the science of slow

2010 annual blog post

2010-06-20T10:04:00.000-07:00

It's time for my annual blog post.

Things have definitely slowed down motorsports wise since the baby. Baby? Oh yeah ... the baby just turned 1 and is not really a "baby" anymore.

Things have definitely slowed down, but in the last year, motorsports wise, I've:

raced in 24Hrs of LeMons twice. winning the race once, and definitely not winning the other time
drove in a handful of spec e30 races, learned that I'm slow and getting rusty from lack of practice
backed my spec e30 into a tire wall at Laguna Seca test day (my own dumb fault)
bought a new spec e30 race car, and in the same weekend ...
backed the new race car into a tire wall at ThunderHill (probably my fault, but I had help)

I've got 3 E30 race cars sitting outside of my house right now, all requiring various repairs.

In the future, I plan to sell the red spec e30 once I get it cleaned up. I'll definitely get the new car repaired in time for the spec e30 race in August. It's also likely that my cohorts will convince me to do the December 24Hrs of LeMons race.

Tune in to next year's blog post to see how this all turns out ;)

cheapskate racing tip: buy the wrong wheels

2009-08-11T22:46:00.001-07:00

Long time no post.

In the gap between posts I've raced in the 24Hrs of LeMons and acquired a son, among other things. For some reason I'm back, so here's my latest racing infatuation: cheap wheels.

I'm always on the look out for cheap wheels for my race car. I've got a pile of craigslist searches and keep an eye out on the local E30 forum for good deals. Well, I finally found a "good deal" and picked up a set of Team Dynamics Pro Race 2 wheels meant for Acura fitment, with Toyo RA1's on them, for $250. This is less than the $450 it would cost me for a set of new wheels, and as a bonus they came with some tires that I could race on if I could get them to fit.

They're not quite designed to work on an E30. The offset is odd, but I can work around that with spacers that I already have. The center bore is 56.1mm, exactly 1mm smaller than will fit on the E30.

Enter the milling machine:

I slapped them on the mill at work. A lathe is a better idea for cutting circles, but I don't have access to a lathe big enough to fit an entire wheel, let alone a wheel with the tire still mounted. So I bolted the wheels to the mill's table one at a time, found the center of the hole, then told the CNC computer to cut a circle 1mm bigger.

They turned out ok:

After wiping off the cob webs, I gave the car its semi-annual washing and got it fired up after 3 months of sitting. It fired right up, and I drove on the new wheels at ThunderHill on Friday. While I wasn't setting lap records, I got the entire day's worth of driving out of the tires, and they're not corded yet.

While this kind of wheel modding isn't for everyone, I'm pretty smug that it worked out.

Truth in 24

2009-03-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

Just watched Truth in 24 and it was excellent. So excellent that I felt compelled to type stuff into the blog, instead of just sharing it via Google Reader.

The story was captivating, and the documentary was very well done. As with any good documentary, there's a great human story behind the whole thing. I'd say more, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. I'll probably watch it again in a few days to pick up some of the finer points now that I know the story.

It's available for free on iTunes, just follow this link, or see Jalopnik, Autoblog, and probably a jillion more sources.

Watching the movie made me want to do more endurance racing. Maybe I'll try to sneak the Spec E30 into one of the enduros later in the year? If I don't do any serious endurance racing, I can always take comfort in the fact that the not-so-serious 24Hrs of LeMons Reno is rapidly approaching.

Valentine's Day in the rain at Infineon

2009-02-16T22:37:00.000-08:00

(my apologies for the long post. it was a busy weekend)

The season opener this year was at Infineon on Feb 14th. That's right, Valentine's Day. My wife was extremely understanding, so I was allowed to go play at Infineon while she spent the day with the wife sitters.

I had 2 months worth of off season to prep the car, but in classic procrastinator style, I didn't do much til the week before the race when I slapped the spec exhaust on the car after some stupid fitment issues. The night before the race, I ended up swapping brakes and other misc things while it poured rain. I had the car on the trailer by 11pm, at which point I noticed that it had a flat tire. I filled it with air and went to sleep.

Saturday's Drive to the Track

I woke up at an unpleasant 5am to make it up to Infineon in time for the practice session. The trailer tire held pressure just fine overnight, so I put it out of my mind and groggily drove to the track.

All was well until the ambulance's overdrive light started blinking at me. Blinking lights are generally a bad thing, but the ambulance didn't shift any worse than usual, so I ignored it.

About 5 minutes out from Infineon I was treated to another illuminated light. It was red and said "brakes". Awesome. Guess I should check the brakes now? They still functioned, but operation required both feet and large amounts of pressure. Power brakes are for sissies anyway. I soldiered on, leaving extra braking distance, just in case.

As I cruised into the paddock, the ambulance lost power steering. Clearly there was a theme developing. I parked it and opened the hood to find 1 of 4 belts in its proper configuration. 2 more belts were present, but were hanging like shredded vines on the front of the engine. After a detailed analysis, I believe the alternator belt exploded, which killed the power brake belt, then the remains of the alternator belt took out power steering.

I was just relieved I made it to the race track. I unloaded the race car and went to drop off the trailer in the trailer lot. To top off my morning of broken stuff, the key promptly broke off in the trailer hitch lock. The ambulance and trailer were going to be coupled all weekend. I'd cut the lock off later.

