BimmerWorld Racing

Its Hard To Go Home - James Clay

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 02:13:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barber wrap-up

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:26:00 +0000

Race day activities started with an autograph session, quick driver's meeting, and lunch followed by a few hours of waiting around. As lazy as I am, I really don't like to wait around before a race.

The pre-race procedure was different for this race because of the short time between the Rolex race and our race. That's the third different pre-race/grid procedure in three races. Once we got to our spots on grid, the "where do I go? what do I do?" worries were behind us and I could actually relax for a few minutes.

After two pace/formation laps, it was time for me to lead the ST field to the green for the first time. Set the pace, wait for it, wait for it, green flag! Whew, I made it through the start and I'm still in the lead. Before we're able to complete our first lap, the first of many full course cautions comes out. That means a few more laps behind the pace car before we get to give it another shot. The green flag flies again and we almost make it a full lap this time before the yellow comes out...again. Fortunately, after our second restart, we had a nice long, caution free run before another full course yellow came out mid race and Bill and I both pitted to hand the cars over to James and Seth. There were more cautions (shocker!) mixed in with some green flag racing and James and Seth were able to bring the BimmerWorld/GearWrench cars home in 5th and 6th place with only a few scratches on them!

Some observations:
-It was rough out there, especially for the GS class. It seemed like every GS car I saw after the race had a good bit of damage.
-The track was slow, much slower than it was in qualifying. I think the warm afternoon temperatures and all of the rubber from the Rolex race really hurt lap times.
-Our cars are heavy (but we already knew that). It was really tough to maintain a decently fast pace in our cars without destroying the tires.
-One of the RSR Mini's caught on fire several times in the pits. Very scary/wild scene and hopefully no one was injured.
-The BimmerWorld crew is amazing! They didn't miss a beat all week/weekend and they nailed the pits stops once again.

Next up is Virginia International Raceway, BimmerWorld's home track! I think everyone on the team has been looking forward to this race all year...I know I have!

-David White

Sweet Home Alabama 2

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:02:00 +0000

BimmerWorld Racing wrapped up round three of the Grand Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series with two more top ten finishes. The race was pretty exciting for the drivers and crew alike.

We knew we would need to be at the top of our game to do well on the tight technical Barber Motorsports Park road course. Our cars are the heaviest in the field (by up to 500 lbs) and as hard and often as we try, the laws of physics are tough to bend.

The green dropped at 3:50 with Dave on pole and me at P13. The first major incident happened at the entrance to T7 on the first lap. One of the Kias got into one of the RSR Minis and the result was that the Mini was out of action and left a fair amount of debris in the track. That full course yellow was followed almost immediately by another. After about 10 minutes we went green again and had good racing for about 40 minutes. I managed to work #81 up to P8 while Dave was P2 holding a large gap over most of the field except for a Mazda that eventually took the checkered flag.

I had some great close racing for my entire stint and was really pleased to be running with a top 10 pace. With Seth's coaching, help from James and Dave, the support of the crew, and lots of practice, I had my best performance in the series to date in both qualifying and race. I am really pleased and looking forward to the next race.

Around the 1 hour mark there was an incident that caused another FCY and we needed to pit both BWR cars at the same time. The crew did a fantastic job getting us turned around and back on the track. Seth did his usual magic winning back spots lost in the pit stop and then carving through the front runners. His carving was slowed a little bit since Barber is a fairly tough track for passing and it often takes 2-3 laps of set up to execute a pass. The bigger problem though, was that a fair amount of the last hour of racing was spent under FCY, including the last 7 minutes or so.

In the end, for James and Seth it wasn't that we didn't have the speed, it was simply that the race ended too soon. Congratulations to Dave and James for their 5th place finish! Seth and I finished up just behind, in 6th.

In addition to the challenge for the crew to turn two cars around as fast as possible in one stop, they got to witness (feel the heat) from a pretty serious fire in pits just a few down from us. The #198 RSR Mini was driven into the pits on fire (with BJ Zacharias at the wheel). Crew members from RSR and several adjoining teams doused the fire with their bottles....... only to have it flare up with a loud "thump" and big flames. They attacked it again, backed off, and it loudly flared again. Just about the time I was thinking about where to hide, the safety guys got everyone out of the way and got a real fire truck into action which finally won the battle. BJ was unscathed and glad to be alive! I don't think the car was so lucky.

We are looking forward to the next race at VIR in two weeks. BimmerWorld Racing is in second place in the team standings with 1/3 of the season behind us. We are well positioned and on target with the strategy we laid out at the beginning of the season..... not that we pay any attention to that kind of thing!

Quick update from Barber - more practice and qualifying

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 04:02:00 +0000

Thursday morning started out with thunderstorms and heavy downpours all the way up to around 11am. Fortunately we weren't scheduled to hit the track until 1pm and by then, the track was mostly dry. We picked up where we had left off on Wednesday and continued getting the cars dialed in and the BimmerWorld crew did some more pit stop practice. The crew continues to amaze me with the speed of the pit stops!

Photo courtesy of Curtis Creager of Creager Images

Friday consisted of one last (short) practice session followed by qualifying in the morning. The practice session was black flagged a few times but our drivers were still able to get in some good laps. Between sessions we all went through our usual data analysis routine and I found a few places that I could pick up some speed. In qualifying I was able to put together a nice lap on fresh tires and put the #80 car on pole for Saturday's race. Bill put the #81 car in 13th place on the grid giving the BimmerWorld/GearWrench team it's best starting positions of the year!

As a side note, we got to watch some of the Indy Car practice Friday afternoon and those cars are pretty amazing.

Saturday is going to be a busy (and fun!) day for the team and our race starts at 4pm CDT.

-David White

Sweet Home Alabama- Well at least it isn't a Jimmy Buffet Song!

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:17:00 +0000

We have been having a pretty good run so far here at Barber.

Dave got P1 and I got P13. For both of us, our fastest lap times here at Barber and our best qualifying positions in the series.

The celebration back at the trailer after Dave got pole and Bill got P13.

(Actually Wayne's friend Amy, who is apparently a stunt jump roper.)

I struggled to find decent lap times here, but with Seth's excellent coaching and patience (lots of patience!) I have gotten faster all weekend. The biggest adjustment in racing at this level for me is that it simply isn't good enough to be fast. All of the drivers here are fast. Really fast. 10/10'ths fast. For most of this crowd, driving their car at 100% of it's traction through every turn is not an exercises in testicular fortitude,......... it's just what they do. When I back out of the throttle 10 feet earlier or take 10 feet more of track before I am back to full throttle it is enough to put me a second or two behind the competition. It is a tough crowd!

At any rate, I am really pleased with my progress and where we are starting the race in #81.

