25 Hours of Thundhill - 2006 edition

[RacinM3]

So, here we go, our 6th running of this event. The car's just finished it's "normal" season for the year and is now in the shop. We've got an easier prep this year as the car was substantially freshened for the '06 season and didn't see as many races as originally expected.

It's got a new motor (with a baffled pan now...no more valve retainer failure like last year), trans, and diff - the whole drivetrain. New remote reservoir Moton shocks, and it's lost some weight.

We'll have 4 drivers this year instead of last year's 5...which was too much (I'd really rather have only three).

We got sponsorship again from Piloti driving shoes, and new sponsorship from Nitto Tires - we're the "official" Nitto NT-01 team, which is great as the tire budget is zero this year, whereas last year's was around $6K.

I've been racing on the NT-01's in an E46 M3 this year and have been very happy. They're fast, durable, and extremely consistent. They're faster than the Michelin PSC's we've run the last few years, and won't last as long, as the Michelins could go 6 hours. I expect to get 3-4 hours per set of Nittos, but the faster lap times will make up for the additional tire changes.

We haven't won our class in this race since 2003, and I'm really tired of losing. We're going all out for a class win, and who knows, maybe with some luck, an overall. Depends on how many of the damn Porsches show up this year. We'll be looking to beat the "factory" BMW diesels to pay them back for using a car builder with no prior BMW race experience. Nobody's happy about that. Plus, we may have competition from a couple of factory Nissan 350Z's. To be honest, I'm not sure yet of the classification of the BMW Diesels or the Nissans, so we'll see.

Like last year, I'll try to give updates from the track, and will try to do a better job of it this year.

Here's the 2006 25 Hour page: http://www.nasa25hour.com/

[Spicoli]

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

[nrc]

Good luck, have fun, report back. :thumbup:

[Lizzerd]

25 hours... :rofl: I still can't get over that.

I've said this before, but it so much reminds me of Nigel in This is Spinal Tap showing how the knobs on his Marshall amps went to 11.

Good luck to 'ya RacinM3. Pictures would be nice.

[chop456]

Good luck and don't be afraid to cheat! :D

[RacinM3]

25 hours... :rofl: I still can't get over that.

I've said this before, but it so much reminds me of Nigel in This is Spinal Tap showing how the knobs on his Marshall amps went to 11.

Good luck to 'ya RacinM3. Pictures would be nice.

"but look, we had this one specially made...it goes to 25!" :)

[RichK]

Good luck!

Try the Long Island Iced Tea at Casa Ramos for your victory celebration.....yum!

[Sean O'Gorman]

$6000 for tires? Yikes, thats like 10 sets in my size. :eek:

[oddlycalm]

$6000 for tires? Yikes, thats like 10 sets in my size. :eek: Yeah, on the E46 M3 competition package the OEM tires are 225/40-19 fronts and 255/35-19 rears. A set of street tires like the Michelin Pilot Sports from Tirerack are $1288. From what Scott is saying the PS comps must be in the same range.

oc

[Fio1]

Racing M3:

Not sure if I'm going this year.

But, you might be racing with someone very famous! This is just a rumor, but I hear a really big name in racing might drive some ulternative fueled Volvo....:D

BTW, do you know of any BMW seats open? A nice looking car, like the one you raced last year. I know someone who is shopping for something cool like that. He won't leave the house to race a Miata or Honda.

[FCYTravis]

Scott, best of luck! Wish I could be there to cheer you on... should be an awesome race!

[RacinM3]

Alex, I know someone who is looking for drivers for an E36 BMW. In fact, it was the white SSF car that finished (I think) 2nd overall last year. I'll try to find the email addy at the office tomorrow and PM it to you. Not sure if they've filled all the seats.

[RacinM3]

OK, in my effort this year to do an hourly posting during the race, except for when I am sleeping, let's start with what's going on this week. The race is this Saturday.