Saturday Race

I had "super sized" my race weekend. This means that I payed a small amount extra to race in the PTE class in addition to Spec E30. PTE is a points based class, full of miatas and rx-7s and now spec e30's. There were a couple of other Spec E30 guys doing the same thing, so I figured it would be an extra spec e30 race, but with Miatas.

In PTE I qualified 8th with a traffic full qual session, then I finished 5th in the race. It was interesting to race with the Miatas, which are faster in the turns and slower on the straights.

In Spec E30 I qualified 8th with a 2:02.444 lap time. I got a pretty good start (for once!) and had a fun race chasing down MacKenzie in a 318is. It was the first time I've driven with a 318 in Spec E30. They have a smaller 4 cylinder motor, so they get a 200lb weight advantage and a lower geared differential to compensate for it. Much like a Miata, it's faster in the turns, and slower in the straights, which made for fun racing. We traded spots a couple of times through the race, and I ended up finishing an unofficial 7th. Thanks to 3 DQ's ahead of me (the top 2 cars were underweight, and MacKenzie was DQ'd for some reason), I jumped to an official 4th place.

The highlight of the race for me was putting down a fast lap of 1:59.924 (1.021 off the fastest non-DQ'd lap in class). I'm now a member of the sub 2:00 minute club at Infineon. I'm also now turning faster lap times in my spec e30 than I did in my M3 over a year ago (2:04's in the M3 on RA1's). This shows how much I was underdriving the M3, and maybe how far I've come?

SpecE30 @ Infineon 2009-02-14 from Adam Lazur on Vimeo.

Saturday Night

Thanks to the Selvigs who drove into town to get belts for me, I spent an hour Saturday night changing the belts on the ambulance. I was tempted to put it off, but it wasn't raining, so I decided to be responsible and get it done during the cold but dry evening. This paid off, since it rained all day Sunday.

Sunday Race

Sunday was very wet. I spent all day slightly soggy, but in between sog sessions I hid out in the dry and warm Speed Trapp Racing trailer.

Aside from it being uncomfortably wet in the paddock, I really like driving in the rain. Last year at Infineon we raced in the rain, and I was looking forward to more of the same kind of fun.

In PTE I qualfied 5th, and finished somewhere near the bottom in the race. I got a good start, and tucked in behind Brenden in the rain. I pressured him for a couple of laps, then we came around to turn 5 and there were 2 cars off. I got distracted gawking, and didn't notice the back of the car stepping out til it was too late. I slid and spun, ending up on the pavement to the inside of the turn facing backwards. I decided I'd turn the wheel, pop the clutch, rotate around and be on my way. I turned the wheel, let out the clutch, and promptly went straight into the grass and got stuck. So much for that maneuver. I spent the next 5 laps watching traffic go by. They eventually towed me out, and I drove the rest of the race, but it was mostly practice for the spec e30 race that was to come later.

In the spec e30 qual I ended up in 10th. We only got in 4 or 5 laps, and I was caught up in slower traffic for most of it before they yellow flagged and then black flagged the field due to a spun car. Going into the race, I was pretty sure I was faster in the rain than the 3 cars ahead of me. I proved that by getting a great start, I flew into Turn 1 where there was a river of water, and promptly spun. Luckily, I didn't contact anything and nobody contacted me. I watched the tail of the field drive by, and prepared for an uphill battle. I worked my way through a few cars, spun again at the exit of Turn 6. No contact. I gathered it up and spun again in Turn 8a. I got lucky again, and the car was unscathed. At that point, with 3 spins, I decided to calm down so I could drive my car home. This was further reinforced by driving through Turn 10 with a chance to look at Will with his car in the tire wall for a few laps til they towed him out.

I ended up fighting my way to 6th, after dropping back to 14th at the start. For that, I recieved the Evil Genius Racing hard charger award. The award certificate is a $100 bill.

Here's the video:

SpecE30 @ Infineon 2009-02-15 (rain race) from Adam Lazur on Vimeo.

planning the 2009 schedule

2009-01-09T14:52:00.000-08:00

The first Spec E30 race is almost a month away, so I decided I should probably plan out the year and get approval from my CFO (Chief Financial Officer, aka my wife) for the plan for '09.

Part of putting it together was taking a look at the data I've accumulated from 2008. In 2008 I:

spent 28 days at the race track
bought a Spec E30 race car
got a NASA license and started racing
bought an ambulance and trailer to tow the race car
averaged $968.68 per weekend

That last one is complicated, and the value really depends on what you include when you add up all the numbers. Instead of drawing the line somewhere arbitrarily, I decided to count every penny. If I had a burger for lunch, that counts towards the total. It's also a little skewed because I didn't include the race car purchase, and some of the improvements to get it ready (seat?), in the figure. I did include "maintenance" things such as a new transmission and the rebuilt head. You get the picture. Complicated.

All in all, it was a pretty good year.

I came up with this schedule for 2009:

2/14,15/2009 NASA race Infineon
4/25,26/2009 NASA race ThunderHill
5/23,24/2009 LeMons race Reno Fernley
5/31/2009 NASA race Llihrednuht
8/7/2009 PDC HPDE ThunderHill
8/23,24/2009 NASA race ThunderHill
10/3,4/2009 NASA race Llihrednuht
11/7,8/2009 NASA race Infineon
12/5,6/2009 NASA race ThunderHill

I'm only at 16 days at the track for 2009, down from the previous 28.

