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.
The weather… again (Ice Edition)
As you might have read, our first stop at Buttonwillow had dense fog each morning which cut the run time in half. It’s Texas and somewhat southern Texas, where we were back there in December and it was mid-60’s and 70’s each day. What could happen, right?
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.
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).
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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)!