VS Motorsports E92 M3 Blackhawk Farms Raceway Recap

[VSmotorsports]

This past weekend was our first race in our newly built E92 M3 for SCCA T2 class. Coming into the weekend we were not sure how this big heavy car ( raced at 3,800lbs) would last at a tighter technical track like blackhawk. Especially when we are using stock springs, sway bars, brakes (upgraded pads, fluid, and lines) and the alignment only with a max of -1.3 camber front and rear. Kris Von Sydow owner of VS Motorsports and driver was able to get some great lap times in during qualifying. The best lap was a 1:17.4 which is only .1 off the track record. That put us third in position at the starting of the race.

During the race Kris was able to move right up to second where he stayed for about 3/4 of the race. However little by little the weight started to take its toll and Kris finished the race in 3rd. It was exciting to watch Kris battle it out while controlling the 3,800lb pig around the track. This was also our first race with the BFGoodrich R1 S tire, which we were very impressed how fast we were with these tires and how they handled the abuse from the heavy car. We now have our replacement tire that we feel is better than the Hoosier A6!

Even though we had great results in this race and the car is fast. We have been thinking of making the switch to NASA GTS-4. If we do that we will make sure to show the build up to that class.

[schnell325]

Looks like a good time!

What exhaust are you running?

[tom @ eas]

Congrats on the awesome time. Good to see the new build being put to use!

[corvettebrian]

What size R1-S's are you running? What cold/hot tire pressure did you find works best at this weight?

[mkPOTO]

Originally Posted by schnell325

Looks like a good time!

What exhaust are you running?

congrats guys and I believe they are running custom build by VS

[schnell325]

That's what I was thinking too!

[VSmotorsports]

Originally Posted by schnell325

Looks like a good time!

What exhaust are you running?

Thanks! The exhaust is actually off one of the Bimmerworld grand am gs cars but we had to modify the rear section since we do not run a fuel cell.

Originally Posted by tom @ eas

Congrats on the awesome time. Good to see the new build being put to use!

Thanks Tom!

Originally Posted by corvettebrian

What size R1-S's are you running? What cold/hot tire pressure did you find works best at this weight?

We are running 285/30/18 all around. Since the car was sooo heavy we started about 26 psi and were shooting for about 40psi.

Originally Posted by mkPOTO

congrats guys and I believe they are running custom build by VS

Thanks Mark!

Originally Posted by SehrSchnell

Saw this car in person last week - very awesome!

Thanks! Hopefully the drive home was much more fun after your visit for more power to ind.

[Richbot]

3rd in a pretty strong field at the first outing is a damned good showing, especially at Blackhawk. Going to be a strong car at Road America!

Latest I heard is that if the Touring2/Touring1 consolidation happens with the 'vettes, they'll get a pretty significant restrictor along with the T2 move-ups getting a big weight loss, so don't give up on Touring yet!

[SM#80]

Did the tires have a better life than the A's?

[M3Racing88]

Awesome...congrats!!!

[M3SQRD]

Awesome first race - congrats

[paradocs98]

Thanks for posting and congrats!

Couple of questions: 3800lb is obviously significantly more than stock, and way heavy for a stripped race E92--did you have to add ballast to make a certain power-to-weight ratio for that class? Also, the car in the initial photo at rest seems to sit pretty high--did it start as a stock suspension car or a Comp Pkg car?

[VSmotorsports]

Originally Posted by Richbot

3rd in a pretty strong field at the first outing is a damned good showing, especially at Blackhawk. Going to be a strong car at Road America!

Latest I heard is that if the Touring2/Touring1 consolidation happens with the 'vettes, they'll get a pretty significant restrictor along with the T2 move-ups getting a big weight loss, so don't give up on Touring yet!

Its just hard to justify racing the E92 M3 in touring 2 anymore. The car definitely needs a brake upgrade but they won't give it to us till 2013. We feel like most cars run a decent ballast. Instead of adding weight to cars why not use restrictors and get the weight out. They can't just keep adding weight to cars to even out the fields. Racing almost a 4,000lb car with stock springs and sway bars is pretty crazy. One other big thing detouring us to NASA is we have a lot of customers who race in that series in GTS-3, ST2, TTS, TTA, and some of the HPDE drivers. It would be better to be at NASA events for our customers than be at an SCCA event with much fewer.

Originally Posted by SM#80

Did the tires have a better life than the A's?

Never got a chance to run a new set of A6 on this car but from the looks of it R1S handle the rolling over better. We did run the R1S last year during qualifying at runoffs with the E46 and ran our fastest time ever with them. We did not have good luck with the normal R1 but they are not the autocross compound.

Originally Posted by M3Racing88

Awesome...congrats!!!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by dbarnes

Awesome first race - congrats

Thank you!

Originally Posted by SehrSchnell

Yup, the drive back was certainly more enjoyable. No power was added this time, just weight taken off... next stop - you guys building my roll cage.

For some reason I though you did but losing weight is similar to getting more power Sounds good!

Originally Posted by paradocs98

Thanks for posting and congrats!

Couple of questions: 3800lb is obviously significantly more than stock, and way heavy for a stripped race E92--did you have to add ballast to make a certain power-to-weight ratio for that class? Also, the car in the initial photo at rest seems to sit pretty high--did it start as a stock suspension car or a Comp Pkg car?

Thanks. We do have ballast in the car , and a lot of it. We have about 10 twenty-five pound lead bricks and a 50lb plate for mounting.

It is a stock suspension car, no comp package. If we did have comp package we would need to change the springs to a standard M3.

[GTM_Challenge]

Good job guys! Glad to see the car made it out i know you guys were busy prepping lots of customer cars this past week.

[Shosholoza]

What have you done to improve the braking?

[VSmotorsports]

Originally Posted by GTM_Challenge

Good job guys! Glad to see the car made it out i know you guys were busy prepping lots of customer cars this past week.

Thanks Greg, it was a long week getting all the cars ready.

Originally Posted by Shosholoza

What have you done to improve the braking?

Right now we just have upgraded pads, stainless steel lines, and fluid. For this race we did not have brake ducts since it was colder but we have a set up for later this year.