averaged 10 cars per race. 95% of the cars are located in Seattle so the Seattle races had the highest entries last year with 15 Pro-3 entries. More cars have been built over the winter so we think we’ll easily see over 20 cars at the May Seattle race. At the end of 2006 there were 21 Pro-3 cars that had entered at least one race that year. Actually there were 23, but two were written off in crashes during the year. So right now there are 21 accounted for with 14 more being built. Some will make the May Seattle race, the rest will come on line during the course of the year.

We voted to eliminate ABS for 2007. It has been somewhat controversial. The debate is between saving tires by not worrying about flat spotting, versus requiring the drivers to have that added skill of being able to modulate the brakes in the braking zones without any artificial aids like ABS.

Pro-3 has no aspirations of growing outside of the Pacific Northwest. We race in a sanctioning body called ICSCC who run a 13 race series at tracks in Portland, Seattle, Spokane and Mission BC. For anyone who has tried driving to Seattle from other parts of the country, it is a LONG drive.

I think it is great there are so many E30s being raced in spec series. Aftermarket vendors will be more inclined to keep E30 parts on the shelf if they know there are enough of us racing an E30. It is the perfect (semi)low budget racer.

Street E30s are now a hot commodity in Seattle due to all of the guys looking to build a Pro-3 car and looking for a solid donor car to begin their project.

cheers,

Lance

#7

Thanks, Lance.Fly out and drive my Spec e30 at Road Atlanta and I’ll fly out and race yours at the best track in the NW.

I drove a non-ABS car for two years…great for skill building , but the flat-spotted tires at some of the tracks where lock-up is almost non-avoidable got to be old news.

Suspension mods can be highly overrated, just look at some of the spec e30 front runners and I doubt that coilovers would improve their times. Maybe some of them will post to clarify that thought.

So, substitute a ECM, add 100pounds and you’re there.

Sounds like a great series. Have fun, drive safe.

Regards, Robert Patton

#8

I know we do. We’ve tried to increase our product line back into E30 parts over the last two years since I’ve been here. I might have something for you Pro 3 guys soon too. :evil:

#9

Hi Robert, that would be a good trade of rides. Your choice would be Portland Int’l raceway… PIR is Dead level flat, nicely maintained due to Champ car and ALMS running there. Or, Pacific Raceway near Seattle. 2.25 road course, lots of elevation changes. Described as sort of a mini-nurburgring due to how it winds through the trees and all of the blind corners. Facility more of a dump, but the track itself is a blast. Maybe in 2008. :slight_smile:

I’ve never run with ABS, partly because my own car didn’t come with it, so my only experience is when in another E30 as part of an enduro team. I will say, and I’m biased, that driving with ABS is like training wheels. All of our front runners run without ABS because they feel it is faster (now everyone in Pro-3 will due to the '07 rule change). The E30 ABS is pretty crude.

IMO, what seperates the good from the very good is being able to brake and get through the first third of the turn. Driving from apex to track-out is easy, as is going down the straight and going through the gears. And in my 8 years with the car, I’ve only flat spotted one tire, while still holding some track records during this time (but none currently). Which is not to brag, but to point out that I do push the car. For me, the braking zone through the first 1/3 of the turn is the funnest part of each section of track. That is the pucker factor.

Which, I’ll be able to do (finally) on April 20, my first T&T with the car this year!

#10

Forgot to mention, on the suspensions. I agree that a good driver can get a lot out of the SpecE30 suspension. And, a good driver can jump into anyone’s car and run it at the front of the grid. Interestingly, up here where we can choose our spring/shock combo and sway bar sizes, the front runners all have their personal likes, yet post lap times with tenths of each other (though for the overall field of about 20 cars the lap time seperation is about 6 seconds per lap). Some are running 650lb front / 900lb rear springs, others running much softer. These guys are also running different shock manufactures and bars. Yet the lap times are very close. So to have had a spec spring/shock for Pro-3 would have been good, IMO. Again, when we were brewing our spec up here in Seattle, we hadn’t crossed paths with Carter to compare notes. Oh well! We have talked about putting a claiming rule on shocks, so if someone showed up with gold platted ultra spendy shocks, they could be claimed for whatever price we set the claiming price at. Even the threat of that rule being placed has kept people from going crazy on high end stuff.