I had to throw out some of the Spec E30 races due to conflicts with other events. Alas, people do not schedule their weddings around the NASA Norcal schedule. There's a break in the middle of the year for what should be a happy/stressful time with the delivery of a baby. I'm still not sure how the baby's arrival will impact racing. Hopefully I can balance both, but time will tell.

Finally, I'm shooting for a lower per weekend cost. If I can avoid big expenses, like head rebuilds, it'll probably happen.

new domain name (or not!)

2009-01-06T12:53:00.000-08:00

I bought scienceofslow.com, so now all the old links will be magically redirected here. Fear not, Raul Mazda will live on, but not in the URL to my blog.

Soft Eyes

2008-12-14T08:03:00.000-08:00

While the off season is relatively short here in Norcal, there's always stuff to work on.

I have a laundry list of things I want to do to the race car "while I have time", but I also work on the driver in the off season. A few months back I spent a lot of time trying to find mental exercises that I can use to sharpen my skills while not on the race track. So here's one technique that I practice called "soft eyes". Read up on it at http://www.nlp-now.co.uk/softeyes.htm or Google search for it.

I practice on the street (safely, mind you). I try to soften my visual focus and use all of my peripheral vision to track the cars around me. See everything. All at once. In low resolution. I started off by trying to track everything in front of me, then added the rearview mirror, and then finally stretched it to encompass both side mirrors. I switch back and forth between focus and soft eyes. Switching back automatically is the hardest part, and takes effort to build the habit. Once I could do that every day, I started to do it and added random math problems (let's count out the powers of 13 or 17 or 29) to the exercise to simulate the kind of stuff I do during a race. I'm not adding numbers in my head during a race, but I'm always thinking. It could be strategy, or observing and storing where I could set up to pass someone on the next lap. Or even stealing someone else's line and figuring out why they're faster than me.

The more I train my brain to do the "easy" stuff automatically, the more I can use my brain to figure out the hard stuff. So I practice, and practice some more.

Data Crunching in the Off Season

2008-12-07T09:41:00.000-08:00

It's pretty boring when there's not another race to look forward to for a few months. I'm not sure what people do who live in climates where it snows. Probably drown their sorrows while watching horrible episodes of Pinks on SpeedTV.

I've been occupying my time shopping for faux fur on the internet and buying ridiculous wings on ebay (pics forthcoming, they'll be on the other blog). Unfortunately shopping can only consume so much time.

During the season, I keep a spreadsheet that tracks my expenses so I can thwart cost cutting efforts of the CFO (my wife). In addition to boring/depressing expense data, I also track what races I've done or plan to do. In the race schedule sheet, I also chunk away my fastest race lap time and the fastest race lap in the entire Spec E30 field. Early on I figured that I could look at the difference between the two over the season, and get a gauge for whether I'm improving or not. Every time I put that data into the sheet, I can see small improvements, which helps motivate me to keep plugging away.

Now that the season's over, I an look at the entire data set. I jammed it all into a chart, and here's what I got:

Throw out 8/23 as a clear anomaly: the headgasket was toast on my car, I was tangibly down on power and only did 2-3 laps per session:

Ah, much better looking :)

Things I observed:

I'm getting better
I'm always closer to the leader on Sunday (this may be due to who's running Saturday vs Sunday for some events, as some teams split days)

Just eyeballing the chart, the trend looks almost linear. If I was super cool I'd fit a trend curve to this data, then predict that in X races I'd be the winner. I decided to skip this exercise in unrealistic expectations. Now don't get all "Zen of Racing" on me and tell me I've got the wrong attitude. I'm being realistic. I know better than to believe that I'll continue to improve at the same rate. Getting faster is hard work, and it's only going to get harder as time goes on. I'll be ecstatic if I'm looking for tenths of seconds instead of whole seconds next season.

So to end on an up note: I finished the season with my fastest lap in the last race being 2.65 seconds off the fastest lap in class. That's about 5 seconds/lap improvement over the course of 13 races. I'll take it.

Race Report: November Infineon

2008-11-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

This is really part 2 of the weekend race report. The first race of the weekend was on Saturday in the rain, and was a non points race. Sunday there were 2 races, both for points, and both in our new run group with the Spec Miatas.

On Saturday I was fighting with wheel spin when lifting a wheel up over turn 2 and coming out of turn 11 (the hairpin), so I decided to try out disconnecting the rear swaybar to see if the car would hook up better in those spots. I went out for practice with no sway, and a few laps in I decided I was happy with the new set up. There's a little more understeer at turn entry, and the rear of the car is a little more squishy, but it felt better.

Next up was qualifying for the 2nd race of the day, since we already qualified for the first race on Saturday. This was our first qualifying exclusively with the spec miatas, which threw off my usual strategy of "put down a hot lap or two, then go ~~screw up~~ play with my competitors". Instead, I put down a compromised first lap due to traffic, built up a gap and tried to put down a fast lap or two, then I cruised for a few laps and decided to try for another fast lap. The timing data shows I did my fast lap in lap of 2:01.373 in lap #9 for a qualifying spot of 6th. The next 2 cars were right behind me with a .630 (AJ) and .655 (Scott C) so it was sure to be a fun race.

