Rene came on to our radar last summer where through a friend of the shop, he wanted to come hang out and see what racing was all about during one of our race weekends. He volunteered to work car support just to learn and as the story goes, it was downhill from then!
We’ve continued to grow and Rene joined our team in April as a Race Car Technician and has been having a blast since!
Rene has been a car technician for the past 11 years, initially working for a small mom and pop shop in Southern California, helped maintain/repair city buses for the LA County, worked on high pressure valve blocks in oil refineries, was an air plane technician apprentice and most recently worked at Honda and Maserati dealerships.
His uncle worked for most of his career with Carol Shelby at Shelby of America, so motorsports is in his blood!
When Rene isn’t doing race car things, you’ll find him working on his golf game on the links.
The second stop in our packed 2022 race schedule had us at Circuit of the Americas for a Hoosier Super Tour race. Before even getting to the track, we were on for an adventure.
Ice. Ice is what can happen! Luckily the ice and snow wasn’t as bad as in 2021 for the folks who live in the area but on the Wednesday and Thursday before the weekend, cold air, sleet, freezing rain and snow in spots made it an adventure to simply get to Austin.
Thursday AM status. Yes that is a similar coat of ice on the ground!
The trucks were able to make it into town with limited issues but the flights in – that was a different story. Originally the rest of the crew and drivers were supposed to fly in on Thursday, get a good night’s rest and be ready to hit the track for a full day of testing on Friday.
Many cancelled flights and layovers later, half the crew was able to get to Austin in time to take on the now, half day of testing (the AM was cancelled due to freezing temps) and the rest of the crew rolled in throughout Friday afternoon and into first thing on Saturday AM.
The weather slowly warmed up throughout the weekend but not before claiming a couple of brand new tires that simply didn’t get enough temp in them before the start of a race for the #110 BMW M240iR on its inaugural race debut with Racer on Rails (more below).
Not sure Hoosier Tire would recommend driving A7’s in near freezing conditions!
A New Chariot for Dave!
Dave’s #44 met an untimely demise at Buttonwillow from a perfect storm of cold track conditions, fog, and taking a curb at just the right angle to upset the car. Not one to stay down, Dave got right back up and was able to secure another PRIMO Spec E46 from one of our other customers that had been doing less racing recently and is it a beauty! Dave also checked out with a clean bill of health and just needed a few days for some sore muscles to heal.
After getting back from Buttonwillow, the team got to it to prep the car for Touring 3 duties, swap over Dave’s personal preferences and back on the road to get it back on the hauler for the COTA trip.
Another Racer on Rails built Spec E46, the new #44 drives as good as it looks!
The Weekend
When it comes to track time and testing time in 2022, it feels like when it rains, it pours. COTA ended up being another weekend where we were on the back-foot due to only two drivers getting two sessions during the test day and the other two drivers, not being able to get into Austin until Friday afternoon. Despite the travel issues, the Friday AM of the test day was cancelled because it was that cold!
So on Saturday AM, when it was qualifying time for the Saturday afternoon race, it would be the first time on track for the weekend for two drivers and the other two, the third time. What do we do when we we’re digging ourselves out of a hole from the start? Simply move forward, focus on the learning process and forget about the end results. Our only goal was to ensure we were learning and progressing from session to session.
4 Cars in 2 Groups, Heading into Saturday AM Qualifying
The #109 SE46 running in T3 class unfortunately only made it on track one time and only on the out-lap. Last race, while leading the T3 race, the car sprang a coolant leak and it briefly overheated. Turned out to be a failed expansion tank and we thought we shut the car off before any damage came to the engine as it cooled down and ran fine (not under load). We swapped cooling system components in Texas, warmed the car up, bled the cooling system, pressure tested the cooling system, and sent it but on that out-lap, going full throttle down the back straightaway, it started overheating again and shot some water out of a vent. When doing a compression test, we found coolant in at least one cylinder. And with that, the Winter SE trip for the #109 comes to an end!
