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New Track, New Car, Who Dis?

The second stop in the 2024 SCCA Hoosier Super Tour schedule for the team was NOLA Motorsports Park – a new track for all the drivers and most of the team. Relatively flat, built on a swamp and host of SRO GT Americas race events the past few years, NOLA ended up being a decently technical track and the Louisiana weather initially welcomed us with 70F, sunny and with a breeze weather. But once the test day came, the cold air from up north and a weather system from down south decided to join the party and aside from Sunday, we had low 40F temps, rain, and wind. Why do we even leave the PNW to go racing???

Thoughts on NOLA

Flat, minor (but critical) banking in some corners, no point-n-shoot corners and not a lot of time above 120mph meant that balancing the car in the cornering bits was going to be a premium.

NOLA has 16 corners with 10-11 of them (depending on how you count the corners) are right hand corners and there are two sections of the track where you have consecutive right hand-corners, which makes those left-side tires important. From Turn 4, you are only making right hand turns until Turn 10! Turn 4 is a slower speed corner which requires a good amount of mechanical grip. Turns 5, 6 and 7 are higher speed corners where you are trying really hard to not over-slow for turns 5 and 6 but as you try to carry the speed into those corners, the left rear tire is taking a beating from the slight high-speed yaw action when trying to rotate the car and then accelerating through the corner.

The esses complex is relatively straight forward but carrying speed into Turn 9 (the first ess) is critical and sets up the rhythm through the rest of the complex.

Finally, the left side tires only get a mini-break before needing to turn hard at Turn 13 and then suffer through a long duration compound section of Turns 13-14, which leads onto the main straightaway.

If you’d like a more detailed walkthrough of the track, check out this video that came in super handy from ASM and Tom O’Gorman.

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Credit: ASM + TOMO Coaching

Ann’s new baby shark! 991.2 Porsche GT3 Cup Car

As some of you may have read in past posts, Ann has been developing at a rapid pace the past couple of years and driven the wheels off a Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport, mostly in SCCA GT2 and T1 classes. At the end of the 2023 season, with the repairs needed on the car from a failed tire during the runoffs, Ann made the decision to move on from the Cayman and jump into a GT3 Cup Car. So she spent the off-season looking for options and just in time for the NOLA race, we took delivery of her new steed on the Wednesday before the race weekend. Exciting but yikes!

With her car being new to the team and her and limited information of the running state, we set low expectations for the weekend: get the car on track, have it circulate consistently and have Ann start to build confidence in the car. Any specific result was not a consideration at all for the weekend.

Look at the butt on that! Yeah – it must work out. Ann’s new 991.2 Porsche GT3 Cup Car!

Jordan got to work on the car and after completing a full inspection, we were in decent shape! There were a couple of suspension bits to monitor, some to proactively replace but aside from that, it was just work to get the car personalized to Ann’s preferences and get the car out on the track so we could know more confidently, what we had on our hands. The car was ready to test on Friday but straight up gross, wet, and cold conditions, we made the team decision we’d wait until Saturday where there was a window of potential dry weather.

Saturday started off wet but the rain started slowing around 9-10am, just in time for qualifying. Ann went out on wet tires in case it started raining again (it didn’t) for her maiden voyage and by the end of the session, we had a clean bill of health! By the afternoon race, we fitted a set of the used tires the car came with and sent her out to get more laps, see what breaks and build confidence! After race 1, she moved up several positions, finished P6, nothing broke and ended the race with the last 2-3 laps at a decent enough pace where we could actually start looking at performance.

On Sunday, we finally got a break in the weather with the system that ended up delaying the Daytona 500, moving south of us, leaving us with clear skies but COLD winds. Beggars can’t be choosers! Ann continued to take time off her lap times during qualifying and exchanged places to finish P6 out of 13 in her first race! In race 2, Ann picked right back up where she left off, took another 2 seconds off her fastest lap time to finish with 4 laps in the low 1:50’s. All again on 2 year old used tires with unknown number of heat cycles. Safe to say that Ann is loving her new Porsche GT3 Cup Car and is ready to build on this for the next race at Road Atlanta!

One last thing on Ann to put things in perspective. Just a few years ago, she had never been on a race track, let alone raced wheel to wheel. ~3 years in and developing at a very high rate in a Cayman GT4 Clubsport which is mega fast but has a lot of driver aides, she decided to move onto a monster of a platform. She not only jumped in with full confidence to drive, but she truly slayed this beast on her first outings in it. Incredible job, Ann!!!

Ann driving back into the pits from her first on-track session in her new Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Car!

Dave continues building on his BMW Z4 M Coupe

Dave took his new-to-him BMW Z4 M-Coupe out at Sebring for the first race weekend and made solid progress on the new platform but NOLA brought a whole new set of challenges with the weather and the gearing. The Z4M has won the SCCA Runoffs the last 2 years in a row, in large part due to the M3 based gearing. Nice and tall gears to let it stretch it’s legs out on the long straight aways. NOLA doesn’t have any long straight aways, so we knew going into the weekend that the gearing wouldn’t be optimal for the car but we’d still make the most of it.

Dave took part in all of the test day sessions but as covered previously, the conditions were horrible so they were good for getting a sense of the track from simulator preparations but gave next to no representative data for what ended up being dry the rest of the weekend.

Dave (and Gama) qualified on Saturday AM on wet tires (along with the rest of the field) but it ended up being damp to drying track surface. In race 1 Dave got out to a good start, avoided spinning on the oil left by a T4 car that dropped oil around the final corners leading to the main straight away and finished P6, one spot behind Gama who spun on that oil and had to battle his way back from last place.

On Sunday, Dave worked committing to throttle in one smooth motion during qualifying and dropped another almost 2 seconds from his personal best! In the race, which finally brought some track temperature with the sun appearing, he built on those learnings, took advantage of mistakes from other drivers and came in P5, chipping away at the gap to P4! Road Atlanta should be better suited for the powerhouse BMW Z4M with that long back straight away, two uphill sections where torque pays off big time and it being Dave’s 3rd time back to the track!

NISMO 370Z Starts to Deliver on it’s Potential

At Sebring, we saw signs that the 370z could compete for podium positions but rain in the wiring and dealing with the ice mode issue held us back from being able to truly show the car’s potential. Fast forward to NOLA where the brake vacuum controller that was requested to be allowed, was approved (yay!!) but not legal until March 1st, we had to figure out how to make due with an ABS System that could freak out at any point. We tried a few different things and while not perfect, they were good enough for us to feel comfortable running the car for the weekend.

On the morning of the test day, we decided to switch to wet tires due to the rain that had started but a wheel stud failed when trying to remove the wheel. Ugh! Memo jumped on the problem and 3-4 hours later, the car was ready to go, only to make the last test session of the day, just to make sure everything stayed together. Hats off to Memo’s effort and problem solving – as we chatted on the sidelines through the repair, had this type of an issue occurred while any of us drivers would have been there on our own – game over. Someone help me push this thing into the trailer but with Memo and or team on-hand, dang near anything can come up and as long as it’s safe, they’ll get the car back on the grid.

In the Saturday AM qualifying, we went out on wet tires like everyone else and finished P4, believing we had more pace in the car and on the second row, so all the things to play for. In the Saturday afternoon race, towards the end of lap 2, someone lost an engine, dropped oil all around the last couple corners. In the heat of the battle and with wet spots all around, I didn’t spot the oil (though the team had radio’ed it in) and got caught out when the rear tires hit the oil.

It took me a bit to get the car re-fired and out of the completely soaked grass but got going again, put my head down, worked my way back to P5 and was catching the leading group at 1-2 seconds per lap (of which I didn’t realize at the time and was somewhat frustrated with my pace).

The next day for the Sunday AM qualifying, we swapped on some lower heat cycle tires (specifically, the tires that I used during the VIR Runoffs in the installation laps/sessions) and a new tire on the front left corner. Better tires but still not a full on sticker run. First flying lap was good but I wasn’t pushing 100% and tires weren’t fully into the working window. The 3rd flying lap I let it all out and found myself a very fast Danny Stein in his Mazda STL car which provided a nice tow around the track, which resulted in a 1:55.2XX and pole for T3! On the next lap, I was slightly up on that 1:55.2XX lap time and I was going for another flyer to try and improve. I braked at the same point for Turn 1, did my downshift, turned in and then full front end lock up – sigh. This would end up being a telling sign of the rest of the day.

For the race, we decided to raise the car all around to help with compliance around the bumpy track. Thanks to fellow Nissan racers Rick Kulach and Richard Baldwin, we were able to get our hands on some taller front springs and made the change in time for the race.

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Watch the Sunday Touring 3 Race where Gama Aguilar starts in P1 and leads from flag to flag.

When the race started, I focused on getting a good start and ideally not be competing for the corner going into Turn 1. Luckily that happened and after the first lap, decided to pump out the fastest laps I can could muster so that I could build a healthy gap to P2. All was going to plan until I locked up going into T13 and had to take the escape road. Lesson learned that even though I thought the tires were still fresh, it was simply too much speed for this *awesome* (sarcasm) brake system to handle. From then on, I focused on braking a little earlier and softer in all braking zones, knowing I’d be leaving some time on the table but that would be better than locking up and flying off the track.

My plan was to steadily build the gap so that by the time we hit lapped traffic, I could use that pull away. Unfortunately, the rest of the competitors were not aware of my plan. haha

Sometime about mid-way through the race, someone lost a big lip spoiler or some strip of something that was 4-5′ long and right at the exit of Turn 8 of which I didn’t see until it was too late to do anything but run right over it. There was some loud banging as it went under the car and I had to slow to figure out if anything had impacted the handling/safety of the car. No issues but I lost a solid 1-2 seconds.

The next couple of laps, I had to take Turn 8 more cautiously so that I could see where that object was and not run over it again. Perfect. 🙁

Some laps later, Richard’s 350Z had a tire failure and he pulled off to the right of the essess, causing a local yellow. I ran up on a lapped T3 Mustang right in that spot and there went my entire gap to P2. From then on, it was a battle to steadily build up that gap.

2011 Nissan NISMO 370Z SCCA Touring 3 Spec at night with lights on.
Clearly bias but look at this thing!

Another thing that I have been struggling with is the shifter and specifically, the 5th to 4th shift where the shifter doesn’t self-center and will easily drop into 6th gear, not 4th gear. That shift is critical for Turn 8 and I had to over slow to make sure I got the shift done right and even then, I screwed it up a couple of times – another .5-.75 seconds lost on each screw up.

With a few laps left in the race, started coming up fast on a T4 car going into the essess and made the judgement call to make the pass before we got perpendicular to the standing yellow flag – barely made it!

Finally, going into the last lap, I was focused on matching or improving my personal best, knowing the left side tires were struggling. Half way through the lap, I was almost matching my fastest lap but knew I was vulnerable in the essess due to the 5th to 4th shift but still had a decent run through the section. P2 car was on my rear bumper so going into Turn 13, I ran a more defensive line, braked earlier and softer, go the downshift done and when I started turning, the front end locked up again.

My only choices were to continue plowing forward and straight into the grass, of which when that happens, I would have likely lost control of the car until it hit the asphalt again OR come of the brake and straighten the wheel so I could take the escape road. I did the second path as I had earlier in the race, then focused on making sure I didn’t make contact with anyone while rejoining the course. Coasted through the escape road, looked to my right, saw no cars and then rejoined with a primary concern of not causing a wreck.

Ended the race in P1 but post-race, the stewards felt like I gained an unfair advantage by taking the escape road and while that wasn’t my intent at all, I had no argument against it. Minor disappointment but in the grand scheme of things, very pleased with the results.

We made it through a weekend without the brake vacuum regulator and no damage to the car or other cars, learned more about the car and finally got consecutive on-track sessions to build base level confidence in the car. This car is finally showing the potential we know it has!

Mega thanks to the whole Racer on Rails team that made the NOLA SCCA Hoosier Super Tour weekend a massive success! Next up is Road Atlanta in March where the team is looking to build on success and momentum in 2023. Let’s go!!!

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2024 Hoosier Super Tour Race 1 – Sebring International Raceways

After a very short “off-season” coming off the 2023 SCCA Runoffs held at Virginia International Raceways for the second year in a row, the team regrouped, got cars turned and headed to Sebring, FL for the first race of the year.

