Me getting 3rd place in Unlimited RWD at Global Time Attack NOLA in only a handful of laps.

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civicious

Buck Futter
VIP
So, picture this.

You spent the last week getting the car finished up for a Global Time Attack at a track you've never been to, and were ready in time to take the car to a local track to do a shakedown run. During that shakedown, your power steering pump explodes, leaving you spending yet another long night getting the car prepared to head out to NOLA the next morning. You get the car fixed, loaded up, and you're actually set to leave on time - and the RV you've borrowed to take to the races breaks down. Hours later, the RV is fixed and you arrive at the track well behind schedule. Unload everything, and yet again late to bed - no worries, because the next day is day 1 of Race Weekend. The next morning arrives, and on the sighting lap you wind up right behind the two cars who you perceived to be the biggest threats to winning the overall. Sighting lap goes great, then on the first straightaway of the first 'real' lap the headgasket goes. You spend the entire rest of that day tearing the motor apart, sending people back and forth to various parts stores throughout Louisiana tracking down parts, and even bring out the AmEx to have someone fly in parts from your shop back in Houston. At 3:21am Sunday morning you finally get everything back together, and with your fingers crossed because you had to time the BMW S52 engine with only sharpies and prayers since you weren't able to get the timing tools to the track in time, and it fires right up. "Awesome!" you tell yourself, and get a few precious hours of sleep prior to the next day's races - where you'll have four twenty-minute sessions to learn the track, get the car set up and dialed in, and throw down some competitive laps. You go out for the first session and after the first lap (a 1:53), you notice smoke pouring from the engine. The crack that's developed in the valve cover is pouring oil into the #5 spark plug hole, and wouldn't you know it, there's nowhere to get a valve cover for a BMW M3 in Louisiana on a Sunday...unless one of the guys at the track happens to have an older model M3, and graciously allows you to use his valve cover, bolts, and coils (since the coils aren't interchangeable). You've got all that together, and even soaked his "I'm pretty sure these are the originals, the car only has 60k on it" valve cover gaskets in copper coat, and that's when you notice the power steering fluid on the splitter - apparently when the power steering pump was changed out the night before (or was it the night before that?) the return line was damaged...so now there's a mad scramble to find something to work, and you manage to get everything sorted out JUST before the last session of the day. You go out for the last session, with hardly any knowledge of the track or setup time on the car, and put down a few fairly quick laps, then come in to check tire pressures and refuel. "I need to drop five seconds!" you say - this is the amount of time you NEED to move up to 3rd place and put yourself on the podium in the Unlimited RWD class. You pull up to the gate with 10 or so minutes left in the day (and, in the event), and you ask how many cars are out on the track.

Track marshall: "Two."

You: "Really?"

And you put the car in gear, pull onto the track, and give it as much hell as you can give a track that's come and gone for the day and is now greasy and slimy as it could be - which probably explains there only being 2 cars out on track.

We ended up with a best overall time of 1:49.583, good enough for the bottom step of the podium in the Unlimited RWD class, and only a few tenths behind 2nd. Not what we wanted, but I'll take that.

Filmed with a beaten-to-crap-and-covered-in-oil iPhone 5s in an Optrix XD5 motorsport case.

Thanks to:
Optrix by Body Glove
Global Time Attack / Jason Dienhart
Six Three Cycles
Mtechnica
RK Tunes
Active Autowerke
Hard Motorsport
Apex Auto Works
Hose Pimp (The Finest Hose In The Game)
PowerFab Automotive
Ultra Shield Race Products
Southern Adrenaline
Brooks Motorsport Composites
Houston Z
Race Fuel Depot
Nitrous Express
Hondaswap.com
Shrockworks
TMJ Bimmers
Houston Fast Track
Speedy's Go-Karts
Phil, Ryan, Chad, Becky, William, Todd, all the guys from NOLA Bimmers, Cody Overcash, James, Jon, Joe, Joes' brother, Nick, Natalie, Jerrell, Jeremy R., Mom & Dad, anyone else I'm forgetting because I've hardly slept in over a week, and special thanks to Mark Niemi for telling me "Don't ever let someone tell you that you can't do something. That's even more reason to do it!"




 
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