Finally back to racing

The first race of the 2020 season feels like a lifetime ago...and not because it was way back in February, but because the world as we know it has changed dramatically over the past 15 weeks. COVID-19 caused just about everything to shut down...businesses, offices, parks, restaurants, schools, and what can best be described as a “normal way of life.” 

While much uncertainty remains around when the pandemic will be truly behind us, we remain grateful for the health and safety of our friends and family, and for the opportunity to return to (socially-distanced) racing at Buttonwillow Raceway Park.

Updates to the car

The one upside, if there is one, to a global pandemic is that it gave us more time than usual to prepare and improve the car. Besides the typical fluid changes (using only Ravenol) and a thorough once-over, we also did the following:

Refreshed livery by SS Customs

We decided a minor livery refresh was in order for two reasons. First, the car had accumulated quite a few battle scars and scuffs from a full season of racing last year and new wrap would make all of those things go away. Second, we wanted to add some blue into the scheme on behalf of our partners at Toyo Tires. So, of course that meant bringing “Heidi” over to the homies at SS Customs in Redwood City, CA. Shareef and the team did an awesome job reprinting and re-wrapping the car, while also adding some beautiful satin blue chrome to really make the livery pop! We love it so much, it really looks amazing in the light (see below for yourself).

Headlights

One of our takeaways from Willow Springs in February was that our lighting package needed to be improved. After doing some research and consulting with other experienced Enduro teams, we decided to build an integrated headlight set up (goodbye, light bar) with brighter and more compact LEDs. We gutted some OEM headlights and put three Baja Designs LED lights behind each lens housing. One is used for long range, one for close range, and one to light up the apexes. Each one is independently adjustable too!

Racebred splitter

Last winter, we linked up with Charles and his team at Racebred Components down in Southern California. We became aware of Racebred products through several friends who run their splitters on the Honda S2000 and FK8 Civic Type R. I was impressed by the quality and thought they also provide a budget-friendly option for track day junkies, as well as racers. Charles and I began talking about working together on an adjustable chassis mounted splitter and voila! We are proud to showcase the first prototype Racebred Components splitter and bracketry design for the BMW E36 M3 platform.

Charles wanted to give us a broad range of adjustability and since we are still in the prototyping phase, there was some measuring and drilling involved to get everything mounted. As an FYI, on a production model these will be pre-drilled and ready to go from Racebred Components. The splitter blade is perfect, and the brackets fit well, but we are working on some revisions to reduce flex and to increase the rigidity and strength even more. Stay tuned for V2.0!

Front subframe

Just a few days before the upcoming race, we were getting ready to align the car when we noticed that the sub frame had cracked right around the lower control arm ball joint. Luckily, we were were able to source a good used one quickly and reinforce it with steel plates. Jon fab for the win.

Away we go

This particular weekend featured a double-header with both sprint racing and endurance racing on Saturday, June 13th. We were a bit light again in terms of the team because it was Ryan’s (Drew’s son) first birthday. Happy birthday, handsome guy! Meanwhile, Jon and Victoria still have their hands plenty full with their beautiful 2 month old daughter, Harley.

On Friday afternoon, I picked up the E36 at the shop and headed to Morgan Hill to load-up the toter with Ashly, Graham, Liam, and the boys (Max and Rory). We got on the road shortly after dinner and arrived at the track just before midnight.

In the morning, we were greeted by the very talented Seth DeDoes. Seth was hired by our partners at APEX Race Parts to shoot “Heidi” and help document our efforts during the event (check out Seth’s portfolio here).

Super Touring 

The schedule for Super Touring was as follows: 8:00am warm-up, qualifying at 9:45am, and race at 1:15pm. In order to give each of us some seat-time before Endurance qualifying and the Endurance race at night, we decided to split up the sessions. I took warm-up, Graham qualified (P4 out of 11 cars in ST4 class), and then I drove the ST4 race. 

It was wild! The entire ST4 field got held up by an orange Porsche in ST2 class, but that just made things even more interesting. Several ST4 had to make very dicey passes in order to get around the Porsche, but I didn’t have any great opportunities without putting the car in more risk than I was comfortable with...after all, we still had a 3-hour endurance race to run afterwards! 

Ride-along with me for an action-packed sprint to a 7th place finish. It was one of the most exciting races that I’ve driven in a while. There was A LOT that happened. Shout-out to Will Wattanawongkiri for pushing me (figuratively and literally, haha) all the way to the checkered flag. That was so much fun!