With a new racing year, we have some changes on the team. For the first race, we brought down Simon Asselin in his 991.1 Porsche GT3 Cup Car, racing in the GT2 class for a second year in a row. Dave Orem has moved from a BMW Spec E46 in Touring 3 class, to the 2023 Touring 3 National Championship winning BMW Z4 M. Gama Aguilar returned in his freshly rebuilt Nissan Nismo 370Z, also competing in Touring 3 class.

Ann Doherty is in the middle of transitioning into a new car and new class for 2024 – stay tuned for updates! Thad Berger will be focusing on his Porsche Cayman GT4 MR in Touring 1 class but will miss the first couple of races and join the tour at Road Atlanta in March.

Simon Asselin Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Car in GT2 Class

Simon took official delivery and got his first laps in his Cup Car at this race last year. Since last year, Simon has had several solid race weekends, upgraded suspension with Motion Control Suspension (MCS) 3-ways, experimented with different tires, and iterated on both dry and wet setups. With a stronger foundational knowledge of the car and seat time, the goal for the weekend was to build on that and maximize competitiveness.

With the changing conditions throughout the weekend, it was a challenge to iterate on the dry setup but Simon made the most of the conditions for qualifying on Saturday AM with a P5 in full wet conditions and only 1 second separating him from P2.

At the start of the race, Simon lost a couple of positions but quickly got on his horse to recapture the positions and before a full course yellow came out that ended the race, Simon secured P5 and most importantly, improved on his PB at Sebring by 2 seconds!

Simon Asselin in his Porsche 991.1 GT3 Cup Car, racing in the GT2 class.
Simon Asselin piloting his Porsche 991.1 GT3 Cup Car at Sebring International Raceways at the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour.

On Sunday, the forecast was for cloudy skies but dry pavement. Well, the forecast didn’t pan out that way, and not at all. We awoke to passing showers and rain started properly falling before lunch. By race time, it was a full wet race and the first race group after lunch would be the GT2 race.

Right as the cars came around Turn 17 (Sunset) for the green flag, many cars moved into pit lane to change onto wet tires which shuffled the starting grid and created some confusion. A car on the second row lost control of the car at the green flag, tried to keep it together but unfortunately the car hooked right and ultimately making contact with several cars, including Simon who properly collected the other car. Simon had nowhere to go and thanks to all the safety equipment and design of the Porsche GT3 Cup Car, the energy was disbursed, eliminating major physical harm to Simon. He walked away from the incident and has been recovering well. The car took a significant hit to the front end and a more minor hit to the rear. That was the end of the race and we are actively getting the car evaluated and on a path to repair.

Dave Orem BMW Z4 M-Coupe in Touring 3 Class

Building off another solid year of driver development in the Spec E46, wanting to continue developing as a driver but also wanting to have a material chance to podium at our events, Dave couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to purchase the 2023 SCCA Touring 3 National Championship winning car.

The BMW Z4 M-Coupe is essentially an E46 M3 but with a smaller body that can punch through the air more effectively and a much lower center of gravity. At tracks like Road America where the Runoffs will be run over the next two years, where we spend a material amount of time over 100mph, this car is one of the favorites to continue competing for the top steps.

Dave Orem getting used to his new-to-him BMW Z4 M-Coupe in the SCCA Touring 3 Class at Sebring International Raceways

Dave only had limited testing before the trip and in cold/wet conditions so the goals for the weekend were simple: learn the car, build confidence and drive it into the trailer at the end.

During the Thursday Test day, Dave started building confidence in the car and getting used to the taller gearing compared to the Spec E46 but in the last session, he lost what would end up being an axle shaft (no drive), which left the team sourcing parts and getting the car fixed on Friday, thus missing practice on Friday. Saturday he qualified P7 in his first competitive wet session, while dropping time each lap. In the race, he lost a few positions in the start battling with T2, SMX and T3 cars, got himself settled in and started picking away at the cars one at a time. By the time a black flag came out that would eventually end the race, Dave had hit his best lap time in the car and feeling/seeing where the big chunks of time were left.

On Sunday, the Touring 3 race was the race right after Simon’s GT2 race, with full wet conditions. Dave started P16 overall, lost a few spots in the first few laps due to the visibility but after a full course yellow to move Gama’s 370Z that lost electronics due to the wet weather, Dave got moving and got back all but one position.

Overall given the inconsistent conditions throughout the weekend and battling through a lost day of running on Friday, Dave had an excellent first race weekend in his new-to-him race car.

Gama Aguilar Nissan 370Z Nismo Touring 3 Class

Gama debuted his 370Z at the 2023 Runoffs but unfortunately suffered from a catastrophic “Ice Mode” situation at Oak Tree corner where the car suffered significant front end damage, along with injuries that took 2.5 months to mostly recover. In that recovery time, Gama, Tyler Mayer and the team dug deep and got the car fixed and tested in time to make the Sebring race weekend.

Similar tone to Dave’s goal for the weekend, we only had a couple of goals for the weekend: first was to experiment, document, and share results on different potential solutions to better understand and mitigate the risk to “Ice Mode” and second, establish a baseline pace and characteristics to truly start leaning on the car.

Gama shaking down and testing things to figure out the brakes in his 2011 Nissan Nismo 370Z in SCCA Touring 3 Class

One of the leading theories behind Ice Mode is that the brake booster in the 370Z is WAY over-powered. That means that for every pound of pressure/pedal effort the driver makes on the brake pedal, the power assisted brake booster, magnifies that force into the braking system. This is normal in power boosted and ABS based braking systems and it makes sense for normal street driving where the cars are not being subjected to the G-forces that are seen in racing conditions and with extremely sticky tires. Normal drivers don’t need to hit the brakes very hard to get to maximum braking and they are usually on street tires with much less grip.

In our conditions, what we’ve found is that this overly powerful brake booster contributes to the ABS system freaking out and potentially locking the driver out of the braking system. Not good! So to test this theory, we installed an AIM Brake Pressure sensor and a Sakebomb Garage Variable Brake Booster Vaccum Controller. This device in installed in-line between the engine and the brake booster and can adjust the amount of vacuum fed to the brake booster and thus adjusting the maximum about of brake boosting, the booster can provide.

Learnings

After installing the vacuum controller, we turned it all the way “off” in that it didn’t apply any adjustment to the vacuum levels, we hit the brakes (with ending running) with a 10/10 brake pedal effort hit and saw the impact to the brake pressure sensor —> 2,000psi! Holy moly! That is insane. Now granted, that took a massive pedal effort that frankly isn’t realistic in any conditions but our normal pedal effort braking still resulted in ~1,800psi of brake pressure. That is still insane – not even Motorsport ABS systems can handle those levels of brake pressure in a system. We then modulated the pedal effort to see what it took to keep brake pressure below 1,000psi (generally accepted as about the max range most braking systems can handle *and* slow the car down – anything above these levels will not only make the ABS system overwork but it won’t effectively further slow the car down). The result was that it was dang near impossible to repeatedly be that gentle with the brake pedal and the modulation window from 600-900psi was even more difficult.

We don’t know 100% that this is the root of the issue behind Ice Mode but this sure as heck isn’t helping things. So we found the adjustment level where the max brake pressure we could possibly hit was ~1,000psi.

We also tested 2-piece rotors from Paragon, which have a more Motorsport focus hat design for better heat consistency across the rings and hats and we experimented with different brake pads, with all of them being in a direction of less aggressive pads.

Catching the overall theme here? All experiments were around making it harder for the OEM ABS system to freak out from sudden spikes in brake pressure and/or changes in wheel speeds.

The results? We’re going in the right direction. Prior to adjusting the controller to max ~1,000psi brake pressure, we didn’t hit ice mode but were able to get the wheels to consistently lockup in “heavier” brake application. Interesting that a functional ant-lock braking (ABS) system, still allowed tires to lock up. Hhhhmmm….

After making the adjustment and going straight into a race due to the transmission failing during the last test day session, the brake pedal was MUCH better and finally allowed me (Gama) to start building confidence in the brakes.

I started at the very back of the Touring field (split start) in P24. By the end of the race, I’d moved up 13 positions total, finished in P8, right on the tail of the next few cars in class and ending with the 3rd fastest lap of the race! Starting to cook with some real fire!

For Sunday’s race, we’d start closer to the front but in full wet conditions. The start was okay, picking up a position but not able to be more aggressive because how bad the spray was in front – literally couldn’t see more than 10-15 feet in front. Once the cars started stringing out, made up some more positions and mid-way through second lap was in P2 in class. Then suddenly the electronic controls inside the car went dead but the car was still running – clearly water had gotten in somewhere and started causing shorts.

Gama Aguilar moving to P2 before an eventual DNF due to water in electronics.

Going into T17, I broke early and soft but with the amount of water on the track and how bumpy the track is, I ended up spinning along with several other cars and thankfully, came to a stop before making contact with anything. With no functioning electronic controls in the car, I wasn’t able to get it running again and had to DNF.

Making Lemonade out of Lemons

To top things off, a fellow competitor in Touring 3 decided to protest me in the 370Z for running an illegal part, even though we had been openly discussing and sharing the testing plan, as the goal was to figure out how to make these cars safe, not to achieve a performance advantage. We were prepared and okay with this potential scenario but it was still disappointing for someone to protest the car when the focus was on safety *and* that competitor finished ahead of me on both races – e.g. no impact to his or anyone in the podium position places.

Despite that, we leave Sebring optimistic about what we’ve learned to make these cars safe for people to race in Touring 3 class. We are not only going to make a rules change proposal to allow this non-in-car adjustable controller for the Nissan 370Z and we are looking at ways in which we can still limit the vacuum to the booster, without the addition of a controller in case that proposal doesn’t go through.

What’s next? Round 2 at NOLA Motorsports Park!

The next round in the 2024 SCCA Hoosier Super Tour is at NOLA Motorsports Park in New Orleans, LA in February. Dave and Gama will be there for sure. Simon is TBD based on the outcomes of repairing the Cup Car and Ann is targeting to join at NOLA. This will be a new track for everyone so lots of time in the simulator is in store for all of us between now and the weekend of February 18th!

Big shout out to the whole Racer on Rails crew who made getting the cars ready and transported across the country, happen!

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Race Report 2: Circuit of the Americas SCCA Hoosier Super Tour

For the third year in a row, we headed back to Austin, Texas for the second round of the Hoosier Super Tour at the beautiful and challenging, Circuit of the Americas. Thankfully, we avoided the annual winter freeze that hits southern Texas and while it was dry all weekend, it wasn’t “warm” except for on load-in day (Thursday) and Sunday afternoon. Perfect! (Insert thick amounts of sarcasm)

Prior to the race weekend Jordan, Memo, Bryce and Mark flew into Houston, TX where we had the cars and trucks stored to whip the cars into shape. Can’t say enough how grateful we are to have friends across the country that have helped us with space to park and work on the cars. Thank you Todd Joseph Farley (TMJ Bimmers) and James Walker Jr!

Jordan taking a big swig of Green Redbull to do a full engine swap on the 81 SE46 that decided it just didn’t want to run anymore, at Sebring.

For this race report, we’re going to do something a little different. Driving at these bucket list tracks, we regularly get asked which track is our favorite, most unique, most scary and/or most challenging? So for this report, we’re going to focus a little more on what makes COTA such an awesome and challenging track to tackle.

1. COTA is Big!

At 3.426 Miles and 20 corners (using the Grand Prix layout), COTA is a long track with at least 20 opportunities to make a mistake and decent distances after a corner, so that you have ample time to relive and think about the mistake(s) you just made. All the while, watching your predictive lap timer reinforce, with math, that you made a mistake. 🙂

The volume of corners in terms of learning the track is a challenge but to be perfectly honest, in the three years that we’ve come to the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour with now seven different drivers, not once have we had a discussion about “what corner comes next” or “the line” in terms of just getting around the track.

Each driver puts in the preparation work before the race weekend with time in a simulator, watching race videos and track walks – our drivers come to compete!

So “learning the track” isn’t a thing but another aspect of COTA that is a challenge is how wide the track is. This is a blessing and a curse. The track in general is wide enough to go three wide in multiple segments, which results in multiple lines that can be taken through a corner or sequence of corners. This gives us flexibility in racing conditions but it gives the same flexibility to competitors.

