Anthony Magagnoli Racing

NASA National Championship

2011-09-10T23:40:00.000-07:00

Returning From the Worst-Case Scenario to Earn a Respectable Finish in the National Championship

If you'd like to skip right to watching the race, which was professionally filmed externally and commentated, just like the pro races, click on the following link.
You can use my username (Z3SpdDmn) and password (SpecE30) to sign in so you can watch full screen and in HD!
www.speedcasttv.com/#/races/245
(Just note that you won't see me in my #007, but in the substituted #21 loaned to me by Denny Barker)

Between the last race in August and the 2011 NASA National Championships on September 8-10, I had concluded that my car needed an engine rebuild in order to be competitive for the championship. Video evidence showed a notable difference between me and the other fast guys and a compression test confirmed my suspicions. It was a stressful 3 weeks that faced us with multiple challenges along the way. I knew that I was taking some risk in building a new engine and running it with no test time, but I felt that doing nothing was not an option. Fellow SpecE30 racer Michael Osborne was a crucial element in getting the engine built and installed, going far out of his way to help. I got the engine running 5 days before the Championships, got it broken in, and set to work on other items that needed attending. In fact, I was feeling pretty good about it as I got loaded up on Wednesday.
I picked up Kevin Kreisa, of DTR Performance, on my way up to the Mid-Ohio and planned to meet Denny Barker up at the track. Regrettably, my usual crew chief, Nate Thulin, had a conflict come up and couldn’t make it, so Kevin and Denny were splitting Crew and Crew Chief duties. Having their help was absolutely instrumental through the weekend. We unloaded and set up a paddock space among the other Great Lakes SpecE30s, including Michael Osborne, Cameron Bullard, and Sean Louisin. When we returned early on Thursday morning, we faced a wet track and ran our Warm-up and Qualifying sessions in these conditions. The car was feeling ok on the wet setup and the engine felt good, but a decent bit of traffic in Qualifying left me with a 6th place starting position for the first Qualifying race. Thursday and Friday were run in this fashion, with a Qualifying session for a Qualifying Race. The results of the 2 Qualifying Races would determine the starting grid for the National Championship Race on Saturday. In all of our races, we would be conducting standing starts. That is, we would all be starting from a dead-stop, just like Formula 1 or the World Challenge Series do. Unfortunately, our region had never done standing starts before, and we initially resisted the idea.

JUMPED TO 3RD ON THE START (Kate Harley Moss Photo)

The rain went away and the track dried up before our Qualifying Race #1, so we switched to the dry tires and suspension setup on the car. I thought that this would be the test to tell me truly how competitive I would be this weekend. I had no problems with the standing start, launching from 6th up to 3rd by the time we hit Turn 1, and I was up to 2nd after the Keyhole. Loren Trethefen, in the only convertible SpecE30 I’ve ever seen, was followed me through (what I normally call) T7, up to Madness. However, he missed his braking point; first hitting me in the rear bumper, then again on the inside, putting a big donut in my door and rear quarter. I controlled the car, though, and pulled back ahead when we went into Thunder Valley. Robert Grace was ahead and I gave chase as I simultaneously was feeling out the car on the dry track. We hit T1 again, for the first time at speed, and my car was not turning… I had taken this turn at this speed and turn-in point a thousand times before, so it was obvious that there was something reducing traction. I slid off the track into the grass, kept my foot in it - correcting the oversteer one way and then the other. I made it back on track, but lost position to Michael Osborne and Carter Hunt. As I looked back, I saw a cloud of smoke and a gaggle of SpecE30’s scattered and spinning all over the place. I don’t know if I was the one dropping fluid or if it was already there, but as I kept driving, the car didn’t feel quite right under me. I pushed forward and got by Carter in T14 before the Carousel, with Sean Louisin close behind me. I struggled through the race and, as we were 2 laps from the end, the car started smoking. I was dropping back and just trying to resist each pass the best I could. I felt bad when Sean and I entered T14 with him on the outside and my car slid out again in dramatic fashion. He may have expected it, as he was quick to avoid me and take to the grass. I was glad he was able to get back on track with minimal incident. However for me, as I entered the front straight and took the white flag, plumes of smoke behind me, the car started going down badly on power. I had to shut it down and pull off. This was no way to start my run for the championship.

SpecE30 Championships - Qualifying Race #1

THE INJURED 007 (Andy Welter Photo)

Investigation led us to discover that the coolant drain plug in the block had gone missing and drained the coolant out of the block, allowing the engine to overheat. The strange thing was that my gauges never showed any crisis occurring. We found a replacement bolt to keep the water in and refilled the system. While the car started and ran, when we pulled the oil dipstick, we found the oil to be extremely frothy – indicating that water was getting into the oil. While the likelihood was that this was a catastrophic situation, there was also the possibility that the head gasket was blown and could be replaced. As Kevin got started on pulling the head, with assistance from Denny and Michael Osborne (who had amazingly started 15th and WON the Qualifying Race #1!), I went on a parts gathering mission. I got oil on site ($60 that would later go down the drain, figuratively) and headed toward Columbus to get a head gasket from fellow SpecE30 racer Kyle Smith. I returned to find that the head gasket that came off did not seem to be blown. With little other choice, we put it back together with the new gasket, filled it with oil, and finally fired it up around 2am. It ran, but when we checked the oil, there was again water in it causing it to froth up. The head was likely cracked, allowing the 2 fluids to mix. We made the decision, based on prior discussion, to go get Denny’s SpecE30 to continue the weekend. He and I set out for Cleveland, arriving at his house around 3:30am. We grabbed a few hours of sleep, loaded the car around 7, and headed back to the track. Make no mistake - it sucked.

Michael got us squared away with the NASA officials so that I could run the #21 car when we returned. We accepted that we would miss Warm-up and focused on getting ready for Qualifying. The car was mostly ok, but missing all the things that we had developed into my car, such as the fit of the cockpit, the suspension setup, and the freshly strengthened engine. Aside from these things, the #21 was oversteering badly going under the Honda bridge in T10, as well as a couple other places. Denny had previously complained of the same thing. I felt like the rear suspension – likely the swaybar – was binding and suddenly locking up the rear end. I Qualified 11th with this condition and Kevin and Denny set to work on fixing the issue. They adjusted the rear swaybar end-links to prevent them from binding and got ready for the Qualifying Race #2. My parents, sister Tessa, and Brother-in-Law Tim showed up from Rochester, NY around this time to spend the weekend with us. I was happy to see them.

HANGING OUT IN THE PADDOCK (Andy Welter Photo)

Starting in 11th put me on the outside of the front straight as we look towards T1. When the lights went out, I got another good launch and dodged left to try to get by Matt Harness ahead of me. However, he also moved left and then missed 2nd gear. I got swiped down the left side, folding my drivers’ side mirror forward, and then rear-ended Matt, looking for a way by. As Carter Hunt was flying by on my right, I rear-ended Matt again before I could jump to the right and pull around him. I had lost about 6 positions before I finally got into T1! I pressed forward and worked on regaining those positions. The car was feeling better, but still having some issues in certain places. I did not feel like I could trust the handling. It felt more like fluid getting on the tires now, as the binding issue was gone and this was occurring on turn-in. I worked through it to gain back my positions, plus one, finishing in 10th. I felt ok with finishing a mid-pack car in the middle of the pack, but felt that it had more. I could see that the cool-suit cooler was leaking water onto the passenger floor and considered that it could be the culprit. However, I had also noticed the coolant temperature rising during the session and the water pressure was running low. I suspected that the expansion tank cap was failing and also noticed that the expansion tank’s overflow was not routed to a catch can. We swapped my pressure cap on, installed a catch-can, and replaced his cool suit with steel ballast from my car. While we were at it, we made a minor sway bar adjustment.

SpecE30 Championships - Qualifying Race #2

The evening was fortunately more relaxing. We went to dinner at KC’s Steakhouse – my favorite Mid-Ohio watering hole – and then got settled into the house I had rented for the weekend just 2 miles from the track. Alyssa and her parents and sister showed a bit later, as Alyssa had flown in to Columbus. It was really nice to have everyone together! The next morning’s warm-up session went quite well, as the car felt completely fixed and trust-worthy. I felt that THIS was a car I could race! In fact, I had dropped over a second off my laptime, posting the 3rd fastest lap of the Warm-up. It gave me a sense of confidence that I could have a shot to run at the top 5 cars. However, storms were a’brewin’…

COMING IN FROM A REASSURING WARM-UP (Alyssa Nolan Photo)

As the National Championship race neared, we scrambled to get everything set and ready, ensuring that we had enough ballast to remain legal after burning 45 minutes worth of fuel in this longer race. However, it began raining before the race and did not look like it was about to let up. We swapped out to rain tires, but didn’t have time to switch to a suspension setup for the wet. Everyone took their positions and I headed out on a very wet track. We lined up for our standing start on the front straight, but some confused drivers ahead of me were not in their correct positions, causing me to start from a row back from where I should have been. In any case, I got ready, radioed to Denny that I would try to bring it home in one piece, and waited for the lights to go out…
I jumped forward by a couple cars to get up into around 6th. Robert Grace pulled out to an early lead while the cars behind him battled for position. However, while trying to open his lead, he went off in the carousel and fell all the way back to almost last. Carter Hunt assumed the lead, and it was a substantial one, at that. My strategy was to try to not be taken out by another driver. Especially considering that I was in someone else’s car, I knew that everyone was going for broke and would surely be making some moves with a low percentage chance of success. Having experience at Mid-Ohio in the wet, I know how much less grip the track offers on the inside, where the sealant is. It looks like a great passing opportunity, but it’s usually a good way to put you and another car out of the race. I pushed the car to get what I could out of it, passing where I knew I could execute. Following Palacio and Curran, I watched Palacio give Curran a bump on entry to the right hander into Thunder Valley. Curran unfortunately spun and we all moved up. While Grace came back up and got by, I got by Palacio and was now in 4th, behind a close battle between Grace and Gagliardo, with Hunt running a good distance ahead. I watched Grace make a move to the inside of T1, knowing it wouldn’t go well. He pushed out and banged into the side of Gagliardo. They both stayed on track, but Grace got big sideways on exit. I used their compromised exit speed to make a move to get by and braked deep into the Keyhole to make sure it stuck. I didn’t expect to find myself up in 2nd, but here I was, so I gave chase after Hunt.

CHASING DOWN THE LEADER (Andy Welter Photo)

With one eye ahead and one eye watching for aggressive moves from behind me, we started to close in on Hunt. I had Gagliardo, Grace, and Trefethen behind me and Trefethen, who had been pushing hard through the field, got past Grace when he got loose over the right into Thunder Valley. As I came into “the fast left” before the Carousel, I saw Gagliardo make a move to the inside. There was no way that it was going to work, so I got ready for the certain impact. He hit me in the left rear, putting me sideways, but I was quick to countersteer and hang on to my position. Loren Thefethen, in the SpecE30 convertible, got past Gagliardo as he recovered and, on the next lap, got a run on me down the back straight. He had hit me hard in the first qualifying race, so I wasn’t going to get into a position where he could do it to me again. I let him sail by and we both closed in on Hunt. While I held my line, knowing where I could pass and where I couldn’t – as well as where I was vulnerable to be passed and where I was not – Trefethen continued in his highly aggressive manner. He got lined up right on the back bumper of Carter Hunt’s car as they took the cresting right hander into Thunder Valley. Coming over the crest, the track is extremely slippery and Hunt got loose, starting a spin to the right. While Trefethen had no option but to also go right, he also got sideways, recovered on the right side of the track, and found himself facing sqarely at Hunt’s right front wheel. He hit him hard, bending Hunt’s suspension and retiring him from the race, while Trefethen careened off to the right and into the tires. Having left myself enough room to figure out which way they were going, I drove past on the left and assumed the lead of the race. Now the pressure was on as I led the next lap with Gagliardo and Grace in pursuit.

LEADING THE RACE! (Andy Welter Photo)

While I couldn’t believe I was leading the race, I tried to figure out how I would hold onto it for the remaining 15 minutes of the race. I didn’t have to think about it for too long, though, because I pushed just a bit wide in the left under the Honda bridge, giving Grace a chance to get to my left side, which gave him the preferred wet line up to Thunder Valley. He went by and I dropped behind, still content to be running 2nd at this point. With Gagliardo’s car suffering from his previous scuffle with Grace, Grace and I had opened up a decent gap back to 3rd. I just needed to hang on at this point and maybe I could make a move, but it wasn’t to be. A yellow flag came out, bringing out the Safety Car, who pulled in front of the 944Spec car that was leading overall. The pace slowed to a crawl as we caught up with the leader and the rest of the field caught up to us. We had a mixture of 944Spec’s and SpecE30’s in front of us, all of which were a lap down from the leader. Getting by in the wet was going to be tricky.
The green flag waved on the back straight and Grace and I initially had a great run. However, no one in front of us could decide what direction they wanted to go. We went right, then left, then had to lift throttle and check back to the right again. We passed a few cars, but we had Palacio and Allen a short ways behind us. We worked forward and Grace put a couple lapped cars between us. As we approached Thunder Valley, I saw Simon Hunter and a not-to-be-named white E30 ahead of me. I flashed my high-beams frantically, just asking for the room to get by. Hunter recognized me and immediately gave me plenty of space to get by. The other car, however, defended as if his championship was on the line. He kept me behind him through the Carousel and I got a run on the front straight.

WORKING THROUGH LAP TRAFFIC ON THE RESTART (Andy Welter Photo)

BEING HELD UP BY LAP TRAFFIC (Andy Welter Photo)

The white flag was out – last lap! I came along to his inside as we approached T1, but he yielded no ground, and I had to slow in order to stick it on the sealer on the inside. Palacio was behind the white car and had a full-speed run through the turn, getting past me on the outside. The white car spun himself on the exit of T1 and backed it into the inside tire wall. OK… so I was in 3rd. Maybe I could live with that. Johnny Allen had worked through a lot of traffic to get up behind me and he was on my bumper as we went through Madness for the last time. For some reason, I didn’t recognize him as a car on the lead lap, thinking that I had passed him and he was just fighting back. He stuck his nose under me through 9 and got beside me approaching the left hand T10 under the Honda bridge, making me over-slow since I would be on sealer on the inside, and got by. I didn’t hand him the position, but I didn’t fight him as if it was for the last podium position, which, of course, it was. I got a run onto the front straight and crossed the line beside him, but about a ¼ car length back. It was not until we parked in the impound lot and I was handed the timing sheet that the reality of having missed the podium by one position set in…

THE BATTLE FOR 3RD PLACE (Andy Welter Photo)

HERE IS THE ENTIRE RACE, SHOT EXTERNALLY AND COMMENTATED, JUST LIKE THE PRO RACES. IT WAS VERY EXCITING AND I GOT LOTS OF ATTENTION!
www.speedcasttv.com/#/races/245
To watch in HD login as user Z3SpdDmn and password is SpecE30.

