Adventures tracking a mostly stock M3

[nsogiba]

The GVC Chapter of the BMW CCA hosted their fall event at Watkins Glen at the end of September. This is one of my favorite events due to the cooler temps.

I always make it a point at each HPDE to spend time walking through the garage and to snap photos of the machinery. I remember as a teenager wishing I could spend time around these kinds of sports car when I was older, especially at a racetrack. It's so easy to get wrapped up in worrying about my driving technique, lap times, making sure the car is mechanically sound throughout the weekend, so it's important for me to live in the moment and make sure I appreciate my situation. Really cool to see C8 Vettes out on track getting thrashed.









An old friend of mine came to spectate and drove his B13 SE-R down from Buffalo. Really cool car, I'm trying to convince him to do an event with us. He has a couple of these cars, I think this one has an SR20 with a small turbo on it.





I had a feeling my brake cooling scoops might be too fragile, and sure enough the track heat beat them up a bit. I jury-rigged them well enough to continue running the rest of the weekend without flying off. Always bring a bag of zip ties.







More cool stuff.









Sunday dawned clear but cold. My wife and kids made the trek down to check out the track and spend time with their beloved "Blue Car". Some really awesome memories made.









Loaded up and en route home in one piece:


At home, coming off the trailer I snagged the undertray on the ramps and that was the end of the scoops. I later remade them using steel.

[nsogiba]

October brought a fun weekend spent at Pittrace. The Delaware Valley Chapter sponsored an HPDE over a weekend, so I got to catch up with some familiar faces.

Although my M3 is nearly stock, I still choose to trailer it to events since I don't want to be stranded in case a mechanical issue comes up (or worse yet, an on track incident). My trusty F15 X5 has put in a couple years of towing duties now and performed really nicely. The combination of a shorter hitch and Airlift Bags have reduced squat significantly. Having a support vehicle also gives me the flexibility to bring spare wheels, tools, extra gas cans and food/drinks to reduce trips into town. Also, I don't really know why, but I love towing stuff.









The Uhaul trailers are okay functionally, but it was getting old renting one for every event; not only was it inconvenient to have to go grab it and return it, but obviously made little financial sense to rent. I am making a conscious effort to keep costs in control with this hobby, so I picked up a car trailer at auction:



I'll be modifying it once I get it back home to better suit my needs. I'd like to store a spare set of tires on it permanently, and mount my toolbox and a rack for gas cans. The idea is to minimize the amount of unloading when I get to the track, and packing when I leave. In the meantime back to Pittrace:





Pittrace is small in comparison to the Glen, but I think it's more scenic and a more "playful" track. It rained on and off Saturday but really started pouring Sunday. No problems - just kept the defroster running and heated seats on. Sometimes not having an all out racecar is awesome...













Obligatory cool car little kid appreciation post



I put together a video of some typical prep and laps.

No issues other than guzzling gas and wearing out a set of pads up front. I am convinced that DSC/MDM is significantly contributing to pad wear by applying the brakes whenever it likes. This year I'll be running with all that jazz turned off and am curious to see if my pads last longer than a weekend.





I'll be back in May for the Genesee Valley Chapter's first event of the year.

[nsogiba]

I squeezed in one last track day at the end of October by heading over to Toronto Motorsports Park in Cayuga, Ontario. I've been going to this track since 2016 and love it here. 1 hour away, lots of runoff, low stress easy seat time.



Because it's so close, it's easy to get a bunch of friend together to head out. This time around we had the turbo B13 SE-R, a supercharged E46 M3, an FR-S, and my buddy's 339,000 mile E39 M5 set up for track work. He actually just picked up another M5 that he's converting to track duty - check out his channel for more detail.

https://www.youtube.com/@technician1177

Again, cool temps made for a really enjoyable day with the boys.









Since my buddy with the SE-R loves to hate on V8s, I had to give him a hard time about lending him gas for the 4 cylinder...



The E39 M5 (affectionately known as EPICJRNE), was fighting some limited slip diff issues and kept lighting up one tire in certain corners.

The supercharged E46 M3 did really well considering the owner just bought the car. Cold temps and older rear tires made for a loose rear end.