The only time the #109 saw the newly paved surface of COTA – out lap for qualifying Saturday AM
Fortunately, we had shipped the new to us, BMW M240iR on the trip just in case someone wanted to rent and to drive with another team member who has an M2CS but not able to make most of the races. So we scrambled, got the car tech’ed, changed registration, and entered into to T2 class (same group as T3). The #110 BMW M240iR would start from the back of a split grid because it had no qualifying times.
What’s a BMW M240iR?
In short, it’s a factory built and homologated race car from BMW. This car started life as a BMW M235iR and ~4 years ago, there was an update (exterior bits and a higher HP) which made it an M240iR. The intent behind these cars is really to have more reliable and consistent race cars, directly from the factory. Reliable in the sense that newer cars have a lot more electronics and it’s really hard to make a newer street car, be a race car and have those electronics at minimum get out of the way and ideally, be optimized for racing. Consistent in that they are all the same from the factory, so as long as teams run them ‘as is’ from BMW, it’s like a spec series (some sanctioning bodies will apply Balance of Performance (BOP) when multi-make/model racing is in scope). BMW M240iR’s are now out of date for most professional racing series and this car most recently ran in the Touring Car (TC) Class in SRO in the US. Finally, because they are pretty close to the stock configuration in terms of engine, trans, suspension components, etc…, it is pretty easy to get parts for them from BMW dealers.
The RoR BMW M240iR making it’s race debut at COTA
How’d we do and what did we learn?
Preparation: Similar to Buttonwillow, with limited testing/practice time, we continued to learn the importance of preparation before the race weekend. Everyone on the team spent multiple hours in the simulator, getting to know the track and a sense for the performance window for our respective cars. Not once throughout the weekend was anyone focused on learning a corner or knowing what was coming next.
Repaved sections of the track: COTA recently completed a repave project on a number of sections based on feedback from top level professional racing organizations (Formula 1 and Moto GP being the most prominent). We were at COTA in February 2021 and December 2021 and can first hand say, the bumps in turns 5, exit of turn 9, braking for turn 11 and the carousel were ROUGH. The bumps and generally needing to use exit curbs on just about every corner, resulted in COTA being a very physical track on the cars and the driver. It was so bad that during the Sunday T3 race in 2021 for the #109, that a bolt that holds the front right (passenger side) shock in place at the lower spot, backed itself out and resulted in variable suspension specs for the last 5 or so laps of the race.
The new surface makes a massive difference and now drives much closer to the simulator where the surface is clean, flat and you can attack consistently. Based off of lap times and general feel, it looked like the track is at least 1.5 seconds faster due to the repave and up to 2 seconds faster.
Ann Doherty working her Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport in the GT2 class
Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport in GT2
Like will be the case for each race on this winter racing trip, COTA was another new track for Ann (and Dave and Simon). With one experience of training for a new track and needing to come up to speed quickly in real life (Buttonwillow) under her belt, Ann was able to get up to speed faster and by the time race #1 came around on Saturday, she was ripping off chunks of lap time and making her way through the mid-field.
For additional context, on Saturday AM’s first qualifying session (while it was just above freezing), she did a 2:33.XXX lap time. Not blazing fast but again, that was her 3rd time ever on the track. In the Saturday race, she improved to a 2:26.322 and in the thick of the midfield. Then on Sunday, she qualifies inside of the top 10 with a 2:23.768 and nearly matched that lap time in the race. That’s a 10 second improvement over 24 hours and healthily in the mix in GT2 (where the car isn’t also super optimized for GT2 yet!).
Incredible progress by Ann and that is driven by her dedication, preparation and coaching from Ray Phillips (Precision Data Analytics) and the guy in her ear, Memo Calderon!
Ann waving to corner workers after a hard battle for position in the Sunday race with a Porsche GT3 Cup car
Spec E46’s in Touring 3 Trim
Simon and Dave once again were entered in T3 and due to the rollover at Buttonwillow, this would end up being Dave’s first race of the season and due to the flight challenges, Dave’s first time on track ended up being Saturday AM qualifying.
Simon was able to get two sessions in on Friday and had a relative leg up. Again, with it being a new track for both and limited to no testing/practice time, the only goals were to continue improving from session to session and finish both races to capture points and participation requirements for the Runoffs at VIR in October.
