VIR. The beautifully paved track nestled in the rolling hills of Southern VA. A real track from back in the day - not a conjured road course like so many new tracks. Rhythm, flow, speed, staffed with good friends, and its just 2 hours from the BimmerWorld HQ. Our home track is a good one. This is the most anticipated weekend on our schedule all season, and for some reason it could hardly be going worse.

Test day is a day to ...test. Not bang up equipment - test. Not make low percentage moves - test. There is a saying in racing - "you can't win practice". But you can test. So we showed up to VIR with some new work on the cars. To test.

As expected, we don't bat 1,000 and not all of our stuff was working as we wanted. Most but not all, so it was time to change back to our tried and true. Because we were testing. Making laps and learning. Not taking stupid chances. We had done some crafty camera work on the last session on the 81 car, but we decided to send my car out as well to verify our thoughts - it was going to take a long time to set the cars up again, so we would otherwise sit out and we wanted to make sure we learned as much as possible.

Everything was going well. I had a setup problem and it was behaving as expected. If we COULDN'T solve it and we had to deal with it, we were making progress on making it drivable.

Our cars exit turn 4 and are flat on the throttle all the way to turn 10 - there is a short straight between the flat esses and the uphill esses - both sections of connected transitional turns that are generally considered one-car wide. I have more laps at VIR than any other track I drive - about 8 years worth. I have gone two wide through the uphill esses before and it is a wild ride at 100+ MPH, each car has to give enough room to co-exist, go at least 2 wheels through the dirt at the apexes, and at the end it is a loser because it is not as fast as tucking in and waiting until the top when things aren't so tight to pass.

So on a test day, this is not something to do. Last lap of a race - maybe. Fighting for a position with a car in class - maybe. On a TEST DAY? NO.

We are on track with a mix of ST cars in our class and the faster GS cars. The ST cars are generally a bit less powerful, but about 5-600# lighter on average - that means that they mix very well on track for some great racing. Similar braking ability, similar corner speeds, and the GS cars pass our ST cars on the straights where it is safer and they don't get frustrated - they just drive by. And if not, our lighter ST cars are as quick in the turns so it doesn't hold them up.

So realizing that this is a TEST DAY, I exited the flat esses with two GS cars a bit behind me. In this straight section, they can pass, but as we enter the uphill esses I am flat on the gas and even the best GS car has to lift a bit to check their speed - remember we are about the same speed in the turns.

So at the tail end of the straight, a nameless Porsche pops out with good closing speed but not in a position to make any sort of reasonable move - ie he wouldn't be beside me and certainly not in front of me by the time the track tightened up in the uphill esses. Fair enough - I do that when I am in a fast car too. Show the nose, see what happens. But if the car being overtaken doesn't slow, then I do the right thing and tuck in.

So of the two GS cars, the Porsche pulls out, the other Camaro stays put. I am watching this happen in the rearview and think I am pretty safe, this is a test day, no one in the world would try to dive bomb me into the esses. But JUST IN CASE, as we turn left into the esses I don't head to the apex - I leave room so we can go two wide and let this optimistic fellow figure out that he is in the middle of a non-productive effort.

After that, I am not really sure what happened. I turn left, but I am not so sure that WE turned left - tricky since that is where the track goes. Or maybe we did turn left and the side of my car looked like the apex to hit when turning right. Whatever happened, the Porsche was not beside me, did NOT play it any sort of safe and freaked out or whatever and hit me around the LR wheel, sending me 180, then traveling backwards at about 100MPH, where I rode for about 200', praying a lot, thinking about how bad this was going to hurt and what the chances were for some serious pain or permanent personal damage.

I was insanely lucky. The car hit the tirewall backwards, square, flattened the back up to the rear tires, continued to absorb the energy as the nose went straight up in the air, spun 180 on the tail on the ground and then landed on the other side of the wall. Pretty funny in retrospect video where I am chattering on the radio before the car lands with 1)its totaled, 2)that ...... ..... that just hit me on a TEST DAY, and 3)Dave go call RRT and get a car here to race tomorrow. All in about a 10 second span.

I get out of the car after the track is cold and it is safe to walk around (you can't just get out with other cars going 100+, looking at you, and potentially driving where they are looking). I survey the damage, hear that the other driver is OK, then spend about the next 15 minutes lurking around the Porsche in anticipation of a conversation with any reasonable explanation of what happened. I didn't get it.