For the first race of the day I started 6th, but blew the start and managed to drop a few spots in the first lap. I spent the rest of the race fighting with 3 other cars and my own demons. I eventually pushed my way past the 3 other cars to lead the pack into the final lap, where I melted down and gave away 3 spots in the last half of the last lap for an 11th place finish. While I had a great time mixing it up with the other cars, I was pretty mad that I let a bad first lap get into my head and wreak havoc on my driving for the rest of the race. Here's some blurry video for you to enjoy:

NASA Norcal @ Infineon 2008-11-09 Race #1 from Adam Lazur on Vimeo.

Our 2nd race of the day was postponed due to a race car flying off track and landing in the grandstands outside of turn 1. After gawking at that for a while, we hustled back to grid up for the 2nd race. I put the previous race out of my head, and started fresh. This worked out for me. I started 6th, and finished 6th. I spent most of the race trying to catch AJ, but he kept up a pace that left me a few car lengths behind. Since the race was delayed, the race only lasted 7 laps. If you look at the timing data, specifically my lap times versus AJ's, AJ kept up a pace that was slightly faster than me but lost a lot of room on lap #6. I haven't gone back to the video to see what slowed him down that lap, but it made for a much more exciting last lap for me. Here's the video (not blurry!):

NASA Norcal @ Infineon 2008-11-09 Race #2 from Adam Lazur on Vimeo.

All in all I've had a good season racing in Spec E30. I'm looking forward to next year, when the field will be bigger and I'll be faster.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

2008-11-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

aka Race Report: NASA Norcal Sears Point - 2008/11/8

(I stole this title from the book, in hindsight I probably should've written up a book review since I've read it ... maybe that'll come later)

I hadn't touched the race car since the last weekend's worth of trying to get it running, succeeding, and then not racing. Then I got the LeMons car, spent a few weekends wrenching on it, and oh crap here comes a race weekend. The Friday before the race I adjusted the valves in the morning, then went to work for a short day that turned out longer than expected. I didn't have time to do anything else I wanted to do, so I threw the car on the trailer, and buttoned it all up for the next morning.

I decided I'd do a quick fuel run so all I had to do when I woke up was get in the ambulance and drive. The ambulance rewarded me for a month of neglect by not starting.

Dead batteries. Okay okay, it wasn't the ambulance's fault. I forgot to set the master electrical switch to the off position, and something in the ambulance consumes all available power when it sits. I spent half an hour jumping the big diesel's 2 batteries with the M3, got it to start, and headed over to the gas station. Wow, diesel is only $2.90. I topped up the ambulance, filled up the race car, and hopped in the ambulance to head home.

It didn't start.

So, 15 minutes later my wife arrived at the gas station to witness the ambulance start up again. Once it was running, I sure as hell wasn't going to just shut it off. I spent the next half hour sitting in a parking lot idling in the ambulance and watching the ammeter move from 100A output all the way back down to 25A. I figured that'd be good enough to start the next morning.

I woke up dark and early at 5am on Saturday.

The ambulance rewarded me for spending quality time with it the night before and started right up. The drive up to Sears Point (aka Infineon thanks to the asshole marketing dept Infineon) was uneventful.

I arrived at the track to ~~beautiful sunny weather that Norcal is famous for~~ oh crap, it looks like rain. That's not at all what I was prepared for, because I hadn't prepared for much at all. The day started out overcast, and track was dry for practice and qualifying. Bonus! I qualified 6th of 12 cars with a 2:02.521.

Shortly after qualifying the rain started.

We spent a few hours in the paddock with off and on rain, hoping that the track might dry up for the race later in the day. Don't get me wrong, I actually like to drive in the rain on a race track. It's lots of fun to play at the limit of adhesion at substantially lower speeds. I've driven ThunderHill, Sears Point, and Reno Fernley in the rain. Of those 3, the only one where I've slid sideways towards a wall driver door first is at Sears Point. I stopped 2ft short of the wall that time. That experience was etched in my brain, and it keeps me from being enthusiastic about Sears Point in the rain.

The track was pretty wet by the time of the race, but it had stopped raining. Of the 13 cars that qualified, 7 started the race. I got a free bump from my 6th place qualifying spot up to 4th place at the start (thanks Scott N and Kevin!). The out lap was comical with Donny in the lead spinning in turn 2 (see about 1 minute into this video).

We lined up for the standing start. I fully expected to spin wheels like a madman in the wet, but when the green flag dropped I feathered the throttle enough to get moving. We charged up the hill 3 wide: I dove to the inside of Scott C and Brenden cut to the outside. Brenden carried a lot of speed over turn 2, and spun to the inside. I tucked into 2nd place ahead of Scott C as we zipped by Brenden facing the wrong direction. I think I might have waved :)

I spent the rest of the race repeating to myself "stay smooth" over and over and over. I may have sounded like an idiot, but it paid off and I kept up a good pace slowly walking away from Scott C. Brenden tore through the field after his spin, and eventually caught up to me. His pace in the rain was insanely fast, so I could only ~~block~~ hold him off for so long before he snuck past. My only hope to gain the spot back was for him to spin again. Spin he did, off to the inside of turn 3, but I couldn't quite catch up. The remainder of the race was uneventful: I continued to put down boring smooth laps. I finished 3rd.

I wish I had video of my own from the race, but I didn't get my camcorder turned on. Here's video from Scott C's car. You can see me for the first coupla laps.

Nor Cal Spec E30 Race Infineon Raceway Nov. 08, 2008 from Scott Clough on Vimeo.

