Nick M3
04-17-2006, 09:47 AM
Well, suffice it to say that this weekend was very interesting. For those few of you whom I haven't blathered endlessly to, I went down to the Tarheel BMWCCA Club Race at VIR this weekend. This was my very first race weekend, so my primary goal was to avoid hitting anyone and/or balling up the car. Luckily, I fulfilled my primary goal.
Unfortunately, this weekend was absolutely plagued by mechanical problems. On my first session out, I noticed that the car was behaving strangely - transitional response was not good. The uphill esses were pretty terrifying, and the clanking through hogpen was really not encouraging. Eventually this was diagnosed as a blown out (again!) right front Advance-Design strut. Unfortunately, no one had the tools I needed to open the little fucker up, so I was restricted to adding nitrogen every session.
Even more interesting was the faint smell of fuel. After several failed attempted to diagnose, we gave up looking for it. Until I brimmed the tank for the enduro, that is. With fuel spilling out, we had to park the car. Eventually, we found the leak (a hole that a friend's crewman had drilled into the fuel tank while installing my fire system - ironically this was for the nozzles he ran TO the fuel tank) and patched it up with a screw and some JB Weld. This got me all set for Sunday and the sprint race.
I qualified adequately, with rain screwing up our session. Third in class (KP). I didn't want to stress the car too much, so I only ran a few laps. The race was an absolute blast. I had a fantastic start - I gained something like six places overall and got up to second in KP. Unfortunately, the bad strut was making the car's handling downright awful. I was losing an enormous amount of speed in Hogpen, which absolutely killed me on the straight. Just imagine having a jackhammer going on one side of the car. Now imagine a swaybar transmitting the vibrations to the outside tire. I'm sure you can imagine what that did for my grip levels. Eventually, something really went in the shock and I ended up understeering off the track there. I kept my foot in it and drove through for a while, but the tail started coming around in a big way so I just locked up the tires. It isn't worth trying a big save off-track - you might save it, but more often tryign too hard results in hitting something hard and/or rolling the car. About all I can say for my finish is that I wasn't DFL. Barely.
But I'll be back and next time the car will actually be working.
I'll post pictures and video at some point.
Unfortunately, this weekend was absolutely plagued by mechanical problems. On my first session out, I noticed that the car was behaving strangely - transitional response was not good. The uphill esses were pretty terrifying, and the clanking through hogpen was really not encouraging. Eventually this was diagnosed as a blown out (again!) right front Advance-Design strut. Unfortunately, no one had the tools I needed to open the little fucker up, so I was restricted to adding nitrogen every session.
Even more interesting was the faint smell of fuel. After several failed attempted to diagnose, we gave up looking for it. Until I brimmed the tank for the enduro, that is. With fuel spilling out, we had to park the car. Eventually, we found the leak (a hole that a friend's crewman had drilled into the fuel tank while installing my fire system - ironically this was for the nozzles he ran TO the fuel tank) and patched it up with a screw and some JB Weld. This got me all set for Sunday and the sprint race.
I qualified adequately, with rain screwing up our session. Third in class (KP). I didn't want to stress the car too much, so I only ran a few laps. The race was an absolute blast. I had a fantastic start - I gained something like six places overall and got up to second in KP. Unfortunately, the bad strut was making the car's handling downright awful. I was losing an enormous amount of speed in Hogpen, which absolutely killed me on the straight. Just imagine having a jackhammer going on one side of the car. Now imagine a swaybar transmitting the vibrations to the outside tire. I'm sure you can imagine what that did for my grip levels. Eventually, something really went in the shock and I ended up understeering off the track there. I kept my foot in it and drove through for a while, but the tail started coming around in a big way so I just locked up the tires. It isn't worth trying a big save off-track - you might save it, but more often tryign too hard results in hitting something hard and/or rolling the car. About all I can say for my finish is that I wasn't DFL. Barely.
But I'll be back and next time the car will actually be working.
I'll post pictures and video at some point.