Sooooo - test day down, car down. Dave called the RRT guys who weren't running their car this weekend and we strike a deal - car to arrive at 6AM. Our guys put in a Herculean effort to get the car teched, swapped over to our car number so we can score points in it for the weekend, and get it on track by 8:40AM.

Enter Round 2 of my fun weekend as I start my morning session to feel out the temporary #80 on loan from the RRT Collection. It isn't uncommon for us to have some fun on the team. Bill Heumann donated a bottle of Satan's Blood or some similarly-named substance that is 10% hot sauce and 90% death in a bottle. This was last year and it travels in the truck for the off nights if someone wants to play the "how much can you eat" game. And over the year of use, a little of this stuff has apparently gotten on the outside of the bottle. Enough so that at this point, when you touch the bottle you had better remember it and not touch anything else personal and of value for the next couple of days, lest a strong burning feeling wash over that part of your body - very similar to the feeling currently in my ears.

As my ears get hotter, I get hotter. Joke gone wrong. Not funny. Hot sauce on the earbuds - really??? I struggle through some laps. Its getting hotter and hotter. Another car has a similar fate to ours of yesterday, black flag brings all the cars into the pits at about the right time - my ears are on fire. I am going to find someone to kill... As I sit in the pits, we talk about setup and make some changes to get the car more under us. Whew - my ears are getting better! So I spend most of my 10 minutes in the pits thinking who is the culprit. We go back out at the tail end of the session to feel out the changes and the heat on the earial area comes on again, strong.

I get out of the car, we have a direction on what we want to do to make it work, time to diagnose my main issue of ear pain. Sitting in the trailer the most sore ear is starting to have some wetness (goo, so I will spare the rest of the details). Anyway, I decide that this was a damaged ear form yesterday's wreck - banging my head around in the seat's side ears jostled my earbuds in the inner ear and tore the skin - or I tore it pulling them out. So I go off to get some neosporine with pain relief to solve the issue.

Session 2, I start again to get a quick read on our car work before handing the car over to Dave. I can hardly hear anything because of static in the radios, but whatever - quick in and out. Only this time, the ear heat starts immediately, and the right one is INSANE. Our engineer Wayne asks me how the car is doing. I think I say "ear, ear". I am going through the yesterday referenced uphill esses at 120MPH, one hand on the steering wheel guiding the car, the other wrapped around my helmet chinpiece pulling it away from my right ear because relieving the pressure seems to make the pain momentarily bearable. I get into the pitlane, stall the car, start a couple of sentences and stop because I can't focus on anything but my ears, and bail out of the car. I scramble to get my helmet off - WHEW!!!

Dave gets in the car, does a few laps and we are content enough. At the end of the session, we need to do a practice driver change in the new car - simulated race stop. Dave flies into the pits, stops, gets out, I get in, strap the belts hook up the radio, and I am off - after I am released by my car chief Josh. Mouth moving, no words. At this point, the radios are so bad I can't hear anything - and I could only deal with putting my left earbud in. I get a visual waive-off and head to our transporter with the car - session over. About halfway there, my left ear which was previously the minor irritation is now heating up. WHAT IS GOING ON???

The drivers download after every session - first talking to each other, then Wayne to go over the car issues and how we are going to make them better. After this, and some complaints from me on the whole ear situation, Dave pipes up. This was his first time in the new car - and the scoundrel with the hotsauce apparently got him too! And then we think - radio issue, earbud issue - really? Does a speaker get hot? It would take a whole lot of energy to make it happen. We hook up my helmet to the car, turn on the radio, start to talk to activate the speaker and in a few minutes it is almost too hot to touch.

BINGO. No hot sauce. No prank. The stupid wiring harness has literally taken my earbud speaker, turned it into a little micro-heater, and it is literally burning the insides of our ears! And with the limited schedule and time we had in the cars, there was no time to take off a helmet, test, play around and decide. Besides with years and years of experience I (and anyone else I have asked) have never heard of this happening. But it is my lucky weekend, so it all falls in line.

Qualifying at 5:25. Dave gets in our car, lays down slowish lap after slowish lap. After he gets out he tells me how he has almost died several times accomplishing this utterly unimpressive result. Now that is not a dig on Dave - he is an awesome co-driver and he puts down the laps in qualifying and is rock solid. Last race at Barber he put it on the pole. So if he can't do it, I believe him. We have a theory, based on running our club enduro car and it all makes sense - not enough rear swaybar, which is also the only setup difference with the #81 car. Not sure if it will get us to the front, but it is the plan we have and the only one, so it is the one we will go with.

