[dradernh]

Originally Posted by msendit

In the spirit of sharing both the great and the ... not so great ... bits of racing, here's what happened at the start of this weekend with SCCA.

Driver error, 30 mph impact with a concrete wall, and lots of damage to sort out now. I'm fine, the car needs at least two corners rebuilt, and new subframes -- still unclear about the frame.

Sorry to see that and hope you have the car back asap.

[msendit]

Originally Posted by dradernh

Sorry to see that and hope you have the car back asap.

In case you're curious, I'm keeping some pics of inspecting and starting to sort out the damage here.

Still have the rose-tinted idea the car will be up for NASA nationals in mid-September.

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by msendit

In case you're curious, I'm keeping some pics of inspecting and starting to sort out the damage here.

Still have the rose-tinted idea the car will be up for NASA nationals in mid-September.

What does the shop say about having it ready in time?

[WolfGTI]

Sorry tp see that, glad you are ok, you almost escaped the wall. Good luck with the rebuild.

Originally Posted by msendit

In the spirit of sharing both the great and the ... not so great ... bits of racing, here's what happened at the start of this weekend with SCCA.

Driver error, 30 mph impact with a concrete wall, and lots of damage to sort out now. I'm fine, the car needs at least two corners rebuilt, and new subframes -- still unclear about the frame.

[msendit]

Originally Posted by dradernh

What does the shop say about having it ready in time?

They punched through a wall or five and got the car turned around in time. Hard to express how much effort that was and how amazing these guys are -- frame work, both subframes, 2+ suspension corners, engine / trans mounts, oil pan, radiators, driveshaft, among other things I'm probably forgetting. And of course body work, splitter, and other consumables.

The championship race was quite something. I wasn't quite up to the pace all weekend during testing and quali, so when it started to rain on Sunday for the main race, I was getting excited. Conditions kept changing constantly, and we made the wet / dry tire call (dry!) literally in the last possible moment before grid. Track dried out extremely fast and was very grippy even though the race right before was slipping and sliding all over.

Then the race... had lots and lots of carnage. My POV was pretty quiet compared to the front of the pack where different cars were crashing every lap.

Ended up P11 / 25 not because I was particularly fast, but because of attrition / DQs for all the insanity going around.

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by msendit

They punched through a wall or five and got the car turned around in time. Hard to express how much effort that was and how amazing these guys are -- frame work, both subframes, 2+ suspension corners, engine / trans mounts, oil pan, radiators, driveshaft, among other things I'm probably forgetting. And of course body work, splitter, and other consumables.

The championship race was quite something. I wasn't quite up to the pace all weekend during testing and quali, so when it started to rain on Sunday for the main race, I was getting excited. Conditions kept changing constantly, and we made the wet / dry tire call (dry!) literally in the last possible moment before grid. Track dried out extremely fast and was very grippy even though the race right before was slipping and sliding all over.

Then the race... had lots and lots of carnage. My POV was pretty quiet compared to the front of the pack where different cars were crashing every lap.

Ended up P11 / 25 not because I was particularly fast, but because of attrition / DQs for all the insanity going around.

It's great the shop was able to get the car ready for you - it sounds like you're a good customer.

I enjoyed the video and liked your braking into T2 after the first restart just <18 min. I thought you looked like a different and faster driver after that restart.

[msendit]

Last race of the season.

I enjoyed this one. I was closer to the class pace, and things get infinitely more exciting when there's people around to actually dice with.

[ScottSmith]

You had some great battles! It seemed like some of the drivers would slice across you unfortunately, I guess they're really taking the 3/4 car width allowance to heart.

I think I've asked you before - is the throttle trace the accelerator pedal or the throttle body position or just some other metric of "throttle"? It was odd to see 15+% throttle while braking. I was wondering if it was OEM anti-lag or something. If it isn't accelerator pedal then note that the OEM ECU will close the throttle periodically as short term boost control. If it is the accelerator pedal, then get on the throttle decisively; if you have to lift to correct it'll hurt you more than just waiting until the right moment to get on it 100%, even more so with a turbo motor.

Man you need that 0.5 back so you can pass on the straights. As it was you had some grunt, enough to make your presence known, but not enough to make the pass stick. Some of that might be your own aggression though :-)

[msendit]

Originally Posted by ScottSmith

You had some great battles! It seemed like some of the drivers would slice across you unfortunately, I guess they're really taking the 3/4 car width allowance to heart.

I think I've asked you before - is the throttle trace the accelerator pedal or the throttle body position or just some other metric of "throttle"? It was odd to see 15+% throttle while braking. I was wondering if it was OEM anti-lag or something. If it isn't accelerator pedal then note that the OEM ECU will close the throttle periodically as short term boost control. If it is the accelerator pedal, then get on the throttle decisively; if you have to lift to correct it'll hurt you more than just waiting until the right moment to get on it 100%, even more so with a turbo motor.

Man you need that 0.5 back so you can pass on the straights. As it was you had some grunt, enough to make your presence known, but not enough to make the pass stick. Some of that might be your own aggression though :-)

Yes, there was definitely exciting fighting. And I could've been more decisive a few times to muscle through...

The trace is PPS, the TPS data is even more spiky! I've been working on smoother throttle inputs, but breaking ingrained bad habits takes a while. I've also somewhat convinced myself I need more aggression on the later hoosier heatcycles to extract the grip (this was HC 5), so that's not helping either. Also I LFB all the time, so some accidental overlap is probably not surprising...

Don't go after my favorite ZF8 0.5! Hopefully we have a few more tricks before going there... Maybe more torque :-P

[msendit]

ScottSmith better book that wind tunnel time!

So much more room for aero activities in next year's rules.

[ScottSmith]

Originally Posted by msendit

ScottSmith better book that wind tunnel time!

So much more room for aero activities in next year's rules.

0.3 modifier per add-on is pretty steep though.

[msendit]

I keep forgetting to post videos here.

We ran the NASCAR chute layout at Sonoma last weekend, fun times.

[msendit]

This forum thing still on? Good ol M240 racecar keeps chugging along and racing...

Last weekend was soaking wet. Track dried out for a bit and the opening laps in the dry were good fun:

Most of the weekend was this wet instead:

[dradernh]

Originally Posted by msendit

This forum thing still on? Good ol M240 racecar keeps chugging along and racing...

Last weekend was soaking wet. Track dried out for a bit and the opening laps in the dry were good fun:

Most of the weekend was this wet instead

The forum is fairly quiet these days, esp. here.

Thanks for posting the videos; your racing is fun to watch, as always. Post as many as you like.

I kept thinking in the wet video that a push-to-pass button would have made for an even more exciting race for the two of you. Alas...

[MONARCH_AUTOSPORT]

Im curious about your build. We have a 17 m240i in the shop for race prep and final modifications. Can you list what you have done to your car?

[msendit]

Originally Posted by MONARCH_AUTOSPORT

Im curious about your build. We have a 17 m240i in the shop for race prep and final modifications. Can you list what you have done to your car?

A little too much to list honestly, we've gone through quite a few revisions of everything on this car to make it competitive. Any specific details you're interested in?

This old article covers some of the basics, but for a somewhat older revision of the car.

For this season, we're right in the middle of swapping in a B46+manual+MoTeC+a bunch of other electronic bits right now.