The racing doesn't start until about 4PM CDT tomorrow so we have lots of time to kill. I have even washed Lynn's car out of boredom.
http://www.seththomas.net/blog/2010/04/09/lucky-number-13/

Barber - karting and testing

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:49:00 +0000

Since we are sharing the weekend with the Indy cars, our schedule consists of several half days at the track. We should have a lot more down time than usual this week/weekend so I'm going to attempt (heavy emphasis on attempt) to update the blog throughout the event.

Tuesday - James, Chas, and I met in Charlotte to ride to Alabama together and we stopped off in Atlanta on the way down to sneak in a few hours of karting. We met up with Wayne (our engineer) and Seth at the kart track which is in a huge warehouse and is the longest indoor kart track I've ever driven on. The track is slick with a nice variety of corners which makes it an excellent learning tool. Wayne has roughly 3 billion laps there so he knows what it takes to be fast (smooth inputs and patience) which directly translates to our CTSCC cars. If you've ever karted with the BimmerWorld guys, you know that either somebody will leave with injuries or the group will get kicked off the track (or both). Surprisingly, we played (mostly) nice and there were no major injuries to report.

Wednesday: Promoter Test Day - Wednesday consisted of about 3 hours of track time crammed in to the afternoon (ie. very busy afternoon). Bill and I started the cars in the first session and ran them until the fuel light came on. The team practiced full speed pit stops and driver changes when we came in. The rest of the first session and most of the second session was spent trying some setup changes and getting the cars dialed in. During the second session, our #80 car developed a vibration but James and I were both able to get some good laps in. The 3rd session was immediately following the second session so James and I skipped it while the the crew diagnosed and repaired the issue. Although short, Wednesday was a very productive day.

I woke up to heavy thunder this morning (Thursday) with rain forecasted for most of the day. Although it is supposed to be dry the rest of the week, the wet conditions should provide a valuable testing opportunity for future races.

-David White

Join BimmerWorld and GRAND-AM at VIR April 23-25 – Special Ticket Offer

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:45:00 +0000

The Continental Tire Challenge is coming to our home track at VIR the weekend of April 23-25, so we called our friends at the track office to work out a deal for our friends and customers. All the GRAND-AM races are on Saturday April 24, but the entire weekend is full of racing activities.

To purchase tickets with our discounted group code, go to http://www.virnow.com/. Saturday only tickets are $20 (code GABWJ10) and the full 3-day pass is $30 (code GABW10). We race at 3:30PM on Saturday – stop by and see us before or after the race!

Back to Florida...

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:43:00 +0000

So it's back to Florida for the third time in 3 months (rough, I know) and this time we were in Miami for round 2 of the CTSCC. Homestead Miami Speedway is a banked oval with a road course in the infield. Like Daytona, only smaller. The oval is smaller, the banking is not as steep, and the infield portion is much tighter than Daytona.

After hearing warnings of how cold it was from friends in Miami, we had beautiful weather all weekend. Much nicer than what we had been dealing with in NC and VA the last few months.

Thursday was a promoter test day which consisted of the team unloading and setting up in the morning and then we were on track for a few hours in the afternoon to dial the cars and drivers in. Even if everything goes smoothly, this makes for a hectic/busy day for the team. In our second session, I recall a GS Porsche (very loud car) passing me and once it pulled away, I was still hearing a loud car and the note seemed to change with the revs of my engine...weird. I discussed the issue with the team and brought the car back to the pits. I had somehow managed to blow a hole in the exhaust near one of the oxygen sensors. With the limited time between sessions and the amount of work required to fix the problem, James and I had to skip the final session. We formed a game plan for the practice and qualifying sessions on Friday.

We hit the ground running Friday morning with two practice sessions before lunch. I focused on a few areas of the track that needed some attention and I was pleased with the results. The BimmerWorld crew had the cars dialed in and we were ready for qualifying later in the day. Bill and I decided to go out at the back of the pack for qualifying and I was able to put together a few clean laps to put the car in 11th place on the ST grid.

Saturday consisted of a final morning practice before the race which was spent doing a few laps and practicing pit stop/driver changes. The BimmerWorld crew consistently nails the pit stops and with James and I doing some driver change practice a few weeks earlier, everything went as planned.

We had the usual pre-race "fan walk" but the grid procedure was different than the one we used in Daytona. There was a bit of a mix up about the procedure and several cars ended up starting the race from pit lane including both of our cars and the APR VW's.

Once the race started, we had our work cut out for us but it was definitely an exciting ride! This race had fewer cautions than we expected and I was able to work my way from 31st back to 10th or 11th during my stint. During the second caution, there was confusion among the officials which led to me losing some spots during the wave-bys for the ST cars. We pitted during that caution which lessened the impact but it was still very frustrating and confusing for the team. After a beautifully executed pit stop, James was underway. He was steadily picking up spots until more confusion by the officials during a caution near the end of the race hurt us again. James was running 7th or 8th when the officials ordered our #80 to get in front of the #25 (the lead ST car). James and the team repeatedly questioned this but the officials were adamant that we "make it happen". So James reluctantly went to the front before the green flag flew. About a lap later, we were told that the #80 had to go back to where it was during the caution causing James to miss several laps of racing for position with the 5th and 6th place cars.

Our 7th place finish wasn't bad considering the snafus during the caution periods and was a big improvement over our Daytona finish. Bill and Seth had another great race and finished in 4th in the #81 car, awesome work guys! Overall it was another very strong showing for the BimmerWorld/GearWrench Team and I expect that to continue throughout the remainder of the season.

I think Bill covered the Jimmy Buffett issue quite nicely in his post, so all i'll say is that I'd be happy to never hear another Buffett song again...ever.

Next up - Round 3 at Barber Motorsports Park...stay tuned!

-David White

(photos courtesy of Curtis Creager of CreagerImages)

Homestead Recap (or How I learned to Hate Jimmy Buffet Music)

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:11:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So why do I hate Jimmy Buffet music now?

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

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

Bill Heumann

The big news from Homestead!

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:42:00 +0000

At least it is occupying some of our downtime. Continental Tire has started a “Fan Favorite” program Where fans (you) vote on your favorite car/team. Tell me more! OK:

• How do I vote? Text ST80 to 20123 between 12AM EST Friday (that’s late night for you kids and 6 hours before work on Friday for the kids headed to an office) and Midnight Sunday. And you can vote as many times at your fingers are feeling frisky. Beat the pros’ personal record of 58 in 2 minutes...
• What does it cost? Nothing. Well – normal text rates apply, so it actually depends on your cell plan, but nothing or next to it.
• What do I get? Our gratitude knowing that you are supporting our team for now. In the future, a chance to win free tires for your valuable minutes spent (this will be done every race). Try it out this weekend to make sure you have the process dialed in for when you are going to win something…
• Why bother with no free tires this weekend? Because we appreciate it (and because we are competitive).