Bill and Seth have been performing solidly and have a good chance in tomorrow's race. I am hoping after our changes tomorrow we will be on the same page - time will tell.

What a weekend so far and it isn't even Saturday. Its good to be back to our home track...

Labels: are your ears burning?, BimmerWorld Racing, Porsche drivers, stupidity

It seems like race weekends are defined by all the weird stuff that happens. Kind of like a family vacation,.... only doubly so.

Seth and I had prepared for the race by joining Chin Motorsports for a two day event a couple of weeks ago. Chin runs a great event with lots of track time. Mark and Maria treated us like royalty and arranged for our run group to get a session on the pro course (less infield but includes Nascar #3-#4) for one session on Sunday. We got tons of track time in my IP race car with lots of support from Randy Mueller of Epic Motorsport. This included a major engine overhaul (head gasket and harmonic balancer) Saturday night so we could run on Sunday. It's a true friend that will stay up all night so that someone else gets to drive. Especially since he gave up a Bahamas trip to do it! Thanks Randy!The result was that Seth got me to where I was very comfortable and fast on the track and had started working on some technique improvements that are costing me time.

So fast forward to this race weekend. We had a promoter test day starting at 1 PM on Thursday. My only real job was to get the feel for the car since I was already pretty comfortable with the track. The lack of aero and running on our series spec Continental enduro tires verses Hankooks can sure take one's bravado away! At any rate I put down some decent times and was getting more and more comfortable with the BimmerWorld/GearWrench E90.

On Friday we had two practice sessions then a 15 minute qualifying session at 5:05. Dave and I decided to go out at the tail of the pack for qualifying, get a nice gap, then do our fliers. Dave went out a little in front of me, due to me being held up to be scolded by a grid official. I really had no idea what my infraction was at the time because the guy was yelling at me through my helmet, earbuds and engine noise. So I go out at the very tail and allow what I thought was a big enough gap (about 200 yards) to the two cars in front of me. Despite this being a single class, that wasn't enough of a gap and I caught them by T3. I made the mistake of backing off to build another gap for the next lap instead of making the best I could of out of that lap. On the next flier I was on a good lap for me through T5 (T1-T4 were usually my weakest parts) but when I hit the brake zone for T6 all hell broke lose. The car had an electrical short which killed ALL power. I locked up the brakes and spun to a stop in the middle of T6 facing oncoming traffic. For about 5 minutes I fiddled with various combinations of master switch, ignition, start button, etc. while watching cars come at me under waiving yellow, until blessedly, I got power again and got the car started. I got one lap on flat spotted tires before the session ended so I qualified pretty poorly (P28). Dave did an awesome job qualifying P10 with what would be one of the fastest lap times we would get out of the cars all weekend.

The electrical short was diagnosed as a broken wire hidden by shrink tube in the right rear quarter of the car (coincidentally, the corner I crushed in my test day mishap at Daytona).

Morning practice on race day went well and we were ready to go. Due to a misunderstanding of the schedule we missed gridding our cars properly so both Dave and I had to start from the back of the field. This wasn't too much of a change for me since I had qualified so poorly but for Dave and James it was a real setback. We started working our way up through the field. Within two laps, the GS leaders had caught us and things started getting really wild with a fair amount of carnage but we continued to make our way through the field. Due to worries about a cooling issue we had been fighting in the #81 car we pitted early under a FCY and did the driver change at just over 30 minutes into the race. Seth got in and started doing his usual magic of cutting through the field. One of the many incredible things about Seth (besides of course that he is Seth Thomas!) is that he can consistently put down qualifying speed laps in the heat of racing. While everyone else in the field falls off by .5 seconds or more from their qualifying times in racing, Seth kept hitting fast lap after fast lap regardless of traffic or race conditions. When the normal pit rotations came around we were leading the race for a while, but we needed to bring to Seth in for a splash of fuel due to the early stop. We ended up in fourth just behind my friend (now SOB) BJ Zacharias in the a RSR Mini. Congratulations BJ!

Meanwhile Dave and James drove an outstanding race without error on their parts and ended up in seventh. But for a series of very bizarre race control instructions and some bad moves from competitors they would have been higher. I'll leave it to them to explain the weird stuff. All I can say is that it should be entertaining to watch Speed TV try explain it on the air.... which probably means they will keep the coverage on the GS cars while the most crazy stuff is going on.