We've spent the past few weeks preparing the car. We're running what is normally a BMW CCA "I-Prepared" class club racer, an E36 M3 (same car we ran last year). Because the sanctioning body is NASA, not BMW CCA, the car has been changed slightly for NASA's "E0" class. The changes mainly revolve around weight, which we have been able to remove, which will help wear all around, from tires to brakes, to driveline. We've pulled maybe 250 lbs. out of the car.

In its normal class, the car is allowed some performance enhancements, such as different cams, thus the motor is a little more high strung than we would like for a long endurance race. So we have pulled the head, and we've built two new dead stock heads. One goes on the car, one is a spare. Last year when we dropped a valve, we lost time when we changed the head, because we had to take the exhaust studs off the old head (there are 14 of them) and put them on the spare head. This year's spare head has the studs and headers attached already. If we have to change another head, we can do it in about 40 minutes now.

We've also dyno tuned the car to re-optimize its engine management for the stock cams.

As it stands, the car is done except for graphics. We landed tire sponsorship for this year, from Nitto, who has recently introduced their DOT-R race tire - the NT01. We are officially the "Nitto NT01" team. I have run this tire a few times this year on our HP E46 M3, and I can say the tires are about the same as Toyo RA-1's (they share some architecture), and are not as fast as Hoosiers (but last a LOT longer). The tires are good for 3 seconds a lap over the Michelin PSC's we've run the past few years. Plus - they're free! They gave us 10 sets, we chose 34 drys and 6 wets, although there is no rain in the forecast. Here's the site on the NT01:

http://www.nittotire.com/tires_nt01.asp

Here's the race website: http://www.nasa25hour.com/

Here's the entry list: http://www.nasaproracing.com/25hour/entrylist.pdf

Note the two factory BMW Diesels in the ES class...Auberlen and Hand will be driving one. Our pit box is right next to theirs, so it should be interesting to watch.

OK, so that's it for now! The transporter leaves Thursday morning, and I fly out to Sacramento Thursday night. I'll post next from the Friday test day with a report and our qualifying position!

Scott

[RacinM3]

whoops, dp

[G.]

Very cool! Look forward to the race.

[NismoZ]

SIX wets?:confused:

[chop456]

Because of RWD, I'm guessing(?)

Either that or it's a Tyrrell/BMW.

[RacinM3]

The theory behind six wets is thus:

1. Nitto is giving us more than enough tires to do this race, so the car owner is planning on having a number of these tires left over for next season's sprint races. Why get more wets than you need, since during our race season, we don't see much rain?

2. The NT01 (Dry) has a little bit of tread. Enough for a light rain, but not enough for a downpour. The rains we got are, in essence, a soft street tire. If it's raining enough to need them, it means there's enough water on track for them to suffer very little wear. I believe we could run all 25 hours without a tire change if it was pouring the whole race.

So, in essence, the fifth and sixth rain tires are there for emergency only, like running something over on track and needing to change one tire. Worse comes to worse, we'll steal tires off an E36 M3 in the paddock! There's always a bunch of them there! :p

At any rate, the forecast for this weekend is totally dry, so it just didn't make sense to use up the free tire allotment on non-dry race tires.

[RichK]

It's way cold up here, bring your earmuffs! :)

Sounds like you are doing things right - Good Luck!

[Fio1]

There are some interesting names on the entry list including; Tonis kasmets, Roger Yasukawa, Akira Iida, Auberlen, Hand and Al Unser III.

I wonder if that toyota powered prototype that got pole last year, and started lapping the field before the end of hour 1 will actually see hour 2 this year. :rofl:

[NismoZ]

Just like me...fast, but fragile!:gomer:

[Jervis Tetch 1]

:thumbup:

[RacinM3]

OK, so the test day went pretty well. We decided last week to clean up some wiring that was going unused in the harness, and we thought we had troubleshot all the issues. We missed one, the wire for the speed sensor in the differential, which goes to the speedo, which then goes to the DME (which uses speed input for some of its engine-management "decisions"), somehow got cut. Luckily we still have a functioning check engine light, which turned on and alerted us to the problem. We traced it and fixed it, and the car ran trouble-free the rest of the day.