Ann Doherty in the #4 Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport trying to run away from a Touring 1 Camaro in the run to Turn 12

From the approach of turn 1 through the entry to the esses (turn 3) , it’s not just feasible but it’s common to see cars going 2 and 3 wide with only a marginal drop off in lap time.

Turn 6 is wide enough that it’s possible to attack another car from the outside, which then turns into the inside for Turn 7.

The entry into Turn 11 is like turn 1, almost an open runway with a lot of space to dive bomb into the corner but with the longest straight away on the tracking coming next, going two or three wide into turn 11, will punish your straight line speed down to turn 12. There are even lines to overtake someone on the outside in Turn 1, especially at the start of the races.

Turn 12 also is wide enough for at least two cars to go side by side and while not particularly fast, it’s possible and common throughout the weekend to see cars going side by side all the way until Turn 19.

Finally, Turn 20 can also easily allow two cars to go side by side but it will impact the exit speed and thus the time that runs all the way to turn 1.

2. COTA is technical. Really Technical.

Many tracks have some kind of bias due to the natural outcome of being “lap based” – e.g. at some point, the track will return back to start/finish. If a track has a clock-wise orientation, there will usually have more right hand corners than left hand corners. If a track is counter-clockwise (like COTA), vice-versa will be true.

So while COTA has a counter-clockwise orientation, it has exactly 10 left-hand corners and you guessed it, 10 right hand corners.

And yes, the three longest straight aways are setup by left-hand corners, which would normally make a team want to setup a car to be biased for left-hand corners BUT there are 6 different corners that are either high-commitment or high-duration (you spend a good amount of time in them), so it really pushes a team and driver to have a well balanced setup for both corner types, unlike what we’d for say Portland International Raceways or Lime Rock Park – pretty much all right hand corners.

COTA also has a wide variety of corners:

  • Short duration, slow speed and sharp angled corners: Slow corners make it really easy for drivers to over-slow on entry and if you don’t have the car pointed just right and at full throttle at the apex, the exit and the proceeding straight away suffer. Think the exit of Turn 1, Turn 11 and Turn 20 where the minimum speeds are in the mid to high 30’s depending on the car. Teams and drivers may be tempted to setup a car nice and loose on slow speed corners to get through these as quickly as possible but…
  • Medium/High-Speed Corners: Turn 3 (the entry into the esses), you enter near the top of 4th gear in the Spec E46’s (~105mph) and then need a well balanced car to carve through them.
  • Long duration medium speed corners: Turns 6 and the Carousel (turns 16 – 18) are both right hand corners where you are in them for longer than most corners. So how do you setup a car to both be awesome on slow quick corners but not too skaty through carousel type corners?
  • COTA beats up cars: Remember in 2019 when Sebastian Vettel had a suspension arm break on the exit of a corner? That’s from the bumps that form and change all the time from the ground/earth under the pavement. The dirt on which COTA sits isn’t super stable to begin with due to how dry the area typically is but then when it rains, it RAINS – think flash flooding. COTA has been repaved multiple times and it was repaved in time for the 2022 season (we were there) but in that one single year, the track has gone from a pretty smooth pavement, to having bumps all over the track.
  • Some notable bumps exist in the braking for Turn 1, throughout Turn 6, the exit of Turn 9, breaking for Turn 11 and right as you confidently exit the carousel of Turn 18, there is a healthy sized bumped waiting to knock you off your high horse, when you get too confident.
    • Finally, COTA has lots of FIA curbs, of which in the dry are awesome and to be used as much as possible but the repercussion is that the vibrations from curb usage travel all through the suspension and chassis, leading to increase amounts of brake pad knock-back and as I personally found in 2021, damaged suspension components. Expect to do a deep inspection of your wheel bearings, control arms, shocks and a full nut and bolt.
Thad Berger in his Spec E46, looking where he wants to go and hitting those apexes as hard as he can.

3. COTA is ROUGH!

Remember in 2019 when Sebastian Vettel had a suspension arm break on the exit of a corner? That’s from the bumps that form and change all the time from the ground/earth under the pavement. The dirt on which COTA sits isn’t super stable to begin with due to how dry the area typically is but then when it rains, it RAINS – think flash flooding. COTA has been repaved multiple times and it was repaved in time for the 2022 season (we were there) but in that one single year, the track has gone from a pretty smooth pavement, to having bumps all over the track.

Some notable bumps exist in the braking for Turn 1, throughout Turn 6, the exit of Turn 9, breaking for Turn 11 and right as you confidently exit the carousel of Turn 18, there is a healthy sized bumped waiting to knock you off your high horse, when you get too confident.

Finally, COTA has lots of FIA curbs, of which in the dry are awesome and to be used as much as possible but the repercussion is that the vibrations from curb usage travel all through the suspension and chassis, leading to increase amounts of brake pad knock-back and as I personally found in 2021, damaged suspension components. Expect to do a deep inspection of your wheel bearings, control arms, shocks and a full nut and bolt.

So, how did we do?

Ann Doherty was at COTA for the second time, having done the Hoosier Super Tour in 2022 as well and not only did she improve on her personal best lap times from a year ago, despite the track being in worst shape but she continued her streak of finishing right behind some experienced and very accomplished drivers! The raw pace is there, she’s getting faster and now we shift our focus to a little more on race craft as on the Sunday race, she lost positions on the start and got stuck behind a group of slower cars (in and out of class) and with a couple laps left in the race, she turned it up and got past them all.

Ann also showed serious grit as she got hit decently hard in race 1, lap 1 and turn 1! With a car that had a bent suspension and rear bumper falling off, she finished the race. We got the car put back together the best we could and she finished P5 but with lap times towards the end that would have been in contention for P2 and P3. Awesome job!

Thad Berger not just raced but drove COTA for the very first time at this race weekend! He made solid progress throughout the weekend, improving on just about every session and by the end of the day on Sunday, he was solidly in the mid-pack (P8 out of 13) and battling with MX-5 Global Cup cars and 350Z’s!

Simon Asselin had another busy weekend, doing double duty in his Touring 3 Spec E46 and GT2 Porsche GT3 Cup Car. In Touring 3, he finished P4 in race 1 and P3 in race 2 with AMAZING battles the entirety of both races. Check out his race video below!

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In GT2, Simon was busy as well! He started from the back in Race 1 as a cone ended up destroying one of his front tires on the outlap but made his way through to P8 and in race 2, he continued his march forward and ended up P3 for two podiums throughout the weekend. Great job, Simon!

Dave Orem had to last minute pull out of the race weekend due to a family situation but we ran his car during the test day and it was a ripper! Dave will be back for Road Atlanta!

Thank you to the entire team who is behind the scenes and making it all happen! Memo Calderon, Bryce Allen, Jordan Allen, Reid Morris, Tyer Mayer, Tyler Campbell, Mark Farmer, Harry Mineer and our amazing coaches, Seth Thomas and Ray Phillips!

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Race Report 5 & 6: Portland International Raceways – Finally!

And we’re back from the winter 2022 trip with four race weekends under our belt, at new tracks for most of us and ready to come back to familiar ground where nothing would be easier but instead the challenges would be different.

This is post will cover two race weekends as we were at Portland International Raceways April 29 – May 1 for the ICSCC season opening race (Rose City Opener, hosted by Cascade Sports Car Club) and then back again two weeks later, for the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour stop, a part of the US Majors Tour.

Home track advantage

Wait, aren’t most of the people who race at these events, also from the region? For the ICSCC race – absolutely. A little less for the Hoosier Super Tour but that’s not exactly what we mean here. One of the many challenges of each of the stops on the winter trip was that even though we spent countless hours on the simulator training for each track, and it made a massive impact – we were still driving the tracks either for the first time or the first time in the specific race car each of us were driving.

That’s not a BMW or Porsche?!?!? Gama taking the EK Honda Civic with a K24 swap out for it’s maiden race weekend at a known and comfortable space – Portland International Raceways. Photo credit: Doug Berger

That means that at minimum, some material amount of our mental capacity was still being allocated for learning the track. That also means less mental capacity to think about improving on a specific corner or to focus on race craft.

So what happens when you get to a track that you’ve driven hundreds, if not thousands of laps on in real life, simulator and in a variety of conditions and cars? All that occupied mental capacity (and some), comes back and becomes available to be used on another area of improvement. That could be anything from fine tuning a specific setup component for given conditions, exploring different lines/entry speeds into a corner or working on race craft.

It could be anything but the bottom line is that the ability to learn and improve is simply easier because there is one big important thing to think about much less.

So what happened? New Personal Bests All Around!

The ICSCC weekend was held using the non-chicane configuration which further simplifies the course and results in really only ~7 corners total.

Ann in the Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport – Finally!!!

Ann in the Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport had never driven PIR without a chicane but we had a sense of what her pace would have been from her lap times at Portland last August (2021) with a chicane.

This would also be Ann’s first time driving on Hoosier A7 tires. Results? Ann immediately jumped into the 1:13’s early in the weekend and while she was able to sustain that pace, it looked like there was more low hanging fruit.

One of these is not like the others. Ann Doherty in her Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport crashing the GT1 class party.

In the Group 4 race, where she was in the middle of GT1 class cars — You read that correctly, while she was competing in the GT2 class (there were only 2 cars in class that weekend), she was in the front half of the GT1 cars! She put her head down to defend and get as far up the grid as possible and she dropped into the 1:12’s with a scorching 1:12.842. In that race, she would have finished in P3 overall and P3 amongst the GT1 class cars.

And the prior days Group 1 race, when the race started in wet conditions and transitioned to somewhat dry conditions, she was P1 overall and lapped almost every single car except the EK Honda Civic (driven by Gama and more on that below)… twice!

Mega, mega, mega drive by Ann.

Cascade Sports Car Club – Rose City Opener XXX at Portland International Raceway | Ann (#4) and Gama (#309) lapping every single car in the field one time and lapped almost every car a second time before finishing P1 and P2 overall and in SPM class. Photo credit: Doug Berger

When we returned two weeks later for the Hoosier Super Tour event May 13 – 15, the goal was to build on the gains from the first PIR weekend to put it all to work against a stacked GT2 field featuring a Dodge Viper, TA2 Chevy Camaro, a few additional stock cars, nearly tube-frame chassis E46 M3 and even a Porsche 997 Carrera Cup car!

Results? Even more gains and finally, finally – Ann’s 1st SCCA Hoosier Super Tour podium (P2) came on Sunday afternoon’s final race in complete downpour conditions. In dry conditions? Ann improved her personal best lap time by 4.5 seconds from the prior August – incredible progress! In clear air, Ann was competitive for podium contention but in the race, the straight line advantage for the more powerful cars was simply too much for her to keep them behind her for the entire race distance.

So many close podiums in the first 4 races of the year but it finally all came together for Ann in Portland and in the rain.

Simon in the BMW 330ci Spec E46 running in SE46, Touring 3 and SPM

For Simon, we had done 8 Hour Enduro in his car last October and he had done mid-1:19’s here and there and average fast pace was in the high 1:19’s/1:20’s.

Similar to Ann, Simon was immediately on the pace, consistently in the 1:19’s, along with a few other Spec E46 cars but by the end of the weekend, Simon was one of only two Spec E46’s to drop into the 1:18’s and separating himself from the pack of Spec E46’s and closing the gap to Chris Hart, who is an incredibly fast, consistent and national caliber driver. Chris placed P3 in the 2021 SCCA Runoffs in Touring 3 class, past PRO3 champion and spent many years driving stock cars professionally – this guy can wheel!

Simon in the hunt, looking for a way around a turbocharged Subaru WRX STI in the Group 1, SPM race. Photo credit: Doug Berger

During the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour stop, Simon similarly built on his gains from the first weekend and was immediately doing 1:26 lap times – improving his past personal best but on Hoosier Tires versus Toyo Proxes prior. About mid-day on the test day, we did a lead follow session with Simon and I (Gama) with first Simon leading and Gama following – doing mid to low 1:26 lap times and then we switched. Simon was able to follow closely and we both consistently did mid to high 1:25’s – BOOM! New personal bests and now having done lap times that are at the very pointy edge of the Touring 3 and Spec E46 field.

Saturday, Simon qualified on pole for his first Hoosier Super Tour pole position and in wet conditions! During the race, we had dry conditions so at the start Gama got in front of Simon and Chris Hart. About 4-5 laps into the race, Chris had an overheating issue and DNF’ed while Chris, Gama and Simon were running almost nose to tail.