3 Hour Night Enduro

Round 2 of the NASA Western Endurance Racing Championships (WERC) was scheduled to run from 6:20pm to 9:20pm. Qualifying was at 3:05pm, and this was when Liam hopped into the car to put us P4 in E1 class (and 11th overall out of 27 cars) on the grid. Not bad, considering the last time he had driven at Buttonwillow was in 2018!

Since we had some time before the start of the enduro, we decided to give the car a quick once-over. That’s when we discovered a small leak in the driver-side rear axle boot. Not wanting to risk it, we decided to swap in a spare. After a quick alignment check, thanks to our handy Wunder Aligner system, we got the car parked on the grid. We also switched to another set of APEX EC-7R forged wheels, mounted with fresh sticker Toyo Proxes RR tires.

Before the race, we considered how much fuel we would be starting with and our car’s average fuel-consumption rate around a 3-mile track like Buttonwillow at enduro pace. We figured we would need to stop twice over the course of 3 hours at Buttonwillow. Our plan was to have Graham start and run for 1.5 hours, Liam would then drive the middle hour, and I would finish the final 30 minutes.

Graham started the race as planned, and he had a tremendous first stint. After 1.5 hours, he got us up to 1st in E1 class and 5th overall. He pitted for fuel and that’s when Liam jumped in. By then, it was starting to get dark which meant we finally had an opportunity to test out our new light setup. Liam was great about relaying feedback over the radio while he continued to drive with consistent pace.

With only 30 minutes remaining, we knew we had to stop one more time for fuel. By then, according to the RaceHero timing & scoring app, we were still in P1 and ahead of the next two cars in E1 class by 1 lap and more than 20 seconds. So, that’s when we decided to do a shorter stop by keeping Liam in the car and only filling one 5 gallon jug of fuel. We were hopeful that based on fuel-consumption data from the first 2.5 hours, we could actually finish the race with less fuel and the time saved from not changing drivers would help keep us in P1.

Unfortunately, after the pitstop RaceHero suddenly updated to show that we were actually on the same lap as the next car in E1, and much to our shock and dismay, we were now in P2 behind the car in P1 by 15 seconds. The next E1 car in P3 was also just 10 seconds behind and picking up the pace. Yikes!

Despite this very surprising setback, we remained determined. Liam began to push hard to catch up. In doing so, he made up some ground but then suddenly he had a minor spin coming out of cotton-corners and was passed for position. So, as the checkered flag was waved we crossed the finish line P3 in E1 class and 8th overall. Woo! Another podium finish!

I want to commend Liam for his sheer willpower and for a tremendous drive. He didn’t tell us until after the race was over, but he was actually wrestling with some severe nausea during the final 30 minutes. And yet, instead of jumping out of the car and risking our opportunity to win -- he pushed on and never gave up. You’re a badass, Liam! Thanks for coming through for the entire team!

Ride-along with us for 30 minutes of highlights from the 3-hour endurance race:

Looking back, I’m really happy about several things. First, the car worked flawlessly. The new Racebred chassis mounted splitter is tough and provided great aero grip up front. The new forged EC-7R APEX wheels handled everything we threw at them (if you’ve ever driven at Buttonwillow you know that the fastest line often involves a lot of berm-jumping). And as always, the Toyo Proxes RR tires were so consistent and reliable, lap after lap, while the JRZ 14 52 dampers really soaked up every inch of the track to make our drive smooth and as easy as possible.

Special thanks to several people who joined us for the event:

• Willy and Martin, thank you for helping us fuel and for your support.

• Seth, your photos are so good! Thank you for capturing all of the drama and excitement through your camera.

• Karla, thanks for helping us spot during the race.

• Bryant and Jeff, thanks for coming to support and for the beers!

• Clint, good to see you as always my friend.

• Adrian, great driving! Remember to signal next time. Just kidding!

What’s next

Assuming the 2020 race season continues, next up is August 1-2 at Thunderhill Raceway with NASA. We plan to make additional improvements to the car before then. While our lighting package is much better now, we still need to do some fine tuning. We need to look into a new and possibly upgraded oil cooler, because all other temps during this past weekend were great (under 205F) but oil was over 260F. And last but not least, we want to redo all of the wiring in the car and switch over to an AIM PDM32 unit once it arrives (COVID-19 delayed production in Italy). Onward and upward! Thanks as always for reading!