You're there for the experience.
I'm here to get the suspension and chassis set up for what I'm bringing under the hood of this next year
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You're there for the experience.
“We started the week off great, and after the first day of practice our times put us sixth place in class, with plenty of room to improve,” Kitchens said. “We came back the next day for qualifying ready to drop our times but hit a damp spot in the pavement in the early morning hours and put the car off the track.”
The aero parts were damaged beyond repair, and though the team was able to get back on track the M3 had lost a crucial element of its performance.
“The vehicle handled substantially poorer sans the aerodynamics,” Kitchens said, “and it put us at a major disadvantage.”
Even a minor crash on Pikes Peak can be deadly; fortunately, Kitchens himself wasn’t injured. “All of my safety equipment worked perfectly, and I walked away from my crash in qualifying with nothing damaged but my pride,” he says.
Unfortunately, however, the engine cooling ductwork had been damaged along with the aero.
“Wil got off to a great start on the lower section, but before he reached the Glen Cove checkpoint the car was beginning to overheat badly,” said crew chief Ryan Warren. “Two-thirds of the way up the course, we recorded coolant temperatures as high as 137° Celsius (278°F), and the car barely made enough power to make it all the way up the mountain. We finished the race, though, and we weren’t last!”
Kitchens had miraculously piloted the E36 to the finish line in a total time of 12:10.435, placing him 14th of 18 cars in the Time Attack 1 class and 78th overall out of 130 cars to race to the top.
Far from being disappointed in the effort, Warren was optimistic. “Despite finishing much further back in the field than we intended to, we were able to acquire a great deal of information that will help us come back next year in much better form!”