Thanks for participating (because we know you all will).

Pit Stop Practice - And Damage Update...

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:47:00 +0000

-James Clay

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

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

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

That's racing...

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:26:00 +0000

First off, congrats to Bill and Seth for their 2nd place finish in round 1 of the CTSCC! Nice job guys!

After weeks of hard work by the folks at BimmerWorld and Steve Bassen (Bassen Autobody) to get the cars ready for the Daytona race, it was finally time to go racing. When I arrived at the track Wednesday afternoon, I got to see the cars in full race livery for the first time. They look awesome!

Thursday consisted of a couple of meetings, two practice sessions, and qualifying at the end of the day. The meetings were brief and to the point as usual and it was time to hit the track. We spent most of the practice time working on pit stops and making sure the cars were dialed in. It had only been a few weeks since we were testing at Daytona so it didn't take long for the BimmerWorld crew to nail down the setup. Since I'm new to this series and to pro racing, one of my main goals for practice was to get comfortable with being on track with 75+ cars from two different classes.

Qualifying in CTSCC is a 15 minute session but each class has it's own session so things are a lot less hectic on track. The car felt great and I was able to put together a few very nice laps and put the car in 3rd place on the grid. We were very optimistic about the race!

On Friday, we had a final practice session, a driver's meeting, a "fan walk" and the race in the early afternoon. We spent the practice session working on pit stops and driver changes. The team was nailing the stops and everyone was ready for the race!

The fan walk is essentially a meet and greet in the pits before the race. The cars were gridded up on pit lane and we had a chance to meet and interact with fans. Very cool for Grand-Am to do this I think.

The Race - After a couple of pace/formation laps, it was time to get down to business. My goal was to hand over the car to James mid-race in one piece and in position for a strong finish. Starting 3rd made it easier to avoid trouble at the start but mid way through the 2nd lap, we had our first full course caution. After a few laps behind the pace car, it was time to give it another shot. I think that lasted for another 2 laps before we were back behind the pace car again. The third time was the charm and we had green flag racing for a while. I got shuffled back a few spots but was able to work my way back up to 3rd or 4th before another caution period at about the mid-way point of the race. Perfect time to pit and hand the car over to James.

The crew nailed the pit stop (4 tires and fuel), then they nailed it again on the #81 car with no time between the stops. James was off to do his thing. He was running strong and working his way towards the front. After another caution period, he was running in 4th place right behind the 2nd and 3rd place cars when a competitor drove straight in to the back of him in the brake zone for turn 1. The impact sent him sideways in to the car in front of him damaging the front suspension. With 25-30 minutes to go, we were done...

A very disappointing finish to an awesome weekend. Hopefully our luck will change and we'll be at front of the pack at Homestead next month!

-David White

So much for the afterglow

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:16:00 +0000

Our team is accustomed to sprint races, but the 4 months leading up to Daytona were very much a mad, mad rush. It was almost surreal that we had round 1 of the season yesterday.
Great to be past this and let life settle out a little - 5 months until Homestead. And while that settles out, I will be thinking about what could and should have been in our race yesterday. Hoping for a lot more at Homestead and that Round 1 isn't an indication of how we will need to drive for the rest of the year.

the luck of the irish

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:49:00 +0000

Or something... Before I complain, first I want to congratulate Bill and Seth for a great performance today. And equally if not more, the BimmerWorld crew for getting the 81 car back together, building such amazing cars in the first place, being totally on top of the situation this weekend and doing the massive amount of work required to be prepared for anything thrown at us. Awesome job.
Now about our race. Dave did an awesome job qualifying the car in 3rd and starting the race with a solid stint. We hit the needed yellow right in time, did a driver change, and came out in 4th. I played it safe for a good while. In a tangle with a MINI and one of the APR cars for a while that was hurting the cause to catch the leader, so I tucked in to work for the overall goal. Moving forward, 1 car pitted (we were good on fuel for the race) and I got past anoher shortly after another restart. So again in 4th, we came into T1 and things started to stack up a little which was good because my car and the 3 in front were all right together. Bad becaise when I got blasted from the back, I was close enough to the car in front of me to send me spinning into them sideways, bending a tie rod.
I spun pretty hard off in the T1 runoff and got it stopped and pointed back out quickly. With the car having a crazy toe issue, it would truck along and then violently move to the left when the right front tire got any loading at around 80mph. Not a safe car to keep on the track, so our day was done.
So weekend 1 is down, some good and some bad. The cars directly follow the development work we spent the last 4 years on in World Challenge so we have been able to get on pace with no head scratching. I can't wait to get to Homestead in March for another crack at the podium!
James Clay

My First Pro Race with BimmerWorld by Bill Heumann

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:28:00 +0000

After much anticipation and no small amount of anxiety on my part, we finished our first CTS race in Daytona with a second place finish.

Before I give a condensed version of the race, let me say that in fact the stickiness of Champagne does get rather irritating when it dries!

We had an awesome race and a some good luck that helped move us from 27th at the start to the podium. First on the list of things that worked perfectly was the BimmerWorld team. The cars were perfectly prepared without a mechanical issue all weekend. The team did not make a single mistake in our pit stop which is remarkable because we ended up pitting two cars at once. Our race strategy was solid. For those of you who follow endurance racing, you know that if you run a race without mistakes, your odds of success are very good.In my case, if you run a race without mistakes, and have Seth as your co driver, your odds of success are REALLY good.

The joy of our success in the #81 car is somewhat dampened by the poor luck that caught up with #80. For those of you who haven't been following the results, Dave White qualified in P3 with a 2:09.something. I believe this is the "team" best time. Dave started his first pro race in the front and was dicing it up nicely, and acting like he thought he belonged there! He was passed under yellow by at least one car that no corner workers witnessed so it was let stand. When he handed the car off to James, they were running in 4th. James kept the car in 4th and was patiently following 3rd when he was rear ended entering T1 and knocked into the car into the car front of him. The damage wasn't too bad overall but the tie rod was bent and they had to retire. Their car was perfect, the crew was perfect, the strategy were perfect, and the drivers were strong....but the luck was bad today.

In the #81 car the luck went the other way. I managed to make up some ground from our starting position and moved us up from 27th to about 17th at about an hour into the race. At that point, an incident brought on a Full Course Yellow (FCY) and our team engineer, Wayne Yawn, wisely called for both cars to come in during the pit window. I think Seth was about 20th when he took the car back out. Seth started right away knocking out 2:10's consistently and just chewed through the field. I am not sure what the tally will be but I think about 5-6 cars that were in front of him had various incidents or mechanical issues but the rest of them he simply drove past. He was closing on the race leader at about .5 seconds per lap when they stopped him by throwing the checkered flag. What a drive!