I congratulated all the podium finishers and watched them celebrate with champagne, trophies, trophy girls, hats and big checks, before they proceeded to interviews. I was congratulated on my finish by my family, friends, and fellow racers, but I would be lying if I said I was satisfied with my finish. I guess it is my nature. Had I simply worked up to 4th, I would have likely been happy with having done that in a borrowed car. But, knowing that I should have at least had 2nd place wrapped up – and having had that yellow flag and the resulting traffic screw me – has left me with a big pit in my gut. There were some body contact forms filed against the 1st and 2nd place finishers, which gave some lingering hope of moving up due to a DQ (not that I would ever wish a DQ on someone). But, having reviewed the video, I didn’t think that any DQ’s would be handed out. We spent the next few hours in tech inspection, having some items checked for legality and compatibility. Having finally passed the inspections, we loaded up all our equipment and both cars and the headed back to the house to hang out and enjoy the rest of the night.
Disappointed as I may be in having lost my engine and not having finished on the podium, I feel great that we salvaged a really good finish from what would otherwise have been a thrown-away Championship run. I’m also rather proud to have been one of the few cars that I was around in that race that didn’t hit anyone else the entire weekend. I have to extend a HUGE THANKS to Denny Barker for allowing me the use of his car! I hope I did him proud. I also need to thank Denny and Kevin Kreisa for their support through the entire weekend, as well as to Michael Osborne for the great lunches and for helping with the attempted head gasket swap on Thursday night. I also want to thank my parents, sister, brother-in-law, girlfriend Alyssa, her parents and sister for all making the trip out to support me! It was a weekend that will not be soon forgotten and I am glad to have had them all have been a part of it.
I also want to thank my sponsors that have been supporting me this year. Jeff, Jeremy, and Andrew at Ireland Engineering, Chris May at IMGT3 Performance, of course, Kevin Kreisa at DTR Performance, Scott Barton of MyTrackSchedule.com, and Ken Herskovitz at Bimmertools.com. They have all made significant contributions to get me running or keep me running at one point in the year or another!
So, I have to move on to next year. The car needs fixing and there’s no time to waste. I need to get past the extensive mechanical woes that I’ve had this year – I learned how to do a lot of things that I really didn’t care to know! – and I hope that I will be set next year once the engine situation is sorted out. I wish I didn’t have to wait a whole year to take another run at the SpecE30 National Championship!

Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course SpecE30

2011-07-17T23:41:00.000-07:00

I had to miss the last 2 SpecE30 races due to other commitments, but I had still been active with coaching BMW Club Racers and testing a new supercar called the Mach 7 Motorsports Falcon. However, it was nice to get back into the Spec cars, as their inherent similarity really push us to dig deep to maximize our performance on track. The #007 car has had a large share of issues this year, starting with a fried wire harness and stemming from there, but we’ve worked hard to get the car performing at its peak level again, as well as continuing its development.

We arrived at Mid-Ohio just before dusk on Friday, already knowing that our usual SpecE30 compound had been overrun. With the NASA National Championships being held at Mid-Ohio in September, we had a large number of out-of-region competitors attending in order to learn the track. In fact, we had Robert Grace join us from the Mid-Atlantic region, which is one of the largest regions for SpecE30. Robert is considered to be their regional hot-shoe, especially since Mike Skeen moved to the pros and Chris Cobetto moved to another class. We found ourselves some room among the other SpecE30’s, though, and got unloaded before heading to the hotel.

Limited as we are on adjustability, we were making small suspension adjustments, hoping to find a bit more speed in the car. Saturday morning’s practice session was a bit short – only 4 laps – but, on old “practice” tires, I set a 1:44.234, running the Pro Course. This was a time that no one, including myself, would match all weekend. The temperature rose rapidly after that morning session, reducing the grip levels for everyone. We had to rely on my feel for the car, more so than strictly lap times, in order to evaluate the changes that we were making. We made an adjustment going into qualifying and posted a 1:44.429. This was good enough for the pole, but concerning at the same time. The driver who qualified 2nd was Cameron Bullard – a relatively newer driver, only 20 years old, who was at least a second off my pace all of last year. I had helped him out in April by having his rear suspension completely refreshed (parts from Ireland Engineering and work performed at DTR Performance) and setting up his alignment. For that, he returned the favor by qualifying 0.333 seconds behind me. That was definitely within fighting distance. With 3 separate race groups, we were all thankful to be separated from the Spec Miatas. However, we had some very fast GTS (German Touring Series) cars in the group ahead of us. I would be leading off the start of our 2nd wave of cars, taking our own green flag on the back straight for the first time I can remember.

Qualifying Video from Side of Car – IN HD!

On the start of the race, Cameron dragged me down through Turns 7 and 8, but I pulled into the lead from there. He pressured me for a few laps before I was able to open up a gap wide enough to take a deep breath every once in a while. From there, I just tried to run consistent and quick laps, working through traffic as efficiently as possible. I had increased the gap to a half a straight away between us and was feeling comfortable with the car’s performance. On lap 7, though, as I was approaching the Keyhole, I entered to find a Porsche 944 spinning ahead of me. I could have picked a direction and shot by, hoping that his car hooked the other way, but I decided to play it safe and slow down to see which way his car was going. He ended up heading backwards off the track and I pulled to the right. Unfortunately, this had absolutely killed my exit speed onto the back straight. To make matters worse, I was going so slow that I needed 2nd gear and I couldn’t find it. I so rarely downshift to 2nd that I might have put it over in the Reverse gate, but regardless, it took a couple tries to get it engaged. As it ripped to redline and I upshifted to 3rd, Cameron blasted by on my right, having gotten full exit speed from the Keyhole.

Well, this race just got interesting… I gave chase as he pulled away from me down the straight. I pushed to get close and when we came around to the start finish line, I was within two car-lengths. As we entered Turn 1, I saw him turn in a couple feet early and, while he held a sweet 4-wheel drift right to the curbing, he pushed off the outside of the turn. I watched his splitter grab a big scoop of dirt and grass before it proceeded to fold under his car. He came right back on and was able to rejoin the battle, albeit with a little less grip in the front, and he held off Jeremy Lucas to finish on the 2nd podium position. In the meantime, I had run the remaining laps uncontested and brought the 007 home in 1st place, with a 7.5 second gap to 2nd!

Race 1 Video - IN HD!

We arrived at the track on Sunday morning to a fog that was thick enough to mandate the cancellation of our morning practice. So much for testing a change we had made since the previous day’s race… Considering the big picture, we decided to risk the qualifying session to evaluate the change. This turned out to put us in a bit of turmoil, as the qualifying session did not go as planned…

During our 4-lap session, I ended up running with an out-of-class car that was hindering me in the turns and I was not able to get a clean lap. The cars that qualified 2, 4, and 6 were impounded for weight checks and for dyno runs. In my head, I assumed that we had still qualified 1st. However, when I looked at the qualifying sheet, I realized that I had actually qualified 3rd. Cameron was second and the pole-sitter was Mid-Ohio newcomer Robert Grace. I’d be lying if I said we didn’t panic a little bit. We were not sure whether we were slower due to the other car or the change in the suspension, so I set to analyzing the video and data to compare against my feeling of how the car was acting. Should we return to the previous day’s setup, which PROVED to be good enough to win? Or, should we continue to evaluate the change, which I felt should make the car a touch quicker, overall, and risk the race? I ultimately decided that I would look forward to having a real race on my hands and we would let the cards fall where they may.

Between qualifying and the race, we did some checks on track width and differential break-away torque so that we could be familiar with the procedure and see where we all stood in terms of compliance. This drew some interesting results. We also eagerly attended the dyno sessions for the 3 cars that were selected. I realized very quickly why my motor never feels very strong compared to the others… While I make a good peak horsepower number, I’m down on torque across the powerband.

On the start, I had Robert Grace in front of me and Michael Osborne beside me. I was amused to watch Michael bump Cameron, as Cam wasn’t moving up into his line up position as quickly as Michael would’ve liked. We got sorted, though, and rolled onto the back straight, awaiting the green flag. Robert and I jumped at the same time, while Cameron was either in the wrong gear or taking a nap. I pulled ahead and followed Robert into Turn 7 and through Madness.

Coming through Turn 1, I pulled along side him, to the inside on the exit, and we went side-by-side up to the Keyhole. And then side-by-side down the back straight. And through Turn 7, and 8, and 9, where I gave him a little too much room and allowed him to pull back ahead, while Cameron was right on my rear bumper. I gave chase again and when we went through Turn 1 this time, I got the run and passed him on the OUTside, with 2 wheels in the grass, and we dragged up to the Keyhole again. This time I had the inside line and made the pass going in. I would love to see this guy’s dyno sheet, though, because he managed to get beside me again at the end of the back straight. I had the inside line for T7, though, and I used it to hold on to the lead.

On our next time through Turn 1, I watched Grace get completely sideways through the apex and I watched the other SpecE30’s scatter to avoid contact. Fortunately there was none and they kept going, but this also gave me a bit of a gap to the rest of the field and allowed me to focus on turning laps. Jeremy Lucas was the next car back and I watched him hold the gap, and a couple times he seemed to shrink it. I put my head down analyzed and made sure to hit all my marks, as I had been off a foot here or a foot there while I was in traffic on the first few laps. This improved my times and opened the gap back up through the remaining laps. The only challenge was a particularly hard-headed driver in a GTS 330i, supposedly a World Challenge-prepared car, who I had passed in traffic. He had about 100 hp on me, so he had the legs on the straights. On the LAST lap, he was closing on me on the back straight. I clearly positioned my car on the right side of the track (approaching the right-hand Turn 7) to indicate that I did not want to be passed here. Well, he pressed the issue and dove WAY to the inside, probably with tires in the grass, so I pulled back to the left under braking so he didn’t punt me off the track with his idiocy. Still, with being off-line and distracted with paying attention to him, as well as giving him room, it put me wide in T7 and in the marbles. Nothing that I couldn’t handle, but it really pissed me off that he was that slow and being bull-headed about the position with an out-of-class car. Of course, I still passed him in Turn 8 and gapped him through the remaining turns to bring home the class win, with another 7.5 second gap back to Lucas in 2nd place, while Grace had worked his way back up into 3rd.

Race 2 Video

3rd-to-1st - Driver Cam

As always, we have a lot of work to do between races, despite the positive results from this weekend. We will be racing on August 13-14 again at Mid-Ohio, and then we are expecting 30 SpecE30’s for the National Championships on September 8-10! Keep an eye out to see how the season progresses!

A big thanks goes out to my 2011 sponsors: IMGT3 Performance, Ireland Engineering, MyTrackSchedule.com, DTR Performance, and Bimmertools.com!

All photos courtesy of Katelyn Harley Moss.

Mid Ohio - SpecE30

2011-04-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

It’s amazing how much work there is to be done in the off-season to a car that won all but one race in 2010. The work surrounded mainly around 2 items. The first was a rules change that decreased our minimum weight requirement 50 lbs while also allowing us to place our ballast weight more strategically. The second item was a personal commitment to increasing the level of safety in my car. That meant a new wrap-around seat, HANS-specific harnesses, and quick-disconnect steering wheel. A lot of the remaining work went into “while we’re in there” items. I also repainted both sides of the car to create a fresh canvas for my sponsors’ logos. I was out of town for work 5 days a week for the 3 months leading up to the first event, so there is no way I would have completed the car without the help of my Crew Chief, Nate Thulin. Nate was in my garage on many weeknights that I was away and was with me almost every minute that I was working on the car. A huge thanks goes out to him for his hard work and support! Our focus this year is on the NASA SpecE30 National Championship at Mid-Ohio in September, and Nate is as big a part in the effort as I am.

There have been some changes for this season in regards to sponsorship. Scott Barton’s MyTrackSchedule.com and Kevin Kreisa of DTR Performance continue the support they’ve shown me since the beginning and Bimmertools.com continues their support of the past 2 years. New for 2011, though, is an increase in support from Ireland Engineering and a new sponsor, IMGT3 Performance. IMGT3Performance.com is a national online supplier of racing and performance parts, created for customers who seek high quality parts, great customer service, parts delivered on-time, and at the right price. And, of course, for those of you who don’t know, Anthony Magagnoli Racing is “officially official”, providing professional driver coaching and race vehicle support! Visit www.DriveFasterNow.com for details!

On the weekend of April 1-3, I was coaching for the BMWCCA Club Race School at Mid-Ohio. While this is a great event for advanced drivers and to-be racers to attend, it was also a great opportunity for us to shake down the car. And shake it down, we did… On a cold weekend that had snow, sleet, hail, and rain at different times, we still had ample opportunity to sort out a suspension issue we were having. But, unfortunately, it also revealed another issue. The ignition coil mount broke its spot welds off the wheel well and it fell down while I was on track. It shorted against the exhaust manifold and fried my wire harness. Literally. After working on it all day in the freezing cold, I gave up and sent it to a shop a little over an hour north of the track, where it eventually received a new wire harness.

So, I got the car back on Friday night, as Denny, having just completed the NASA comp school, was nice enough to go pick it up for me while I drove up to the track. Michael Osborne conducted some late-night annual tech inspections and we just had a couple items to attend to in the morning. However, I found that the car wasn’t as ready as I thought. There were several issues related to the work done on the car that I wasn’t expecting.

We had 11 SpecE30’s at our season-opener, which is a new record for the Great Lakes region! I personally recruited a couple of the new guys, so I was happy to see them out there, enjoying the challenge of their first event. My car was sporting its return to the number 007, which had been my number in BMWCCA Club Racing, but it had been owned by another NASA racer until this year.