Both Dave and Simon delivered with P3 and P4 finishes on both races and improvements on fastest laps in each race and more importantly, improvements on the average race pace. It was a little unfortunate that the #109 was out of commission to help with developing the pace of both cars but all things considered, was an outstanding weekend for both Dave and Simon. Continued learning and there’s not much to complain about racing at the US’s only FIA Grade 1 Formula One track and being the first race weekend after the repave!
Big thanks again to Ray Phillips who was coaching Simon and Seth Thomas, who was coaching Dave!
Dave (#44) and Simon (#81) carving up and battling at Circuit of the Americas
M240iR in Touring 2 Class
As covered above, the M240iR was pulled into emergency duty so the first time out on track was for the race on Saturday and we destroyed the front tires. Qualifying on Sunday AM ended up on a very, very used set of Pirelli slicks from the SRO duties of which were technically not legal but SCCA let us partake due to the circumstances (new tires were being mounted) and they were horribly uncompetitive. These were some of the most sketchy tires I’ve ever driven on and it wasn’t until the last lap in qualifying that they somewhat came up to temperature but with a not impressive lap time of 2:32.XXX, qualifying behind two Touring 3 cars.
For the race, we put the one heat cycle rears on the front and the new tires on the rear. I went out of my way to warm up the tires the best I could on the out-lap for the race and was instructed to take it easy on the first couple of laps to make sure we didn’t have a repeat tire issue.
BMW M240iR showing off it’s lines in the Texas early evening
After those first two laps, I could feel the grip coming into the car and it reacting well to being pushed harder. By about mid-race I cracked off a 2:27.8XX and felt like there was a little more time left in there but I came up on the P5 and P4 Touring 2 competitors.
Getting by the T2 E46 M3 ended up being quite the challenge in that we definitely had an advantage under braking and cornering in general but the low end torque and straight line speed of the M3 was simply too much. I spent the race trying different approaches – getting a better exit, overtaking under braking and even mid-corner on a couple longer corners but as soon as the M3 started putting down power, it was game over.
Check out the full Sunday race for the #110 BMW M240iR
Despite not being able to overtake, it was still a positive experience because it made me work hard on finding a place to make a move where the M240iR had an advantage and the M240iR doesn’t have the updated tune that will unlock ~50whp. All in, we believe the M240iR had a ~2:26.XXX in it this past weekend, which would have put us fighting for a P3 position. With the updated tune, we think 2:24-2:25’s would have been on offer and giving us the opportunity to compete for the other podium positions.
All in all, a great learning experience for the M240iR and we have the updated tune ready to go for the next round at Road Atlanta March 11 – 13, 2022.
If you made it this far, thanks for staying up on our racing adventures and looking forward to another bucket list track! Thanks to everyone who worked their tails off to make this race weekend happen (Reid Morris, Memo Calderon, Jordan Allen, Bryce Allen, Daniel Gray, Ray Phillips, Seth Thomas, Jules and all of our families and loved ones that put up with us)!
Not even a couple weeks into 2021, we kicked off the racing season with a trip to Southern California for our very first SCCA race weekend and a U.S. Majors Tour event at that!
We love the Spec E46 class and series because it’s a national class where these cars can be raced all over the country in a variety of series. In 2019 we did a NASA National Championship run, racing in California at Sonoma and Thunderhill to qualify for the National Championship at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. We were all set for a similar campaign and with more cars and the national championships at Utah Motorsports Park but COVID threw a wrench into those plans (and everything else in the world).
With the 2021 NASA National Championships to be held at Daytona International Speedway, we decided to instead participate in the SCCA Run Offs (SCCA’s National Championship) which is set to be held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. To be able to compete in the Run Offs, you have to qualify by competing in a minimum number of US Majors/Hoosier Super Tour events (minimum 3 weekends and finish minimum of 3 races in the same class) or participate in 4 Divisional race weekends and finish in the top 3 of the divisional points race in that same class.
This race weekend would be the first of our “winter” Southwest road trip, followed by a Hoosier Super Tour event at Circuit of the Americas in February, Buttonwillow in late February and Thunderhill in March. With this “trip” we should have all the races taken cared of to qualify for the Runoffs before the PNW racing season gets going.