Wow that's a long post, and I haven't even got to the 2 races on Sunday yet. There's more to come.

there goes the neighborhood

2008-11-04T12:53:00.000-08:00

I took this scenic shot before I drove into work this morning. This is a shot looking back on my house:

So from left to right, there's the LeMons car in pieces in the carport (some pieces leaning on the house), my wife's car, the race car on trailer in "car shuffle" mode, the ambulance, and then my daily driver in the bottom right.

My neighbors love me.

Pandamonium Racing

2008-10-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

When I last left off, I skipped a race day to buy a car for the 24Hrs of LeMons. The tale of the purchase, and other bits of the build are documented on the blog at http://pandamoniumracing.blogspot.com.

(not)Race Report: October Llihrednuht

2008-10-28T23:23:00.000-07:00

I'll pick up the story right where I left off last time: the car was out of commission due to a blown headgasket.

After the race weekend full of overheating, I had about 6 weeks 'til the next race. Plenty of time. Well, except I had a pesky 4 weeks of work/vacation in Australia in the middle. So the plan was simple: pull the head from the car, send it to a machine shop, go to Australia and come back, then reinstall the head in the week before the race. Things all went according to plan, sort of.

I pulled the head off the car and found a head gasket in pretty bad shape. Here's a coupla pics of the valve train and the cylinders:

For some reason I didn't take pictures of the head? Beats me, that was a while ago.

At the recommendation of Ramon at Bavarian Motorsport, I sent the head out to Memphis Motorwerks all the way across the country. Shipping 70lbs of aluminum across the country is no small task. Ramon recommended that I build a crate and ship it in that. I wasn't looking forward to that, so I decided to buy the biggest cooler I could find for $30, and ship it in that. It worked out surprisingly well, with the exception of UPS charing me $11 for non-standard packing (wtf? it had handles!). I wish I had taken a picture of my cooler pack job masterpiece, but I did not.

With the head shipped off to the machine shop, I went to Australia and did 2 weeks of work. I talked to the machine shop on the phone and got them to do what I wanted (new rocker arms), then I was de-stressed during a relaxing 2 weeks of vacation.

Here are few photos from Australia:

The Karmann Ghia was parked out on the end of a pier in Sydney, and the ambulance with the snorkel was super cool in downtown Sydney. I now have an affinity for taking pictures of ambulances while abroad. I guess ambulance ownership does that to you. Not bad pics for a

When I returned to the states, the rebuilt head was waiting for me inside a familiar looking cooler shaped package. In a bout of what may have been temporary insanity, I also took an oncall shift for work right after I got off a plane from Australia. This threw my week for a loop, delayed some stuff, and I ended up cleaning up the block and other things on Tuesday. Here are some pics of the cleaned up block (too much work) and the clean valve train (post head gasket install):

Of course, none of my projects can be done without a few hitches. The head came back missing one of the studs for the thermostat housing. A trip to Pick N Pull netted the stud I needed. Second, I wasted a ton of time looking for a 3M bristle disc. I eventually gave up on that and got a knock off from OSH. By this point it was Thursday, and the head wasn't on the car. I ended up installing it late into Thursday night, which then bled into Friday morning to try to make the race that weekend. Around 3pm on Friday I finally buttoned everything back up and was ready to fire up the car.

There's nothing like the anxiety of firing up the car after having done such invasive surgery on the motor. It's the climax of anticipation from a long project. That's when the little scared voice in the back of your head starts talking. Did I tighten every host clamp? Maybe I overtightened something? Did I reconnect every wire? There are so many little things that could go wrong... which one did I overlook?

I turned the key.

To my delight, the car fired right up. The idle was a little rough, but quickly evened out to a nice e30 bauble. I was extremely pleased.

I sprung from the driver's seat to survey my magnificent handiwork. The new exhaust manifold gaskets were smoking a little, not a big deal. Then I spotted it. Coolant dripping down the front of the block. "TURN THE CAR OFF NOW" I shouted in my head. My heart sunk as I killed the ignition. I looked around enough to ascertain it was "just the water pump". I guess I should have been happy that it wasn't something worse at that point, but I wasn't. The new water pump that I had just replaced was now leaking coolant. I was mad. It was 4pm on Friday, my car was pissing coolant, and I was mad. And exhausted. Definitely exhausted.

I gave it up, took a shower, and headed to a going away party for a collegue at work. On the way, I picked up a water pump gasket from the $tealer for $6. I hung out at the party, mighty grumpy, and I decided I wasn't going to race the next day. My head just wasn't in the right place, and there's no way I'd be in the physical shape required to race. I'd get a good night's rest, wake up in the morning renewed, sort out the water pump (hope it was just a gasket), and drive up to race on Sunday.

Saturday morning I woke up, took everything off the front of the motor to get to the water pump, and found that I was a bit careless in removing the old gasket 5 weeks prior. There was a piece of old gasket cemented to the block in a corner. I had to scrape it with a razor blade for a good 20 minutes to get it all off, and I probably went a little overboard making sure the surface was prepped, but in the end I reinstalled it all and my car was running around noon on Saturday.

I wish I could say I went to race on Sunday, but I didn't.