Seth will turn around and try to accomplish another heroic task tomorrow in the Rolex 24 driving the Autometrics Porsche Cup Car. He will be the starting driver from the back of the GT field since the qualifying co driver, Cory Friedman, had to rush home as his wife went into labor. Good luck to Cory and family. Be sure to watch the Rolex as Seth carves up that field.

Special mention for Steve Bassen and the BW crew for the heroic effort it took to get our car back together so quickly and perfectly after my prior visit to Daytona. Thanks to Jason Marks and Ryan Kuhn, crew and #81 car chief respectively. Thanks to Wayne for doing all of our thinking so the drivers don't need to. Thank you to every one of the BimmerWorld team for your part of this effort. Most of all, thank you to James for building the BimmerWorld team and giving me the opportunity to be a part of it. To a man, they are exceptional individuals!

Southbound and Down, Loaded Up and Truckin'

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:26:00 +0000

Almost. A couple of busy days here to get everything ready. The plain blue cars that we tested at Daytona a few weeks ago (and arrived back as 1.5 cars) are now fully decked out in the 2010 BimmerWorld/GearWrench livery. Lots of vinyl laid down yesterday and today and they look great! Vinyl was my contribution, which is seemingly the best job for the team owner. "What can I do to help? Oh, go put on some stickers? OK, I'll do that"... At least I still feel important, and that's what matters.

Our team's good friend and miracle-worker Steve Bassen may deserve more credit than my decal job. In 1 week, he turned around our testing wreck that required a right side replacement (yup - all of the right side) into something straight and shiny. I can't express enough how important it is to our success to have a body shop that understands racing and will return our cars quickly and with all the parts we need.

The guys had to work Sunday to finish up the assembly and all the equipment. With pit stops now in the mix, we had to add some gear and to make it all manageable, we built more carts to have everything in its place and able to roll out of the trailer in an assembly with minimal digging.

I preach this so often at schools and to drivers I work with - get EVERYTHING ready before the event. There will be enough work that pops up once you get there so the notion of "I'll just do that at the track" is one to be avoided at all costs. We have about 10 checklists that have all been gone over to make sure everything in its place, including everything from a car nut and bolt and electronics systems to our decal list. I am pretty sure we won't be sitting on our hands trying to fill the time in Florida though.

Everyone here has done an awesome job with their part of making our team successful. I am headed out tomorrow morning, driving down. Lots of rules to re-read over and over so it all flows without questions out on the track. In about 36 hours, we strap in for real and I can't wait!

James Clay

Pit Stop Practice

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:09:00 +0000

Full dress rehearsal for drivers was this afternoon/evening. We felt pretty good at Daytona Test Days and the crew is very much on it. We have all done this before in club enduros, but we are looking at a minimum of a 2 minute mandatory pitstop in those, in which we do a driver change, dump more fuel than the CTC cars, and can do 4 tires easily with about 30 seconds to spare all at a leisurely pace - and not being able to do fuel and mechanical work together.

Now however, fuel should be the limiting factor due to the mandated hose size and restrictor - everything else has to be sped up to match 40 seconds of fuel flow (assuming an empty tank). So a little faster, not a ton. How does it change?

From a crew perspective, we added a second gunner/tireman, so we have one front and one rear with a jackman. The jack is a $750 3-pump, not the Harbor Freight deal. The guns are $500+ each and tuned up for speed internally with nifty features like a 40/60 split in power so 40% of capacity in the on direction, 60% off, you never should get it tighter than you can remove quickly. And the guys are on it, good under normal conditions, and now actually training more than a few runs a few times a year so they are awesome. Obviously damage and mechanical issues can play a part here, but hopefully that is a low percentage deal.

On the driver side, it is just a matter of a lot of steps done methodically. The cars are built with a focus on entry/egress speed so that helps. There are more goodies to deal with so that hurts - belts, radio, drink tube, helmet blower, pitlane speed limiter, nets x2 on the left (side head and side window). We use Schroth Enduro belts which are critical to the speed - lots of little features to make them work quickly. That coupled with some craftiness on component placement and surgical tubing and we can get it done in about 30 seconds.

Unfortunately our weather isn't cooperating and while we race in the rain, I don't go for hanging out in 40 degree rain as an exercise. Practice has been moved inside.

So after some driver dry-runs (full gear), we added in the rest of the guys and it looks like we can easily beat the fuel. A few more goes at practice without the drivers and more practice at Daytona before the race and we should be fairly tuned up. Bungling a pit stop to the tun of 30 seconds or way more is realistic and happens. If cars are evenly matched and at best a 0.5 second difference in lap times if you push really hard as a driver, you would be lucky to be able to recover from a bad stop in a stint. Hopefully with all the guys here putting in 110% effort for the last 3 months down to "little" details like this will pay off next week. I know I am getting fired up and I am glad racing starts in January for us this year instead of the March of years past - I wanna go fast!

James Clay

Racers, Rock Stars, Presidents and Impersonators....

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:07:00 +0000

The last couple of days were supposed to be some intensive coaching from Seth and a lot of seat time at Sebring but "the best laid plans of mice and men..."

I probably should have stayed home given the way the trip started. After an agonizing 45 minute delay due to an accident on the expressway I got to the airport with 4o minutes before departure. Not a big deal for a little airport like Louisville. When I got to security, they wanted to check my helmet bag since the number of wires and jacks in the com system must have made it look like a bomb. They unzipped my bag and I see little plastic pieces fall out! The forced air nozzle on my brand new, beautiful, Arai GP5 lid which was newly painted (by Savage Designs) was broken.

Sitting at the gate in Charlotte waiting for my connecting flight to Orlando I was working on getting my zen back. I got a smile on my face thinking about what a great experience this is and that I very well could be the most famous person in the gate area now that I was a PRO racer. This lasted all of about 30 seconds before I see this guy sitting there.....

After a few moments he pulls out a guitar and starts singing a fairly good " West Virginia, mountain momma....."
At this point I realize he is impersonator...... and I still could be the most famous person since this is technically a DQ.

The cheapest car rentals in Orlando resulted in Seth driving a Nisan Cube while I was in a manual transmission Nissan Versa. I thought I had the better end of this deal until Seth took off and I couldn't figure out where reverse was. Fortunately, Florida is flat and I hopped out and pushed it back far enough to get out.

PBOC puts on a great event with Winterfest and they were super accommodating to our change of plans and special requests. Thanks to Joanne Schwartzman and all of PBOC for being so nice and helpful to us. Sebring is such a fun track I regret we are not racing there in the CTS this year.