After Chris pulled off track, Simon stuck to the rear of Gama’s bumper and finished P2 for another Hoosier Super Tour podium finish!

Simon’s 4th podium of the year and currently leading the Hoosier Super Tour points standing in Touring 3 (with Dave in 2nd place)

Unfortunately a failing lower ball joint was found in Simon’s car post-race and due to not having press tools at the track, that ended his weekend.

Simon leading a pack of ground pounders through Turn 12 at Portland International Raceways. Photo credit: Doug Berger

Dave skipped the first ICSCC Portland race and drove at Pacific Raceways during our second stop at PIR.

But wait – there were a lot more cars in the Racer on Rails Paddock(s)!

Now that we’re in the thick of the PNW racing season, the SCCA US Majors and Hoosier Super Tour races start to die down (races are still held but mostly out of our region) and we start to dial up the races from our local sanctioning body, the International Conference of Sports Car Clubs (ICSCC).

For the Rose City Opener, we had our group of PRO3 drivers out for their first race of the year and I (Gama) brought out a personal passion project for it’s second race weekend but it’s first with the current power plant – a JDM K24A swap with a JDM Honda Integra Type R transmission and a pretty heavy duty Limited Slip Differential from MFactory.

At a familiar place, the goal with the Honda was to simply get some race mileage on the new chassis, make sure it was running properly, figure out what likes to shake loose and see if we could put down some consistent competitive laps at 80-90% effort. And boy did the Honda deliver!

That little K24A Honda Civic, leading the pack (aside from Ann who had checked out in her Porsche Cayman) to Turn 1 at the start of the SPM Sunday afternoon race. Photo credit: Doug Berger

We worked through some gremlins but with absolutely zero focus on speed, the Honda was consistently doing extremely fast Spec E46 lap times and on Yokohama A052 tires (a really sticky street tire but nothing like a Hoosier tire). There is some serious potential in this car and we’re excited to further develop it over the season. It will be mid June before we see the Honda out again and it should have some new upgrades that will help with reliability and maybe a bit more speed.

Across the rest of the team, every driver improved their personal best lap times with no Chicane at Portland in a 20+ car field and pushing towards the front in PRO3 and a 10+ car field in Spec E46.

Dirk in the #136 Jägermeister, Jack Curtis in the #166 Spec E46, Mat Hennessy in the #58 Spec E46, Tim Wisner in the #109 RoR Spec E46, Scott Thompson in the #86 PRO3, Gama Aguilar in the #309 Honda Civic and Will Kellogg in the #78 PRO3 | Photo credit: Doug Berger

What better way to end this race report than with some in-car video of what a very angry Honda 4 cylinder engine based Civic sounds like, bombing around Portland International Raceways at the same speeds that a front running Spec E46 does?

Turn those headphones down a tiny bit and enjoy!

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Gama in the #309 K24A Honda Civic Hatchback doing a low 1:18 lap time during Sunday AM qualifying.
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Race Report 4: Virginia International Raceways SCCA Hoosier Super Tour 2022

The 4th and final stop of the 2022 Southeast Winter trip for the team was historic Virginia International Raceways, located just north of the Virginia/North Carolina border, in Alton, VA.

Before dive into the weekend, below is the map we took from January – April and covered nearly 7k miles and through the winter season across most of the country which resulted in catching the cold and wet weather at nearly each stop. Wow!

4 stops and ~7k miles over 4 months. Hats off to Jordan and Memo who drove our trucks, trailers and cars for every single mile.

Preparing for VIR

Road Atlanta ended up being a primer for VIR for the team. VIR is almost like a bigger Road Atlanta in that it is made up of mostly medium and high speed corners. Proper technique and equally proper commitment are critical to get into a groove and start attacking the lap times.

Just as before, each driver logged multiple hours in the simulator so that we all knew the track by heart and could dive into the test day with a focus on establishing a baseline performance and chipping away at the times.

On average, each driver (and crew member) had nearly 100 laps at VIR on Assetto Corsa with similar or the exact same cars as we were driving in real life.

Thursday Test Day – More Inclement Weather (Massive Thunderstorm Edition)

We all arrived and were fully setup on Wednesday night for the weekend and Thursday morning we awoke to some dew on the grass, dry track and chance of a shower here or there throughout the day. The first session was dry and we all got out and started familiarizing ourselves with the track in real life. Conclusion? The simulator model was pretty spot on!

A few minutes after our session ended, a thunder storm rolled in and another, and another, and another. We had 2, maybe 3 cells roll through and the middle two sessions were shot. Not just because it was raining but torrential downpour and the poor souls who decided to go out (and survived) ended up getting black flags in each session as the conditions were just horrible. Further, the forecast didn’t call for rain during the weekend so using up new rain tires under those circumstances wasn’t a good use of the tires.

Completely unedited and it only took a few minutes of rain before we had water running on the ground.

By the afternoon, the cells had passed and the track started drying. We all went out and while times were slower (transitioning to dry conditions), it was valuable time to further familiarize ourselves with the track.

Learning, Improving and Delivering Results!

The weekend had a similar progression as we’ve had at the other stops but we arguable started off at the highest point to start the weekend. All three drivers came out strong out of the gate and were within striking distance of podium positions, just needed to put our heads down and keep chipping away at the times.

Every session was an opportunity to learn and while unseasonably cold air rolled through on Friday night, everyone steadily chipped away at the times and at worst, were in a mid-pack battle but still within striking distance for a podium.

BMW Spec E46 Touring 3 SCCA
Simon in his Touring 3 Spec E46 managing transitioning conditions.

Below is a look at three of the corners we focused on across most drivers.

Sweet track map of VIR full course with a clear plexiglass on top that makes for great white board discussions about lines, markers and passing zones.

VIR Corner Focus 1: NASCAR Bend (Turn 3)

NASCAR Bend is the first left-hand corner/complex of the lap where it’s a bit of an awkward, somewhat off-camber corner where there isn’t a ton of time to be gained but very easy to over-slow and lose time. It feels a lot like Turn 6 at Portland International where it’s key to maintain minimum speeds and spend as little time as possible in the complex.

None of us really felt like we consistently hit the corner right but we aimed at being on-throttle at the apex, ascending to full throttle and carrying enough speed that the car had no choice but to use all of the exit curbing on the right. Getting out on that curbing then gave us a wider arch for the next left hand corner, which then left us track left to setup the run through the esses.

BMW M240iR in Touring 2 class at VIR NASCAR Bend
Gama in the Racer on Rails #110 BMW M240iR using all the exit curbing coming out of NASCAR Bend at the start of the Sunday race.

VIR Corner Focus 2: Southbend (exit of the Uphill Esses)

Before there is any controversy, yes – the Uphill Esses (Climbing Esses) are a pretty unique experience. There are few tracks in the world where you are flat out in 5th gear (or 6th gear) and you enter a corner section… without lifting. Thanks to the hours each driver spent in the simulator, after the first few laps in dry conditions, we were all able to take them flat but once you have the right line and rhythm, there’s not much more to them. HOWEVER! What you do on the exit of the Esses is something else.

Check out the Sunday Race 3 video in the M240iR and specifically this video is placed on a flying lap where the car gets light at 129mph and while being flat full throttle. (Note – rewind to start to watch the climb from P5 to P3 in Touring 2 class)

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First, yes – it is possible to stay flat through the entire uphill essess complex but doing so compromises the entry into Southbend, of which is a high-speed left hand corner where you’re trying to keep your minimum speed above 90mph.

We found in the simulator that under most conditions, that was the trade-off and instead focused on having the car balanced and turned correctly to brush off minimal speed at Southbend and then carrying that speed into Oak Tree.

VIR Corner Focus 3: Oak Tree

Very much wish we could have been here when Oak Tree had the actual tree still standing. It’s an interesting and challenging corner to begin with but having the tree creating a arch across the corner, would have been majestic. But that’s life and we still enjoyed the scenery and challenge of the corner.

Open wheelers/formula cars showing the line through Oak Tree.

While it’s referred to as a single corner, it’s more like two corners in one and it is *not* a slow speed corner. The entry is best when you can brake into the corner and in a straight line. You can also brake less than you initially think, because the entry is uphill so the grip increases, the further into the corner you go. There is a moment of releasing the brake about mid corner, a focus on getting wide to the left to open up the radius of the corner and then attack the apex with full throttle application right at or before the apex.

In recent years, VIR has added extra pavement beyond the traditional FIA exit curbs which means more track and thus the ability (and requirement) to use all of that extra track on exit. Oak Tree leads to the longest straight away, which makes it the most important corner to hit well and consistently. In the BMW M240iR, we were hitting in the low 140-142mph without a draft and up to 145mph with a draft. The Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport was consistently hitting 150mph+ before braking for “Rollercoaster”, which was indeed, a roller coaster!

Race Results: Gains and Podiums

Saturday was a tough day for everyone – full course yellows (not caused by any of our drivers) were rampant, despite dry conditions. There were no gains on personal bests and we all found ourselves battling below the pace we each had demonstrated but struggling to get past cars with better straight line speed.

Dave looking for a way past a T3 Mustang at VIR

Sunday, we all hit the reset button and focused on getting solid starts, creating our own track position/space and getting after it.

Touring 3 Race: Dave and Simon both pounced on mistakes by other drivers and picked up a spot individually, putting Simon in P3 and Dave in P7 before a full course yellow came out that eventually ended the race due to an STU car that had gone deep into the tire wall at the end of the back straight away. Driver and car were all okay. Both ended up with their personal best lap times right before the FCY and were it not for the FCY, each felt like they had the rhythm and pace to further improve.

Simon taking P3 in the Sunday Race
#81 Spec E46 gliding through VIR
Start of the T3 race, looking for positions

GT2 Race: Ann started in P5 with a mega qualifying effort and quickly jumped into P3 on the first lap with some assertive moves. With a gang of TA2 cars, tube-frame chassis RX7’s and many other ground pounders, her nimble and incredibly impressive under braking, Cayman GT4 Clubsport was under constant attack on the long back and front straight aways but she was able to create distance in the handling sections of the track.

Unfortunately there was a 3 lap long Full Course Yellow which took away the entire gap that she had built up and as soon as the green flag was thrown for the restart, she was back under attack and sitting duck for cars that had nearly a 10mph speed trap advantage.

Ann was busy chasing and being chased all weekend in the GT2 races.

Ann defended hard but ended up losing two positions by the end to finish in P6 BUT she fired in her fastest lap of the weekend on the final lap of the race.

Touring 2 Race: Gama was once again behind the #110 BMW M240iR for this race and faced similar challenges to the previous races – great under braking, handling but lacking 8-10mph to other BMW’s and 10-14mph to the Porsche’s. It became very clear on the Saturday race that if he wasn’t able to keep them behind them before the end of the back straight (coming off of Oak Tree), he’d be stuck behind them for the rest of the race.

The goal was simple – get a solid start (tough with a turbo car), get positions and keep them behind before T13 (Rollercoaster) and then create a gap in the handling sections.

The start was above average but still nothing compared to the naturally aspirated cars. Fortunately, they left a giant gap going into braking for T1 and was able to recover a lost position under braking. The next two laps (switching to first person mode) I was looking for a gap and specifically coming out of the uphill essess because I had noticed the Porsche’s were struggling to carry speed and get a good exit out of Southbend.

In lap 3 of the race, it happened – 997 Porsche got too sideways on the exit and I pounced, getting by him before braking for Oak Tree.

I was getting better exits out of Oak Tree than the Porsche but by about the middle of the straight away, I was a sitting duck so for one lap, I defended like a lion. Right after exiting the corner, I signaled to the Porsche that he’d have to pass me somewhere else on this one lap as I slowly moved from one side of the track to the other so that I could break a draft he might get (not that the Porsche needed it). He got the message and stayed behind.

Gama in the #110 Racer on Rails BMW M240iR

From then on, I put my head down and carried as much speed as I could through Hog Pen (final corner sequence of the lap) and onto the front straight. I had created just enough of a gap that I didn’t think he could make a credible move into turn 1, so last second, I moved back to the left to brake at normal spot and line. The Porsche ducked in to out-brake me into Turn 1 but the line was WAY too shallow for braking that late and with the additional speed the Porsche’s carry, so he easily washed out and off-track.