Despite some bad luck, the team held together and came away with both cars in the top 10. In this field, that is a great accomplishment and we are all very proud and pumped for the next race at Barber. The crew did outstanding jobs on all of our pit stops which is critical to having any chance of success in this series.

Thanks to the lovely Crystal Mueller for helping the crew with various tasks but, most importantly, for arranging our food for the weekend. It was delicious and makes a big difference going into an enduro!

So why do I hate Jimmy Buffet music now?

Homestead has a paddock wide PA system that played Buffet music almost non stop from 8 AM until we escaped at around 6 PM. Now unlike some of the other team members, I didn't mind a little Buffet now and then and usually Florida is a good place for it...... but 10 hours a day? Really?

As I finally made it to my departure gate Sunday morning I realized that the most demanding toughness training that comes from pro racing isn't from the racing itself, the hours practice, or even the continual comparison of every minutia of one's driving techniques to drivers like Seth, James and Dave. It comes from the continual challenge of dealing with airports like Miami International (and driving on the streets in places like Miami). But that's a whole other story!

Bill Heumann

Labels: Bill Heumann, BimmerWorld Racing, Continental Tire, Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, CTSCC, grand-am

-James Clay

Its Tuesday, so it must be pit stop practice time... We were a little behind where we wanted to be at Daytona with our stops. The crew did an awesome job, but the driver handoff wasn't quite where we wanted it. Everything has to flow super-smoothly so that if we hit a snag, we have time for it. It is also pretty annoying/distracting to still be working on tightening belts or hooking up a helmet blower/drink tube/radio while cruising out of pit lane, so time to refine all the little procedures and program them into muscle memory.

Dave White came up to the shop, Chas (our driver helper) stayed late, we put on our coats and hoodies to make the belts more difficult, and got to work. After about 30 minutes of mostly constant swaps, we are in the game. Everything is flowing like clockwork. And who knew - getting in and out of a racecar repeatedly with full winter clothes is actually somewhat of a workout. So now fuel takes 40 sec for a full load and we are down to about 30 on a driver swap - right on!

Damage update - Turns out the #80 car took a bit of a whack at Daytona. No real surprise to anyone that saw the TV coverage, and really none to me after feeling my kidney for a few days (this is actually pretty rare with today's safety gear - even in our massive Watkins Glen wreck which is the scariest I have ever been in, I wasn't sore at all afterward). However, the extent of the damage is pretty impressive. The fuel door wasn't closing quite right and sure enough, the quarter has a wave in it now. The fuel cell cradle took a whack also and is being replaced. Most of it falls under "target of opportunity" for the next trip to the body shop - which is likely to be some time this season if I put on my fortune teller's hat. The guys in the shop are close to having everything straight and pretty again and we will be at 100% for Homestead.

Labels: BimmerWorld Racing, Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, grand-am

VIR Shakedown - BimmerWorld arranged for a pre Daytona shakedown at VIR last Monday. It was roughly 15 degrees when we got to the track and it didn’t seem to warm up much from there. The cold temps delayed our start but we finally got underway and made some real progress. After the initial shakedown laps, we spent some time getting familiar with the cars and started making some suspension tweaks. A few things I immediately noticed about the new cars is that they have a little less grip than I am used to from racing BMWCCA prepared class cars (the spec tires are a little harder and the cars have no real aero grip) and they are very sensitive to driver input. I'll definitely be working on being smooth and patient with my inputs.

The cars are absolutely gorgeous and the build quality is second to none. This is a testament to BimmerWorld’s race car building experience and their intimate knowledge of the E90 chassis. We were all very happy with the cars and the progress that was made at VIR.

Hopefully Daytona will be warmer…

Daytona Test Days – So it was a little warmer in Daytona but not much. Apparently Florida is seeing unusually cold temperatures…greeeaaaat! If you haven’t already picked up on it, I’m not a big fan of cold weather…at all.

Friday – We stopped by the Grand-Am offices on the way to breakfast so everyone could pick up their credentials for the season (apparently I was the only one that had his credentials mailed to him). After breakfast, we headed over to the track. If you’ve never been to Daytona International Speedway (DIS), it’s MASSIVE! I’m pretty sure you could fit a few other speedways in the infield. Overall, the facility is very impressive. After separating and handing out all the crew and driver gear (the whole team is decked out in new Alpinestars gear – very nice stuff), we headed over to the driver’s meeting. The driver’s meeting was pretty brief and to the point (surprisingly nobody asked what the yellow flag meant).