I had rented the equivalent of JP lite (JPl) for Thursday coaching (with passenger seat for ride alongs) and the equivalent of an IP lite (IPl) for the 6 hour enduro that I was going to run with BMW Club Racer, Jean Luc Bergeron. Night practice at Sebring went well with Seth putting down a fast data lap that caused people to claim our IPl car should be bumped up 2 classes!

The coaching went well although we were hindered by not getting much use of the car we intended to use with two seats so we could jump back and forth. Randy Mueller was paddocked near by and coaching PBOC racer, Robert Chang in his beautiful E46 M3 (pretty similar to well built CM). Robert was super gracious and helped us out with a loan of a car which had a passenger seat. After riding a session with Seth, it was even more clear that there is a lot I can learn from him. He is super precise, quick and smooth. All of his techniques are textbook quality.
We did get about 10 minutes in the JPl on Thursday with Seth riding with me so he could see my driving style. He gave me some things to work on in the 3 hours of seat time I would get in the enduro.

Jean Luc qualified our IPl well then it's race time! He had a good start and had moved up a couple of spots in the field after two laps. All of the sudden he limps the car into the pits...... and we are out with an engine failure! So now I am kind of standing there with my suit on and realize that at this point I am kind like an impersonator of racer, at least for the day. For a few hours, I hang on to hope that either the IPl car will be repairable or that I'll get some seat time in the JPl, but at about the 3 1/2 hour mark, that cars dies with a mechanical failure!

It's now time to call it quits so before heading home. I go to dinner with Randy and Robert to get some time to catch up and thank them for helping with the use of Robert's car. Unfortunately Randy barely finishes the "turf" and about half of the "surf" before he has to give it back up due to Lobster Poisoning. I am glad to report that he has recovered and is mostly OK.

The final piece of weirdness from this trip was the return flight which had Elvis on board! Sorry no pictures of this one but you know what he looks like!

WINTER Testing…

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:34:00 +0000

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

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

Hopefully Daytona will be warmer…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photos courtesy of Curtis Creager of Creager Images

Experiences of a Pro Rookie

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:47:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congrats! BW off to a great 2009 season.

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Robinson) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:15:00 +0000

Congrats to Seth Thomas who piloted the #38 BimmerWorld / Gearwrench BMW to his first victory at Sebring today.

Stay tuned for more details, photos, videos, and race reports.

Way to go Seth!

Road Atlanta Post Race Review

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Robinson) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:00:00 +0000

We spoke to the guys after an exciting Touring Car race that unfortunately didn't have the expected results. See below as Nick talks about a charity that is close to his heart, and James tells us his side of some on track incidents.

The 2008 season is over so the free t-shirt offer is winding down. We'll do a 2008 season wrap up where we ask the guys as many questions as they'll answer (possibly released in parts so they don't cramp up their driving hands typing).

Get your questions in while you can at:

questions@bimmerworldracing.com

(James) It seems like you guys do a pretty extensive check of the cars between sessions. Can you talk about the importance of that process, and what your guys are checking / doing before the car goes back out on track?

[James Clay] Our cars are full solid mounted (bushings, etc) and driven extremely hard every time they touch the track (if you aren’t turning your best possible lap every time, you are wasting money running it around the track) they need quite a bit of maintenance. The crew has a checklist of all the wear parts to review and inspect/replace if needed. The car is cleaned so the guys can inspect for leaks, cracks, etc. Past that, we do a lot of tweaking on the cars for setup between sessions. The drivers in World Challenge come fast out of the box to the track – a lot of the speed difference as the weekend progresses is captured by small tweaks to the car. Finally, after the day is over and certainly before qualifying or the race, the car gets a thorough inspection and nut and bolt to make sure everything is as it should be and ready to run full-tilt with no issues.

(James) ***Spoiler Alert*** You had a run in with multiple Tri-Point Mazda's during the race. It was unclear - given some of the angles and footage - exactly what transpired but seemed like you held your line and were maybe 'squeezed' a little too much resulting in various contact. What did it look like from your seat?

[James Clay] I am not at all happy about my Atlanta race. Specifically with the Tri-Point cars, I had two issues with contact, both of which I ended up on the “good side” of, but the truth is no one wins in this situation and it is bad for everyone. I had one place on the track that I could pull off a pass in our cars – acceleration on the back straight where I would gain about 4 car lengths out of the draft and into a very hard braking zone where our cars always excel. The first contact with Espenlaub happened on our 3rd or 4th time through 10a together – every time I was pushing it a little harder to set up a turn 12 pass that put me on the podium in 2007 here. I feel like the contact on this occasion was due to Charles slightly crossing the track under braking after we had both chosen our positions and were under threshold braking – not a time to change your plan for evasion. Charles and I talked after the race and had a gentleman’s agreement on the matter and I consider it case closed – certainly I imagine it will be on the broadcast and you can draw your own conclusion.

World Challenge Road Atlanta: Turn 10a: James Clay and Charles Espenlaub from Craig Geiger on Vimeo.

Saini on the other hand was blatantly crossing the track under braking when he lost sight of me and didn’t think about the blind spot we all learn about in driver’s ed. After the race in our “discussions” I was told that I had more room on my right that I should have used, but I guess the engineer in me realized that the coefficient of friction with two tires on grass is not as good as when you keep them on pavement so I chose to maintain my line along the edge of the track. I have plenty of thoughts on the matter but this one will hopefully be in the broadcast as well and I think the fans will see who was at fault.

(Nick) Tell us a little bit about your involvement with SpecialOps.org.

When I started racing WC in 2004 I knew I was fortunate to be able to race at this level. To give something back I was evaluating charities and a friend of mine in San Diego told me about the Special Operations Warriors Foundation and explained how they help the kids of the SF guys killed in action or training. I contacted them and they had people at Sebring working with the SCCA, Realtime, and I to promote the cause. When we met some of the kids the foundation had helped as well as some of the SF guys, it became a mission of mine to bring awareness to this special charity. These guys leave their families for sometime 18 months, they go to the darkest corners of the earth to deal with things the average person will never know about, and they do it for little pay and at great risk to themselves. My small contribution is to let them know someone is looking after their kids if the worst happens.
Find out more about SpecialOps.org and what you can do to help here.

(Nick) Road Atlanta featured what is probably a BimmerWorld first, with a team driver taking the wheel behind a GT Mustang. Can you give us a little insight into how the TC / GT cars compare?

Mike Davis has been very generous in allowing me to test some of the ACS cars. I didn’t even qualify the car so I squeezed a hardship lap in and started from the back and we immediately had a brake problem. Those are the problems that never improve with time so I pulled it off. Having tested the GT cars in the past they simply have more weight, power, and ultimate grip... The Touring Cars require more finesse as well as keeping the momentum of the car up, especially when you are in traffic with 15 other guys all within a second. The GT cars have such a big performance envelope you really don’t get a break in the action as things are happening at a much faster pace. I’d love to race in both classes but it's tough to jump from one car to the other, not to mention the economics. I give Galati and Randy a lot of credit to be effective in both classes.

