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If that was down shifting to first - I'm impressed.Originally posted by Matt-BComment
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Yup, that one was all first and second gear. My old 86 325e had a 2.79 diff in it, so 1st gear was quite use-able. Need to double-clutch every time to get it back down to 1st though.Originally posted by george graves View Post
Those Ste-Eustache rallye-cross events were a hoot. We got split into two run groups, half of us doing two stages on the tighter Oval track, while the other half was doing two stages on the faster road circuit. Then we'd switch over.
This particular event #3 started with everything snow-covered and extremely slippery, which then melted away over the course of the day. That made for some tricky conditions.
The other group ran the stages in order, starting with SS1 and SS2 on the Oval circuit. Our run group had the misfortune of running SS3 & SS4 on the slippery road circuit first, before swapping over to the Oval circuit later.
Here's our first run of the day (SS3) on the really slippery road circuit. Other than using 1st for a couple of seconds at the start, I only used 2nd and 3rd gear for this run to keep the revs down and try to limit wheel spin.
SS3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Efr1Rle1Xk
On the 2nd run (SS4) there was already a lot more bare pavement showing through, providing better grip. Late in this run I tried using 1st gear out of the slower corners and chicanes. It was a much better run than the first one. But we got hosed anyway, because the other run group then switched over and got to run this course after even more of the snow had already melted away. Hence our low rank in the overall results for these two stages. That and the fact that the 325e is a relatively gutless rwd car compared to all the AWD Subarus we were competing against.
SS4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY_O_pFZvyw
Then we swapped over to the Oval course to run SS1 & SS2. Here our run group got the advantage, because much of the snow had already melted away. We managed the 8th best time (3:10) out of 25 entries, despite the evil mixed conditions of ice, deep slush, deep water, and wet pavement.
SS1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k08uCQTFIh4
On our 2nd run on the Oval course, we were on the way to a really good finish time, except I was stupid and locked up into the final chicane. It would have cost us a 30 second penalty had I understeered straight into the tires marking the chicane. I was so happy to have avoided hitting the tires, that I ran wide instead and stuck it into the deep snow piled against the wall. We got stuck just metres from the red finish board, losing a good 10 or 15 seconds. @#$!
SS2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f78M5KRi2xE
After that we alternated with the other group back and forth between the Oval and Road Circuit stages, so the changing conditions don't favour one run group so much over the over.
The snow is melting away quickly and we've been chewing up our soft snow tires on the bare pavement. So we decided it was time to switch over to the stiffer summer tires for this next run on the Road Circuit. Turns out, we should have waited a bit longer... There were still patches of ice, and cold wet pavement. Had a spin on this run and ended up 2nd slowest.
SS6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viRYLgAYgiM
The summer tires work much better on the sections of dry pavement showing through now. But they're scary as hell on the icy and slushy sections. Still, this was a pretty good run. Note that this is all 1st and 2nd gear. The car has better giddy-up out of the tight hairpins and chicanes when using 1st gear.
SS5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_-cJEkISqc
Pretty much dry now. The Road Circuit stage is annoying because it's all stop-and-go. It's all about drag racing in a straight line. Definitely not the forte of the 325e, especially when we're competing against full-out rally cars and Subaru STi and other powerful cars. It's still fun, but we're simply not competitive on this course. Again, all the chicanes and the tight hairpin turns are 1st gear.
SS8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPCJc3298LY
Last run on the Oval. You've already seen this one. There are still lots of icy patches. The Oval has plenty of nasty walls that I'd prefer not to hit. This was my daily driver and we still needed to drive it home, so I'm trying not to do anything stupid. Still, this layout is more of a momentum course than the stop-and-go Road circuit. With the BMW's superior handling, we're not at as big a disadvantage as we are on the Road circuit which really favours the more high-powered cars. We did okay on this run. Again, all 1st and 2nd gear everywhere.
SS7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVYZZeNgM_k
If you don't want to watch all those, at least watch a couple of these well-made videos below. The first minute is always just the VW Golf sponsored by Apex Media, but from there on it shows all the other cars we were competing against.
We're the black E30 #27 at 1:55 in this first video. The red E30 is an iX. Naturally, they only show me making mistakes, like taking a 30 sec chicane penalty for knocking the tire over:
These last two have no sound because YouTube objected to the unauthorized music.
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