From then on, I put my head down and hammered out two new personal best lap times (in the 2:04’s) and was chipping away and making my way through traffic. Aside from a big mistake, I simply didn’t have the straight line speed to compete for better than P3.

Full course yellow came and my gap had been erased. The following 10-12 minutes were some of the most nerve racking of my life – I was sitting duck on the restart so I’d have to pull some magic out again but luckily, the race ended under FCY and for the first time in my life, I was beyond grateful for that result. P3 in Touring 2 class at Virginia International Raceways and against a fleet of Fall Line Porsche’s and BMW’s – what a weekend!

What’s Next?

We’re a little late in publishing this report but after this we make our way back to the Pacific Northwest to start the regional racing season with races at Portland International Raceways, Pacific Raceways and Spokane County Raceway in May.

VIR was an amazing experience overall and great practice and data gathering for when we return in September for the 2022 SCCA Runoffs.

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Race Report 3: Micheline Raceway Road Atlanta SCCA Hoosier Super Tour

Tyler doing his Road Atlanta Happy Dance

The third stop in our 2022 race schedule and “Winter Sun Bird” trip took us to Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta! Extra emphasis on the quotes re the Sun Bird portion as that was the goal behind the trip – go chase the sun during the winter, warm up and hit some bucket list race tracks.

Want to know how the previous two stops went? Get caught up by checking out our Buttonwillow and Circuit of the Americas Race Reports.

Rolling into the Road Atlanta main paddock on load-in day. Lifetime achievement unlocked!

For the third race in a row, the northern cold decided to chase after us! We landed on Wednesday, got everything staged up and finally got a full day’s worth of testing/practice on Thursday which made a massive difference for each driver in terms of getting up to speed on the track and a baseline direction for a setup.

On Friday we had an AM practice and a first qualifying session but while we were all catching some Z’s overnight, a massive weather system came through the area, dumping rain everywhere and putting on a solid light show. By the time the system had moved through, a deep cold front had settled in and we awoke to 22F air temps and snow flurries throughout the day.

Yes – it was SNOWING throughout the day, coupled with a friendly breeze that included 30-40mph gusts of wind that dropped the windchill into the mid-teens. We still got out there and made progress but that might have been one of the toughest days for drivers and crew to be at the track – bone chilling air temps, super cold track, multiple laps needed to warm up tires and nice and slick grass waiting to give anyone who dares come off the track surface, an express trip into the comfy arms of the walls surrounding the Road Atlanta.

Thoughts on Road Atlanta as a circuit

This was the first time for all but one driver to drive Road Atlanta but that one driver only had a half lap under their belt from the previous experience because of black flag incidents of people going off spectacularly. This ended up being an indicator of things to come for our weekend as well.

Sunset shot of Turn 5 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta – the uphill exit elevation change is MUCH larger than it seems from in-car videos and even this picture.

For those that are from the Pacific Northwest, Road Atlanta has a similar feeling and characteristics to Pacific Raceways – it’s old school. Both tracks were built and opened up in the 1960’s/1970’s and are filled with mostly medium speed to high speed corners. All corners and segments are high commitment with an emphasis on getting into a rhythm and flowing speed into the corner.

The slowest corner at Road Atlanta is Turn 7 with a minimum speed in our cars of around 47-50mph and multiple corners with minimum speeds of 70 and 90mph at the apexes.

The back straight from Turn 7 to Turn 10a is about as long as front straight away of Pacific Raceways – pretty dang near terminal velocity for many cars.

Looking back counter-course to Turns 10a and 10b at the end of the back straight away where the goal is to brake as late as possible while still clipping the apex curbs hard and getting to full throttle as soon as possible past the 10a apex.

While each driver had at least 10 hours of simulator preparation and training before the weekend, everyone had at least a little shock when we finally got on track. Here are a few comments from the drivers after the first couple of sessions:

  • The elevation changes from entering and exiting the esses are real and much more dramatic than it seems from in-car video.
Looking back at the entry of the esses, counter-course. Picture is taken from the hillside on driver’s right and about level elevation to the entry of the esses.
  • Use as much of the exit curbing of Turn 5 is critical but if there’s gravel or the painted surfaces are wet, forget about it. The car is already barely holding on as it goes through bumps and any extra steering input or unanticipated wheel spin and the car can come around real quick.
  • The elevation drop for braking at T10a is real – it takes a few laps to gather the confidence to brake where you can in the simulator but that compression helps slow the car down.
  • The hill at Turn 11 and more importantly, the downhill run from it afterwards is STEEP! Like very, very steep. As you crest over the hill, there is nothing to see but the bridge and the sky – is a similar feeling to the bypass or the crow’s nest at Thunderhill but you stay full throttle flat the whole time and are in 5th gear shortly after the peak.
  • Staying flat at Turn 12 is ‘easy’ in the simulator but not so much in real life. Some drivers got near staying flat throughout the weekend but with it being the first time racing here, slick grass conditions and MANY cars that met their ends on the front straight (and ruined multiple sessions and races), we decided to optimize for completing the weekend and having all the cars in one piece.
Dave and Simon bombing through Start/Finish in their Spec E46’s in Touring 3.

A weekend of massive breakthroughs and results!

The goals for these race weekends have been simple: 1. Have fun and 2. Become better drivers.

We’re firm believers in that when we focus on the improvement process and having fun, the results will come on their own and that belief continues to pay dividends.

Spec E46’s in Touring 3 Class

Both Dave and Simon put in 10+ hours of simulator training before weekend so from the start, they knew where they were going but with the conditions being extremely cold on qualifying day 2 and race 1, the biggest challenge for both was trusting that the car could do what they’ve done in the simulator and seen some of the super talented drivers in the Southeast do on race weekends.

Simon took the approach of picking out one single corner and with the help of Ray Phillips, sending it harder than he had sent it before and more than he felt like the car could do but trusting in the guidance from Ray and that the car could handle it. The result? During Race 1, Simon sent it into Turn 5 faster than he had done in any session and was so committed that he stayed flat through the whole exit and even through an almost opposite lock correction AND that ended up being his best lap time of the race.

From then on, he built on that confidence to establish a new normal, made some moves and ended up with his first race win ever and at Road Atlanta in an SCCA Super Hoosier Tour race! WOW!!!

Simon driving through Start/Finish on the final lap of Race 1 to claim his first race win at Road Atlanta!

Dave had been chipping away at rebuilding his pace after the rollover at Buttonwillow to start the season. It might seem like a simple thing – you have a major incident, no major injuries – just jump right back in right? Well that’s exactly what Dave did but even then, it still takes some time to work through the mental blockers of simply sending it and trusting the car and track will hold.

On Sunday afternoon, the biggest breakthrough came with Seth Thomas on the radio coaching him through traffic and making moves. Unfortunately Dave’s battery was low and when we finally were released from grid, the car wouldn’t fire – so we had to push start his car which meant he’d start the race at the back of the entire field which isn’t great but that might have been the extra fuel for letting things go – what was there to lose?

With Seth’s help, Dave turned it up, made pass after pass, improved his personal best lap time by nearly 3 seconds and finished in P2 after Simon had contact during a FCY restart and did a precautionary drive through the hot pits to make sure the car was safe to continue racing.

Simon and Dave making up a Racer on Rails double podium on Sunday!

To top it all off, we found out after the weekend that P3 on the Saturday race was disqualified so Dave ended up with two podium finishes at Road Atlanta!

Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport in GT2 Class

Ann came into the weekend looking to build on the gains she made at Circuit of the Americas and did she ever! Similar to Dave and Simon, Ann had multiple mini moments of simply letting go, trusting the car and driving the pee brains out of her car.

Ann’s Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport exiting Turn 3, squatting and putting down the power! Chris Green | ChrisGreenPhoto.com

In each session she found more and more pace. Saturday’s Race 1 looked like it would be the big breakthrough but traffic hurt her start and a high horsepower Corvette got around her which ended up being nearly impossible to get around once it got in straight line. Further, the race had 3 lengthy full course yellows and in the end, there was 5-6 actual flying laps in the race.

For Race 2 on Sunday, the air had warmed up and the races had gone green flag for most racing laps and Ann turned it on. Per Ann, she let her car do her thing and switched from trying to force the car to do things and instead let her free. Her personal best lap time dropped by nearly 2 seconds from the prior day, moved up 4 positions into P9 overall, P5 in GT2 and she had the pace for a P3. At the rate Ann is developing, she’s going to need to start making room in her bags for souvenirs.

BMW M240iR running in Touring 2

This was the second race weekend with the M240iR but the first knowing ahead of time that this would be the car. I (Gama) put in several hours of work in the simulator before the weekend and had a good sense of how the car would handle. At the end of the test day, I got a 4-5 window of traffic free laps to establish a consistent pace and on the prior weekend’s race tires. The pace looked good and we knew there was a bit more on the table with fresh tires and maybe a draft here and there. The big question was the track conditions.

Friday AM we scrubbed in a new set of tires so that they were prime for Qualy 1 on Friday afternoon. The whole day we were watching the weather and knew showers were in the order. Apparently the locals or regulars knew something was up because a race broke out on the out-lap and we completed one flying lap. I ended up backing up to give me space for a lap and potential second one but as we were halfway through the second flying lap (and I was almost a second up on the first lap), black flag came out and back to the hotpits we went. We ended up being released and I went out but the track had too much rain on it and was considerably slower (braking for 10a to test the track limits was “interesting”).

Gama testing the limits of the exit curbs of Turn 12

The Touring 2 field was small and there was a split start between the Touring cars and the ST cars so the net impact was negligible but it was still disappointing to not be able to put together a proper flying lap.

On Saturday, we were the last race group and while the snow flurries had cleared, the cold clear winter air started cooling down and it was a brisk 30F by the race start. It was so cold that the M2CS in P3 of Touring 2 spun right as we exited pit lane and went head first into the wall. Luckily the driver and car were okay and able to make the race but a lap down.

The two Porsche’s in P1 and P2 were well prepared and optimized for Touring 2 class as we saw right away their ability to stretch legs in 4th gear and pull away. It was clear that at the very best we could hope to stick close enough to catch a bit of draft and capitalize on a mistake if it were to come up. The race was plagued with FCY’s and only a couple laps after a restart, a Honda Civic lost it on the exit of T12 and made contact with the walls, ending the race under a black flag all.

Gama and Ann patiently waiting to be let loose at pre-grid during the Thursday test day.

On Sunday we got warmer weather and thankfully, many more racing laps. Started P3 and held P3 at the start with little contention but once again the Porsche’s ran away and there wasn’t much pressure from behind so the focus was on putting down consistent and fast laps. A few laps in, a FCY that last only 3 laps.

On the restart, my goal was to stick with the Porsche’s through the first sector where we had a better shot and be on their heels for the long back straight but as I got a jump on the Cayman, I had to move to the left to avoid tagging his rear. In doing so, I left a lane open on the inside of which the BMW M2CS pounced on and while I quickly reacted and moved to cover the lane, he had already established overlap or close enough to it that I had to concede the space.

Restart 1 of the Sunday race with the BMW M2 CS getting a run and the inside line through Turn 1. Chris Green | ChrisGreenPhoto.com

We went side by side all the way up to Turn 3 but he had the inside and it’s near impossible to go 2-wide into the esses with any speed so I gave up the position.

The rest of the race was a similar story to COTA where I was able to stick with the M2CS, eating up most or all of the gaps in the corners but the M2 having just enough additional straight line speed to pull away.

There was a point with a couple laps to go where we were catching lapped traffic and I saw the opportunity to box him in on the exit of Turn 10a behind the lapped car and impact his ability to accelerate. The move worked but the M2 still had the low end torque to squeeze through the two cars and that was the end of the race – P4 and less than a second away from P3.

Gama on the bumper of the BMW M2CS in the #110 Racer on Rails 2015 BMW M240iR at the finish of Sunday’s Race 2.

The written description not enough? Watch the whole race!

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All in all, a great weekend for the Racer on Rails Team as the cars ran well all weekend, drivers improved and we took home a collection of hardware!

Racer on Rails team signing off from Road Atlanta! From left to right: Seth Thomas, Simon Asselin, Tyler Campbell, Ann Doherty, Ray Phillips, Gama Aguilar, Dave Orem, Bryce Allen, Memo Calderon, Jordan Allen, Reid Morris.