(Nick) You had a great race at Road Atlanta and a good finish. How does it feel ending the season on a high note?

At a minimum, this is where I expected to run all season. I’m pleased having a good result and finishing up the season with three top tens but overall I wasn’t satisfied with what I accomplished this year. There is no question running against the factory teams is a challenge and as we saw some of the teams could put almost anyone in their cars and they were a hero... And good for them. Our development continued through the year and we finally got there at the end of the year where we were able to keep pace. I feel confident the E90s will be the car to beat in 2009. If you have a bad last race you have six months of sleepless nights and anxiousness. This finish put me at ease and motivates me to get ready to fight and win next year.

RA - Radio info and cheap tickets for Students

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Robinson) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 09:37:00 +0000

Seth will also be 103.7 FM Bulldog Radio in Athens this morning around 9am if you missed their interview last night at the Zone.

You can listen on the internet here!

Also Friday only Students with a valid Student ID get $25 off their ticket price. This is for Friday only and at Gate 4.

Come out and see BW race on one of the best tracks in the country!

Road Atlanta Warm Up!

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Robinson) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:14:00 +0000

Some more reader submissions and a few questions for the guys on Road Atlanta.

If you're in radio range and can pick up 790AM (The Zone) listen for Seth Thomas and other WC drivers as they are interviewed on Mike Bell's popular program "The Speed Zone". Or if you're near downtown they'll be broadcasting live from Fox Sports Grill.

9/30 at 7:00pm to 9:00pm more info here and here!

Time is running out with the season ending. If you have any remaining questions you want the guys to tackle send to:

questions@bimmerworldracing.com

On to the questions! If you're local to Atlanta please stop by and watch the guys battle it out at Road Atlanta on Friday. We'll be in the paddock area. You can find the event schedule here. Last year was an amazing race in the wet that had Clay on the podium in third, while Seth led almost the entire way until an unfortunate spin at the end of the back straight took him out of the race. Come see if the guys can end a great season with some great racing at one of their home tracks.

(James) How much (if any) support do you get from BMW, and is there any technology shared with the WTC cars? Reader: Gerry Sparks

[James Clay]The BMW support network is interesting and a little confusing. I can say that we don’t get a check at the beginning of the year to cover our racing budget… Unfortunately, our specs are a bit different that the WTCC cars so we had to do a lot of the development on the cars ourselves and come up with our own racing solutions. On the plus side, we have really engineered this car from the ground up and we are a lot sharper for the time spend in R&D, which is evident when we design parts to sell our customers. A few parts we use are WTCC spec though, and we talk to the BMW engineers when we are having an issue and they can typically point us in the right direction.

(James) Care to comment on the proposed 2009 rules? Do you forsee any positive / negative impacts for the BW team? Reader: Kurt Ristow

[James Clay] I think it is way too early to tell. Certainly with Acura building new cars for 2009 and Mazda for late 2009/2010, things will be shuffled up a bit. Acura will have to contend with the same modern larger chassis that we work with, so we won’t be the only ones crying the blues on frontal area. Mazda will be in a new 3, which is a smaller car, but they will move to a Macpherson strut with this change as well, so that will ding them a little bit. We have been working a lot through the season this year and will continue to do so to make our package stronger, but it will certainly be a dynamic year in 2009.

(James) Do you guys get to talk to each other on the radio during the race? What's the regular chatter like? Who's the most talkative? Reader: Jesse Clark

[James Clay] The general rule is the most talkative is the one being hit. I prefer not to talk a lot and really our whole team follows suit. In the past, we have run separate channels for different drivers that do like to talk, but everyone is on the same one this year, which I prefer for strategy and information sharing. I will tell you though that if you don’t see the problem, you might BE the problem… I have been told that during test sessions, I spend more than my fair share of time discussing handling issues to get the car sorted…

(James) What preparations or work does the team do in the off season to prepare for next year? Is there any time off or does the team go right back at it on Monday after Petit Le Mans?

[James Clay] Everyone has to take a little time off. The guys get some vacation time. We go to the SEMA and PRI shows to meet with sponsors, look for new ones, get ideas, find new products to sell (for BimmerWorld), etc. The cars also undergo a full strip to a bare chassis and then refresh sometime through the winter – everything comes apart, is cleaned and inspected, then reassembled as a fresh car. Testing typically starts for us in January, but every winter is different, depending on the demands of the workload.

(Seth) I know the World Challenge series switched to Toyo R888’s for this season. How has this new tire affected the set up’s over the Toyo Ra1? Also how much are the tires shaved down in order to race on them? Generally what have you learned about these tires over the course of a season in comparison to the RA1's Reader: Mike Carter

[Seth Thomas] We started off the season thinking the R888 was going to be a very similar tire as the RA1 was. It appeared the compound was the same just with a little bit stiffer sidewall. This might be the case but the tires do require a different setup. The cars on the R888s didn’t like the stiffer setup that we had run before that which made them very twitchy. Since then we have done a lot of testing to get setup right with these tires and made a lot of changes to the cars. Basically what we have found with the R888s shaved to 3/32nds is they like a little bit of a softer spring setup and slightly less camber.

(Seth) Do you feel the BMW is easier on the tires than the front drive World Challenge cars? Do you have an advantage later in the race? Reader: Kurt Ristow

[Seth Thomas] I do think so because the FWD cars will burn off their front tires a lot quicker than we do. So later in the race they are having a problem getting the cars pointed where they want entering the turns. I have seen some of the tires on the FWD cars be very close to showing cords after a race. We have our cars setup so they are neutral to begin with and the get a little bit on the loose side later on. This is not a huge factor as the race goes on since they stay predictable and do what they do best throughout the race.

(Seth) Thanks for soliciting questions and comments from those of us over at BimmerForums.com! World Challenge TC races once featured large, diverse fields. In recent seasons though, only a couple of touring car models have proven competitive (Acura, BMW & Mazda this year) and the majority of racers drive for multi-car efforts. The result has been races like this season's Watkins Glen event, where about 1/3 of the field raced for a single team. Do you see this trend as being beneficial for the series? In what ways do you see the World Challenge evolving to better compete for spectator and sponsor attention? Reader: Ian Trenbeath

[Seth Thomas] You guys are more than welcome. It is fun having a group of BMW guys that a cool to hang out with all over the country. The series having teams with multi-car efforts that make up the majority of the field is a positive for the series. It improves the level of competition and car prep with every team. Look at the results from this year. The qualifying for most of the races is determined by less than 1 second from first to 10th or 15th. The competition doesn’t get any closer. The evolution of World Challenge from here will only be better. The series is doing things to help keep the competition where it is and to make it easier on new competitors coming into the series. They are doing things to help increase our fan base and keeping the series on the front page of fans viewing. A couple of examples are creating a Facebook page with links to all the teams websites, videos from in-car footage, dates and times of driver appearances. This Tuesday Randy Pobst and I are doing a radio interview in Atlanta after we test our cars to help promote the race at the Petit LeMans.

