Where to even begin…

This year seems to be just flying by. We last raced at the end of March, and since then the team has been busy with a wide variety of cool projects at the shop. Personally, my calendar has been filled with work, travel, and everything in between. One event in particular that transpired during this time was the official launch of the Yokohama A055 tire. We remain super proud to be working with Yokohama for this season and with the A055 becoming publicly available via Tire Rack, it meant that it became legal for competition use in the NASA Super Touring series. As such, we enthusiastically signed up for Round 6 of the NASA Northern California season at Sonoma Raceway. The plan was to get a lot of seat time in for everyone, since we had all been away from racing for several months. Graham and I planned to race ST4 in my E46, and Spec Miata in his NB; while Liam and Jon would hop between both cars in TT (Time Trials).

Saturday began, and there was already some drama around the use of the A055 in ST4. I was told during the driver meeting by those who were gravely uninformed that I would be protested against if I finished ahead of them in the race. I guess I can understand? Contingency dollars are a big deal, for some people. Fortunately, per the NASA rulebook the tires are 100% legal for the class now and since there is very little data on them yet (being so new), they are currently classed as a 0 point tire; similar to a Hoosier R7 or Hankook Z214. After the air was cleared, we focused on the day ahead.

Graham did well in Race #1 of SM, finishing in P10 out of 34 cars in class. Meanwhile, I had what I would describe as a mediocre performance in ST4. I went to the grid late for qualifying (my bad), and couldn’t lay down a decent lap due to traffic. As such, I started the race P8 and only managed to fight my way up to P5 by the checkered flag. To add insult to injury, we were struggling a bit with our new AiM SmartyCam3 and didn’t record any of the above. Oops!

On Sunday, Graham and I switched cars after he did Race #2 in SM (where he finished P8). Excitedly, I jumped two-feet into the deep end for my first ever Spec Miata race and I have to say…I had a blast! I decided to start from the back since I didn’t earn the P8 starting position and by the end of the race I was P22 out of a 34 car field. It was so much fun. The SM was a completely different car to drive when compared to my E46 M3. Relatively speaking, there is no power or acceleration; you just have to minimize speed-loss by rolling as much MPH through the corner (something I still need to work on). The car is also soft/squishy and the shifter is a bit vague. But when there are 33 other Spec Miatas out there with you at the same time…none of the above matters. It’s just pure racing fun.

Ride-along with me for Race #3 on Sunday:

The last race of the day (Super Touring) would turn out to be the most action-packed of all. Graham started in P5 and had a strong start; eventually working his way up to P2. Unfortunately, on Lap 8 he was punted by Eric Moore in the #37 Edge Motorworks E36 M3. Eric sent a really poor move into Turn-4 from super far back, and smashed into the side of my car; causing a ton of damage to the rocker panel and sending the side-skirt flying across the track. Graham managed to hold it together by 4-wheel drifting in the dirt and by the time he got back on track he had lost 2 positions. By the end of the race, he crossed the line P3 in ST4 class, behind Daniel Rose (P2) and Eric Moore (P1). But it wasn’t over yet…

Upon arriving at tech/impound, NASA’s Race Director looked into the incident when we were knocked off track and since Eric was honest about being 100% at fault (thank you for apologizing as well), he got DQ’d from the win. Several racers then commented on the fact that Daniel Rose’s car was incredibly fast and seemed to be way over-powered. So he got sent to the dyno for compliance, where we learned his car was almost 60 horsepower over! Yikes. As such, he was also DQ’d from P2. This meant we got the win, or so we thought…

Scott Smith, the same driver who had threatened to protest me even though he had been in the wrong just a day before over tire rules — finished in P4 behind Graham. After the race, he gave Graham a heads up that he would be filing a protest for “weaving” during the race when he attempted to pass between Turn-6 and Turn-7. And as of a few hours ago, I have been informed that we would in-fact be receiving a one-spot-drop for blocking. So officially, Graham finished P2.

Ride-along with him to experience all of the on-track drama:

What’s next…

“Ursula” (our E46 M3) is off to the frame shop to try and repair the damage from Sunday. Hopefully we can get her back to pristine condition before the next race weekend. Wish us luck!