Our next stop takes us to Virginia International Raceways on April 7 – 10, 2022. Can’t wait!

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Race Report 1: Buttonwillow SCCA US Majors January 14 – 16 2022

Fully loaded team for SCCA weekend at Buttonwillow

2022 is going to be a busy and exciting race schedule for the Racer on Rails crew and the first stop was this past weekend at Buttonwillow Raceway Park.

Note, originally we were supposed to be at Sebring International Raceways for the SCCA Hoosier Super Tour but the beautiful white Christmas we had in the PNW overstayed its welcome and by the time we need to have the trucks on the road to the SE, all the passes out of WA were closed due to blizzard conditions and the alternate route going down the west coast and across the SW was riddled with freezing or snow conditions in New Mexico, Texas and even parts of Alabama.

So with about 10 days’ notice, we made the change to instead to go sunny southern California where last year, we attended this same race but it was held at Autoclub Motor Speedway in Fontana, CA.

The Team

For the first race, we had three Spec E46’s running in Touring 3 (T3) trim and one Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport running in GT2 class.

Racer on Rails drivers - 3 Spec E46's and one Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport
#44 Dave Orem, #81 Simon Asselin, #109 Gama Aguilar and #4 Ann Doherty

The normal crew of Jordan, Bryce and Gama were on hand but this was also the first official race weekend with our new Motorsports Director, Memo Calderon and our service advisor, Reid Morris.

The Fog

Not going to mince words here, it was a tough weekend and mostly due to dense fog that rolled in each night and resulted in each morning’s scheduled run groups to be postponed due to low visibility conditions.  One of the locals at one of the on-site race shops with a retail space mentioned that it had been close to 27 years since they had seen such thick fog and turns out that the volcano eruption in Tonga might have contributed to the fog conditions.

In the end, each day we didn’t get started on-track until 11am – 12noon. On the Friday test day, the run groups ran per the schedule as the organizer simply picked up when we started and had the 3 run groups doing 20 minute sessions each hour, until 5pm.

Racer on Rails cars ready to go on-track but under a fog hold on the Friday test day
Racer on Rails cars ready to go on-track but under a fog hold on the Friday test day

Thank You Safety Equipment!

There is never a shortage of reasons to not skimp on safety equipment choices, design and preventative maintenance as we never plan on having an issue where safety equipment is needed but we’re always glad when it’s there and it works.

We had two incidents on the test day:

  1. Failed front-right lower ball joint in the control arm (SE46): The #109 SE36 running in T3 trim got a near complete overhaul prior to the 2021 SCCA Runoffs at Indy, which included brand new lower control arms. Unfortunately it got taken out on lap 1 of the race which resulted in a front end impact with at least energy going through the suspension components but not a direct hit or contact. All in, the control arm and lower ball joint had 1-1.5 hours of run time prior to this weekend. On the very first session when the fog broke, lap 2, braking for Sunset corner (the last corner before s/f), the inner lower ball joint failed and the car went plowing through the corner and came to a stand still on the exit of the corner. On top of needing to make repairs to get the car back up and running, it also caused a black flag which ended running for everyone else.
  2. Rollover on the exit of the kink before Phil Hill: With the fog and being in mid-January, the track was not just green each morning from fog moisture but also stone cold. It was 38F on Friday morning and barely broke 50F once the fog cleared for the afternoon. This meant really tough conditions in terms of finding grip and in the 3rd session of the test day, the #44 took the same line as in previous laps with maybe a tiny bit more steering angle, hit the curb of the kink like normal but this time it upset the car a tad bit too much and the backend came around. The car slid off-track and when it hit the dirt, which with the moisture and temperatures was more like mud, the wheels hooked into the dirt and the car barrel rolled. We’ll have another post in the future to dissect and share how the cage and all the safety equipment faired.

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons

New track, very limited run time and low grip conditions – what do you do? Make the most of it and work on the learning process! Expectations for big results are low, so instead focus on developing and that’s exactly what each driver did, with the help of driver coaches Seth Thomas and Ray Phillips!

Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport driver, Ann Doherty, studying the track notes and areas of improvement.
Ann D studying her track notes and mentally preparing for the next time on-track.

Through the coaching from Seth and Ray, each driver made progress across the limited running and culminated in a podium position for each driver! Below are some areas that were focused on throughout the weekend:

  • Squaring off corners better in low grip/wet conditions and to setup exit of the following straights
  • Timing of transitions from brake to gas and vice versa
  • Establishing a connection or translation layer between what driving Buttonwillow in the simulator felt like relative to real life
  • Mentality to have when going into a race with changing conditions (both getting worse and getting better)
  • How to explore grip when conditions are improving
Ray Phillips doing a quick debrief after a session while in post-session tech.
Ray Phillips doing a quick debrief after a session while in post-session tech.

Moving forward to COTA in February

So we came out of Buttonwillow with 3 of the 4 cars running, 4 trophies, 1 race win, 5+ second improvements in dry running lap times from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, a new T3 track record for Buttonwillow CW14 configuration with a 1:55.376 and ready for the next round at Circuit of the Americas February 4 – 6, 2022.

  • Simon made gains across both races and had an epic battle with a T3 Porsche Boxer, having led a good part of Race 2
  • Ann made a massive step from Saturday to Sunday, dropping 8 seconds in one day and snagging two podium positions in GT2
  • Dave had limited running due to the incident but was fully healthy after being checked out by medics and will be back on track for COTA
  • Gama won race 1, broke the track record by multiple seconds and was leading race 2 (and in a battle with an STU car) but the coolant expansion tank failed, resulting in an overheating engine which forced him to retire the race but not before improving on the track record

With one new track for most of our drivers under our belt, we can adjust the preparation in the simulator and the development plans for the test day and each of the on-track race sessions.

Thanks to the team, Ann, Dave, Simon, Ray, Seth and everyone from the Cal Club who made this weekend possible and making the most out of a pretty tough first race of the year.

  • Gama and Simon on the podium for Race 1
  • #81 with a P2 Finish
  • #109 with a win on Race 1
  • P2 finish for Ann in the Cayman GT4
  • P3 in race 2!
  • Waiting in impound post-race
  • Simon strapped in and ready for a race
  • Fog fog go away!

Stay tuned for more of our adventures in 2022!

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Track Walk: Portland International Raceways

In a couple weekends, we’re headed back to Portland International Raceways and the first time I’ll get to drive the track for more than one session (in real life) this year and since I was on the Speed Secrets Podcast, earlier in the spring.  I got some live coaching from Ross Bentley and have been excited to implement the tips I heard.  Check out the podcast episode here and subscribe – it’s an awesome podcast with a wide variety of guests and every time, I learn a ton.

So let’s take a lap around the track and go through each sector as defined by the sectors on Track Attack.  Below we’ll be using illustrations from real data from a pair of front-running “spec” racing class cars: my PRO3 and Will Schrader’s Spec Miata.  Both are considered low-power momentum cars but there is enough power and weight difference you’ll see different things happening.

If you are a Spec Miata or PRO3 driver in the Pacific Northwest (or have similar cars), you can request to join the respective teams on Track Attack and get access to the session data that we’re using in these examples. (Link to PRO3 data share team and Northwest Spec Miata Tour)

We’ve broken up PIR w/chicane into 4 sectors.  Each sector is a combination of corners and are split halfway through a ‘straight away’.

Elevation change: None

PIR is like the Lime Rock Park of the west coast.  In the chicane configuration, there are 7 right hand turns, compared to 2.5 left hand turns.  But unlike Lime Rock, the elevation change is near zero.  Check out this video where the data overlay shows the elevation change – there is just under 10 feet of total elevation change.

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No real elevation change but there are still some tricks on banking that the track holds.

Segment 1: The festival chicane

The first segment starts at the start/finish line, of which the speed that is carried before the first braking zone is determined heavily by the exit out of T12 on the previous lap and if you might have caught a draft down the front straight.

Braking for T1 will depend on the car and whether its a qualifying lap or a race lap.  In a PRO3 car and a qualifying lap, you can hit the brakes hard right after passing the 400 board and what ends up being right before the 300 marker.  Note, this is hard to replicate lap after lap.  After hitting the brakes hard, start coming off of them and you should already be looking for the apex of T1.  It’s a good practice to put the right-side tires on the FIA curbing at the apex of T1 and even dropping a tire inside of the curbing isn’t bad but puts more stress on the suspension components.

Think about this: When are you releasing the brakes as you enter the corner for T1?  Play around with that.

You’ll want to take a line where you can hit T2 with a late apex.  Why?  There’s a decent straight-away from full-throttle at the exit of T2, all the way until T4.  Focus on doing what you can to get to full-throttle as soon as you possibly can coming out of T2.  Usually when I see data of someone really moving through this segment, it is all about the minimum speed they carry through T1 and how quickly they can get to full-throttle out of T2.  Clearly, there is a trade-off here but that’s the trick – finding the right balance and compromise for you and your car.

Also, the steering input for the change in direction to turn for T2 is relatively abrupt and hard.  Remember, slow speed –> fast hands, fast speed –> slow hands.

Comparing the lines of two front-running cars: Blue is a PRO3 car and Yellow is a Spec Miata.  What differences do you see?

Segment 2: No rest – Attack!

Segment 2 includes T4 – T6 and is one of the areas that separates good from great laps.  It can be easy to coast through this segment, but when you’re looking for the maximum lap time, you need to attack!

Same two cars: Yellow (Spec Miata) and Blue (PRO3). There is a 250-400lbs weight difference depending on the Spec Miata. Why do you think each car may be taking different lines?

T4 is somewhat of a false apex – you don’t absolutely have to hit the curbing but the benefits of staying closer to the curbing is that you travel less distance and you have more room to catch the car, if and when the car is upset by the bumps.  When you brake depends on your car but generally speaking, with the chicane, you can go pretty deep into the braking zone and brake pretty lightly relative to braking for T1.

Think about: As in segment 1, when are you coming off the brakes as you enter T4?

As you dive into the T4, the rear of the car may start sliding, which is a good thing!  Use maintenance throttle to settle it down and slowly start going to full throttle or modulating accordingly.  How much throttle you can give it will depend on the speed you carried through mid-corner and how well the rear-left suspension components are absorbing the bumps.  There is a lot of load on that rear-left, all the way through the exit of T5.  Is your suspension bottoming out?

As you approach T5, you’ll have to either breathe off the throttle to get the car to rotate or give it some very slight braking.  Get turned in and hit that curbing for T5.  Then give it as much throttle as it will take and let the car release to the driver’s left as you approach T6.

T6 has different schools of thought.  One school says sacrifice the corner and run the shortest distance possible.  The other says that you should hit the corner with a wide entry and get an amazing run towards T7, where you don’t flare out as much on the exit of T6.  I’ve seen data from both approaches and it’s really a toss-up.  Find what works best for you and your car.

Just remember that the outside of T6 is off-camber and usually has a ton of marbles.  You don’t want to be caught on the outside of T6 almost ever (save for rain) it will be slow and you will get passed.

Going fast through segment 2 should feel like you are on the ragged edge, having to catch the car slightly throughout the entire complex.  This is no time to rest – attack!

Segment 3: The banana straight!

In my opinion, this is the second most important segment of the track.  T7 leads onto the longest “straight” on the lap, so getting onto full throttle, without backing out is the most important thing here.

Where you determine your braking point will heavily depend on your car but the goal should always be to be at or near full throttle right at the apex of T7.

Can you see the ever so slight differences between the PRO3 (blue) and the Spec Miata (yellow)?

Think about: Where are your eyes when you are on the brakes for T7?  Get them on the apex as soon as you possibly can.

Use one fluid motion to get the steering input for the corner and when you are pointed at the apex, commit and get to full throttle as quickly as you can.  In all of my fastest laps, I have a healthy two tires on the T7 curbing and will have a slight slide on the exit, of which a quick steering correction will get it to stop and doesn’t require a lift.  Over slide on the exit or have to lift after apex and you are dead in the water.

Segment 4: Brown trousers

In my opinion, this is the most important complex of the lap.  It is the scariest and thus, even among good drivers, there is more variance in segment times than in any other segment.

The entry into T10 is the most important and it is much less about how late you can brake and more about how well balanced the car can be, as you carry a higher amount of speed through the corners.