I managed to qualify the car on pole, but it needed some attention before the race. I worked on getting it ready, while Michael Osborne and company prepared a nice lunch for the group. SpecE30 was the second largest race group, only smaller than SpecMiata, so our starting order was changed so that we were in the first wave of cars, in front of the Miatas. This proved to work out great, as we didn’t have to deal with nearly as much Miata traffic.

When we started the race, I had the inside of the front row, with Michael Osborne to my left. On the start, he had picked the wrong gear, but Rob Gagliardo had gotten a good jump from one row back and we went side-by-side through 7 and 8. From there, though, I pulled ahead and started opening a lead on the field. Within a few laps, I lost sight of those behind me. But, at about mid-race, the engine missed once and I thought to myself that it didn’t sound like something random… And sure enough, it happened again on the next lap. And on the next, and then the engine was cutting out for longer and longer, coming out of every left-hander, as the fuel level went down.

(Tom Hitzeman photo)

The car was fading fast, so I tried to get off-line in the places where the engine would cut out so I didn’t get rear-ended by other cars. I tried to keep my speed up and get to the end. I took the white flag and, as I came around the keyhole and onto the back straight, I looked across to Turn 2 and counted off the SpecE30’s. I accounted for all but Simon Hunter. As I braked at the end of the straight, he appeared in my mirror, quickly making up ground. Each time the engine cut out, he made up several car-lengths. As we came through the carousel and onto the front straight, the car fell on it’s face again and I only tracked-out to mid-track. Simon came flying through the last turn, tracking-out all the way to the right. My engine picked back up, but he had huge closing speed on me as we approached the finish line. I made my one legitimate defensive move, moving to the right side of the track. This caused Simon to check up and dodge me to the left to pull past. We crossed the line side-by-side, but I had just enough to cross the line ONE FOOT ahead of him!

Race 1, from Rob Gagliardo:

NASA Great Lakes - Saturday race

(Tom Hitzeman photo)

A win is a win, but I was obviously having a fuel delivery issue. With the help of some of my competitors, I investigated after the race and found the in-tank pump not to be running. It seemed that the relay may have come loose, so we zip tied the relay down and called it a night. We went to KC’s Steakhouse for a group dinner, which was nice to all get together. A quick visit in to see my friend Loretta turned our 30+ minute wait into less than 5.

Sunday morning’s qualifying session was damp and we only got 4 laps. With that, however, I qualified on pole, 5 seconds faster than the next closest car! The 007 seemed to be running just fine, as well. We had a long break until the race, so I took the opportunity to do some work on the car and then have another lunch with the group, provided by the Osborne crew.

(Aaron Eberle photo)

At the start of the second race, I had Richard Bratton to my left, with Michael Osborne and Denny Barker behind us. Michael got a good launch, splitting Richard and I on the back straight and leading us through Turn 7 and over “Madness”. Giving chase, I resumed the lead with a pass going into Turn 14 (“the fast left”). With the 10 other SpecE30’s in my mirror, I focused on putting a gap between us. On the next lap around, though, the car made its first fateful stutter… I shook my head in frustration, as I knew that there would be no way that I could pull out enough of a lead over the next couple laps to make up for the loss in power that I would soon see. We had obviously not found the root cause of the issue.

(Tom Hitzeman photo)

The engine cut got worse sooner in the race than on Saturday and was the engine was running lean enough to compromise power on every straight-away. Since running lean can destroy an engine, I was short-shifting in an attempt to preserve it. It didn’t take too long for the guys to catch back up as the problem worsened. As each guy caught me, I put up the best fight I could, holding position - or even re-passing - through the turns. When we hit the straights, though, getting out of their way was the only sensible thing to do. I dropped back one or two spots at a time, struggling to get the car to the end. When I finally crossed the finish line, I found myself in a frustrating 7th place out of the 11 cars. It was the knowledge that I could pull away from the field, but being kept back by a mechanical issue, that really upset me. I have 2 more SpecE30 race weekends at Mid-Ohio (July and August) before the National Championships. I will be spending more time between now and then coaching there, too, so I plan to have lots of seat time and fully maximize my “home track advantage” in the Nationals.

Race 2, from Rob Gagliardo:

NASA Great Lakes - Sunday race.

A big thanks goes out to my 2011 sponsors: IMGT3 Performance, Ireland Engineering, MyTrackSchedule.com, DTR Performance, and Bimmertools.com!

(Aaron Eberle photo)

Putnam Park - NASA Spec E30

2010-10-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

I came to Putnam Park a bit nervous. Not because I was feeling pressure to place well, but because I had pressure to just FINISH both races. The regional championship came down to this weekend. I was nervous because only part of this was in my control. I felt confident that I could keep the car on the track, but a mechanical issue or a rogue SpecPiñata could easily take the championship out of my hands.

Pre-race, I made sure the car had enough tire and brake and ensured that nothing weird was going on. But, the night before I was to head out, I heard a tick in the motor that I didn’t like, so I pulled the valve cover and reset the gaps on the rocker arms. Although I did find a few out of spec, it didn’t seem to have made much difference. However, I gave Nate a good scare when I sent him a picture of the exposed internals of my engine when I was supposed to be getting loaded up! As added precaution, during the races, Nate was stationed in the pit lane with spare tires, duct tape, and zip ties, as well as an assortment of tools; to get me back on track should something go very wrong. Both races would take place on Saturday.

I posted the best times for practice and qualifying, but the car wasn’t feeling particularly good. There was lots of oversteer, making it difficult to drive “flatout”. Yet, it was pushing notably in turns 9-to-10. It was more than a little hairy. We made a small camber adjustment, based on our tire temps, but we didn’t have much time to play with it and had to somewhat wing it.

Sean Louisin giving chase (Alyssa Nolan photo)

I started the race from the pole position, on the inside coming out of turn 10. With radios not working, it was up to me to look for the green flag to drop. I jumped at the same time as Sean Louisin, but he had a slightly higher starting speed, since he had come through the outside of the turn. He was pulling on me, but there was a slow 944 in the left lane and I wasn’t going to be so courteous as to move over and give him the room to complete his pass! So, I lead into turn 1 and stayed in front, despite a lot of lap traffic and a particularly annoying 944. He was fast enough to keep me behind him for several laps, but was also slowing me down enough to allow Louisin to keep me right in his gun sight. He made a couple moves, getting beside me, but I was able to emerge ahead each time. In his final attempt, coming out of turn 8, he pushed wide. He went over the rumble strips, over the access road and, when he hit the grass on the other side, he did his best Dukes of Hazzard impression, launching his car a couple feet into the air. After a hard landing, he was able to continue on at speed and cross the line. For me, I brought the car back cleanly in 1st place, save for a good coating of dust all over the back end. That was one race down; one more to go.

SpecE30 10/9/10 Race 1 - Putnam Park

Coming through the final turn (Alyssa Nolan photo)

It was great to have Alyssa, her parents, and my friend Luke all in attendance. Our future SpecE30 competitor, my buddy Denny, was giving rides in the HPDE sessions to Alyssa’s parents. The track was getting dustier and slicker after every session, as cars would put a wheel (or 4) off the track and kick up a cloud that would eventually settle back on the track. Alyssa’s mom wasn’t even fazed by her 4-off experience!

Nate and Anthony, getting ready to race

In the second race, we started in the same positions as in the first, but my start was no better. I had Louisin pulling me on my left and Richard Bratton III making a surprise attack on the right. We were 3-wide as we entered the braking zone for turn 1. I weighed my options… In the best case scenario, I could win this turn and stay in the lead. In the worst case, we could bang some fenders, get disqualified, and the whole championship is gone. I chose to brake early and let the other two duke it out. I got back by Louisin after turn 2, but Bratton went on to pull out a significant lead, while I had to deal with out-of-class traffic.

Out-of-class competitor (Alyssa Nolan photo)

Once I got through the bulk of the traffic, I set my sights on the fish tank in the distance, 9 seconds ahead of me (Bratton’s car has a vinyl wrap to look like a fish tank). There was an E36 M3, running in PTB, that was making my quest difficult, though. He would rocket down the straight, but held me up through the rest of the course. He got the picture when he passed me late on the front straight, only to have me re-pass him in turn 2, with my inside tires in the grass. He backed off and only passed me in the following laps if he could get by early down the straight. We eventually made our way up to Bratton and I regained the lead by taking him on the inside of turn 8. He remained close behind as the M3 more or less tried not to interfere. Bratton made his last ditch effort going into turn 7, but pushed 4-off into the dirt. The funny thing is that he didn’t seem to lose any speed at all and I’m sure he never came off full-throttle. I came across the finish line to win the second race and secure the Great Lakes SpecE30 Regional Championship!

SpecE30 10/9/10 Race 2 - Putnam Park (Championship Race)

Great Lakes Region’s 2010 SpecE30 Champion (Alyssa Nolan photo)

After having suffered heart-breaks and learning-the-hard-way in the last 3 seasons of running BMWCCA K-Prepared, then SpecE30, I am thrilled to have finally put a championship together. These things rarely happen by accident, though, and I had great support from Nate Thulin throughout the season to make it a reality. He has pushed me to continue to develop the car and not to let it sit idle, just because it’s a “spec” class. We’ve learned a lot about it and made improvements. These resulted in 9 1st place finishes, 1 2nd place finish, 8 pole-positions, and 0 DNF’s this year. I’m really looking forward to next season, when we can do some real testing and tuning to get the car, and myself, ready for the NASA National Championships, which will return to Mid-Ohio in 2011!

Thank you to Alyssa and Nate for all the support AND all the pictures!

A big thanks goes out to my 2010 sponsors: MyTrackSchedule.com, Ireland Engineering, DTR Performance, Bimmertools.com, Enthusiast Auto, and FASTtech Limited!

Autobahn Country Club - NASA Spec E30

2010-09-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

Well, Autobahn has come and gone and I'm happy to report that I and the car made it through unscathed. It was rather worrisome in the week prior, as I had both oil and water leaking from the engine, as well as transmission fluid from the tranny. I got the water leak fixed (thanks to new silcone hoses from Ireland Engineering), but the trans and motor are still leaking. We kept an eye on the trans fluid level through the weekend and refilled it at one point, while the oil level remained good, so that seems to not be any cause for worry right now.

Anthony and Nate, ready for Race 1

Autobahn is a motorsports country club and it was certainly a nice place to be. There was lots of high-end machinery to look at and listen to, as many well-heeled individuals from the Chicago area have their cars tended to by one of the several professional motorsports companies based there at the track. I was the only SpecE30 racing this weekend, as I was there to gain the points I need to compete for the Great Lakes Regional Championship. Howerver, I found some GTS1 guys to play with when they weren't battling each other. We're still working with the car setup and I feel that we learned a couple things this weekend to improve the setup, so that's good. Nate has really helped to keep me motivated on improving the car and not just accepting for it to be “good enough”. We were trying a new feature on the car that we’ve been working on for several weeks. We found that it worked, but now we’re doing some more tuning to re-balance the suspension. The rules don’t allow for much adjustment, so we have to be creative.

A little dirty, thanks to a 944 and a convenient mud hole.

As for the racing, Saturday was wet in the morning, so I still didn't know how fast I could go when the race came and it was dry. It would figure that a GTS1 car splattered the entire front of my car with mud on the 2nd lap, reducing visability dramatically. I still drove on through the race, even though I only TECHNICALLY needed to take the green flag in each race.

SpecE30 9/11/10 Race 1 - Autobahn CC South Course

In Sunday's race, I had a great back-and-forth with a GTS1 944 for the second half of the race. He almost had 2 bad crashes (both caught on my carmera!), but managed to save it both times without taking anyone else out. It was a lot of fun. He had a lot more mechanical grip than I did, similar power (I might've had the edge there), but I was able to just out drive him in the fast corners. He did manage to put together a lap that was a second faster than my fastest, but I beat him across the finish line. Lots of fun!

SpecE30 9/12/10 Race 2 - Autobahn CC South Course

Having won 7 of the 8 races I’ve run this year, I am in contention for the Regional Championship, contingent on a couple things… See, the points from our 10 best finishes count toward the season points and there are 2 races to go. At the season finale at Putnam Park in October, I need to finish both races AND average 5th place or better in order to get the points that I need. While that sounds easy enough, I've had enough bad experiences to realize that it's not over 'till it's over! So, at this point, I’ll be focusing on preparing the car, staying out of trouble, and being there at the end.

Thank you to Alyssa and Nate for the support AND all the pictures!

A big thanks goes out to my sponsors: MyTrackSchedule.com, Ireland Engineering, DTR Performance, Bimmertools.com, Enthusiast Auto, and FASTtech Limited!

Mid Ohio NASA Spec E30

2010-07-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

It’s been a few months since I’ve issued a SpecE30 write-up, as I had to miss a race at Putnam due to a wedding and BeaveRun due to work getting crazy. I attended the July race at Mid-Ohio, but didn’t get the chance to write it up. The car was handling poorly, as it didn’t have nearly enough camber in the left-front wheel. The max that I could adjust to was -2.7 and I really needed as close to -3.5 as possible. I felt like I was parking the car in the right-hand turns. Regardless, I was still able to win both races. In the first, I made my way through traffic to pull a lead and was able to stay in front. In the second, there was much more excitement, as I had Michael Osborne on my tail the whole time. We repeatedly went through Turns 7 and 8 side-by-side, but I was able to pull back in front by Turn 9 each time. Unfortunately, the memory card that the video was on was left on top of the car as we pulled away and lost…

Part 1: SE30 Mid Ohio Magagnoli Qualified & Finished P1

Spec E30 Saturday Part 2 of 2

Fighting off Michael Osborne through Turn 7

There were only 3 weeks before I’d return to Mid-Ohio for the August race and it was shaping up to be a big race. Last year’s regional champion, Simon Hunter, has taken the year off due to his wife having twins, but he would be in attendance. The total number of SpecE30 racers was going to be the largest that our growing region has seen, at 9 starters. So, I knew I had some work to do to get more negative camber in the left-front, as well as address a significant oil leak that was rapidly getting worse. It came down to the week before the race and I had my good friends step up to get the car done. Kevin Kreisa, of DTR Performance, swapped in a new head gasket and Dwayne Beatty, at Joseph Cadillac (of all places) got the camber I needed to compete (I’m not going into detail on that). The car was finally loaded up at 3am Friday morning and I set out after work with my girlfriend Alyssa riding shotgun.