I ended up making one of those hard decisions that I hate making as a grown up. Early Saturday morning I spied a car on Craigslist that would be perfect for the 24Hrs of LeMons. I called the guy in between turning wrenches, and we agreed to meet up at 2. I knew that if I was going to buy that car, it'd be better to skip the race weekend altogether to maintain a sane racing budget. Long story short, I bought the car. I had to be responsible and skip a race I could've attended to do it.

I missed the spec e30 crew that weekend, and I hear everyone had a good time. But I've got a new car now:
It needs, of all things, a headgasket.

Race Report: August ThunderHill

2008-10-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

I didn't write about this for a long while. At first it was because I'd rather forget it, and later because I was out and about and legitimately busy. Well, I'm on a plane now so I can no longer say "I'm too busy" and I should probably write it up.

I headed to Thunderhill on Aug 22nd for the typical Saturday and Sunday races, but as a bonus this weekend I also had signed up to drive on Monday with PDC.

The race weekend started off as it usually does with an 8 am morning practice session. This particular practice wasn't as uneventful as it usually is. I eyed a steadily rising coolant temp gauge as the session went on, despite it being relatively cool. I turned in a few minutes
early when the gauge hit 230. I was worried.

I had overheating issues at the bmwcca race school just prior, combined with loss of coolant, so I knew this problem was lurking. Somehow I kept hoping that it was an improperly bled cooling system, or a leak from some recent maintenance.

After practice I bled the cooling system and crossed my fingers. Crushing my hopes of a simple fix, the car overheated and I came in early. I qualified 6 out of 8 with a time of 2:14.921. Not great, but my excuse is being preoccupied with the car overheating. I sought some
advice in the paddock, and decided to pull the thermostat to try to remedy the overheating. In hindsight, this was pretty dumb.

I raced, had a good time, but bailed out early due to overheating. I was definitely off my game due to the overheating.

The next day, I bought some gasket sealant and decided that maybe I'd try to patch up what looked like a leak on the water pump. In hindsight, more dumb moves, but hey, I just wanted to race. I drained the cooling system in the morning, gooped it all up, and put it all back together in
time for the practice session. No help, more overheating. I was ready to pack it in at that point, but fellow racers convinced me to hang out, do a couple of qualifying laps, and then do a few laps of the race. This was an okay idea, well, with the risk of hurting the motor. I did just that. The race was cool, and I can always use more practice at the start. I did a whopping 2 laps in the race, and packed it in, pretty disappointed.

(the photo above is just before I packed it in on Sunday)

As an aside, this was the race when the top 4 cars were put on the dyno. There's a link to the race report on norcalspece30.com.

I also had a car that didn't work for the open track day with PDC the next day. I was pretty deflated. At one point while I was whining, Scott Clough, a fellow spec e30 driver and PDC member, offered to let me co-drive his car the next day. Once again, Scott Clough proves to be my favorite Spec E30 driver.

The next day we alternated 30-40 minute sessions on track through the morning, ate some lunch, then I toasted the brakes on his car. We're talking pedal straight to the floor toasted. We tried in vain to bleed the breaks, but couldn't build up any pressure to force the fluid out by
pumping the pedal. I diagnosed it as a bad master cylinder, and we put his car up on a trailer and headed out.

So I'm 2 for 2 on breaking cars that weekend. Nonetheless, the open track session in another car was lots of fun for me. I got to drive another car, that is drastically different than my car in feel.
His car is smooth and easy to drive. My car requires muscling and it's loud and vibrating. It feels more like a "race car", but it's probably more distraction than anything else.

That day salvaged the entire weekend. Thanks Scott!

dyno ramblings and spec e30 dyno sheets

2008-10-15T13:45:00.001-07:00

At the last Thunderhill race I attended the top 4 Spec E30 cars were put on a dyno at tech. The purpose of the dyno was informational, though I suspect the outcome was contributed to the great Spec E30 dyno library, which if the forums are to be believed may lead to a max dyno rule. Independent of the rule stuff, I suspect if there were local outliers they'd get a lot of scrutiny. I don't think they've published the dyno sheets, so this is from memory but the top 4 cars were putting out 147rwhp to 157rwhp. The highest hp car had the lowest peak torque, and vice versa. Kinda strange.

Anyway, today a guy on the E30 yahoo group asked for a stock E30 dyno graph. It made me think about the above, and then I dug up the link to the spec e30 dyno forum post on spece30.com. You'd expect something like that to be easy to find, but it's not for various reasons (I have a long suppressed rant about how spece30.com is an internet island).

I should probably put my car on a dyno one of these days to get a quantitative baseline. I'm also told that the big kids play games with the air fuel mixture while on the dyno to tune for a few extra hp. No hurry though. I suspect this would take away one of my excuses, since I don't feel like I have problems keeping up with the Joneses in a straight line.

Enough dyno ramblings. I'll post about my latest escapades in race car work (rebuilt head) and other car hijinks (24Hrs of LeMons?) when I get the chance.

my video setup

2008-08-20T15:11:00.001-07:00

Since I've started posting videos on Vimeo, I've been getting a bunch of inquiries about what I'm using to make the videos. My camcorder setup is as follows:

Aiptek A-HD camcorder
IOPort camera mount
0.45x wide angle lens (find on Google with wide lens 17mm-27mm)

The Aiptek A-HD camera is solid state and records MPEG-4, 1280 × 720, 29.97 fps (this consumes 4.00 Mbps, or around 30MB for a minute of video). I use a 1G SD card, and have learned to wipe it before every "important" session, like before every race. Aiptek makes a cam or two that are higher resolution, but this one is cheap and it works for me. It also uses a standard USB cable, so charging or transferring video is as easy as plugging it into a laptop.

