|
|
| Rennwerks #96 E0 M3 Race Report |
|
|
First off I want to thank the RennWerks crew lead by Steve Caselleto and Billy Saunders without whose heroic efforts we would have been out of the race in the first 5 hours. Special thanks to Andrew Kalman our chief strategist and the calming voice on the other end of the radio. I also want to thank Michelin for the tires, PIAA for the lights, Preferred Image for the upcoming body damage repair, BMW SF and eXtreme Performance for parts support, 300 Degrees for the Cryo treatment of the pads and rotors (AMAZING
wear!) and last but not least RennWerks of Mountain View, California for the support.
I had planned on taking notes to assist in my race report, but the chaos of the event prevented that from happening. So the following account will be from memory clouded by only 2 hours of sleep between Saturday morning and the end of the race.
Saturday started off well. The weather looked as if only showers would happen so we decided to keep our dry set up. That was my first big mistake and would cost us dearly. The USAF put on a nice show with a dual F-15 fly-by in marginal weather conditions, that is high praise coming from a former Naval Aviator, but the Navy would have done better ;-). We gridded in row 14 on the outside. Sitting on the grid the rain started coming down. By the green flag the track was wet and pictures of the start show pretty big rooster tails of water. The start was uneventful, the car was a handful but drivable, but we were slow when it was wet, everyone was passing us. The rain would stop, the track would dry out a bit, the car would hook up and sucker me into keeping the drys on in the hope things would dry up. But then a little down pour would happen and things would get slick again. Somehow in that 2 hour stint I managed not to have any OTE or spins, but I was tip toeing the car around the corners and we lost a lot of positions. As the fuel reserve light came on I made the call to put on the hand grooved rain Michelins. It was a bad call and I should have went with the full rain tires and softened the suspension.
The next driver, Rich Biscevic, had a great run, a few OTEs but nothing serious. Sometime during this stint the accident between the FFR and the Radical happened. It was not pretty and thankfully both drivers are alive. I've never seen a helmet bounce across a race track and I hope I never do again. Rich's skills got us a few spots back from our extended tire change pit stop. I think we were in the mid 50's position wise.
Next driver, Kevin, also was having a pretty good run, gaining back more positions. The car was still a handful in the rain so I made the call to bring it in during the next fuel stop and go to a full soft settings on the dampers. Before that could happen we had an spin and someone tapped the front right side of the car, pushing the fender in a bit, but nothing
serious or so we thought. We brought the car in, pulled out the fender and
softened the suspension, kept the same driver in so that we could have a back to back comparison on the changes. That seemed to help somewhat, but we should have done a closer inspection to the suspension, this lack of
inspection would come back to haunt us later in the race. During this
stint we gained even more positions climbing to the mid 40s. Kevin had another off in the rain, but nothing serious, just got the car a bit muddy. He did report an intermittent vibration at high speed, but we thought it was mud in the wheels.
Next driver was Jim Mercado. He reported the car felt ok, and that the track was beginning to dry. Lap times continued to improve, there were maybe 10 cars running better lap times, but as time went on Jim reported the vibration was getting worse. As we scratched our heads trying to figure out what could be causing the vibration we decided to bring Jim in to clean mud off the wheels and check lug nuts. Too late. As we were getting ready to bring Jim in he calls in "big off in 9, feels like the wheel came off!". Evidently the threads on the right side control outside ball joint were damaged during the "incident" and the nut finally worked it self loose. Luckily the arm didn't completely separate from the car and Jim was able to drive the car back into the paddock. We were VERY lucky the damage wasn't any worse besides the tire being shredded. This could have been much worse and thankfully did not result in major damage to the car or injury to a driver.
Now came a heroic control arm replacement, but with an unlucky twist. I had wanted to have a spare left and right control arm, but I ordered them so late that the right arm was on backorder. We stripped one of the control arms from our "parts" car, it was a aluminum E30 M3 arm with a offset bushing. What was on the car was a steel E36 M3 arm with a normal bushing. In the haste of the repair no one noticed the difference in the bushing. Not only does it cause a change in caster but also the geometry of the Al versus steel arm also causes a change in camber. By the end of the repair we were DFL in the field of running cars. The next driver of the car Richard Sterenka reported the car to be undrivable in the dry line that was
beginning to appear on the track. We thought it was just due to the full
soft settings and possibly toe settings due to the collision. We hadn't realized the control arm bushing mismatch yet. Richard somehow got back even more positions. At this point our best lap times were a dismal 2:21 compared to a Friday test day in traffic of a 2:05. Somehow we were actually climbing in the field. Richard did a full stint and we decided to go back to the dry settings on the next fuel stop and to check the toe settings.
I went back into the car since I wanted to get a comparison on how the car felt now versus when we started the race. First time racing at night. What a treat ;-)
My first thought was "who stole my car". It was completely foreign to me. To go straight you had to hold the wheel off center by at least 30 degrees. It would hunt in the dry and if I went so much as 1 inch off the dry line entering a corner it would immediately snap over steer. It felt as if the rear toe bushings had fallen off the car or that we had a cracked rear subframe. After about 5 laps (the first 3 laps I went off big in turn 1 every other lap) I figured a) must stay on the dry line no matter what b) the car will set in the fast turns after an initial weird wiggle c) throttle steering was not an option unless you were trying to rotate the car 180 degrees. I did a long stint where I eventually got our lap times down to the 2:17 range consistently. The main problem towards the end was I just couldn't see, the windshield was completely covered in mud, my best line was following others cars through the corners and then out dragging them down the straights. When the windshield was clear the PIAAs were amazing, but after about 10 laps the windshield was covered in mud due to the track being covered in mud. Going into turn 3 and exiting 15 the lights from the paddock would scatter off the mud and completely blind me. In turn 3 I resorted to looking out the passenger side window and doing a "one potato" at the #1 board and then turning in. Very disconcerting to say the least. Our strategist said the only cars faster were the ES cars and some of our competition in class. We had moved up some and I was actually starting to have some fun. That at least was good news.