(Seth) We know you spend a lot of time coaching club level drivers. Do you think that with enough time and effort the average racer could make it to the WC ranks, or is there a certain level of talent and ability that can't be taught? What qualities do the top level drivers all share?

[Seth Thomas] Yes I do. I was the average racer once. I started out doing BMWCCA Driver Schools at Road Atlanta and all the tracks in the southeast. So I think I started from the roots and did what it took to get here. I didn’t hire a coach so it took me a little bit longer than if I had but I learned a lot along with way. And I am still learning. I benefit from having James and Nick around. They act as my coaches on race weekends. The advantage to having a driving coach is the future racer will gain knowledge of how to drive faster, do it consistently every lap, and how to handle certain race situations a lot quicker than I did. They can learn without having to experience them first hand, which can be costly.

Every top level driver has one thing in common, the will to win. We all want to win and we all want to do it every time we drive a car on the track. Nobody is faster than me and nobody is going to beat me. We are always looking for ways to be faster than our competitors and when our competitors are faster than us, we keep searching for how we are going to come out on top. The continual search for going faster is what makes us top level drivers. We never become stagnant with where we are. We are always wanting the next tenth of a second even if the data tells them it isn’t there. We want it!

(Nick) Do you ever see the opportunity/possibility for a BMW Club racing event to run as a support race for a WC/TC event? Reader: Jenny Santoso

[Nick Esayian] Anything is possible but right now motor sports is about economics. When you have a televised series you tend to share the weekend with other televised series to share costs. In the past we have shared weekend with Formula BMW so depending on what BMW and BMWCCA have up there sleeve (ala VW Cup) we could see something similar.

(Nick ) What is the paddock atmosphere like? Is it anything like club racing where there’s a friendly, hang out after the race together feel to it? Does the pro-level competition, manufacturer involvement and dollars involved take that away? For example, what’s the best practical joke that’s been played in the paddock by one team on another, or does that just not happen? Reader: Eric Henrich

[Nick Esayian] I think the first few races in the WC paddock are a bit intimidating for a new driver. The WC paddock is pretty tight on and off the track and it takes some time for a new guy to gain the respect of everyone on the track as well as being party to the shenanigans off the track. All the drives and teams are constantly giving each other shit and playing practical jokes. Nothing to serious but when you spend 60 plus days with a group of guys doing what we do, you tend to become a big family, albeit a competitive one. From my experience the camaraderie is the same in pro racing as it is in club racing. Lots of fun and a lot of characters.

(Nick) With a company like Debt Cures and the economy where it is currently at, you're probably doing all right! Thoughts on how this will impact motor sports in the coming months / year, if at all?

[Nick Esayian] We saw the clouds on the horizon in early 2007, wrote the book, hired a host, and produced the infomercial. The government had guaranteed all these home loans via Freddy and Fannie to get people into homes that should not have been. Once that happened the greed ensued and banks, builders, and everyone else saw easy money. Add credit card debt in, 2nd mortgages, and the supply of homes outrunning demand and you have a mess. I blame the government for the “social experiment” which started all this. We have sold over 1,000,000 books and collateral on TV and a few hundred thousand units in retail so we are doing ok. Based on the email we have gotten we have helped a lot of folks. It’s been a life changing success but these things have a finite life cycle so we are already working on the next project.

(Nick) As BimmerWorld approaches the last race of the season on one of their 'home' tracks, how much of an advantage does that local knowledge and experience give? Is it more of an advantage in a pure lap time sense or more in a race craft sense (knowing where passes will work / won't)?

[Nick Esayian] Most of the WC guys have raced on all these tracks multiple times so unless we hit a new venue on the schedule like VIR I don’t think it makes a huge difference. Look at Mosport. The entire TC field was less than .7 second apart on the grid and there were guys in the field that have raced that track literally dozens of times. This group is probably the most competitive in any type of motor sports today. That’s a big claim but it is the truth.

The Question most fans want to know the answer to!!

noreply@blogger.com (Jim Robinson) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:30:00 +0000

As questions from our BimmerWorld fans have come in, one has stood out-

"How did you get here (WC)?"

We've modified several of these reader submissions into a group of all encompassing queries for the guys.

We'll make each give their own account and send everyone a T-shirt that helped us come up with these! Thanks for the great questions and keep them coming. The team is busy prepping for their season finale at Road Atlanta and since that is BW home turf and a fast track with lots of elevation changes. Don't miss it - the final race is sure to be exciting!

Send a question, if we use it we'll pay you back with a T-shirt. questions@bimmerworldracing.com

(ALL) Your driver bios on the site give a small glimpse into your background, however it seems that everyone is eager for more information. Specifically can you talk about how you got started, previous series (club or pro) that you've raced in, any autocross experience you may have, and any other experience / training you think has prepared you for racing at the pro levels.

[James Clay] I got my start with the BMW Car Club of America, working up through the ranks of their driving school program. I had a friend that invited me to my first track school and since then, I was hooked. In my first year of driving, I worked up to an instructor in schools and started racing with the BMW CCA, then SCCA the following year. I took a break from racing for about a year after a bit of frustration with mechanicals and so that I could resolve all the problems with my - then private racing effort. When I came back, I had started BimmerWorld and the team that is with us now, the company, and I all grew together through various club racing into World Challenge.

I have autocrossed in the past, but it just wasn't enough time behind the wheel for the effort. I ocassionally do an auto-X event more to hang out with friends, and I am happy to say I have gotten a lot better!

Working through the ladder of development from one series to a more competitive one, and so forth, I have spent a huge amount of time instructing and coaching (invaluable seat time), and of course continually working on physical and mental conditioning to stay sharp. One of the things I figured out early when I was racing jetskis - if you aren't in shape so you are working to keep your head above water, you are wasting your time. Same in a car - if after the intense concentration for a straight hour, plus all the heat and physical work in the car, you get out tired, you need to hit the gym!

[Nick Esayian] Someone posted a flyer at my college for an SCCA autocross in 1989. I showed up as a novice and won the novice class as well as a the F Stock class... This “old guy” PD Cunningham had everyone kissing his a$$. He told me, “Nice job” and when I found out who he was that really got me going.

I’d never even been to a car race and PD Cunningham asked me to bring my street car to use as a pace car at an SCCA National at Blackhawk. After seeing the start I was sold. Got my novice permit and waiver... Won my first eight races, Rookie of the Year in CenDiv, and things started rolling from there.