We setup our paddock area near the other SpecE30’s on Friday night, so we were ready to go in the morning. Saturday’s morning practice session went well, with the car feeling much better. Alyssa and my new friend/co-worker DJ were gathering tire temperature and pressure data to get a read on how the new suspension setup was doing. I posted the fastest practice time, but that didn’t mean much. We went into qualifying and I dropped about 0.6 seconds off, which I felt good about. However, Simon edged me out by a couple tenths, and Sean Louisin came from behind to qualify on pole, a half second ahead of me! I was hoping I’d be able to find the speed I needed in the race.

The rain started coming while the other race group was out, about an hour before our race. It was light at first, but then quickly intensified. I strapped down my new canopy to a trailer and the wheels on my car, and jumped back into the truck. It was pouring like I hadn’t seen before, with strong winds sending the rain sideways. I parked the truck in front of my car, waiting for things to die down. 5 minutes after the rain had started, there was a pool forming around my car, and I suddenly realized that the low, flat area I paddocked in may not have been such a good idea. 2 minutes later, my other set of wheels and tires were floating away, now going under the truck, as the water level rose above my car’s lower valence. Another 2 minutes and it was at the door sill. This is when I took off my shoes and socks and, with the other SpecE30 racers rallying to help, dove in to rescue the car. We got the now-bent-in-half canopy stripped away and attached a tow strap to the truck’s hitch and the car’s tow strap. I pulled it out while someone steered it toward higher ground. I pulled the drain plugs out of the floor and let the 5” of water drain out. My helmet had been on the floor, so it was completely drenched. As the rain subsided, we found that the track had lost power and the front straight had been struck by lightning! My friend Denny (soon-to-be SpecE30 racer) was even zapped by it in the pits! The race was postponed until the following morning, set to replace our Sunday practice session at 8am.

It got a little wet...

I ran a hair drier inside of my helmet for a few hours overnight to dry it out and wished the best for my car. Fortunately, it started right up in the morning. It spat some water out the tailpipe, but all was ok, aside from a layer of silt all over the floor pan. The track was still damp, but we all ran our dry tires since there was no standing water and the rain had passed. On the 2 pace laps, I tried to feel out the track the best I could. Each turn was different, with some having plenty of grip on the dry line (Keyhole, 7, 8, 9, Carousel), while others were still like ice on the sealant (1, 10a, 11, 13). I basically laid out where I needed to leave some extra safety margin and where I could really push it.

DJ and Alyssa were on the radio, watching the starter on the back straight for me. I heard the “Green! Green! Green! Green! Green!” while we were still in the Keyhole. Sean got the same jump as me, while Simon was taking a snooze (no radio). We drove into the mist cloud from the SpecMiatas and GTS cars ahead of us as I followed Sean down the straight. I went to the inside through the kink and we were side-by-side through 7. As we went over Madness, I pulled ahead and started focused on getting through traffic. The race only lasted 7 laps, but I saw more than that many cars go off, spin, or hit each other (or a wall) during that time. In fact, our own SpecE30 racer, Kevin Sweeney, spun over T11 (into Thunder Valley) and broad-sided the tires on the inside wall. I lost sight of the SpecE30’s, aside from when I was headed down the back straight and could see a couple between T1 and the Keyhole, and just kept pushing my way through traffic, keeping enough in reserve so as to stay clean.

While negotiating the excitement around me, I had managed to pull out a 38 second lead by the time I crossed the finish line and my fastest lap was 9 seconds faster than the next closest SpecE30. Sean Louisin came in 2nd and congratulations to rookie Cameron Bullard for posting his first podium finish by taking the 3rd spot!

SpecE30 8/15/10 Race 1 - Mid-Ohio Pro Course

Sean Louisin, “Trophy Girl”, Anthony Magagnoli, Cameron

Later in the morning, we held our qualifying session for the 2nd race. I came in only 0.13 sec ahead of Simon, but it was enough to earn the pole position. As it warmed up in the afternoon, we started the guessing game as to how much pressure to drop out of the tires. I made my judgment based on the data I had and went to grid. I had bottles of ice water packed in my driving suit, trying to keep my core temperature down while sitting on grid. A cool-shirt system might be on the list of winter projects.

Starting to the inside of Simon on the back straight, I dragged the brake while holding the throttle wide-open, waiting for the green. We jumped at the same time, but he pulled completely ahead of me by the time we reached the end of the straight. I thought that my brakes must have been dragging, or something, as this was the first time I had started that way. It wasn’t until I watched Simon’s in-car video that I realized how he found so much power on the start. While the rest of us started in 3rd gear, he had started in 2nd. Despite having to up-shift very quickly, he had gained more acceleration in 2nd gear than he lost during the time he spent shifting.

As we hit traffic, I gained back my position and did my best to put a car or two between us. Our cars are similarly matched to some of the GTS1 cars and there are always SpecMiatas around to annoy us, so we both had our work cut out for us. I had managed to put the GTS1 E30 of Kevin Gibson behind me and was working through traffic. Simon became irritated with an overly-defensive SpecMiata and made an overly-aggressive move on the back straight. As he pulled ahead of the Miata, he cut back to the inside, trying to solidify his pass, but braked far later than the car could manage. He braked down to the apex, but found Gibson right there in his path, and hit him hard, sending them both off the outside of T7.

Hunter and Gibson, coming to a rest

A lap later, there was a spin in Thunder Valley, which sent cars scattering, and Kevin Sweeney did all he could to dodge the carnage. While he missed the other cars, he was collected by the same tire wall that he hit in the morning, but this time the impact sent the car up on its roof, as he rolled over the tops of the a-pillars, and landed back on his wheels. This stopped the race and brought all the cars back into the pits. Once they got Kevin checked out and his car off the track, we resumed for a NASCAR-style Green, White, Checker. With Michael Osborne being the next SpecE30 behind me, I set to work when the green flag flew and got by another couple cars. While he did so, as well, I was able to hold onto the lead and cross the line in 1st.

SpecE30 8/15/10 Race 2 - Mid-Ohio Pro Course

The win was somewhat overshadowed by the carnage that one of our fellow SpecE30 racers incurred. Thankfully, he was physically, and even emotionally, fine, but the car will take some extensive work to repair.

Need to look closely to see that it rolled

Having won 5 of the 6 races I’ve run this year, I will be in the running for the Regional Championship, contingent on a couple things… I am currently the only one signed up for Autobahn in September and I must finish both those races. Then, at the season finale at Putnam Park in October, I need to finish both races, and average 5th place or better. So, at this point, I’ll be focusing on staying out of trouble and being there at the end.

Thank you to Alyssa (for the support AND all the pictures!), DJ, Denny, and Kohler for all your help this weekend!

A big thanks goes out to my sponsors: DTRPerformance.com, MyTrackSchedule.com, Bimmertools.com, and EnthusiastAuto.com!

Survival of the Fastest

2010-07-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

Anthony Magagnoli and Kevin Kreisa's DTR / Street Survival One Lap of America effort was highlighted in a 9-page spread in the July 2010 issue of Roundel! Roundel is the official magazine of the BMWCCA and reaches over 72,000 members each month. Click here to see the article.

One Lap of America Racing Videos

2010-05-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

The videos from the 2010 One Lap of America events are finally uploaded. The articles have also been updated with the videos, but you can just watch them all here:

View Video Album on Vimeo

You can check out all of the One Lap Videos, Pictures, and Story at www.DTROneLap.com.

One Lap of America Round 10 - Tire Rack Dry(ish) Skid Pad

2010-05-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

Coming into the last event, we were sitting in 5th overall, with the 997 Turbo in front of us and the GT3 RS behind us. We were not expecting a very good skidpad performance, if using our wet skidpad result (53rd) as any indication. We got to the Tire Rack early and got the car emptied out before taking it to a parking lot to test the balance. It was cold and cloudy, but dry. While it was oversteering at first, if I could manage to get the rear tires just a bit warmed, it was neutral to just a slight push. I decided that we couldn’t improve on this balance and I would just need to try to get some heat in the rear tires before the run, so I headed back. No sooner did I shut off the car than it began to downpour. Kevin and I threw everything in the trunk that we didn’t want to get wet and jumped in the car, soaked.

With the wet conditions, we figured we were screwed. Before the skidpad event, though, we had to line up for our group photo. They lined up the top 6 in front, which was an amusing sight: Porsche 911 GT3 RS, Porsche 911 Turbo, Corvette C6 Z06, Nissan GT-R, Porsche 911 GT2, and a 1990 BMW 325is.

It had stopped raining, but was still wet. This was when we started to hear grumblings of some very good news. It seemed that they were going to grid the cars in reverse order. This meant that, instead of running 7th, we would run 7th from last, so all the previous cars would surely dry out the track!

When it came show time, I gave it all I had in the skidpad, lighting up the rear tires before the run and scrubbing back and forth on my way in. I stayed tight and held the car on the limit, never letting it waver more than 3' from the cones, but trying to keep it within 1'. I was so focused on such a fine edge that I wouldn’t even take a full breath, for fear that it would upset my hand inputs! I did my 2 laps, turned around, did 2 more in the same way, and pulled off. It was good for .995 AVERAGE G, in sub-40 degree weather. It was also good for 7th overall. It sounded like we wouldn't lose a position after all!

When it was all over, we had the opportunity to be turned loose on the skidpad for some exhibition. Kevin had the car half-packed, but we emptied it back out so I could go put on a smoke show. Despite forgetting to engage the high-boost power mode, I had no trouble lighting up those big Michelins and putting on a pretty good drift show!

We headed inside for the reception and I was excited to see that Brock Yates Sr. was in attendance. I managed to get a few autographs from him before we sat down for lunch. When it came time for awards, we did better than we could have fathomed...

4th Place OVERALL
1st in Class - SS GT2 Small Bore
BMW Marque Award - Highest Finishing BMW
Rookies of the Year

We were just simply astounded! By the time we got to the Rookies of the Year award, Kevin and I welled up a little. We just couldn’t believe it. I dedicated that award, as well as our tactically acquired traffic cone, to Glenn Dodd and all the other One Lap veterans who had come before us.

We headed back home to real life, but it may never be the same. This may very likely become an annual event for us! I’m glad to have these recaps and plenty of pictures and video to reflect on, but I’m also writing the article for Roundel (the magazine of the BMWCCA). Look for it in the July issue!

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS SUPPORTED US AND STREET SURVIVAL IN THE 2010 ONE LAP OF AMERICA!!

A special Thank You to our sponsors: Michelin Tires, Ireland Engineering, MyTrackSchedule.com, Extrudabody, Clutch Masters, 034 Motorsport, BimmerTools.com, APR Performance, Forgeline Wheels, DTM Fiberwerkz, Cometic Gaskets, FastTech Limited, Lamin-X, MyTrackCam.com.

-Anthony Magagnoli
-Kevin Kreisa

One Lap of America Round 9 - Nelson Ledges

2010-05-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

I warned Kevin that Nelson Ledges would not be as nice as the other tracks we had been to. Especially in comparison to the country club-esque NJMP! He complained about not having asphalt to jack the car up on, but he got over it. Nelson Ledges is a dilapidated old track with a rough, bumpy surface and no more amenities than your average camp site. But, man is it fun!

In my first run, I quickly noted that our car did NOT like all the bumps. They were causing the rear tires to rub the inner fenders quite hard and it was difficult to put the power down. The rear end was jittery and it was hard to gauge braking points since the bumps would sometimes cause the ABS to engage more and affect braking distance. My other difficulty was the Carousel. I would claim this turn to be one of the most difficult turns that I’ve ever encountered. Within this one turn, you have to transition from full throttle, to braking, to full throttle again, all while also altering the line to hit the late apex. Having never gone into the Carousel with anywhere near the speed at which I could with this E30 and no room to straight-line brake, I was conservative. I put together a clean, albeit bouncy run, with a best lap of a 1:13.2. It was good enough for 4th overall!

When I got back to the paddock, I was cooling off while Kevin checked over the car. I turned around to see something unexpected, but not necessarily surprising… My parents were walking my way! They had driven 4 hours down from Rochester, NY to see us run! They knew how important this event was to me, but I didn’t expect for them to make the trip. It really meant a lot to me that they came. I showed them the car and we walked the paddock, talking with other One Lappers and looking at the cars. It was nice to have them, as well as my friends Denny and Tim, on hand with Kevin to cheer us on!

Later in the morning session, there was a bit of unexpected excitement, as one of the Mustangs caught fire. It had blown its engine and then had a small oil fire underneath it. Fortunately, the driver was fine and the car is salvageable.

I geared up for my afternoon run and headed out. On my first lap, I carried good speed out of Turn 2 and the bumps in the braking zone sent the ABS into hold-mode, which almost sent me off the track. I managed to make the banked Oak Tree turn, but only just. While I didn’t have any other mishaps, I wasn’t pushing quite as hard through the 120mph kink because the huge bumps were causing the tires to rub so hard. I was actually a little slower in that session, coming in at 7th overall. We were 5th overall in points heading into the last event… the dry skidpad at the Tire Rack.

My parents headed out while we were packing up. When we were done, we met up with a bunch of people at a bar on the south side of the Cleveland, on our way to the Tire Rack. We did the same that night in South Bend, as the sessions at the big tracks were over and people were cutting loose. In between, though, Kevin and I had extensive discussions about our setup for the dry skidpad. If we didn’t do well, we would drop out of the Top 5. We ultimately decided to try our dry race setup, which had been fine-tuned earlier in the week. I would try it in a parking lot and determine if we needed any further adjustment or not.

One Lap of America Round 8 - NJMP

2010-05-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

I had come to NJMP a few weeks prior to instruct for a NASA/PDA driving school with Scott Barton from MyTrackSchedule.com, using his Porsche 911 and Mini Cooper S so that I could learn the track. I had found it very easy to pick up, but there were 3 tricks that I thought I could use to my advantage. Knowing how fast the blind Turn 1 is, the line over the blind Turn 5, and the line in the Light bulb turn that leads onto the front straight.