Once again Rich B got in and did a great job, a double stint and lowering our times even more to the low teens. We continued to climb up the field. An amazing feat considering how bizarre the car was handling. If only lady luck would smile on us we could make a run for it. Skies were clear and the track was getting even drier. Tire wear, brake and rotor wear was fantastic.
Kevin went back into the car. Lap times continued to drop as the track got drier. During the first session he was rammed from behind by one of the P-cars during a restart (not the Flying Lizards, witnesses said it was the #64 car) and was punted into the weeds. Car got stuck in the mud and had to be towed onto the track. After that he was having a great run until near the end when, if memory serves, someone forced him wide going into 8, putting him into the wet and he went sailing off 8, ripping off the bumper (and the transponder). We brought the car in, besides the missing bumper and splitter the car was "ok", at least not any worse than before. The front right tire was now shot due to wear and probably contributed to the off, but everything else looked good.
Jim got some new rubber up front but, unfortunately, now had a car with a bizarre handling traits along with NO front down force. He did an awesome double stint and climbed the field even more. I started to think we may actually get a podium finish in class and maybe top 25 overall. I think I jinxed us.
Rich S went out again and after getting acclimated to weird handling also was running consistent lap times until someone slammed the door on him going into 9 and in an attempt not to hit anyone he went sailing off 9, went airborne, landing HARD. It was about 6:30 am. Passenger side fender was bashed into the tire. Front right control arm had a weird twist. metal motor mount was sheared off. Radiator was nearly pushed into the engine on the passenger's side. Expansion tank was rubbing against the cam cover. At some point during the stint the gas pedal bottom pivot broke sometimes jamming the accelerator at WOT. Car looked like a mess. I thought we were done.
My awesome crew chief, Steve, the chief mechanic at RennWerks said "I can fix it". If he would have finished that statement with "My brother has got an awesome set of tools" I would have died laughing. After wondering if it was worth it to go back out into the race that was quickly eating a hole in my wallet I decided we worked too hard to just pack it up. I said ok, we need to take the checkered flag, but don't hurry it up, check it over real
well, I don't want it to break while we're out there. Thanks to the
Motovation team we could replace the bent Al control arm with a steel one with the correct bushing! Steve also did a great job doing an eye-ball alignment. I decided to take the car out since if something broke and one of my drivers got hurt I didn't want that on my conscience. I was back on track by 9am. I managed a bonehead spin in two on cold tires (duh), luckily the Mazda driver behind me was able to make up for my lack of skill and not T-bone me ;-) Thank you!
The car we brought to the track on Friday was nearly back! The only downsides were with the lack of front down force there was no bite going into 1 or 8, so my exit speeds were about 10mph off of "normal", and with just the lever arm of the accelerator available it was a foot contortion to get WOT, and heel toe was an impossibility. We got down to the 2:07s. Everything was going fine UNTIL 15 minutes from the checkered flag......
Late in the race with maybe 15 minutes to go, coming down from 10 into 11, myself and a red Miata passed a bunch of slower traffic that we had caught up to. At this point in the race I was trying to make very clean passes and not take any chances. Evidently the Mazda thought I was "slowing him down" and decided to bump me to "let me know he was there". The "bump" occurred
right in the transition from 11 to the esses and felt pretty hard. The
"bump" made the car really loose and forced me to the left as I fought to gather it back up. The Mazda took my heading left as an invitation to pass on the right, as I tried to keep from going off track left, I moved right and we smacked together, my right rear quarter panel into his left front bumper. I went spinning off backwards into the tire wall right before the back paddock entry. I went backwards into the tire wall and hit hard with the front end of the car coming off the ground. I was convinced the back end of the car was collapsed, all I could see in the mirror was my open trunk. I managed to drive over to my crew. They pulled out the right rear quarter panel and closed the trunk. I was able to get out on the track and
take the last three laps. His impatience nearly ended the race for me. I
can almost justify the tap if after we had passed all the slower traffic and IF HE COULD HANG WITH ME. A few weeks afterwards he admitted that I had walked away from him in a similar situation earlier that morning and then he caught up to me in traffic. I have no problem letting faster cars by, if they truly are faster ;-)
Overall I'm glad we did it, even with all the troubles and body damage. When I bought the car new nearly 10 years ago if someone would have said "I bet you're going to run a 25hour Enduro in this car" I would thought they were insane. Now I know I'm the insane one.
My hat's off to winners of the EO class, Bullet Performance running an E36 328is. They had an awesome run, I think if we hadn't had so many problems it would have been a great duel! Maybe next year.
Mechanically the car ran flawlessly, BMW builds a good sturdy car. Most of our major body damage was self inflicted trying to avoid having an accident. I can honestly say my car has now done more 4-wheeling than my 4x4. Tire walls are a godsend. The Michelins held up amazingly in the dry, and the Cryo treatment definitely paid for itself multiple times over. The PIAAs were also a great set of lights.
Thanks to NASA for putting this on, and thanks to all the teams, especially to the Motovation Team and Greg Ross for helping out with spares and gas. Racers by an large are great people. I was amazed how people that never have met each other will go out of their way to help each other. Even people in your own class.
thanks,
Marco Romani
Owner BMW E36 M3 E0 #96
Back to the Post Event Page
|
|
|
|
|
|