The wide angle lens is required to get a good view of the cockpit from where it's mounted on my roll cage. The lens is an aftermarket add on, and ships with magnetic rings with adhesive to set up a temporary bond to the camera. This is not at all rated for track duty, so I've got it racer taped together.

Finally, the Aiptek camera needs a little help. For one, the battery rattles around inside the camera, occasionally power cycling it mid-session. Padding the battery a bit solves this problem. People also complain about the audio quality, so some take apart the case and cover the mic with foam or paper to dampen some of the noise. In my car, it isn't too bad so I haven't done this mod.

ggc bmwcca club racing school '08

2008-08-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

So I made it to Willows sans ambulance at 3:30am.

I set an alarm for 7am, surprised myself, and actually woke up when it went off. I checked my phone and groggily listened to voicemail from Scott Clough. He snagged a spot under the shade structure for me. Scott C is now my favorite Spec E30 driver.

I spent the weekend in the BMWCCA Club Racing School. This was a 2 day school tailored to prepare an advanced driving school student for club racing with the BMWCCA (sans other experience, it's a requirement to apply for a license). I was hoping to learn some secrets from old salty dog racers and have a good time.

I didn't learn what I expected to, and in hindsight, this school probably wasn't for me.

I have 10 or so races under my belt by now, so I was a little bit aggressive relative to the rest of the class. The school catered to the sheltered BMWCCA driving school student who has come up through the ranks and restrictive rules of the BMWCCA. The most advanced run groups in BMWCCA are passing with a point by, which produces timid, polite advanced level students who are distinctly lacking experience passing in turns. That said, most of the other students took to the new freedom of open passing pretty well. Our race "qualifying" ended up being a simulated NASA HPE4 rungroup, but with lots more polite drivers ;)

The school allowed anyone with a street car and a helmet to participate. This was a little odd for racing, as not all cars had the usual safety equipment. Because of this, the instructors set a tone of safety above all else. Any contact was not to be tolerated (though this was more of a 13/13 thing).

We did a couple of sessions with specific exercises:
- drive the track 3 wide, switch position every lap
- passing drill
- rolling start practice (wish I recorded video of this!)

There were also extensive classroom sessions. This is where I was hoping to learn a lot about racecraft. It turns out the classroom sessions were more administrivia about how BMWCCA club racing works, and how you should organize yourself for your race weekend. While this is probably useful for the complete newbie, it didn't really help me much. My big take away was that it provided a time for me to reflect on my own routine. There were also lots of good stories, but very little in the way of what I was looking for (tips and tricks for passing and defending, commentary on things they saw me do at the track, etc).

This was the first weekend on a new transmission and clutch (and motor mounts and trans mounts and short shifter). They all performed flawlessly. The new clutch allows me to shift a little too fast at times, but I like it. The short shifter is the stock shifter from my e36 M3. It's a little weird and probably needs to be bent a little, but I like it just the same.

Anyway, back to the actual driving part. The weekend culminated in a mock race (they called it a "simulated racing exercise"). Here's video with my first attempt at commentary overlayed on live video:

GGC BMWCCA Club Race School @ Thunderhill 2008-08-10 from Adam Lazur on Vimeo.

"then I get in my race car and drive away"

2008-08-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

Often I make a hilarious joke about having an Ambulance. The conversation usually goes like this:

Person: you have an ambulance?! WHY do YOU have an AMBULANCE?
Me: WHY do YOU NOT have an AMBULANCE?
Person: good question. I don't know. now why do YOU have an ambulance?
Me: so I can tow my race car.
Person: wow, your car can't drive on the street?
Me: well, it can ... but it's not very comfortable. also, if it breaks, I can tow it home.
Person: what happens if your ambulance breaks down then? ha ha got you there!
Me: then I get in my race car and drive away

Okay, it's not as funny when I type it. I think part of the hilarity involves my perfect timing and miming of "drive away"?

Whatever. As not funny as that joke is, it got less funny when it actually happened on Friday night. I spent all week prepping for a weekend at Thunderhill. By "prepping" I mean fixing a bunch of random stuff, swapping out the transmission, and putting in a fancy racing clutch.

Due to procrastination, I ended up getting the clutch at 6pm on Thursday. So I worked Thursday night and just about all of Friday on getting the clutch and transmission installed along with a few other things. I aimed to get out of town around 1pm, but ended up really being ready to go at 8pm. Just 2 broken bolts, and only 1 required extraction with a torch. Things were going great. That was sarcasm, broken bolts are not great at all. No worries though, I was done at 8pm! Exhausted from the day, all I had to do was throw the race car on the trailer, fire up the ambulance, and drive 3hrs to Thunderhill. Then I could go to sleep. What could go wrong?

Thunderhill ETA: 11pm

BRRRrrrrRRRRrrrrrrrrRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

...

...

(that's the sound of the race car not starting, then silence when the battery died)

So I had to jump start the race car. Awesome! I put it on the trailer, packed up my stuff and threw it in the ambulance. Then I got in the ambulance and turned the key. Not even a light in the dash. The batteries were dead. So, I jumped the ambulance. That takes half an hour or so, due to the current required to start a diesel. I don't know where the rest of the time went, but I left at 10pm.