Among all the club racing, Dodge sponsored the Neon Challenge Series, which really gave me a boost. I did well and there was generous prize money to fund my effort. We used that car to win some NASA pro races and then I realized I really was going to need some help, as I didn’t have the cash to get to the next level. I certainly was on my own financially, so all the help I got along the way from guys like Ralph Porter, Gary Johnson at Dodge, PD, Nathan Bonneau, Acura, Robert Davis, Mazda Motorsports, TRD, Rick Gilhart, Bill Banner, Sandy Silverberg, Al Thom and Autotechnica (really dating myself) made all this possible. Without these guys dotting the timeline of my career I would be at home watching on TV.

[Seth Thomas] When I was in college a couple of my friends had started doing driver’s schools with the local Porsche Club chapter. They kept telling me how I should do it but being a college student my money was being spent in other places. Finally I gave in the day I bought my first BMW M3. I signed up for the local BMW Clubs driver’s school at Road Atlanta. I had always thought I was a pretty decent driver on the street and would be able to hold my own.

At my first school I did a decent job, showed some improvements and potential but I was schooled by my instructor in his E30 325. After this I was hooked and kept doing any school that I could find in the southeast.

From here I hung out with some guys that were building an E30 318 to race in SCCA Club Racing. They wanted me to help drive in some of the enduro races. That is how I started racing and it hasn’t stopped since then. The challenge is to always try to make yourself faster and better driver.

(ALL) What do you feel are the biggest challenges / changes in going from a club race series (BMWCCR, NASA, SCCA) to the professional levels?

[James Clay] It is tough to go from being king of the hill to the back of the bunch. That is all part of developing yourself as a driver or developing a team though - if you are surrounded by a high level of competition and work to meet it, you improve by default. Most drivers in the World Challenge field could go to a club race in any competitive car handed to them and win. The trick is going past that level, with the diminishing returns of everything in life, and figuring out how
to set your car up to get on power earlier - 10' earlier, carry 1 more MPH, etc, or how to do the same as a driver.

[Nick Esayian] Pro Racing, more specifically World Challenge is just way more competitive. At Mosport the entire field was .8 second apart. It’s silly. There are guys that have a better change of winning but the top 15 guys could win a race and no one would be surprised. I used to go to club races and expect to win and come home with a trophy. The level of competition in World Challenge is probably closer than ANY type of auto racing in the US.

[Seth Thomas] Details. In a pro level setting there are a lot of details that help to make the good teams as good as they are. It starts with the car prep and ends with the drivers. Everything makes a difference. If you are 1% off the mark with your setup then you are going to be 10th instead of on the pole or 2nd in qualifying.

The same goes for driving. It is a different level of drivers you are competing against. Instead of always racing the 3 or 4 guys in your class that you are always around it is all the drivers at the track that weekend. Every driver in the race has shot at winning and getting around them in not as easy as driving past them. You have to work on passing them and you have just as tough of a time keeping them behind you. Driving at this level is 100% about consistently driving the car as the maximum level of grip for the entire time.

(ALL) What are your future career goals as it relates to racing?

[James Clay] Excel and win! I have always loved World Challenge and it is really where I want to be. It is hard in road racing to look very long term because it is a fluid landscape. Certainly I keep my eyes open for opportunities, but it isn't in my nature to go to a series just to win more races with less competition. BimmerWorld as a company also thrives on the development of a technical series like World Challenge where engineering is done at a fairly high level.

[Nick Esayian] I love World Challenge. It’s competitive, the cars are cutting edge, and the series is growing, we race with NASCAR/IRL/ALMS, it’s on TV, big crowds, and the standing starts are awesome. If I could run a car in Touring Car and GT at the same time I would be fulfilled. We will see next year. My goal is to win a championship in WC. For that to happen you need to be in the right car during the right year, be consistent, finish all the races, and have a little luck. I’ve put some of those components into each season but I need to be more focused and put them all together.

[Seth Thomas] The number one goal for me is to win the driver’s title in World Challenge. I feel this is certainly possible with the BMW and the BimmerWorld team.

The other goals I have are to drive in the 24 Hours of Daytona and the Petite LeMans. Both of these have been races I have watched for years. They both feature some of the best drivers in the world that I would like to compete against. The Petite LeMans is at my home racetrack where I would definitely like to drive at night.

(James) Everyone is aware of the critical role sponsors play in keeping teams afloat. Without naming specific sponsors, what are some of the specific ways in which they provide support, i.e., cash, materials, research or some combination of these? Reader: Dave Taylor

[James Clay] There really is no set formula. The best sponsor relations are as beneficial or more to the sponsors as they are to the team, and of course it really depends on the nature of the sponsor's business. For example, product sponsors, or sponsors that make a product associated with the car would typically supply more on the parts and engineering side than cash, and in return get race testing of their components for durability or design/tuning as well as the marketing support, etc - and those benefits are also specific to the need. On the other hand, M&Ms likely doesn't supply their NASCAR team with product to use or test - that is more of a straight money deal. Some deals are incredibly convoluted as far as who pays, what benefits are included, etc, but it is all about making sure everyone benefits for the effort. If it sounds confusing and you have some corporate money to spend, my door is always open :)

(Nick) What changes do you have to make to your driving style switching between a front drive and rear drive car? Reader: Kurt Ristow

[Nick Esayian] The laws of physics are the same for front and rear drive cars... The biggest differences are power application and the different setups between the RTR (Real Time Racing) cars and the Bimmerworld cars. In the rear drive cars you get a much better start and coming out of the corners you can go to partial throttle a bit quicker. In the front drive cars you have to wait a bit longer to get on the pipe but when you do you can roll it on faster. The BMW’s were really stiff and low at the beginning of the year and now we have moved away from that a bit.
In the end I think the rear drive platform will ultimately be the fast way around. The front drive guys can pitch it in there and if you get loose you mash the throttle and as long as you are on dry ground you can gather it in. If you start throwing the BMW around, albeit may have similar limits, you are going to experience much more “dramatic” recoveries.

(Seth) Who is your favorite non-Bimmerworld WC driver to race against and why? Reader: Jesse Clark

This is a tough one. Every driver in World Challenge is a great driver who is tough to compete with. Nobody is your favorite to race against because in the best case scenario you are out front not really worrying about racing somebody. I guess though if I was racing a guy in the middle of the race or on a last lap scenario I would prefer Charles Espenlaub.

I think he is a great driver who really drives his car to the limit at all times. One of the things you know with Charles is that he will race you fairly and cleanly. At the same time he will make you earn your position. It is funny because when I see him as my next guy to pass I actually don’t look forward to it. He is one of the toughest guys to pass on the track. At the end of the day when you have battled with him in a race you feel like you earned the spot and results of the race.