James and I had visited DIS late last year to learn the track so we basically hit the ground running in the first session. The cars were fast right off the trailer and I spent most of my seat time the first day getting more comfortable with the car and driving in a new series. We worked on tweaking the car’s setup a bit along with figuring out what kind of fuel mileage we can expect. I felt like it was a very productive and successful first day in CTSCC!

Saturday – We left our hotel Saturday morning to find out it’s sleeting/snowing/raining…in Daytona Beach, Florida. Really? When we got to the track we heard that there was some ice on the track and the track officials were trying to thaw it out. A perfect way to start the day. The early morning Rolex series session was cancelled and we decided to skip our first session (at 11am) because the track was still wet, cold, and it was still raining/sleeting. Apparently this was a popular decision since very few cars went out in that session. The track was dry for our afternoon session and we picked up where we left off from the previous day, working on setup and any driver/line issues that needed to be addressed.

Sunday – After thawing out some Saturday night, we arrived to much nicer conditions (albeit still cold) on Sunday morning. The Sunday sessions were spent mostly on pit stops and driver changes since this is a very important part of endurance racing. We practiced several pit stops and I was very impressed with how well everything went. The BimmerWorld crew is on top of their game! I did discover during one pit stop that I have to unbuckle (not just loosen) my harnesses before I can get out of the car…who knew?

Overall I felt like the Daytona test went great. We have great cars, an amazing crew, and a solid driver lineup. I’m very optimistic about BimmerWorld’s first season in CTSCC and can’t wait to get back to Daytona for our race at the end of this month. Hopefully it will be warmer…

Photos courtesy of Curtis Creager of Creager Images

Labels: BimmerWorld Racing, CTSCC, David White, Daytona

Florida is not supposed to be this cold! Ok, it is North Florida in January but snow and ice on the track? Seriously? This is colder than Mid Ohio in October! I can’t wait to get back North where at least the buildings have heat.

My real awareness of making it to the pros was when I got to the hotel room I was sharing with Seth. The room was equipped with black lights for mood and plastic under sheets. To cap it off the HVAC unit wouldn’t blow hot air. To show that I am not the most inexperienced member of the team in all things, I called the front desk to find out that if you want heat you turn the rheostat all the way to cold as opposed to the highest temperature setting. Other, more experienced team members resorted to leaving the oven on and open if they were in an efficiency room or sleeping mostly clothed if they didn’t have an oven.

This was my first visit to Daytona and it is an unbelievable track and facility. I have driven some other famous tracks, but this one takes the prize for wow factor. It is so large and so impressive with so much history in evidence that it is simply in a category of its own. Furthermore, it is fast. Really fast. The track itself is easy to learn your way around but like most, not so easy to master.

I am really fortunate to have opportunity to race with BimmerWorld and to be paired with Seth Thomas. The team is so unbelievably serious and professional…at least at the track. Outside of work they are somewhat less professional, but certainly more… “entertaining.”

The Continental Tire Challenge Sport Car Series (CTC) is run by Grand Am. They run a very efficient and friendly organization. The guys in the paddock from the other teams that I met were very helpful and kind to the rookie (who is old enough to be their father if not grandfather in some cases).

My goals for this test and tune weekend were to figure out the car, the track and a little bit about what the heck I am doing. I had some success on all counts but not as much as I had hoped for.

My first event as a BimmerWorld driver in the Continental Tire Challenge Series started in a pretty normal fashion for my style of doing things in racing…by crashing our newly built BMW E90 328 into the inside wall of T1 at Daytona. I came on the brakes too hard while still on the banking…or maybe it was the wall’s fault?

Before this, Seth had set the fast lap of Session 1 in our car so the car is good and is capable of running where we need to run. The build quality is superb. My IP racecar was built by BW and I have been able to see several of the cars they have built over the years. While those were all great cars, these CTC cars are clearly the best. They are simply, works of art. Well ok, #81 is a little less artistic now!

We are back at Daytona the end of this month for the first race of the season. In the mean time, I am off to Sebring for a day of coaching from Seth then a run in the PBOC 6 hour enduro.

Labels: Bill Heumann, BimmerWorld Racing, Continental Tire, Daytona