| Trackmasters Racing #3 325i Race Report |
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 This was the first enduro for the Trackmasters Racing #3 team. I had brought together an excellent team with Tom Miller, Ron Thompson, Jim Tilley and Gil Caravantes driving my ’89 BMW 325i in the E1 class. During testing on Friday we were having a severe oil pressure problem that forced us to skip qualifying and take the car to the shop of one of our primary sponsors, Schatz and Krum, and tear apart the lower end of the motor. We dropped the car down off of the lift at 1am Saturday morning and after doing a few “hot laps” in the parking lot behind the shop we deemed the car ready for competition.
After 2 hours of sleep it was back up to the track. We started the race and the rain came. Tom said the car was very loose so we brought him in and put a full tread Toyo RA-1 on the right rear, disconnect the rear sway bar and topped off the fuel tank. This early fuel stop proved to be a mistake as the officials were extra alert early on and we received a 5 minute penalty for an ounce of fuel that was blown off of our catch pan onto pit lane. We also incurred 2 more penalties for passing under yellow and soon found ourselves in 71st position overall and last in class.
Well the car ran flawlessly through the night even though we got nailed in the left rear quarter panel a couple of times causing unscheduled pit stops to pull the sheet metal off of the tire and having to replace a damage tire during one of the stops. We steadily worked our way up through the night with each driver complaining about the lack of light we had on our car and the over abundance of light on some of the other cars on the track. By morning we had worked our way up to the 41st position overall and 6th in class. A quick brake change was done and we were out running some fast laps through the morning hours. By 9:30am we were in the 40th position overall and 5th in class. At 10am the shift tower broke bringing the car into the paddock for a costly 40 minute pit stop. Luckily we had Stuart (just call me McGyver) Krum in our pits supporting us and he attached the shift tower to the body and we were back out turning our fastest laps of the event. We returned to the race in 41st place overall and 6th in class. We continued to turn our fastest laps in the last hour of the race with our best lap coming 15 laps from the end of the race. With 5 minutes left in the event the fuel light came on so I backed off and just enjoyed the achievement of completing the 25 hours.
All things considered we exceeded our goals. The lower end of the motor had been rebuilt 10 hours prior to the start of the race. We finished 38th overall and 6th in class.
The Drivers The Crew
Jeff Lyon Bob Lyon
Tom Miller Stuart Krum
Ron Thompson Doug Gale
Jim Tilley Tom Escover
Gil Caravantes Trina Eggleston
Carole Brill
Kelly Erickson
Penny Lyon
The Sponsors
Trackmasters Racing www.trackmasters-racing.com
Schatz & Krum www.schatzandkrum.com
Toyo Tires www.toyo.com
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