Scott met us in the morning as we were getting unloaded and ready. With our morning procedure becoming pretty well defined, things went smoothly and I got ready to go. The Corvette ZR-1 of Ron and Patrick Adee was back from its mid-week hiatus to rejoin us at NJMP. They resumed their position in the first run group and I led the second run group. I was glad I didn’t go out in the first group, because I could see them all kicking up a cloud of dust as they drove around. Either dust or pollen was all over the track and I was more than willing to let them clear the racing line.

The Lightning track was a lot of fun and our car handled it very well. It seemed to be doing everything right. I did a 1:13.4 and my total time was good for 4th overall, only 0.17 seconds off that of the ZR-1!

We got some lunch at the Wawa in town (they really need to have these throughout the rest of the country!) and relaxed at the track for a bit. NJMP is a nice place to do that because it’s all shiny and new, made to look like an old Air Force base. In fact, there is a municipal airport right next door that was used as the first defensive air base in America. The grounds vehicles are even green Jeep Wranglers, decaled up like MP's (Motorsports Patrol)!

In my afternoon run, I pushed harder in a couple braking zones (before the blind Turn 5 and into the Light bulb) and carried a bit more speed out of the Light bulb so that I was actually coming out in 4th gear, rather than up-shifting on, or before, track-out. The results were good enough to drop 2 seconds off my total time, but not enough to best the ZR-1. Or the Z06, for that matter, since Danny Popp had returned to the wheel. I ended up with 5th place in the afternoon, but the day’s results had moved us up to 5th overall!

I found that, despite knowing the track, my times behind the wheel were intensifying. Maybe it was precisely because I DID know the track, and was therefore pushing the limits a bit more. Whatever the reason, I was in need of some decompression after my 2nd run. I walked off for a half-hour to just watch some of the other cars by myself.

Upon my return, I helped Kevin and Scott finish packing before we then returned to our suite so that Kevin could change some driveline fluids before we continued. While they were doing that, I took care of some sponsorship business and reviewed the in-car video. We both grabbed showers before hitting the road. I have to thank Scott of MyTrackSchedule.com for the hundredth time for providing the suite!

Due to conducting the maintenance on the car, were departed late enough to encounter plenty of rush hour traffic in Jersey before finally getting out. With warm temperatures, no A/C, rough roads, and idiotic drivers, we couldn’t escape fast enough. The mountains in Pennsylvania were a nice change, but we had gotten to the point of simply wanting to get to Ohio. While we had plans to stay with our friend, Tim Smith, we opted for a cheap hotel rather than the extra hour of round trip driving to his house and then Nelson Ledges in the morning.

One Lap of America Round 7- Mid Ohio

2010-05-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

We stayed at friends’ Andy and Sandy Welter’s house on Tuesday night and were just amazed by their hospitality. They had DTR One Lap of America signs on their mailbox so it was easy to find them and they even had a garage space available for us! After getting a good night’s sleep and some morning refreshments, we headed out to Mid-Ohio. Andy is an amateur photographer who has provided many pictures to Roundel in the past. Since I’m writing the One Lap article for Roundel, I had asked Andy if he would like to provide some pictures. He had enthusiastically agreed and he Sandy met up with us at the track. They both kept busy all day, getting as many angles as they could, which was difficult when we were only out there for 3 laps at a time!

I had been thinking about what to do with our traffic cone and came to a decision. After our drivers’ meeting, I requested the megaphone from Brock. I asked all the One Lap participants to sign the cone and we would give it to Glen Dodd. They must have approved, because they responded with a round of applause and people immediately came over to our garage to start signing. I don’t know Glen personally, but he has competed in 21 One Lap competitions, in many eccentric cars. Earlier this year, he fell off the roof of his hot rod shop and, in his words, "should have died." He didn’t compete this year, but his long-time co-driver had picked him up in South Carolina and brought him to the driver’s meeting at the Tire Rack on Friday for the start of the 2010 One Lap. I thought that the cone would be an appropriate gesture to someone who had obviously been a staple in the One Lap community, tactically acquired and given with respect by a couple of One Lap Pups.

In the morning session, we ran the Club Course, which utilizes the chicane between Turn 1 and the Keyhole. We had done all our testing at Mid-Ohio in this configuration but, since then, we felt that we had significantly improved the chassis setup and brakes, so I was eager to see what we could do. Our previous best lap time was 1:41.7.

With familiarity on my side, I was able to hit the track hard right from the start. The car was working well, aside from our continually slipping differential. I felt much better about the chassis balance and finally had a confidence-inspiring brake pedal. Getting the car turned-in, especially for Thunder Valley, was much improved. I was rather proud that I was able to identify the needs of the car and work with Kevin to make the required changes. The car has come a long way since our first track test! I pulled off a 1:40.1 lap and my cumulative 3 laps was good enough for our best finish thus far, 3rd overall!!

We were hugely pleased with the morning performance and, as much as we would’ve liked to repeat it, I knew that Danny Popp would be driving the Z06 in the afternoon. Car owner, Todd Rumpke, had run in the morning, but Danny is consistently quicker. One thing to note was the individual lap time of the morning’s overall winner, Leh Keen. Leh is a professional racer, running in a modified ’03 Porsche GT2. He ran a 1:35 on the Club Course. It simply amazes me that a car can do that on street tires!

I had felt a brake vibration when I was on course and when we took a look at the rotors we found that I had cracked both the front rotors. We had spare old rotors, so we swapped them on, but made an emergency call to our sponsor, Ireland Engineering. Jeff Ireland came through for us, sending out a set of rotor rings via overnight delivery to NJMP so that we could swap them on later.

Running on the Pro Course, the chicane was eliminated and created a heavy braking zone into the Keyhole and drops a couple seconds off the lap times. I drove basically the same as in the morning, but a touch harder. As the ambient temps went up, our pressure gains did slightly, as well. The front tires got greasy as the pressures got a little too high. It didn’t change the outcome, but was good data for us. Overall, though, I was still pleased. With that performance, we came in 4th overall and moved up to 6th in the overall points standings!

We got packed up and headed out on the long leg to NJ. It was a rather annoying drive, as the roads were bad and traffic worse, especially the closer we got. When we finally arrived, though, we were glad to have a suite directly on the grounds at NJ Motorsports Park. Our good friend and sponsor, Scott Barton of MyTrackSchedule.com, had graciously donated our night’s stay! We parked in the garage below and headed to bed.

One Lap of America Round 6 - Gateway

2010-05-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

With such a late departure from Tulsa, we didn't pass the St. Louis Arch until the AM hours, so we would only get about 4 or 5 hours of sleep. On the way to the track, I repeated my routine of reviewing video and the track map. Gateway is what’s commonly referred to as a “roval”. Or, a high-speed oval with an infield road course. I borrowed a bike from fellow competitor, Dan Corcoran, and took a ride around the track, slightly slower than full speed. The infield looked nice and flowing, but the transition from the banking to the straight and the straight to the infield were somewhat unknown.

In my morning run, I felt out the course, trying to find my turn-in for the long sweeper in the infield. The rest of the course came pretty naturally, but the start line was on the straight of the oval, so the first time I would go through Turn 1 into the infield, would be on my start lap. Eric VanCleef started in front of me in the Subaru STi. He made a hard, smoky launch, which I would later find had broken his LR axle. From a standing start, it wasn’t a problem to get through Turn 1 for me. As I approached Turns 3 and 4, I saw the spectators waving their hands at me. I breathed off the throttle for just a split second as I turned my eyes back down the track, but could not see any obstacle. I stayed in it as I saw a yellow flag ahead. I was able to spot the Subaru off the track to the left and, since it wasn’t in my way, didn’t slow in the slightest. I did, however, feel very bad for Eric, thinking at that time that he may have had an impact.

The car was a bit loose in the last turn leading onto the oval, but it was controllable. Accelerating toward the banked NASCAR turn, I short-shifted by a few hundred rpm into 4th gear so that I wouldn’t have to up-shift in the turn. I could definitely feel the rear wing doing its job through the banking, as the car transitioned to a push in the ~110 mph turn. The car pulled to about 140mph before slowing it for Turn 1. The transition was awkward and tossed the car around. I had opted to over-brake before the turn and coast, or even accelerate slightly, through the turn in the name of safety for my first time by. I repeated my laps, tweaking my line in the banked turn and backing up my braking points a bit, bringing it home cleanly. With the Subaru broken, it turned out to be good enough for a 5th place finish.

In the afternoon run, I pushed a bit harder. I attacked the infield harder, floating corner to corner, even nicking the monstrous curbs a bit. I carried more speed through Turn 1, delaying more braking and my downshift to 3rd until before Turn 2. On my first time through, I trailed a bit too much brake into Turn 2, and the car went into a big slide. I held onto the drift like Initial D and came out with as much speed as I could, but that certainly isn’t the fast way around a turn. Worse yet, I don’t think there were even any cameras focused on that corner! I had been finding the car to be a bit loose on the first lap of each session, so this shouldn’t have surprised me. I finished off my run to repeat my 5th place morning performance and advance to 8th overall!

On our way to Mid-Ohio, we were caravanning with Neil Simon / Woody Hair and Robin Sparrow / Brian Hair as we passed through a construction zone. I thought it would be funny to pick up a construction cone and carry it for a while, so I asked Kevin to pull close enough so I could nab one at 30mph. I pulled my hand back at the last moment, realizing how much that was about to hurt. But then I found my chance when he slowed down. At 10-15 mph, I grabbed one and just carried it alongside the car for a while. When we neared the actual construction, I considered the possibility that they may not be amused by my shenanigans, so I pulled the cone into the car. Once the road opened up, I put my arm in the cone and stuck it out the window as we pulled up on Robin and Brian. They looked over and started cracking up. I decided that I needed to do SOMETHING with this cone, so I started taking sneaky photos of the cone on everyone’s cars while I figured it out. It’s a pain to have the cone between my legs in the car for the remainder of the street miles, but we needed to entertain ourselves!

One Lap of America Round 5 - Tulsa Raceway Park Drag Racing

2010-05-03T23:35:00.000-07:00

Tulsa Raceway was about an hour from Hallett and this was the only day that had 2 events in the same day. Since we were running in the early run group at Hallett, we got there with plenty of time to come up with a strategy. There were going to be 2 different events. The first was a "low ET" competition for full points, just like any of the other events, where lowest time down the 1/4 mile stip would win.

The second would be a bracket race, where, based on your first run, you "dial in" how fast you think you will run and then you need to come closer to your time than the guy next to you, without going faster, or "breaking out". If the slower car dialed in 15 seconds in the 1/4 mile and the faster car claimed 13 seconds, then the slower car would be given the green light 2 seconds before the faster car. The idea is that both cars should cross the finish line at the exact same time. But, since man and machine are not perfect, it is a challenge that awards consistency over outright speed. Considering that I can count on one hand how many times I’ve drag raced, and the fact that I’ve never launched our car the same way twice (let alone even tried to do a drag racing launch with it), we were fully expecting to be knocked out in the first round of the bracket. Are you as confused as I was? Since I didn’t know what was going on, I decided to intimidate my competition by quoting lines from The Fast and the Furious. "I live my life one 1/4 mile at a time!" LOL!

The Low ET (elapsed time) competition was up first. Kevin coached me on a launch strategy for the car. The nature of his car being turbo-charged and having an extremely aggressive clutch would make this extremely difficult. He and I regularly stall the car when driving it around and I was just hoping not to do so at the start line! On the subject of the turbo, it makes immense power, but only under load and above a certain rpm. The tires cannot hold down the power in 2nd gear unless very warm, let alone 1st gear, so the launch will typically result in 1 of 2 things: A) "bogging" the motor, meaning that the clutch engages and the tires don’t slip much, so the engine rpms are below where the turbo makes power, resulting in a slow start. Or B) obliterating the tires. The engine is in boost and the tires are broken loose, but we just sit there spinning them instead of getting traction to move forward. It is almost impossible (at least for me) to find that perfect in-between. Kevin’s strategy was to hold the brake on with the ball of my right foot, bring the revs up to our powerband for the turbo, and bring the clutch out so it was slipping a bit, building turbo boost and priming the drivetrain, so as to not shock it with a sudden torque spike.

In the actual drag race, the launch would have gone great, but there was a ton of traction compound laid down and there was just immense grip. The motor bogged and so my launch wasn't good, but the traction was unbelievable. As the new Camaro SS next to me pulled ahead on the launch, my 315/30/18 Michelin PS2’s actually held 1st gear and the forward propulsion pinned me to my seat unlike ever before. I grabbed 2nd gear and by the time I hit 3rd, I had the Camaro sucking down my exhaust. I pulled several more car-lengths before crossing the line at a 12.62 seconds at 119 mph. Kevin wasn’t particularly pleased with the number, as low 12’s should be easily achievable, but was understanding of how difficult the car was to launch. While the car is one of the quicker cars in the competition his time was only good for 14th position overall, so not great, but not terrible. There was a new One Lap record set that day, by the stock Porsche 997 twin turbo. That car has all-wheel drive, a rear weight bias, launch control, and an automatic transmission. The result was simply unbelievable, at a 10.90. This was an utterly stock car.

In the bracket race, we "dialed in" a 12.4, in case I got a decent launch and went faster. I actually got a great launch on my first bracket run and stayed in it until I could see that I was ahead of the other car. Once I knew I had him beat to the finish line, I backed out of the gas to make sure I didn’t beat my dial-in time. So, possibly by a stroke of luck, we weren’t kicked out in the first round of the bracket. So half the field got to pack up and get going, while we stuck around to play for another round. This went on a few times and we eventually found ourselves in the Top 8, tieing for 4th place before finally being kicked out. Considering that we were expecting this to be a throw-away event, these were some awfully nice bonus points! We gained a spot in the overall rankings up to 9th and furher solidified our lead in class. This was at the expense of a reasonable departure time, though. We got packed up, though, and headed on to St. Louis.

One Lap of America Round 4 - Hallet

2010-05-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

I had been duely warned that Hallett was a highly technical, but very fun track. As I had done the previous morning, armed with in-car video and a track map, I prepared myself for my run. I had a good idea of where the track went and a general line though it, but driving it quickly was another story. There was an extremely sharp turn at the end of the main straight, some long decreasing radii turns, and a blind uphill left-hander know as "the bitch".