I got into the car this morning and got on track, warmed up the car a bit, then went for a couple of hot laps. I found out in the middle of the 90 mph turn one that the car had an evil high speed mid-corner oversteer. A few shock and pressure changes later, the car was handling like a *****cat.

We qualified third in class, not sure where overall, probably top 15, but it doesn't really matter in a 25 hour race. We're within a second of our class leaders, so we're fine with that.

I did have a little incident. Coming off the last corner onto the long front straight, I was trying to get as much speed as I could to carry it down the straight. Most places on track you can put 2 wheels 1/2 off the surface and there's no price to pay. In this corner, on the exit, there was a stack of tires to keep you in line at the exit. I put the car 1/2 inch too far left, BARELY brushed the tires, and POOF - no more driver's side mirror. The crew went down after the session and found it, and we popped it back on the car. A few strokes of car wax later, it was all good.

Let's hope that's my only incident of the weekend.

Had a nice chat with Bill Auberlen; the factory BMW Diesel guys are paddocked next to us. They had some serious teething issues today, from gearboxes, to diffs, to just keeping the headlights turned on at night. They didn't get a lot of on-track testing today.

I'll post again tomorrow after the start!

[G.]

:thumbup: :thumbup:

[Fio1]

What happened M3? Did you finish, did you win, did you go off in the back section in the middle of the night & are still waiting for the marshalls to find you? Let us know, you should be awake by now. :cool:

BTW, check Car and Driver web-site they have updates & pics from the race. :thumbup:

[chop456]

Looking at the lap charts, it looks like it done blowed up sometime in hour 2-3. Better luck next time. Looking forward to a recap. :thumbup:

[devilmaster]

Looking at the lap charts, it looks like it done blowed up sometime in hour 2-3. Better luck next time. Looking forward to a recap. :thumbup:

Doh. Hope you at least got into the car for some of the race dude.

[RacinM3]

Guys, sorry for the delay. First off, we did not have wireless access at the track as we were supposed to, so hourly updates were out. The test day post was from the hotel.

I did take notes, but have been so pissed about our dismal perfomance that I hadn't bothered to edit them and post them up. Sometimes after all the effort and money spent, and you have a s****ty event, going back and reliving it isn't a top priority.

We had a good start, and our first driver drove about an hour and a half with no issues. He brought the car in for the driver change in 10th place, and I got in. I drove the car for about a half hour, got back up into 10th place, when going into the 90 mph turn 1, the radiator expansion tank bottle decided to explode and dumped all the coolant out. It got on the back tires, and I had a wild ride, although I didn't go off track.

Tow-in #1.

So, we replace the bottle, refill the system, and I get back in. We lost about a half hour. About a half hour later, I got a water temp warning light, looked at the gauge, which was rapidly rising, and had to shut it down again.

Tow-in #2.

This time there was no obvious reason for the overheating, but we began to suspect a cracked head. We gambled by replacing the water pump and refilling the system. Driver #3 got in. A half hour later, the car overheated AGAIN.

Tow-in #3.

We finally gave in and went for the spare cylinder head. After an hour and 10minutes of incredibly good work by the guys, we were back on track with driver #4. He had a relatively uneventful stint, and eventualy turned the car over to driver #1 again. He had an uneventful stint, and at about 10PM, brought the car in for me.

Uh-oh.

I get in, and the car feels great. Good power, handles great, lights are aimed perfectly. FINALLY, I'm happy. About 45 minutes into my stint, the air/fuel ratio gauge, which normally is reading a number, suddenly flashes "E-4". I call in and am told not to worry about it. 5 minutes later, I start to get an intermittent "check engine" light. I call in and am told to keep an eye on it. 2 minutes later, I get an ABS light. I call in, and am told to check to see if the ABS is working. A screeching front left tire and lots of smoke into the next corner confirms that the light, in fact, is not lying! I'm told to get a gap on anyone behind, and then shut off the car up the front straight, and restart it while moving, in hopes of resetting the system.

