Regardless of my approach to the event, the question still remains——if there were a bunch of formidable cars signed up that should have pushed me to 6th or 7th place, how did I still end up on the podium? The answer is simple: It's time attack baby! Nothing ever goes according to plan!
Let's look at some of the competition and what their end results were:
1st place -Evasive Motorsport Toyota 86 - this car was Super fast. They hired a pro Japanese driver. The car was built as a hill climb car. It set the fastest lap of the event. (At one point, this car stopped on track for some reason. Not sure why.)
2nd place -Caliber Customs Corvette - this car is an incredible build. I mentioned a few weeks ago that when Corvettes are built correctly, they fly. And this car did not disappoint. 850hp 2800lbs. This thing was serious. It ran one lap in the first session--1:44. Then second session, it broke down and was stuck on track. It shredded some piece that was made from Delrin. I saw a photo of the piece and it looked like a pile of shavings……holy mackerel. They packed the car up and left the track to go fix it. Spent the night CNC machining new parts. They arrived back at the track on Sunday with the fixed car in time for the first session of Day 2! Someone didn't get much sleep!!! The car ran faster on Day 2.
4th place -Wide body white S2000 - this car made me nervous. I know Rhett Panter drove in the 1:47s last year with this car. I was worried he would drop a crazy lap in the last session. For whatever reason, it did not materialize. He was running hard though. Got within 0.4 sec of my time.
5th place -Nissan GTR - a few months ago, forum member
StripclubDJ showed us pictures here on the forum of an incredible Nissan GTR build that he had done. This car was competing at SuperLap. And the car had brand new slicks. The car ran fine all weekend and by all accounts should have pushed me from the podium. I know the owner of the car. Super nice guy. We were chatting throughout the weekend. He was struggling to find clean/open laps. On Day 2, they gridded him last in our run group. This makes it tough to find open track. Ultimately, he got within 0.6 sec of my time. I have no doubt that in the future, he will be out crushing the competition running mid-low 1:40s in that amazing car.
(No time set) -Mitsubishi Evolution - I mentioned this car previously. A very formidable build with a ton of power. It was expected to run mid-low 1:40s with a pro driver at the wheel. However it caught fire on its first hot lap. The driver had the presence of mind to put the fire out and save the build, but the wiring harness suffered in the fire and the car never saw the track again.
(Did not run) -Mark Yager/Yimisport WRX STI - this car is super fast and usually runs in the low 1:40's. However, the car had some technical issue and never ran a single lap all weekend.
In the end, the top three finishers in Unlimited were RWD cars. I think that's pretty amazing.
Speaking of grid position——if I had waited to run my new tires on Session 1 of Day 2, I would have ended up very very frustrated. There was a WRX STI that did not run on Day 1, but was ready to run on Day 2. They put him in the grid right in front of me because he has a history of fairly quick lap times. While we were waiting in grid, I had gotten out of my car and was talking to Ryan Passey, who has an intense Miata build. While I was talking to him, a lady taps me on the shoulder. She says that her husband is the car in front of me and he just wanted to let me know that he has new brakes and won't be going fast on his first hot lap…….So, I go over to his car and say hi. He says he has a new engine and new brakes so he needs a couple laps. I asked him if I should go in front of him….hahahaha….he says no, he'll be fast. Ok…..Oh man…..I don't know what he was doing on his out lap, but he spewed so much dirt on the track. There were rooster tails of dirt coming from his car in several corners. And it continued after the warm up lap. I was so annoyed. And clearly, the track people didn't appreciate it either. They black flagged him and pulled him off the track. SO ridiculous. If I had had new tires on the car, I would have been screaming. This guy hadn't run a single lap at this event…..yet they stick him in front of me and then he craps up the whole track. Second session, there he is again, in front of me. I got news for ya. He was NOT running faster than me. I ended up catching him and was on his ass, but could not get around him. Then Amir Bentatou catches both of us and can't get around. I HATE impeding other people, but there was nowhere for me to go…… The STI's fastest lap was 1:49.6. I went and complained to the grid boss that the STI was causing chaos. The STI was gone for the last two sessions, but by then it was hot. Also, in Session 2, the Evasive Toyota 86 craaaawwwllllled on the outlap and stacked everyone up behind him…..So, if I had waited until Day 2 to run new tires and been caught up in this nonsense, I would have been quite frustrated. But again, that's time attack!
Once it was final that I had gotten 3rd, I had a silly "dilemma". I know that the people on the podium usually spray each other with champagne. But I also knew that I had to fly back to CO that same evening, and I only had one pair of street shoes and I didn't want to get on the airplane stinking like stale Champagne. (I also didn't want to go up in my race shoes and trash those.) So, my wife was laughing at me on the phone and told me to go up in my socks. So that's what I did. If you look at the pix (or video below), I'm standing there in my socks. I got sprayed pretty good. After the awards, I went back to my truck, poured water all over me, changed clothes and was happy that my shoes were still dry. My suitcase did stink pretty strongly of stale champagne though…..hahaha
I'll end my write up by telling you the most common question I was asked this weekend. I got this question more than any other while people were checking out my car: [With a confused face while looking around] "So————are you here doing this by yourself???" hehe Generally, at an event like this, all sorts of people like to come around and check out the cars. And the cars in contention seem to get a fairly steady flow of visitors. Right from the first session, I was in 3rd place. So, pretty much from the get-go, there were quite a few people coming around and checking the car out. My car is not your typical time attack machine, so people are wondering what the heck is going on with the BMW sedan. (Even the Livestream announcers were making fun of my car all weekend!) First, people come around and looky-loo around the car. There's a fair amount of head shaking, like what the heck did this guy do to a grocery-getter. But then, they go beyond the car, and start looking at my setup. And then it dawns on them……there doesn't appear to be a crew around the car. I'm just sitting in the trailer by myself hanging out on my phone. So, the most asked question I got this weekend was people wondering how I was pulling a weekend like this off without a crew because most other teams had a bunch of guys running around the cars. The answer is that the infrastructure of the BMW M3 is very reliable and that I've been running the car at 150+ HPDEs over the last 8 years. Many of these impressive builds have not been tested very much and need a big crew around them to keep things going. I'm used to being at the track by myself. But I'm not really by myself. Over the years, I have worked with three shops on a consistent basis, and they have done a GREAT job of keeping the car healthy. In the last month, I have visited all three shops that I normally work with—EAS, Minicorsa and Racewerkz Engineering, plus Chewerks for the suspension work. So, I may not have a crew with me at the track, but there have been a lot of eyes on the car prior to the event, and they have kept the car running. So, thanks to all those guys. To be honest, after all the running around I did on Day 1 in the AM, I really could use some trackside assistance. I was running things down to the last minute in some cases, which is never ideal. So, maybe in the future, I'll hire someone to help me.
The Livestream was really cool this year. Carla Pestotnik joined the announcer team and she added a nice vibe to the event. As a racer who's done time attack, she had good insights and provided some variety to the live call. I've put together a little montage of moments when my car was on-screen or my fast lap was flashed up in the results column. It's fun to see the car from outside while it's running on track. I don't get that vantage very often. This Livestream enabled my family back in CO to watch the event live for the first time. That was cool.
Oh-----btw-----last night, my wife says to me, "So, on the Livestream, I saw that there's another SuperLap on your birthday in Feb. That's your 50th birthday. Are you going to do that?" Did my wife just open the door for me to hit COTA in Feb???!!!! I mean, I said a few days ago that it wasn't really on my radar, but in the last day, my wife opened the door to it, and I found out the track is going to repair the bumps in Dec and Jan, so I guess the track will be fresh and fancy by Feb?? hmmmmmm