Think about this: Will a car that is stood up on its nose because the driver braked super late, turn better than a car that is balanced front to back because the driver braked maybe a little earlier and lighter?

Some drivers can pull off (in a PRO3 car) braking at the 200 marker and keep the car balanced and others brake at the 300 and it works just as fine.  Figure out what works for you and your car.

Make it your job to always, and I mean always put tires on the drivers-left curbing of T10.  Then make as a straight of a line as you can to brake in a straight-line for T12.  This means that you might miss the curbing on T11.  That’s ok!

Brake in a straight line for T12, focus on when you’re going to release braking for T12 and get just like T7, get your eyes to the apex of T12 as quickly as you can.  Turn in with a single, smooth movement and just nibble or have a full tire on the curbing of T12.  This is slightly less important but if you do this, you’ll know for sure that you’ll have enough track on the exit and avoid hitting the tire walls for the drag strip (of which I’ve hit) or along the main wall.

As Ross suggested during the podcast, the goal is to get to full-throttle as quickly as possible.  If you find yourself near the apex of T12 and at 50-75% full-throttle, just give it the beans!  Go all the way and know that it might slide a little on the exit but you usually don’t need to lift to stop the sliding – a quick steering wheel correction will be plenty.

After that, it’s smooth sailing to start/finish.  Release the car and have the lightest hands on the steering wheel as possible.  Any steering input while at full-throttle is friction and friction means going slower.

Other things to consider

People say that Portland doesn’t use up brakes and tires and that’s sort of true but when you’re pushing, everything makes a difference.  Using the curbs is really important but also has led to pad knock-back for several drivers, which isn’t fun.

Track temperature makes a huge difference on available grip and can swing 20-40 degrees from the morning to the late afternoon.  That could make a difference of up to a second on lap times or more.

Catching a draft can also make a huge difference, upwards of .5 seconds on a lap.  So if you can get a tow early on the main or back straight aways, do it!

Track records are made on <100F surface temps, <80F air temperature, fresh tires, qualifying weight, a draft and putting it all together on the first 2-3 laps of a session.

That’s it!  Let us know what you think about the guide and feel free to comment and share any of your tips and tricks for PIR.  Do you do different things?  If so, share it and tell us why.

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1st Pro Race, 1st time at Imola and the BMW M235i Racing

Time to finally get into driving and racing at Imola.  Catch up on the story until now by checking out the previous posts on:

I’ve been to Imola before.  2 years ago, we were in Italy for a hackathon week with my teammates on Track Attack, who are based out of the Friuli region, in the northeast area of Italy.  My wife, 1-year old son and I spent a week in a tiny medieval town centrally located to Pisa and Firenze (Florence).  One day, we took a day trip to Autodromo de Enzo I Dino Ferrari, also known as Imola.

Visiting Imola in 2015 during a Lamborghini private event and 100F+ temps.

Lamborghini was holding a private test event, but we were still allowed in, because technically, Imola is a city park.  We walked the grounds, from the outside and inside the track.  My favorite Top Gear episode of all time is the Imola episode, where the crew tries to match the lap time of the Stig’s Italian cousin.  I drove Imola for the fist time in the Formula 1 car simulator at the Imola museum.  I drove the track for 30+ hours in a Mercedes AMG GT3 on iRacing, to prepare.  We did a track walk on Wednesday evening before the Thursday free practice.

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It still scared the shit out of me.

Thursday, May 24th, 2018: Optional free practice

We signed up for the optional free practice.  2 sessions.  90-minutes each.  4 drivers.  We decided to give each driver 20 minutes at each session.  Seth would go out first and get a sense for the car and lay down some reference data for us to chase.  And he did just that; a 2:06.XXX and not a single clean lap.

When I played football in high school, I was always scared, and I didn’t suck.  Especially in the games.  One of the coaches could sense it in me and other players, so he said once “half the battle is showing up.  Just show up to compete and your training will take over.”

That is why I raised my hand and asked to go second.  It was surreal, overwhelming and humbling.  I’ve read articles from other first time and regular pro drivers, who have said that in these pro series, the time on track for getting up to speed is limited and regularly interrupted by incidents.  To be honest, I shrugged those stories off and thought, “could it really be much worse than a competitive club racing weekend?”  Yes.  That is exactly how it is.

Not a single driver had a clean 20 minutes.  None of us had a single lap where we weren’t being overtaken by at least a few cars.

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This was our new reality and pretty much everything we articulated to explain our pace was an excuse.  Dan Rogers, came up to speed the fastest outside of Seth, having a ton more experience (a 2:10.XXX best lap), then me (2:12.XX) and then Rob (2:16.XXX).

We reviewed data to look for places and ways to get up to speed but it was obvious.  We were driving tentatively, over-slowing on pretty much every corner in general and especially when being overtaken, which was almost every corner.

A common site throughout the weekend. Drive, debrief, data and repeat.  Photo credit: Petr Frýba

All my racing has been multi-class racing, with rarely being in the fastest car on track but this is a whole other level.  The closing speeds and acceleration of pretty much every other car was insane, especially the GT3 cars.  The message from Seth was clear, though he tried to be gentle with us – time to drop excuses and drive.  Yes, the other cars are faster, but we have to figure it out and at least mid-corner speed, we could hang with almost all the cars; Seth had already proved it.  I was driving almost dangerously slow.

When it was time for the second session, it was the same, I got three (3) complete laps over a ~25 minute period. But I was determined to drive confidently and hard.  A couple of 2:10.XXX on the last two laps and on the third lap, where I came into the pits due to another Code 60, I had a 2:09.XXX going, backed up by a rolling best lap of 2:09.269.

Dan would get down to a 2:08.XXX and Rob got down to a 2:10.XXX – we were all progressing!  Seth would not drive the second session, to give us more seat time but he would qualify the next morning and start the race.

By the end of the day, we had no real idea how we stacked up against the competition.  We only knew that we were improving at a good pace and that the 131 car had a stacked lineup of drivers, with one of them being the reigning European BMW Cup champion.  He had been driving a specific M235i Racing car for close to two years and he was/is good.

Code 60: Your new best friend or mortal enemy

Instead of full course yellows, Creventic has “Code 60’s”.  Purple flags come out, with a big circled 60 in the center.  When the Code 60 comes out, all cars a required to slow down, in a smooth deceleration to no more than 60 Kmph.  It’s intended to get cars down to a safe speed so whatever caused the incident can be cleaned up and maintain the gaps between the cars.

See it. Remember it. Respect it. You’ll see it a lot.

In the race, if a Purple 60 comes out and you are near the pits, it gives you an opportunity to swap drivers, change tires and/or fuel up while losing the least amount of track position.  The other side of the blade though is that if you are past the pit exit, it will take up to 4 minutes to make it back to the pit entrance and in that timeframe, the issue might be cleaned up.

Cars do not bunch up for the restart, it’s a simple call for green flags when the Code 60 goes away.  There are random radar guns around the track to check for speeding and they also look at your lap time for a complete lap of a code 60.  If it is faster than a 4:55, you are penalized.  We ended up serving a 12 second penalty one time during the race.

Friday, May 25th, 2018: Practice, qualifying and race part 1 (4 hours)

The next morning, we all went out and made improvements.  I got down to a 2:08.643 in my only complete lap and then a code 60, with a 2:07.XXX on the board. Rob got down to a 2:09.XXX and Dan to a 2:06.XXX.

Next Seth went out to qualify and though we had strict orders to stay off the yellow curbing on all corners, so we could make sure the car survived the 12 hours, the restraints were off for Seth and he went hog wild!  He got down to a 2:02.719, putting is in P2 for the race.

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The race started off crazy but mostly clean!  Seth was able to get a good start and stay in P2.  He was in the car for just over 1 hour and 40 minutes and then a Code 60 came out and it was my turn.  Being the driver on-deck, there were several false starts, where it was almost time to go but then not.

I got in the car, refueled and then got going.  Generally, I was able to get up to my speed quickly, steadily improving lap times and topping out at consistent 2:07.xxx’s regardless of traffic.  When I was at the fuel station, I was told on the radio to have my windows up, but that requirement was only during re-fueling, at the refueling station (we couldn’t refuel at our pit spot).  I interpreted the message as “have them up at all times”, which meant I wasn’t feeding fresh air to the air-conditioned helmet blower.  Somewhere after the 1 hour and 15-minute mark, the heat really started to get to me; everything was hot.  Like a heat I’ve only experienced once before when my cool suit didn’t work in a PRO3 car and 100F weather.  I figured I’d get the call at any minute to pit but no call and no Code 60.  What would end up being about 90 minutes into the stint, I started shaking and getting cold shivers.  I radioed in that I probably only had 10 or so more laps in me.

To be honest, I had no idea what was radioed back but it was not “ok, pit next lap”.  I kept driving, trying to remain focused, keep a semblance of a pace and not crash.  Finally, the call came in to pit.  I thought it was because they realized that I was in bad shape, but it was because I was minutes away from going over the 2-hour at a time driving limit.

Driver change!  Photo credit: Petr Frýba

I come in to the pits, stumble out of the car, Rob goes in and I start looking for any source of hydration.  About five minutes after being out of the car, I do a heart rate check on my Apple Watch and… 136BPM.  Holy crap.  And I am still on fire and can’t seem to drink enough water or the special Italian “Gatorade”.  A few minutes later, back in the trailer changing, I get the news that Rob is in the beach after an incident with a GT3 car.  With only ~4 minutes left in the first 4 hours, the workers do not pull us out of the beach and we can’t get it back to the pits for inspection and repairs.  The first 4 hours come to an end we are down 3 laps from the lead.

The end of our day 1 with less than 5 minutes to go.

An hour or so later, we were able to look at the car, from afar while it sat in parc ferme (impound).

Our chariot in Parc Ferme – dirty and slightly broken

Luckily, the car is in the corner and the Sorg crew checks it out and determines we have some bent and broken suspension components.  This eliminates the option to have Dan start the race with the car as is, shake off the rocks and get a sense for how the car runs.

We decided to take a 10-lap penalty, so we could make repairs before the race restarts Saturday morning.  That night we had an excellent spaghetti dinner at the Villa we stayed at (was built in 1420 and owned at one point by Napoleon Bonaparte’s grandmother) and finalized the plan.

Dinner at Napoleon Bonaparte’s grandmother’s villa. Built in 1420 and furniture from the 1700’s…

We were P1 for a good chunk of part 1 of the race because of good luck with Code 60’s but our fastest pace was still slower than our main competition (#131).  With the 10-lap penalty, all we could really do is put our heads down, put down clean laps, stay out of trouble and hope the endurance gods would punish the competition.

Saturday, May 26th, 2018: Race part 2 (8 hours)

Dan would start the race, put down solid laps, stay out of trouble and then hand over the car to Seth.  Seth would go in and do the same, getting back as many laps as possible – hoping that Seth could match lap times with their fastest driver and we would be faster than the rest of their drivers.

Over the general race pace, that would end up being the case – we steadily clawed back laps from the 2nd place car but slowly we’d lose ground to the first place #131.

Dan Rogers (@epsdan) riding the curbs to get us some laps back.  Photo credit: Petr Frýba

In the third stint, I went back in for what would end up being about 1 hour and 45-50 minutes, safely clear of the 2-hour driving limit. I was able to get up to speed even faster than Friday and in the second half of the stint, when the heat soak returned, and I realized the Camelback with a mix of water and Italian Gatorade was not connected to my helmet, something clicked.  Something that Seth had been preaching to us for the past 24 hours (and will be reserved for another time).  I trusted his advice and just did it, and the car didn’t go off into the dirt or in a wall – it held.  The times started steadily falling, the 2:06’s started coming effortlessly, almost regardless of where traffic was interfering.  And then, a 2:05.xxx!  And then another 2:05 in the predictive lap timer but spoiled by traffic and another, spoiled by… me (I was getting greedy).

Traffic or not, need to make up time!  Photo credit: Petr Frýba

I was ecstatic but drained and as I’ll write about in another post, I didn’t have the stamina to sustain 2:05’s.  I had already started driving with the windows cracked and on the straight-aways, I’d put my hand out of the window to funnel outside air in and help cool me down.  The time went by much faster this stint and before I knew it, the call was in to pit.  There was a Code 60 for a badly damaged car which would take 10-15 minutes to clear up, so though the Code 60 came out right after I had passed the pit entrance, I was able to circle back around and pit, under the Code 60 and Dan was able to get back in the car and on track before the green flag flew.