In the morning, in an effort to improve our front grip and maximize the contact patch, Kevin added camber to the front suspension and then a little bit of angle to the rear wing. In my recon lap, I got an idea for just how fast turn 1 was, how tight turn 2 was, and started picking my line through the others. “The bitch” seemed fun, actually. That is, until the next time around. On my first hot lap, I came up the blind, uphill left-hander with some false measure of confidence. When I crested the hill, I found myself traveling ~80, but the road went to the right and I was a few degrees off to the left. This took away my braking room and, while I made an effort to get turned, there wasn’t any room and I hit the grass at speed. The crowd in the bleachers went silent, aside from a few gasps. With both feet in, the car rotated around and I allowed it to go backwards, then straightened it up and braced for impact… The car came to a stop, positioned directly between 2 tire barriers, a matter of feet from them. The spectators cheered as I got rolling again. I watched the 997 turbo come over the bitch and then pulled back on track behind him to finish my run.

I met a very nervous Kevin back in the pits and explained what had happened. He looked over the car while I reflected on my mistake. I wasn’t taking it lightly. Primarily because of the near catastrophe, but also because I had compromised our finish by spending time in the grass, rather than on the track. Unfortunately, my video camera didn’t work, so I walked up to the bleachers near the bitch and just asked loudly if anyone had caught the spin on video. I found someone with the video and got it downloaded. While it looked graceful, it also showed me just how close I had gotten to the tire wall. I had a lot of people approaching me and “complimenting” me on a great save (I’m not sure how much I had to do with it) and commenting on the general entertainment of my excursion. We would also later receive a mention in Motor Trend online, although I wish it was for better reasons!

During our lunch break, I expected abysmal results, but it turned out that we had finished in 12th overall. I guess it must have been the fact that I carried so much speed through the grass that I didn’t lose as much as I expected!... Especially when it was factored into the 3-lap cumulative total. Moreover, if there was ever a time for me to have a poor run, it was that one, because the 1st-in-class GTI had had a fuel issue, leaving them limping around the track, and finishing last. This immediately launched us into 1st-in-class and up to 10th place in the overall standings!!

Feeling slightly better about things, I geared up for the afternoon run, determined to run cleanly (first priority) and quickly (always a priority!). The car had been a bit loose and unruly in the morning session, so I asked Kevin to stiffen the front sway bar another notch to see if we could improve the balance. I should remind you that we had significantly upped the rear spring rate between our last test and the One Lap, so, unfortunately, we had to tweak along the way. The afternoon session went great, with the chassis balance finally feeling really good. I was even getting to quite enjoy the track!

When the results came out, we found that we had run 6th overall! We were now securing our lead in class, even with the GTI fixed and back in the game, and ecstatic to be in the top 10 overall! The Hallett circuit was great to visit and the staff was incredibly friendly. We headed over to Tulsa Raceway for the drag racing event.

One Lap of America Round 3 - Mid America

2010-05-02T19:13:00.000-07:00

Having stayed 2 hours away, in West Des Moines, IA, we had an early start to get to Mid-America Motorplex in the morning. Since we came in 7th in the first event at Road America, we were now running in the 2nd run group, meaning that we had to be there right at the start. With a million other things to do over the last month, I hadn’t gotten around to studying Mid-America. On the drive to the track, I pulled up some video online (thanks to MyTrackSchedule.com for providing in-car wireless internet!) and studied that, along with the track map. It gave me an idea of the shape of the turns and which way the track went.

The weather was clear and sunny, but the track had been rained on, without any rubber laid down following, so it was not the grippiest surface ever. I took my reconnaissance lap and felt it out, though. The track was open and flat, with many quick transitions, a few throw-away turns, all connected by some short bursts of straight-away. In comparison to Road America, this was more akin to a ridiculously fast autocross. Since we had replaced the new brake pads last night, I finally had a confidence-inspiring brake pedal and the car was hauling down nicely.

I was leading group 2, but the driver of the Chariots of Palm Beach Porsche 997 Turbo behind me had been to the track before in a previous One Lap, so I let him lead the group. I started about 20 seconds behind him and ran the course hard in the corners, but I was a little conservative on the first few applications of the new brakes, while working on backing off my braking points later and later. By the end of my 3 laps, I had closed the gap on the 997 to within a few car-lengths. The course was quite fun and my time was good enough for 6th overall!

During the break between sessions, the activity around the DTR / Street Survival E30 had heightened significantly. This was essentially the first time we had pulled the hood off other than to check the oil, so there was a lot of curiosity surrounding just what was powering this boxy coupe. Motor Trend interviewed Kevin and I for both print and video articles and a lot of attendees were taking a peek at Kevin’s handiwork.

In the afternoon, I set out for my second session, this time starting ahead of the 997 Turbo. We had been working on our chassis setup, as we had made a significant spring rate adjustment since our last track test and were trying to tune the balance. The car had been a little squirrley in the morning, so we stiffened the front sway bar a notch to transfer some grip to the rear. It did well in the afternoon, netting us another 6th place finish and bringing us another step closer to the GTI that was leading our class. The only notable thing about the run was almost running off the track AFTER the finish line because I had carried as much speed through it as possible, since I didn’t have to setup for the following turn. A little excitement never hurts, right? So, with the car performing well, we set out for Hallett.

2010 One Lap of America is under way!

2010-05-01T20:22:00.000-07:00

We got into the Tire Rack on Friday morning and got registered. Kevin has been doing a great job on the transit driving throughout, keeping a safe and steady pace. Our first competition event yesterday was the wet skidpad. Our result was not good, as our car didn't really agree with that particular event and I had never run a skidpad before, let alone driven our car in the wet. We were 8th out of 9 in class and 53rd out of 68 overall. We weren't too concerned, as it was the first event of many, so we packed up and headed up to Elkhart Lake, WI.

Today went much differently. Road America has the longest straight-away of any track in the country (I think) and I was both nervous and excited to get out there. I'd spent an hour or so each night for the past few nights watching in-car video and playing Road America on X-Box. It sounds silly, but it paid off in a big way. In this morning's session, amid brakes that weren't really up to the task of slowing us from 150+ MPH, I managed to keep the car clean and cause people to suddenly take notice of us. We were 7th overall, among Porsche turbos, Nissan GT-R's, and Z06 and ZR-1 Corvettes! We are absolutely thrilled with our finish!

However, the extremely high speeds caused us to wear out our front brake pads more than I ever fathomed. We were suddenly in a crunch because it would be Tuesday before we went back through Cincinnati and no one could ship pads on Saturday. In typical fashion, one of our in-class competitors (Joe from Tire Rack) tried desperately to find us pads. We pursued several possibilities, but one of his suggestions was to contact Pegasus Racing, who was in Wisconsin. In a massive stroke of luck, they had the Hawk pads we needed for our Brembo brakes! They left them outside so we could pick them up later.

In the afternoon, we ran the short course at Road America, which eliminated the 2 longest straights. We started on a connecting road, where everyone stood to watch, and it had cones set up to lead the cars onto and off of the main track. The penalty for hitting a cone was 10 SECONDS! Brock Yates Jr. (event organizer and son of the creator of the original Cannonball Run) told me just before my run to not let a cone determine the results. In other words, "Don't be stupid and throw away your result by hitting a cone!"

With this advice fresh in my mind, I set out for my reconnaissance lap. I was running at about "full" speed, just because that one lap reflected 20% of my total experience at Road America, so I was learning a lot with each subsequent lap! So, I came up to a fast, blind, uphill left-hander, which I actually quite enjoyed in the video game and in the morning session. I came out of it flying and, when I could see the road ahead of me, several expletives and a healthy dose of embarrassment ran through my mind, because I just saw a sea of cones in front of me! I stood on the brakes and held the wheel straight, trying to slow as much as I could. I just BARELY made the turn and, as I went by everyone watching, I shook my hand out the window as to say "Aei, yei yei! That was close!" I could clearly hear everyone erupt into laughter as I headed up to the starting line!

Fortunately, the actual run went smoothly and we placed 7th overall AGAIN! So I guess that means it wasn’t a fluke! The Road America events have launched us up to 2nd place in-class, but we still have a bunch of points to make up on the GTI with the Stage 4 turbo, so we just need to keep doing what we’re doing! We are now running in the second run group (cars 6-10) for the rest of the events, so we will be with some fast company. We stopped at Pegasus and got our brake pads, possibly adding 1-2 hours to our trip. We've crossed into Iowa, though, on our way towards Mid-America Motorplex for tomorrow's event.

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Mid Ohio - NASA Spec E30 Race

2010-04-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

To recap the 2009 season, I ran strongly in the Great Lakes region, winning about half of the races I ran. However, I was underweight at Putnam, resulting in a disqualification. Unfortunately, a DQ cannot be dropped from the cumulative season points, resulting in a 0-point finish. That essentially eliminated my chance to contest the Regional Championship, so I substituted the last couple SpecE30 races with some “free” events instead.

In the first SpecE30 race of 2010, we visited Mid-Ohio, running the Pro-course with NASA (no chicane). I had done a lot of work to prepare my car for the 2010 season, trying to eliminate some of the little issues that were revealing themselves, but this weekend proved that I had further to go.

We had 6 SpecE30 racers in class, which is the largest that our region has seen thus far. I went up to Mid-Ohio with my friend Nate Thulin, who was a great help all weekend. I heat cycled a new set of tires in practice on Saturday, then qualified on pole by over 1 second, on my older tires. There wasn’t much of a story from the first race, as Sean Louisin (who qualified 2nd) missed grid and didn’t join until after our warm-up lap. Starting on pole for our class, with rookie Rob Thornton beside me, I got the jump and pulled from there. Squeezing between 2 GTS1 cars approaching the end of the back straight, I’m surprised I didn’t come through with my mirrors folded in! I had a great battle with Nick Decuzzi, in a Spec944, throughout most of the race, but I never saw another SpecE30. Finishing the season opener in 1st is a great way to start out!

Anthony Magagnoli - SpecE30 Apr 2010 at Mid-Ohio Race 1

We had a nice grill-out party and awards after the track activities were done. Since Sean Louisin had missed the pace lap, he was technically starting down a lap, so that left rookies Kevin Sweeny and Rob Thornton to claim the 2nd and 3rd podium positions in their first race! It’s worth mentioning that Kevin’s clutch had blown up on Friday and he had to drop his transmission that evening to replace it!

Anthony and Kevin, posing with trophies.
Kevin was wise to cover up his helmet hair.

On Sunday, I practiced on my old tires again, but then switched to the new tires for qualifying. I still qualified on pole, by a 0.6 sec margin. I had covered up my brake cooling ducts, as the brakes had previously felt like they were overcooling and not grabbing hard until partway into the braking zone. They felt better in qualifying, so I left them covered for the race. The tire pressures had risen significantly, mainly due to the higher ambient temps, so we had dropped them down some after qualifying.

Come race time, I started beside Sean on the back straight. We dragged it out down toward Turn 7, where I wound my way past some GTS traffic and pulled ahead. Within a couple laps, I could no longer see any SpecE30’s in my rearview. I went about my business, having a good time with some out-of-class cars that were all alone. One of the early cars that I had passed was a GTS1 E30. To my surprise, about 1/3 of the way into the race, he started to reappear. He closed the gap and I let him pass cleanly. I wondered if he had just picked up the pace, or if I had really dropped off that much. As Sean Louisin reappeared in my rearview, I could see the writing on the wall.

I knew that my tire pressures had gotten too high, as I was really struggling for grip. I fended him off for a couple laps, but he got beside me going into the keyhole. I drafted him down the back straight and got a run, so I pulled out to challenge him under braking. That’s when I realized that I really should have opened up my brake cooling ducts. With the brakes fading under the heat, I couldn’t get slowed in time, so I pitched the car sideways, in toward the apex, and managed to scrub off just enough speed to stay off of him. I now couldn’t stick with him in the corners, or challenge him under braking, so I settled into my position and just tried to stay close. I was only relying on a mechanical failure or a slip-up at this point, but neither happened. Sean took the win and I held out for 2nd place. Congrats, Sean!

Anthony Magagnoli - SpecE30 Apr 2010 at Mid-Ohio Race 2

What Nate and I learned the hard way, was that the continuous heat build up of a race generates much more braking heat than qualifying. We needed the brake cooling ducts to be open. Secondly, we miscalculated the pressure gain of the tires when the ambient temps rose. I was kicking myself after having tipped off Sean on Saturday that part of his tire wear problem was that he was running his pressures too high. While he lowered his down and improved his performance, I had allowed mine to creep too high, reversing our advantage! Of course, I’m kidding. We’re a tight-knit group and share our information and resources, but it certainly was ironic how that exchange turned out!

Lastly, we knew going in that I didn’t have enough negative camber adjustment, especially in my left front. We’re working on ways to improve this and hope to have it rectified by the next race in June at BeaveRun. Thanks again to Nate Thulin for all his help!

A big thanks goes out to my sponsors: DTRPerformance.com, MyTrackSchedule.com, BimmerTools.com, and EnthusiastAuto.com!

Street Survival School for Teens

2010-03-20T20:47:00.000-07:00

At 8am on Saturday, March 20th, the parking lot of St. McNicholas High School, in Anderson Township, KY began to fill with weary-eyed teenagers and their parents. What were these 16-21 year-olds doing up so early on a Saturday? I’m sure they were asking themselves the same question… Each of them had been signed up by a parent to attend the Tire Rack Street Survival School, and Toyota Powertrain Team Member Anthony Magagnoli was on-hand volunteering as a driving instructor.

Street Survival is a program created by the BMWCCA Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-for-profit, to bring accident avoidance skills to new drivers across the country. Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death among 13 to 19-year-olds in the U.S. – more than from drugs, guns, and violent crimes COMBINED! And a whopping 62% of all teenage automobile passenger deaths occurred in vehicles driven by another teen. Teaching both passive and active accident-avoidance skills, at a time when they are developing their driving habits, will help to keep these students safe throughout their driving careers.

When the first on-course event kicked off around 9am, the students were quickly awakened and their early-morning frowns developed into wide-eyed grins. Throughout the day, in addition to classroom instruction, the students participated in a variety of car-control exercises. These included emergency braking, lane-change maneuvers, wet skidpad, wheel-off-pavement recovery, and a dynamic-handling course. Anthony Magagnoli says, “By learning the limits of their cars, how their inputs affect the balance of the vehicle, and how to recover from over or understeer, these students are learning what to do in a panic situation so that, when they are threatened with these situations on the road, they will simply be able to react.”

