This weekend we towed the #444 Rage Cage ETA up to Chump Pittsburgh after the car successfully completed Chump Watkins Glen and Lemons Capitol Offense.
Our tow caravan is slightly less ostentatious than some of the other people who show up with "$500" cars and $500,000 tow rigs, lol. I'll note that my V6 4Runner towed great and we did 70mph pretty much the whole 5 hours there, and got over 15mpg doing it. Who needs a big diesel? :)
Just as a disclaimer - I don't own this car, I just drive with Jim Spoth and Stephen Nichols who own it, and did most of the cosmetic work/paint and some mechanical stuff. This car has a stock ETA engine, stock suspension (aside from a coil cut off the springs), and is pretty much a stock car aside from motor mounts and a few bushings. It is a fully legit Chump and Lemons car that could in no way be called a "cheater," lol.....and will be fully legal for the new rules going into effect next year, to boot.
All of the other BMWs present were faster cars....some B25 e30s, a couple supposedly with M50 (?) swaps, and some e36s.
We ran an uneventful practice session, except for some heavy rain at the end. I started Saturday morning for 2 hours in the fog and wet track. Had a few close calls with other drivers being a bit over-aggressive but finished the session clean. We used 5 drivers so had an extra pit compared to some others as well. But the car ran well, we used the same tires that we used at Summit Lemons, and by the end of the day we finished 15th (or 16th, I don't recall). So we were pretty pleased with that considering there are less than 10 cars there that are slower than ours, and we beat all of them, plus a number of faster cars that either weren't driven well or broke.
For the weekend, our two best drivers (the car's owners) were putting down 1:15 fastest times in the dry sessions, while most of the other BMWs could knock down 1:12-1:13s at least. Day one my fastest times were about 1:20 on a wet track the whole time and cool morning weather. Day 2 I was only about 2 seconds faster, but spent most of my time in the car under 2 full-course cautions and the resulting heavy traffic when they lifted. Basically had zero laps to really open it up, but did have a half-dozen laps jockeying with the two VW Golfs that would dive-bomb corners and then I'd take them in the straights. Freaking tripods!
Second day we ran stronger as a group, and with an hour left were sitting 15th, but Jim came in and dropped continuous 1:15-16 laps with no major mistakes and passed three cars, and one or two more cars dropped out so we ended up 11th. Not bad for a stock ETA!
The guys may run at VIR in December, not sure. I can't make that race.
Anyhow, some pics are in this album if any of the other BMW drivers are here (Shumacher Taxi Service, etc). They're not awesome but whatever.
Some of the BMWs there...
s2k at the practice day had some issues
Our tow caravan is slightly less ostentatious than some of the other people who show up with "$500" cars and $500,000 tow rigs, lol. I'll note that my V6 4Runner towed great and we did 70mph pretty much the whole 5 hours there, and got over 15mpg doing it. Who needs a big diesel? :)
Just as a disclaimer - I don't own this car, I just drive with Jim Spoth and Stephen Nichols who own it, and did most of the cosmetic work/paint and some mechanical stuff. This car has a stock ETA engine, stock suspension (aside from a coil cut off the springs), and is pretty much a stock car aside from motor mounts and a few bushings. It is a fully legit Chump and Lemons car that could in no way be called a "cheater," lol.....and will be fully legal for the new rules going into effect next year, to boot.
All of the other BMWs present were faster cars....some B25 e30s, a couple supposedly with M50 (?) swaps, and some e36s.
We ran an uneventful practice session, except for some heavy rain at the end. I started Saturday morning for 2 hours in the fog and wet track. Had a few close calls with other drivers being a bit over-aggressive but finished the session clean. We used 5 drivers so had an extra pit compared to some others as well. But the car ran well, we used the same tires that we used at Summit Lemons, and by the end of the day we finished 15th (or 16th, I don't recall). So we were pretty pleased with that considering there are less than 10 cars there that are slower than ours, and we beat all of them, plus a number of faster cars that either weren't driven well or broke.
For the weekend, our two best drivers (the car's owners) were putting down 1:15 fastest times in the dry sessions, while most of the other BMWs could knock down 1:12-1:13s at least. Day one my fastest times were about 1:20 on a wet track the whole time and cool morning weather. Day 2 I was only about 2 seconds faster, but spent most of my time in the car under 2 full-course cautions and the resulting heavy traffic when they lifted. Basically had zero laps to really open it up, but did have a half-dozen laps jockeying with the two VW Golfs that would dive-bomb corners and then I'd take them in the straights. Freaking tripods!
Second day we ran stronger as a group, and with an hour left were sitting 15th, but Jim came in and dropped continuous 1:15-16 laps with no major mistakes and passed three cars, and one or two more cars dropped out so we ended up 11th. Not bad for a stock ETA!
The guys may run at VIR in December, not sure. I can't make that race.
Anyhow, some pics are in this album if any of the other BMW drivers are here (Shumacher Taxi Service, etc). They're not awesome but whatever.
Some of the BMWs there...
s2k at the practice day had some issues
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