Dan had a great second stint, consistently hitting 2:07’s and staying out of trouble.  We had clawed back more laps and with Seth going in for the closing stint, it would be close.  Enough green flag running or advantageous Code 60’s is what we needed.  Seth came out with a full head of steam and immediately started putting down 2:03’s and 2:04’s – getting back 8-12 seconds per lap to P2. With an hour left in the race, the cars started falling like flies.  One car after another, breaking down on track or barely limping back to the pits for a repair but no Code 60.  Finally, with about 15 minutes left in the race, one of the leading GT3 cars, a beautiful matte-red Mercedes AMG GT pulled to the side of the track with a collapsed front wheel.  Even though it pulled off in a decently safe area, the Code 60 came out, leaving only a few minutes to finish the race and with that, our chances of P2 washed away.

One of the overall race contenders, broken down with less than 15 minutes to go in the race.

After 8 hours, we had clawed back a full 10 laps and were only 20 seconds away from P2.  Another few laps of green flag running… but that’s racing!

Seth Thomas (@racerseththomas) bringing it home in P3   Photo credit: Petr Frýba

Podium finish to top off a great weekend

Despite not being able to claw back P2, we still made it on the podium and it was also my first experience actually standing on a podium, let alone the same podium and podium room that mega stars of racing have been in and stood on.  Overall it was a great experience and looking forward to the next race, which we’re targeting the 24 hour race at Circuit of the Americas in November or possibly Barcelona in September.

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BMW M235i Racing – 12 Hours of Imola

Before we get into the actual on-track action and the race, let’s talk about the car we drove for the 12 hours of Imola.

BMW M235i Racing by Sorg Rennsport

The story goes that a prominent leader in BMW Motorsport was at the 24 Hours of The Nürburgring several years ago and noticed that in the sub-GT4 categories, there were several BMW’s competing but they were old (E30’s and E36’s) and took a ton of work to get them race ready and maintained, let alone competitive.

With Mazda having a full factory developed and globally homogulated Global MX-5 Cup Car, BMW decided to build their own solution. Since its launch in 2014, the BMW M235i Racing has seen steady uptake in the marketplace, with BMW Cup Racing series all over Europe, in endurance races like the Creventic 24 Hour Series, VLN and in professional touring classes all over the world, like the TC classes in Pirelli World Challenge. As an entry-level professional race car, its hard to beat the value despite the sticker price and driving experience, as we’ll cover below.

The VLN BMW M235i Racing Cup Series  Photo Credit: VLN

We were originally supposed to drive this car below but in the prior 24 Hour of Nurburgring race, it was wrecked a couple times and was down for repairs. So Sorg prepared and brought out the “Orange Juice car” as my son named.

The car we were originally going to drive but was damaged at the Green Hell. Photo credit: Petr Frýba

The “Orange Juice Car” Photo credit: Petr Frýba

The basics

DIMENSIONS

Length: 4,454mm

Max. width: 1,862mm (without mirrors)

Height: 1,380mm

Wheel base: 2,690mm

Max. track width: 1,608mm

ENGINE / TRANSMISSION

Straight six-cylinder petrol engine

BMW M Performance TwinPower Turbo

Capacity: 2,979ccm

Output: 245kW (333bhp)

Torque: 450Nm

Racing exhaust with racing catalytic converters

Steering wheel with shift paddles and lights on the steering wheel (awesome!!)

BMW M Performance limited-slip differential

TANK Motorsport safety tank

SUSPENSION / STEERING

KW dampers

H&R suspension springs

Front: H&R anti-roll bar (2-way)

Rear: H&R anti-roll bar

BRAKES

Front: High-performance motorsport braking system –

Performance Friction (PFC); 4-pot fixed calliper

Rear: BMW M Performance 2-pot braking system

ABS / DSC / ASC

BMW Motorsport specific racing application

TYRES / WHEELS

18×10 inch alloy rims

265/60/18 tires – we ran Hankook full racing slicks though we’ve seen this car run on Pirelli’s, Dunlops and Michelin’s across the globe

SAFETY COMPONENTS

Cage with DMSB certificate and FIA approval

6-point racing harness from Schroth

Racing seat RECARO Pro Racer SPG (we had an OMP HTC-R carbon seat)

Exterior

The car is built a ‘body in white’ to make it super easy for a great wrap job. It is the 235i body with the body panels from the M2, which presumably provide a variety of aero benefits. Sorg has it outfitted with the optional rear wing, which is adjustable to aid in rear down-force.

Seth Thomas getting acquainted with the car. You can see the body in white and the full body wrap.

Bottom line, it looks awesome in just about every livery I’ve seen. A bit boxy compared to most sports car but expected for a BMW. The aero bits make it look aggressive and with the incredibly meaty 265-wide slicks, it looks beefy from every angle. You’ll notice that in most pictures, we ran with the windows up. It comes with the power windows still and fully functional. It wasn’t until the cockpit got really hot, that we’d crack a window to circulate air and feed cooler air into the helmet blower.

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Interior

This car is the standard for every production-based race car, even a club race car. Period.  The interior was clean and tidy with the factory dash just about fully intact. The steering wheel had shift lights, programmed to keep us within the meaty part of the power band and the small LCD screen that read out the amount of fuel we’ve used since the last refill/reset, lap times, water and oil temperatures.

Straight factory look and yes, my eye line is only a couple inches higher than this…

The shifters were in perfect position to shift up and down without readjusting your hands. The OMP HTC-R carbon fiber seat was on sliders, to accommodate several driver heights, of which for us ranged from 5’6″ for me to just over 6′ for Seth Thomas. I normally don’t love sliders but these were solid and provided all of the range we needed.

Much of the interior is trimmed with carbon fiber goodness, which looks great and keeps everything looking clean and professional.

The car still comes with a racing oriented but still operating Driving Stability Control (DSC) of which we turned completely off. I personally didn’t drive with it on on, so I can’t speak directly to the differences but having it fully off was great and I felt like I could easily manage the amount of corner-exit sliding with throttle and steering input.

Sorg outfitted the car with Motorola digital radio system, which was a bit random in its performance throughout the weekend. Imola is a big track, with lots of elevation changes so we rarely had good audio quality at the farthest points from the paddock and saved most critical comms for the front-straight away.

In the center console, you can see the Motorola radio and that on/off switch is for the helmet blower.

This was also the fastest and loudest (though not super loud) car I’ve ever raced, along with racing amongst the fastest and loudest cars I’ve ever raced with (up to GT3 cars). I found that my super awesome Stilo helmet with the ear muffs were simply not enough, so I had an on-track vendor install the additional component so I can have molded ear plugs, in addition to the built-in noise cancelling ear muffs and that seemed to help quite a bit.

Sorg installed an air-conditioned helmet blower, versus the standard air blower I have in my PRO3 car. This thing worked great for the most part. It needs an air intake, then it cools the air before forcing it through the air tube. The issue I ran into was that in my first race stint of nearly 2 hours, I ran the whole time with the windows up. And even though we had the car’s fan circulating air into the cabin, everything got heat soaked and with 40 or so minutes left in my stint, I was heat soaked and the blower was pushing around hot air (which was still better than nothing).

One driver mentioned that the dash was a little tall and he didn’t love not being able to see the hood and thus not having as strong of a sense of where the car body limits were. This is true but for me, I’m used to sitting low and being short, so I never see the hood, so that didn’t bother me.

The cable management, cage design and installation is pristine, though it was interesting to see that the cage is actually a bolt-in cage, versus a welded in cage at the mounting points. I’m sure there is science and logic behind this but that took me by surprise.

Lastly, the car had a full AiM data logging system built in and capturing ECU channels. As usual, we lived and died by the predictive lap timing feature and during practices, we used the Apex Pro Driving Coach tool, where Seth set some baseline laps and then we focused on making the lights as green as possible in the corners.

How did it drive?

Before driving the car, Dan and Seth said that the M235i Racing would drive like a big PRO3 or Spec E46 car, of which are my only two reference points. And after the experience, they were mostly right.

With power steering, ABS and a paddle-shifting automatic transmission, it was the easiest car to race I’ve ever driven. What you do is still the same in terms of driving but it’s just easier. All inputs don’t require much of any force and the seat, seating position and Schroth belts are simply comfortable. For example, I have an Apple Watch and when I drive my PRO3 car (no ABS, power steering and a CAE shifter) I don’t need to ‘start a workout’ on my watch. The amount of work I am doing and vibrations automatically make the watch think I am working out and it logs a workout.

In the BMW M235i Racing? Not so much. After both my racing stints, of which both were nearly 2 hours, I was toast. Overheated, dehydrated, mentally and physically exhausted I looked at my watch and no workout detected. I had to manually have it check my heart rate about 5 minutes after getting out of the car and it was still at 134bpm.

Getting 3-wheel action is easy- peasy in this car! Photo credit: Petr Frýba

So yes, it was the hardest, most exhausting driving I’ve ever done but I might as well had been sitting in a beach chair.

This thing is fast.

With ~330whp and on full racing slicks, this car is easily the fastest car I’ve ever driven in a race. My perspective is a bit skewed because while we were hauling @$$, we were driving in the slowest class of the race. It literally felt like I was driving with an anchor dragging behind because of how stupid fast the TCR, GT4, GT3 and Porsche Cup cars were.

Still, this car is fast and when not over-driven, it is really easy to go fast. The key difference for me was to trust the higher than normal mid-corner speed the car could carry due to it’s more advanced suspension and big/meaty slicks. Seth and Dan mentioned that the Hankook’s were not the fastest slick available but are likely a great value because they tend to last at 90% of the peak grip for a good amount of time.

Bottom line is that this car could hang mid-corner with every car on-track except for the GT3 race cars and possibly the TCR cars. I could definitely feel the additional size and weight of the car transitioning weight from side to side, compared to a 2700 lbs PRO3 car but after a few laps, it felt normal.

Not a mistake – this car can hang with most any car mid-corner! Photo credit: Petr Frýba

Power-wise, it has gobs of torque but not an incredible top-end. Corner exit I could stay on the rears of several TCR cars but then they would slowly pull away, while just about every other car would leave us like if we were parked.

Braking was great and confidence inspiring. Braking for Turn 2 (the first chicane) and Turn 17 are full, 10 out of 10 braking zones. After building up my confidence, I found myself braking at around the 175 meter mark for the 1st chicane and the just before the 50 meter for the last chicane. HOLY CRAP! But the car would slow down, turn in and handle it, with no complaints.

Being a turbo car, there was a tiny bit of lag from throttle application to feeling the grunt. So it was even more critical to get to full throttle as soon as possible. For the most part, the LSD and the Hankook’s would take the full throttle corner after corner and lap after lap. I only got a bit more sideways than I’d want on corner exit a couple of times: once in turn 7 when I was testing the limits carrying speed through the corner and up the hill – simply too early on full throttle with too much steering input and a second time on the exit of the last chicane, when I got a bit more exit curb than the car could hold while try to get full throttle. I didn’t back out, just a simple steering correction as I still had a few inches before getting to the big turtle bumps that were there to eat up suspensions.

Final verdict: It could be the perfect race car for you and me at some point

At around $85k USD brand new, the BMW M235i Racing is seriously a great deal. For reference, to have someone build a top quality Spec E46 race car, it can cost upwards of $60k. $25k gets you a pretty much guaranteed quality and consistency, factory supported race car.

I’ve looked around and still not quite sure what they are going for used but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them available for $40-50k USD.

The driving experience is incredible and consumables are on the low end for a pro-level race car.

The issue for me is that I care most about competition. I want to race in big fields, with closer to spec cars and see how I stack up to the best competition around. And outside of Pirelli World Challenge, there isn’t a ton of these yet in the US and especially in the club racing ranks. If that were a different situation, I would seriously consider finding and racing a BMW M235i Racing.

I’ve heard and read that the BMW M235i Racing Cup is popular, with country and Europe-wide championships that are fielding 20+ cars at a time. If I lived in Europe, this would also be a strong option.

Until any of those things happen, I’ll have to settle for making my in-process, BMW Spec E-46 look and drive as close to this beauty as possible and racing with Sorg Rennsport 1-3 times a year. I can’t wait for the next time!