Anthony Magagnoli has been instructing for Tire Rack Street Survival since 2004. As a high-performance driving and racing instructor, as well as a race car driver and the Driving Leader of the Toyota / UC LeMons race team, he says that he enjoys the immense difference he feels that he is able to make in the lives of the students. “I think back to an accident that I had when I was 17. I was lucky enough to be unhurt, but it would have been completely avoidable if I had been taught, back then, the skills that we are teaching today. I began my driver training shortly thereafter and have remained accident-free since.”

Anthony’s strong belief in the importance of driver training has compelled him to team up with the Street Survival program as his charity of choice as he and his friend and car-owner/builder, Kevin Kreisa, promote teen driver safety through their entry in the 2010 Cannonball One Lap of America. The One Lap of America was spawned from the historic Cannonball Run and takes competitors on a 3500 mile loop around the country. Spanning from April 30th to May 8th, they will stop at racetracks along the way to hold competitive time-trials. Anthony and Kevin are raising money and awareness for Street Survival through their website, DTROneLap.com, and this Street Survival School was their official unveiling of their car.

University of Cincinnati student and Toyota LeMons member, Darvell Powell, stated the following about his experience in the Tire Rack Street Survival School, “The class was a very important experience for me, as it gave me real-world emergency driving experience in the vehicle that I drive everyday so that I will be better prepared to avoid accidents in the future. I recommend that others take this class to improve their knowledge and skills in vehicle control and become better drivers.”

Local media took notice of the school and WLWT News Channel 5 covered the Street Survival School in their evening news. You can see that video here:

Street Survival Coverage on WLWT News from Anthony Magagnoli on Vimeo.

29 local students attended the school on March 20th. There were 79 Street Survival schools held nation-wide in 2009, all on a volunteer-basis, with hopes to expand that number this year. For more information about the Tire Rack Street Survival program, you can visit www.StreetSurvival.org.

DTR One Lap of America Effort Highlighted in BMWCCA Newsletter

2009-12-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

I wrote and article for the Buckeye Chapter BMWCCA's Driving Light newsletter to highlight our 2010 One Lap of America effort. Click the link to read the article!

Buckeye Chapter BMWCCA's Driving Light article

Watkins Glen - GVC BMWCCA Club Race

2009-09-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

I flew up to Watkins Glen with the intent of co-driving the enduro in Mario Meise’s I-Prepared E36 M3. Unfortunately, his car broke on Friday, so he didn't even practice on Saturday. He found himself a co-drive with Tyler Munroe (IP). In part of the mystery of club racing, I quickly found a ride with Jason Micare in his JP car, but his clutch was slipping. I tested it in my instructor session and the clutch was manageable, but was annoying. He drove it in the sprint race and said it got worse. He wanted me to drive, but told me I could seek out another ride. Jesse Clark agreed to take me on in his JP car. He had finished 10th overall the previous day, faster than all the IP cars, if I remember correctly, setting a track record for JP of a 2:08.5! = O

Jason still didn't want to drive the whole hour, so I started the enduro in his car from the back of the grid (32nd) since I hadn't qualified it, but he didn't care about the finishing position. The enduro was wet. VERY wet. The car was insanae to be driving, as the windshield was fogged up completely. I'd lose sight of a car that was 2 carlengths in front of me. I had a t-shirt that I was trying to wipe the windshield with; whipping it at the windshield to the places I couldn't reach! I couldn't see a damn thing. I advanced positions wherever I could, but it wasn't too long before there was a full-course caution. There were no less than 3 wrecked cars. I did my requisite one lap after the green flag dropped again, and brought the car in. I coudn't get out soon enough. I had advanced to somewhere around the 16th place that the car finished. I then waited for Jesse to come in.

I got in Jesse's car at the mid-way point and we had a couple minutes to kill during the pit stop, which he used to remind me that he was going to O’Fest next weekend and needed the car brought back in one piece! I headed out after the 5 minutes was up. He had been running around 5th, or so, behind a few C-Mod cars and a D-Mod. The car was awesome. It was really well-behaved and had lots of grip (relatively speaking) from the Hoosier Wets. It was a LOT of fun. I flew around every car I came upon, but didn't see but one of the C-Mod cars. I passed with ease, looking for more. I assumed they were somewhere ahead of me and I just wasn’t catching them, maybe because I wasn’t pushing as hard as Jesse did. I didn’t know…

Jesse told me over the radio when the starter was playing with the white flag, alerting me that we were nearing the end. As I came down the front straight, the white flag was waving. Jesse got back on the radio and said, "Uh, dood?..... I think we're winning!" In fact, it was confirmed on the next lap, when I took the checkered flag, winning overall, 52 seconds ahead of the next car! It turned out that I had passed all the other cars while they were in the pits, and then just run away from them from there! In the meantime, I managed to set the fastest lap of the race, with a 3.4 second difference between me and the next fastest car! Jesse’s car was so great to drive!

BMWCCA WGI 2009 Enduro Fast Forward to 11:06

After we were done, I jumped in a D-Student’s MINI Cooper S, since his instructor had left. It was still raining out. We were headed down the back straight and braking before the bus stop. He had a wheel lock up and pitch the car to the right. With such a short wheel base, the car rotated very quickly and we got about 110 degrees around and hit the right-side wall (about 50 ft before the bus stop) with the left front corner. We glanced off and continued our spin, stopping in the entry to the bus stop. We were both sore in our necks, so the medics braced us in the car and then back-boarded us and took us to the hospital. We both received CT Scans before being released. While we were there, another instructor and student came in after having rolled in a WRX. After that, they closed down the driver’s school. I believe everyone involved is ok. It was a more exciting ending to the weekend than I had hoped for!

Mid Ohio - 1974 Porsche RSR Replica Test

2009-08-30T19:21:00.000-07:00

I took my student out in his car for a few hot laps. You can see the last few laps in the video below...

Anthony Magagnoli - '74 Porsche RSR @ Mid-Ohio

Longest Day at Nelson Ledges

2009-08-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

On August 1st, I found myself at Nelsons Ledges Road Course, instructing with the NOR BMWCCA, as I stopped by on my way up to visit family in Rochester. The place is even more horrible than it had been described to me. But holy crap was that track fun!! It’s incredibly bumpy, but equally as fast and just a really ballsy track to go fast on. I had a blast!

Now, my reason for stopping by, at the time, was to learn the track in advance of “The Lamest Day”; the 24 Hours of LeMons race there in October. I wanted to know the track, for myself, and also be able to prep our Toyota team for what to expect there. However, 2 weeks in advance of The Longest Day, Tim Smith called me up and told me he wanted me to fill a seat in his car, which he had specifically prepared in an attempt to win this race outright.

I was very interested in running with Tim. He had recently raced with Bimmerworld’s James Clay and won the 12 Hour of Summit, overall. I trusted that he was prepared to challenge for the win, and I respected him and the other two drivers who were on board. Jeffery Negus and Bill Heumann are both BMWCCA Club Racers who normally race M3’s in I-Prepared. Bill had recently run a Grand-Am Cup race, as well.

There were two big problems for me. The first was that my brother and his girlfriend were planning to visit me that weekend. Family is more important to me than a race, believe it or not, but I thank Joe and Danielle so much for their willingness to modify their plans so that I could attend this race and we could still spend some time together.

The second problem was funding... Racing is not light on the wallet, but that goes double if you’re looking to show up and drive a car that’s prepared for you, and even more so for an endurance race. I simply didn’t have that kind of budget. However, Tim really wanted me to fill that seat and I thought that it would be a great opportunity for me to broaden my skill set, compare myself to some other very good drivers, and experience how a “real” endurance race is run so that I could relay my learning points back to our LeMons team. Long story short, I needed help. To my own amazement, I was able to pull together a significant amount of sponsorship within one week’s time. Enough so that I was able to come up with the difference and get myself to the race. A huge thanks goes out to Scott Barton of MyTrackSchedule.com, Ken Herskovitz of Bimmertools.com, and Eric & Evan Keller of EnthusiastAuto.com. Please visit their websites in the event that you may be able to utilize their services!

So! On to the race…

I arrived on Friday night with just enough time to get behind the wheel for some night practice. This was new for me. The headlights on the car were covering just enough of the road in front of me so that I didn’t have time to react to anything I saw. I was trying to drive on reference points, which consisted solely of red reflectors in the braking zones and white reflectors indicating the turn-in, apex, and track-out points. It gave me a feel for the car, but little else. I was about 3 seconds off a typical day-time pace. Like I said, it’s a ballsy track, and I couldn’t find mine in the dark! To make matters worse, an RX-8 was going slowly coming onto the back straight, and I expected him to stay on line (as he should have). As I moved to pass on the inside, he moved down and pushed me into the grass at about 80 mph. Not what I needed! Regardless, I brought the car back in one piece. We worked on aiming the auxiliary headlights and got ready for the next day.

The car had been qualified in 4th place overall. We started among the Honda factory car (HART’s Grand-Am Cup Accord V6), the Bimmershop.ca E36 M3, the Berg Racing 1 Mazda RX-8, and the HIPII Racing Spec Racer Ford. Tim started off the race for us in good fashion. We didn’t expect to be the fastest car, but were prepared to win on pit strategy. With an additional fuel cell on board, we were looking to achieve 2 hour 20 minute driving stints. This would make it a 4-stop strategy, with Jeff being the repeat driver for the last night stint.

Tim was holding his own, hanging on in front of the RX-8. A short time into the race, the M3 pulled off with mechanical trouble. After hearing about their troubles with a rear shock busting through its mount, we played nice and I helped them locate another rear shock from our friend Bob Wright, whose race car was in the paddock. They lost close to an hour, though, and would not pose a challenge to us.

As Tim pushed on, the first round of pit stops came due for some of the lead cars. The HART Accord was very fast (3-4 sec/lap faster than us), but made its first stop at only about 1 hour into the race. And, on top of that, they were changing front tires. The Spec Racer had a very small fuel tank, and they were pitting frequently, as well. It looked like our stiffest competition would be the RX-8 and the Accord, barring any problems.

As Tim called in that the stock tank had gone empty and he was prepared to transfer fuel in from the fuel cell, we were amazed that he was nearing the 2 hour mark already. That meant that the car could go significantly longer than the 2:20 that we needed. The question was, could he? As I looked at the time that I figured he could go, I realized that, if we could make it close to 3 hours, we could eliminate an additional pit stop or, at worst, make the last stop a splash-and-go. That could translate into 5-8 minutes of off-track time that we could recover. I proposed this to Harvey and Doug, who were running our show, and they decided to push for this strategy. In the meantime, we noticed the RX-8 team beside us preparing a transmission for installation. That couldn’t be good for them. It turned out that they had lost their higher gears and then toasted the engine by running on the rev limiter too much. They retired before our first pit stop. Tim stayed out there for 3 hours and seemed relieved to finally be out of the car. The pit stop went smoothly, save for some minor fueling issues, and we clearly had the longest pit strategy of any car. With new Nitto NT-01 tires and a full tank of gas (as well as a good nap before his stint), Jeff got in the car to take over.

We had been trading the lead back and forth with the HART Accord as they passed us, then pitted, then passed us, but pitted again, etc. Jeff did great and posted our best lap of a 1:16.622. Without the few caution laps that Tim had had during his stint, Jeff was out for about 2 hours 30 minutes. I had been doing what I could to prepare. I was drinking lots of water, ensuring that my urine was running clear (too much information?), and trying to nap. When I got in the car, Doug got me strapped in, Harvey did a radio check and I was on my way. It was too bad that no one thought to clean the bug-splattered windshield! I got to work on trying to pick up speed. I was having a good run with the Berg II Miata until I was able to pick up enough to get past and start distancing myself from him. My improvements were put on hold, though, due to some rain that came down for about a third of my stint. I was actually amazed that the track didn’t slow down much at all, but I was breathing off the gas a bit before the 120mph kink.

The rain came down for just long enough that I was able to get the windscreen mostly cleaned of the bugs. I hadn’t run into too much trouble on the track, other than a few slower cars that weren’t yielding to lap traffic. The majority of the time, though, the other drivers tried to be very cooperative. There were just a couple scuffles with an Integra and a couple Miatas. As the rain let up, it came time to transfer the fuel to replenish the stock tank, and it was time to buckle down and turn in some hot laps. Tim came in over the radio and told me the announcers were making fun of me for being slow. Well, that was what I thought he said, anyway… This really made me want to buckle down and find some more speed. Unfortunately, it made me almost crash 3 times on that next lap! It turned out that the announcers were just teasing us because the HART Accord was so much faster than us, and they weren’t picking on me, specifically. Regardless, I was getting a second wind.

I had been trying to retain my endurance by alternately resting my arms on the back straight. With the track being so rough, I could really sense my wrists taking a beating. As for hydration, we had a camelback on board, but there wasn’t really a lot of time to be sipping away. So, at one point in the middle of my stint, I put the tube in my mouth and sucked on it for 3 laps straight, taking in as much water as I could while still breathing. Considering that my 3-layer nomex suit was completely soaked through with sweat, this was probably a good move. What? Too much information again? At least I didn’t need to relieve myself while I was in the car!

With some guidance from Tim on the radio, I concentrated on picking up speed through turns 1 and 2, as well as coming onto the back straight. Harvey called out some of my lap times and did show that I was able to shave off a solid .5 second from my times. I would’ve liked to be as quick as Jeff or Tim, but Nelsons Ledges is their home track and it was only my 2nd day there. While the track was simple, each turn became very complex to take quickly, since the bumps added so much more variation than just simply the shape of the curve. I managed to pull a 1:17.289.

Here’s the last 30 minutes of my session:

12 Hour at Nelsons - Team KYFA - Anthony Magagnoli

My stint came to a close as I felt the engine stutter at the 2 hour 35 minute point. I immediately brought it in to hand over to Bill, as we were running 2nd overall, 2 laps behind the HART Accord. I loosened my belts before pulling to a stop and Doug pulled me out of the car, supporting me on my feet for a moment to ensure I could walk and wouldn’t topple over. Don’t laugh. I saw other drivers stepping out of cars and just falling to the ground! It was a long time to be racing continuously.