I get the gap, and shut her off at about 120 mph. I try to restart, and nothing. The cars that were behind me are getting closer. At that point, everything on the dash was very dim, as I'm sure were the taillights on the car! As the car slows and I pull off line, I put it in 2nd and try to bump start. It fires for about 0.5 seconds then dies. At that point, the cars behind are right on me, so I pull off on the outside entry of 1 and wait for:

Tow-in #4.

At that point, the safety crew stops asking where to tow me, and requests beer for all their hard work towing our car. :)

Obviously, I'm not happy. I get out of the car and tell the next driver that I'm done for now, I'm tired of being stranded on-track by this POS car, and that I'm going to get some sleep. They replace the alternator, which, it turns out was fried from the too-high load imposed upon it by the 4 each 125 watt PIAA driving lights we'd installed. I heard afterward from someone that the PIAA rep had recommended 85 watt bulbs, and even included them in the box. Don't know why the advice wasn't heeded.

So, I headed back to the hotel around 11PM, to get a few hours. I expected to get a call to get back to the track around 2AM. At 6AM, I awoke and sat up in bed. I had to count the number of hours on my fingers to determine I had been asleep almost 7 hours! No phone call had come.

I knew it meant one of two things; that my luck was so bad that the crew was afraid to put me in the car, or, the car had taken a complete crap during the night and our race was over. Driving into the track confirmed the latter to be true. At 1:30 AM, the car had dropped a valve on our spare head, and it was all over.

Our class was won by a Honda that was being run by a team called Honda Research, made up of Honda USA factory guys. They did a good job. The race overall was won by a blindingly-fast Porsche 996 GT3 Cup car. Last year, I said that was the car to race, and I'm saying it again this year. The factory BMW diesels had mixed results, one car finished well, 4th overall, and the other car was a bigger b*tch to it's team than ours, but it finished, albeit way down.

Funny anecdote...I got into conversations with both Bill Auberlen and that Patrick Dempsey guy from that Grays Anatomy show. Neither had been to Thunderhill before and I verbally ran down laps with both of them. Imagine, me giving pointers to Auberlen....but he did ask! I later found out that Dempsey guy co-owns the Vision IRL team? I should have told him the track went right where it went left, but actually he was a pretty nice guy, for a Miata driver(!).

Things will be different next year. After two years of dropped valves and poor finishes, after winning in '03, are enough for me, and I'm done with this car/owner. Not one to give up, I'm already formulating plans for '07!

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Scott

[devilmaster]

Sorry on the weekend Scott.

'Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug.'

[RacinM3]

Sorry on the weekend Scott.

'Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug.'

Funny Steve, I used that exact quote describing the race to my wife. :)

[chop456]

Nice rundown. Thanks. :thumbup:

[devilmaster]

http://www.whack.org/~prd/enduro06/data/car.01.jpg

Ahem. Mr. Lang, please display your laps on the graph. Thank you. ;) :D

(see what happens when you have insomnia? No - not him, the condition.)

[devilmaster]

http://www.whack.org/~prd/enduro06/data/chart.01.jpg

now, i'm just bored and havin fun surfin the site.

[G.]

Sorry about your race, Scott, but Man! Good reading!

Thanks.

[FCYTravis]

Great reading, Scott - but too bad it ended up the way it did :(

You'll snap this streak sometime...

[Fio1]

Sorry your race went to shhte. At least the car made it onto the track, which was more then the Suzuki with Akira Aida and Roger Yasukawa did.

A 996 Cup car is a heck of a car, and is the perfect car for that race. A Radical would be cool as well, as long as it doesn't rain....

On to 2007, and I'll be there for that one for sure! :thumbup:

[RacinM3]

Well, at least for all the trouble, we got some decent night photos (credit to Head On Photos)!

http://www.l2specialties.com/scott/2006%2025%201.jpg

http://www.l2specialties.com/scott/2006%2025%202.jpg

http://www.l2specialties.com/scott/2006%2025%203.jpg

[chop456]

Mmmmmm..... Reflecty.



(credit to Head On Photos)!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAbAIpZG7II

:D