New track, trailer and tires
By the time the cars hit the track on Friday mid-day, we had gotten through three new firsts:
New track: This would be a new track for everyone on the team but being able to get some simulator time on iRacing in the Mazda Global MX-5 Cup Car helped us get up to speed on the track and some sense for braking points and a rough setup direction.
New trailer: With a few cars to transport and what is looking like a packed racing year, it was time for us to invest into the shop and buy a larger trailer. This was our inaugural outing in the new truck and trailer. We’ll still be seeing our trusty individual trailers for other weekends but the new trailer made this trip much easier to manage.
New tires: This also was the first time we strapped on Hoosier tires for T3 competition on any of the SE46’s in our fleet. While the Hoosier’s are technically more narrow in diameter 225/45/17 versus the 255/40/17 spec for the Toyo RR’s. We measured them and the Hoosier is still wider than the Toyo RR. 😮
Learning a new track and an roval
Having some time on the simulator really helped out and after a couple sessions, each of the three drivers started developing a rhythm and we were able to start focusing on specific sections of the track. While a decent sized track, it ended up being relatively simple. Kind of like Portland International Raceways, it felt like figuring out how to get the first 85-90% came relatively easy but that last 10-15% took a good amount of discipline and intestinal fortitude.
The track is made up of a two chicanes which are similar to the PIR chicane, one very tricky decreasing radius right hander, a deceivingly simple final sector that leads to oval section and longest full throttle sequence and a turn 1 and 2 on the oval that requires a good amount of commitment to stay full throttle the entire time. It wasn’t until after Saturday’s qualifying and race sessions that we were convinced it was possible to stay 100% full throttle through the whole oval and bets were laid out to see who the first one was to stay flat on Sunday AM’s qualifying.
Gama Aguilar in the #209 Full Throttle in the Oval Section
Saturday Podiums and Progress
The story of the day on Saturday was to keep learning and bring back some hardware. With a limited field in T3, podium spots were almost guaranteed but there were other cars from other classes that qualified amongst the T3 runners, which were made up of our fleet of 3 BMW E46’s and the #12 BMW SpecE46 of Brian Ghidinelli.
Racer on Rails customers John Hennessy and Russell Seewald had an incredible battle the entire race where Russell was able to hold off a late race charge from John to hold on for P3 in T3.
Gama Aguilar (person writing this article 😁) got behind Brian Ghidinelli, who qualified on pole and stuck behind him for the majority of the race, waiting for an opening to make a pass. About 3/4 of the way through the race there was an opening going into the last chicane of the track. I came out of his draft right before going to brakes, moved into the inside and got side by side. As I started trailing to turn in, I looked at the body language of Brian’s car and it looked like he didn’t see me so I started backing out of the move but he turned in too quickly and we ended up making contact with Brian spinning out.
I made sure the car was still working (it was) and while I thought it was a clean move, I didn’t want any questions or discussions with stewards so I backed off and waited for Brian to catch up. Once he did, I waived him through to give the position back and resume racing. The goal is to qualify for the Runoffs. Winning every race is a goal and would be awesome but that’s not the ultimate goal.
Saturday Race Results: 1. Brian Ghidinelli, 2. Gama Aguilar, 3. Russell Seewald, 4. John Hennessy
Sunday AM Qualifying and Final Race
After getting the bets on the table for who would got flat through the oval first and John Hennessy strapping on some sticker tires, we went out for qualifying. Gama and Russell both went out on scrubbed but still fresh Hoosier A7’s and with qualifying time of 8am PST, the track conditions were going to be near perfect.
Everybody improved across the board, dropping at minimum 1.5 seconds. John Hennessy put in a MEGA lap of 1:52.106, less than 1 tenth of second behind Brian Ghidinelli with a 1:52.048 – both of which broke the previous T3 track record. Gama came in with a 1:52.652 and Russell came in with a 1:54.655.
With the starting grid for Sunday’s race based on fastest lap from all officially timed sessions on Saturday and Sunday so far, we ended up being gridded across multiple cars from other classes.