Bill went out on the faster BFG R1 tires, but that was when catastrophe struck. We soon learned of a full-course yellow and that we were the reason. The car had gotten squirrly on the cold tires and he lost it around the banked Turn 3. As he came down the hill and into the tires, the car went up on its side and then settled on the roof. There went our chance at the overall win. I suppose it could have happened to any of us, though.

You’d think that the story would end there, but the team actually got the car back on track in about 30 minutes. Bill went back out in the car, but came back in a few laps later with a stuck transmission. It had had some issue already, but having the fluid dump out of it when the car was upside down probably didn’t help. As the team began packing it in, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a spare transmission in the trailer, 3 BMW technicians on hand, and almost 3 hours left in the race. With a little prodding, the crew set to replace the transmission and Jeff was back in the car with 1 hour left in the race. Of course, we were way out of contention, but we finished the race in the dark, and that was certainly rewarding, in itself.

I had a great time and hope that I’ll be doing more enduros in the future. There was a strong camaraderie brought on by driving together and having so many people in support of the same goal. It was fun just hanging out, even when I wasn’t on track, but also it was good to push myself and see that I could race for close to 3 hours with room to go. Of course, there is no doubt that I could not have done this without Tim’s support, and the support of MyTrackSchedule.com, Bimmertools.com, and EnthusiastAuto.com. I look forward to everyone’s continued support in the future!

August Mid Ohio NASA Spec E30 Race

2009-08-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

Coming off the July race, I had pulled the transmission to repair a leak that had caused the clutch to slip and also solved my overheating issue, so I was hoping that the car would be good to go. My venerable competitor, Simon Hunter, was unfortunately unable to make this race, but Jeremy Lucas was joining Michael Osborne and I for what would turn out to be a weekend that Simon surely regretted missing.

The weekend started off problematic. I had been trying to diagnose what I thought was a steering issue that was causing the car to pull left and then randomly pull right. With the help of Kevin at DTR Performance, we had confirmed all the front end suspension components and aligned the car, but hadn’t found any problems. During the practice session, a loud clunk became apparent when transitioning load. Upon investigation, I still couldn’t find anything wrong with the front end. Eventually I discovered that my rear trailing arm bolts had loosened completely causing my eccentric bushings to shift under transitioning load. I tightened the trailing arm bolts and performed a rear toe alignment, but couldn’t get anywhere close to a desirable setting. Despite this, I managed to qualify the car on pole for our class.

While I had the preferred position at the start of the race, it didn’t much matter. By the end of the first lap I had lost position to both Michael and Jeremy. On the following lap though, I was able to use traffic to get to the inside of Jeremy when approaching Thunder Valley. As I made a chase for Michael, Jeremy was left to deal with traffic and a gap developed between us. I caught up to Michael within a few laps, but passing him was a different story. We battled lap after lap and I got along side him several times, but was unable to get up far enough to complete a pass. With our bout continuing, Jeremy was able to reel us back in once freed from traffic. He applied some pressure from behind me, but ended up going wide in turn one and took a trip, bounding through the grass and leaving his chin spoiler behind as a souvenir for the corner workers.

With Jeremy out of the picture for the time being, I concentrated on how to get past Michael. I could see that I wasn’t quite matching him under braking and tried to focus on this area. Drafting him down the back straight, I was able to pull to the inside and get up far enough under braking to at least go side by side through turn seven. As we came down from madness, I had the inside line for turn nine and was alongside him. Being on the outside, he was able to brake a little bit later and through what was purely a racing incident, I gave his right rear wheel a light shove with my left rear front as we were entering the turn. His car over steered, but fortunately he was able to save it and continue on. My steering wheel was cocked to the right, but otherwise drove fine. I continued to give chase right down to the last lap. Unfortunately for us this had allowed Jeremy to make up the time he had lost and he was once again on my bumper. I couldn’t hold him back and he got by me on the second to last lap. While I was still looking for an opportunity for them to screw each other up, it didn’t happen. Jeremy managed to get by Michael on the last lap to set himself up for an amazing come-from-behind win! We remained nose-to-tail and all crossed the finish line within one second! It was the hardest fought third place finish I have ever had.

Spec E30 - Anthony Magagnoli - Mid-Ohio Pro Course

After the race I realigned the front end to compensate for the steering angle “adjustment” in preparation for the next day’s racing. As a result of Sunday’s qualifier, I found myself starting second to Michael. In addition to this, having observed Jeremy’s tremendous braking capability, I knew I was going to have to step it up if I was to compete with them. I nervously had a new set of Hawk HG-10 brake pads put on, as I have never used that compound before, but knew I needed a fresh set. It turned out to be the right move. While I still wasn’t matching Jeremy’s braking points, I felt I was getting a better drive out of the corners and was at least matching Michael’s points.

As we came around the keyhole on the pace lap, I was positioned on the outside and some of the cars ahead of us blocked my view of the starter stand on the back straight. I was looking desperately, but had to react to seeing Michael jump on the gas first. Jeremy followed Michael as they pulled ahead down the back straight. I was back in third by the time we came through turn seven, however, as we came into the carousel, I was able to get to the outside of Jeremy and hold my position entering the front straight, which was relatively sideways for me. As Jeremy backed off, I pulled ahead into second place down the front straight. We maintained our positions as I went after Michael. In a repeat of the previous day, the competition with Michael was very close. We went several laps nose-to-tail, but this time I wasn’t losing any ground in the braking zones. As we came up under the Honda bridge, we approached a slower car. I took advantage of the situation and was able to make a pass while Michael was forced to check up. I’ll take it however I can get it. From there I pulled away, but unfortunately Jeremy had made his way by as well and was soon pressuring me. While he was racing hard, I could also see that he was exerting patience, just waiting for me to make a mistake. I knew where we each had our strengths and I was trying to use mine to maintain the position while not giving Jeremy the opportunity to out-brake me for position. This went down to the very last lap and Jeremy got a better than normal run down the back straight. I positioned myself in the middle of the track to defend my line to Jeremy’s imminent passing attempt. As we rounded the kink, I noticed the corner worker was waiving a yellow flag for a local caution. I pulled back on to the fast line, realizing that this would preclude Jeremy from passing. He followed suit and tucked back in line, making one last desperation attempt going into nine. It didn’t work and I was able to hang on for the win!

SpecE30 Anthony Magagnoli - Mid-Ohio

This weekend was exactly the type of racing I expected coming to spec E30. It was a great time and I look forward to more of the same, joined by Simon and the others who are preparing to compete in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions!

A big thanks goes out to my sponsors: DTRPerformance.com, MyTrackSchedule.com, Bimmertools.com, and EnthusiastAuto.com!

July Mid Ohio NASA Spec E30 Race

2009-07-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

Coming into this weekend’s race, I was already basically out of contention for the regional title, since I was disqualified for being under weight at Putnam in May. However, that didn’t mean I was laying down and not pursuing some good racing. After all, I moved into SpecE30 for the learning experience and fun factor, at least for this first year, so that won’t be diminished. Like, how I learned how important it is to not to be under weight!

Simon Hunter was again joining me on the grid, this time along side Michael Osborne and Sean Louisin. 4 cars isn’t bad, but we’re hoping to double that in the Great Lakes / Midwest region next year! We were running on Mid-Ohio’s “Pro Course”, which does not include the chicane between Turn 1 and the Keyhole. I’ve driven this format once before, during a Grand Am Cup weekend BMW Club Race in ’07. Not surprisingly, I had to figure out my line there again through the keyhole, and I found several different approaches to the turn.

While we were concerned about rain on Saturday, I was more concerned about my wallet, and hadn’t come prepared with any full-tread rain tires. The Toyo R888 tires that I’ve hated so much are probably the better tires, IF they have tread on them. 2 of mine absolutely did not, and the other two were mediocre. Qualifying went well, as I would be starting on Pole, with Simon in 2nd, just beside me. Before the race, I found a couple take-off R888’s from a SpecMiata that had a little bit of tread. I figured they’d be better than what I had, if it were to rain, so I had the guys at Phil’s Tire Service put them on my rear wheels.

After qualifying, I went to weigh my car, to see if I’d need to add ballast to ensure I’d make weight after the race. While waiting for the scales, the car began to overheat. It doesn’t have a cooling fan, relying on airflow from driving to cool the radiator, which works just fine when I’m moving, but there’s no airflow when I’m not moving! I pulled away from the scales and drove the car around the entry road a couple times. The coolant temp was reading in the 250 degree range and not dropping, as I would expect to see within a few moments of driving. I pulled back to my pits and let it cool. That was already a dangerously high temperature for an engine to see. I couldn’t find any leaks or reason for the overheat, so I refilled it and bled it, and then drove it again. It held 220 degrees when driving around off-track, which is a little high, but it was holding. I added some WaterWetter before the race, and hoped for the best.

On the race start, I caught a bit of a lead as Simon got caught in traffic. Mike was between the two of us and making me feel none too comfortable. I kept my lead going for 4 laps, checking my coolant temperature every time I grabbed an upshift. It had even dropped momentaraily, but wsa holding steady at 220. Between turns 1 and 2, it was still at 220. Then, when grabbing my shift to 5th on the back straight, my jaw dropped out of my helmet as I read the coolant temp at 288 degrees. I immediately pulled off-line, gave up the race lead, and pointed for everyone to pass on my left side. I pulled off the track before madness and parked it in the grass at the top of the hill. I was fully expecting catastrophic engine damage (this engine is only 4 races old!). After being towed further out of the way of potentially stray cars, I watched the remainder of the race. Simon had gotten past Mike (who my have actually had an off-track adventure, if I recall), and hung on for the win.

I began investigating the overheating issue and eventually surmised that the resovoir cap had gone bad and wasn’t holding pressure in the cooling system. As a result, the water was able to boil and spill out into the catch-can, eventually draining the cooling system enough to allow air into it. I am still hoping that the 288 degrees that my gauge showed me was actually an air pocket and the water temperature hadn’t actually gotten that high. A future SpecE30 competitor, Scott, who had stopped by to check out the action for the weekend, had a friend run a spare cap to us so that I could run the following day. A huge thanks for goes out to him for going out of his way for someone who he didn’t even know!

On Sunday, qualifying went to Simon’s favor. I had switched to my RA-1 tires, which were a mismatch of similarly worn, but all heavily used, tires. The one thing they had in common was that they are all old! Regardless, they should have been faster than the R888’s from my past experience. I believe that all the SE30 cars were on RA-1’s for this race (either the R888’s and RA-1’s are currently allowed). I started the race beside Simon, coming onto the back straight on his left. The green flag dropped on the back straight and Simon gradually pulled ahead of me. But, as we quickly ran up on Spec944 traffic, Simon and Mike got caught behind a slower car, while I pulled a gap up into Madness.

All was well for the first couple laps, but I then noticed that my clutch wasn’t grabbing the engine as hard as it should when I was upshifting. Its as new as the engine and should not have any issue. In the coming laps, it started getting worse. I adjusted by slowing my upshifts and waiting for the revs to drop completely to where they would be in the higher gear, which made my shifts take 2-3 times as long.

Simon was steadily creeping up behind me. He got inside of me going down the back straight and we went side-by-side through all of Madness, up the Jump under the Honda Bridge, down through Thunder Valley, and still through the fast left approaching the carousel, until he finally made the inside line work for him entering the Carousel and he got his car in front of me. I did my best to keep pace, and only a lap and a half later, I was still behind Simon as we approached Madness. As he crested the hill, a Spec Miata momentarily blocked his view of his exit road and his line sent him off the road, bounding through the grass. I’m pretty sure I saw at least 3 wheels off the ground as I was rounding turn 9. He got the car straightened as it came back on the road, though, and managed to stay off any other cars.

I regained the lead at that point, but Simon hadn’t fallen that far back. My clutch was steadily deteriorating, so I was doubting how long I could keep him back there. In addition to slowing my upshifts, I tried eliminating any shifts possible. Between the Jump and Thunder Valley, I was sitting on the rev limiter in 3rd for a moment, instead of going up to 4th and quickly back to 3rd, and I even tried stying in 4th down the back straight (that sacrificed too much). At this point, it started slipping so badly that, with the clutch engaged, the engine was breaking friction with the clutch and revving up, without a coinciding acceleration of the car. I was having to lift off the gas to get the engine and transmission to re-engage. It was definitely hurting acceleration and I could see the difference as soon as Simon got near me.

After catching up, Simon got to my inside down the back straight and we did our now-familiar side-by-side through Madness. We were together through 7 and 8, but going into 9, he had the inside and was able to sneak ahead. I followed behind and watched a gap open over the next couple laps and then saw the white flag. I had somehow closed the gap enough to make one more run at him and I got to the outside of him through turn 7, at the end of the back straight. I stayed there through 8 and was trying not to give up the position again through 9, even though I was at the disadvantage, being on the outside. I tried a little too hard, locked up the inside front brake, and that was it. I stayed on the track, but that was my last chance. Simon crossed the line in 1st, .632 seconds ahead of myself in 2nd, with Michael Osborne in 3rd. Sean Lousin had pulled out a few laps early with mechanical trouble.

Anthony Magagnoli Spec E30 race at Mid-Ohio

The weekend was plagued with mechanical problems, but I’ve managed to get them resolved. It seems that I was lucky enough to avoid any significant damage due to the overheating. Simply a new pressure cap on the resovoir took care of that. It seems that the old one was allowing the coolant to spill out into my catch tank, but once the resovoir emptied itself, it drew air into the system and immediately overheated on the track. I’m glad I caught it quickly and shut it down before doing any serious damage.

The clutch slipping issue was a mere coincidence to the engine overheating. Once I pulled the transmission, I found that the input shaft was leaking, and the pressure plate side of the clutch had residue on it from the transmission fluid. I replaced the input shaft seal, sealed up the freeze plug, and replaced the output shaft seal while I was there. That seems to have done the trick.

Thanks to Kevin Kreisa of DTR Performance for helping me to get it back together! Of course, all my sponsors help in one way or another, so I have to thank MyTrackSchedule.com, Bimmertools.com, and EnthusiastAuto.com!