The start of the race was a bit faster than of us expected as the overall pole setter had us well into 4th gear before the green flag flew. John got caught off guard a bit with that start and missed opportunities to tuck into the inside lane and lost some spots by the time we were braking for the chicane.
Russell took advantage of that and stuck behind John but on the second lap going into braking for the first chicane, he had a spicy downshift into 3rd gear which locked up the rears and sent him on a ride. Fortunately, no walls or bumpers were hurt during the spin. Russell got back on the track, finished the race and made the most of some flat spotted rear tires.
John got into a rhythm but the lost positions at the start created a gap to the P1 and P2 battle that was unfolding.
Gama (err… I) got a couple of positions on the start of the race and was behind Brian by mid-way through lap 1 but an out of class Corvette was getting around me on the big straight aways and getting in the way for the braking zones. It took a couple of laps but eventually created enough space to not have to worry about it.
I started putting my head down to eat away at the gap Brian had created (probably around 3-5 second gap) and around lap 4, a spun out Mazda Rx7 GT2 car almost took me out in the first chicane. Was able to put down some fast laps and eventually, the Rx7 got around me and while it slowed me down a little, it eventually went out of sight and caught up to Brian.
About half-way through the race, the RX7, Brian and I were all bunched up and it became apparent that the RX7 didn’t have the braking or handling performance to hang with us in the corners and while it would motor away on the straights, the lap time gap wasn’t big enough to create separation. It would turn into who would be the last person to have a lap or a sector screwed up by the RX7 and giving the opportunity to the other driver. We both benefited and took hits from managing the RX7 but unfortunately for me, it ended up being on the second to last lap (as I was leading) that the RX7 parked it on the sequence that leads on to the main start/finish straight. I had to lift and adjust my line to not take us both out and by the time I was back on throttle and had cleared the RX7, I looked to my left to take the inside line (and thus make Brian go around me on the outside to overtake), he was already tucked in with some overlap.
This turned into the most exciting sector of the weekend where we went side by side through the entire oval sector for the last lap and I stayed flat for as long as possible to try to keep the position but Brian had the inside line for the chicane and unless he completely over slowed, it would have been near impossible to keep the position by going around him on the outside.
#12 pulling away on the final lap as the RX7 refuses to go away.
From then on, the RX7 hassled me on another two corners which sealed the deal for Brian. Overall, was a great race and incredible time at our first time as a Racer on Rails team, going to a super speedway and roval course.
Sunday Race Results: 1. Brian Ghidinelli, 2. Gama Aguilar, 3. John Hennessy, 4. Russell Seewald
Thank you to everyone at the SCCA Cal Club, Hoosier Tires and all the volunteers who made this race weekend happen without a single issue and in the middle of a pandemic. THANK YOU!
Speed Nerd Bonus Content: What changed over 1 day?
From Saturday to Sunday, the qualifying laps, average race laps and fastest race laps all came down by at least 1.5 seconds. So what happened? Below is a comparison of the fastest race lap time on Saturday versus Sunday. Here’s what we think happened:
More seat time: Saturday was only the third or fifth time any of the RoR drivers had ever driven on the track in real life. Each session would help find more speed.
Staying flat on the oval: Every little bit counts and as we got comfortable with the track, it became clear that you could take it flat every lap and while a little sketchy, it was possible. Just had to believe and trust that it was possible and it appears to have resulted in almost .75 seconds gained before hitting the brakes for the chicane.
Patience on the exit of corners: This is likely tied to #1 but as I understood the track more and more, I started focusing on corner exits – do anything possible to not need to lift or hesitate too much when ascending to full throttle. Still not perfect at all but I think it got much better.
Use that purple crack: The additional grip of these Hoosier A7’s relative to the Toyo RR’s is significant. For example, on sticker tires in the Toyo’s, coming out the hot pits I can drop it into 1st or 2nd gear and light up the rear tires. That was near impossible with the Hoosier tires. I think we got more comfortable with the tires and what they could take under all aspects of a corner. I think we still left grip on the table but that just gives us something to look forward to.
#209 Gama Aguilar Fast Laps from Saturday and Sunday Races
Next up: Circuit of the Americas February 6-7, 2021