Thunderhill ETA: 1am

All was going well til I was climbing a hill in the East bay and I smelled a hint of the sweet sweet smell of antifreeze. I thought the ambulance was trying to tell me something, so I aimed to check it out when I stopped to fuel up a little later. The ambulance wasn't pleased that I ignored its cry for attention, got angry, and blew plumes of antifreeze steam at me to get my attention. As the cabin filled with smoke, and the windshield fogged up, I pulled off an exit and had the coherence to limp into a lighted parking lot.

Thunderhill ETA: ???

I hopped out of the ambulance and was sad, but not surprised, to see large quantities of coolant on the ground. I opened the hood to let out a billowing cloud of antifreeze steam. The hood on the ambulance is not very large, so with a flashlight I could determine that the antifreeze was coming from precisely ... somewhere under the hood. After some of the steam cleared I could deduce that it was coming from the top of the engine somewhere. Awesome. I called Beth and let her know that I was in a park and ride parking lot somewhere near Dublin, and I may require assistance so she shouldn't get too comfy.

I dumped the 1 gallon of water I had in my ambulance into the radiator, hoping to get it to show me where the leak was. That didn't help. So with the ambulance in unknown broken state, I examined my options. I could call AAA and try to get them to tow the ambulance and trailer with a race car on it. I could back the race car off of the trailer and abandon the ambulance. I could try to fix the ambulance.

Thunderhill ETA: maybe not

I had all night to give up, so I decided to try to further diagnose the ambulance. Since the hood is so tiny, and I could only see a little bit of the motor, I decided it'd be wise to pull the center console out to get a better look. In vans like this, the motor sits almost under your feet at in the middle of the dash. The exercise in panel removal revealed a passenger footwell with antifreeze in the carpet, and antifreeze all over the top of the motor. After a little further examination, I noticed a big hole burst in the 3" diameter hose that goes from the top of the radiator into the top of the motor. It was on the back side of the hose so I couldn't see it from the front. The hole was pretty large, maybe 2" long or so.

Thunderhill ETA: ???

So here's the plan: patch the hose, find some water and fill up the ambulance, limp it to somewhere "safe" to abandon it, then take the race car to the track. No sleep 'til Thunderhill.

I pulled the hose and raided the ambulance for supplies. I came up with a few hose clamps, some racer's tape (duct tape, but non-permanent adhesive), and some zip ties. I ended up taping the hose, reinforcing the hole/crack with a band of zip ties, then taping over it again. It looked pretty stout, but the whole strategy hinged on the racer's tape adhesive holding under the high temps.

With the hose reinstalled, I had to fill the radiator with water that I didn't have. There was nothing around, so I was contemplating taking the race car to pick up water somewhere. Then I heard it. SSSsssshhhhhhhhh. The sprinklers just kicked on. I grabbed my 1 gallon container and wide mouthed water bottle to go harvest water from the sprinklers. The sprinklers turned off just as I had 1 gallon of water. Well, that's better than nothing. I filled up the radiator and heard the sound of sprinklers again, but further away. So I went further down the road to find the next set of sprinklers in the rotation. I repeated this routine a total of 3 times, for 3 gallons of water to fill up the collossal ambulance radiator.

So I fired up the ambulance and headed to my safe drop spot: Edge Motorworks. I know some of the Edge guys, and I figured they'd let me stow an ambulance for a few days if I had to. I fired up google maps and got directions. Then I promptly drove the wrong way for 10 minutes. The good news is that in those 10 minutes the ambulance didn't overheat. Eventually I got to the drop point. At 1am I was hoping that the race car would start so I could back it off the trailer. It fired right up, I backed it down, and threw a random selection of tools and stuff in the back of the car.

Then I got in my race car and drove away.

Thunderhill ETA: 3:00am

The rest of the trip was, to sugar coat it, miserable. The race car isn't very pleasant to drive on the highway at night. It's loud, uncomfortable (for long distances), and there are no front windows. I was sporting a hoodie with the hood up and tightened around my face and I was still shivering. I struggled to maintain focus to finish the drive. I didn't want to caffienate because I needed the few hours of rest I'd get to actually count.

I did make it to the hotel around when I expected to. I went into a sleep coma at 3:30am, and looked forward to a cheery 7am wake up call. At least I made it to the track.

Infineon Video - Sunday

2008-07-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

Here's the Video from Sunday's race at Infineon (the video thumbnail is just after the contact):

NASA Norcal @ Infineon - 2008-06-29 from Adam Lazur on Vimeo.

My ramblings from the description, in case you watch it inline:

There's a splice at the start/finish a few laps in. It cuts out boring bits, and gets the vid below the 500mb vimeo limit.

Transmission issues plagued me for most shifts into 3rd gear. I "compensated" by adding gas, which as you'll notice, is the opposite of what I should have done to match the revs. The transmission trouble got into my head and I got sloppy.

Highlights include:

lap1 turn4, contact (I'm ashamed of this, it should've been avoided)
lap2 start/finish, Ron (white e30, #18) and an rx7 split around me, almost hit, and slide off track avoiding it
a few bumps from Scott C. behind me (black e30, #224), and eventually he sneaks past me after a bump coming out of Turn 2

Race Report: June Infineon

2008-07-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

The day job kept me busy in the weeks prior to this race weekend. So much so that I didn't even pull the car off the trailer. I gave it a once over the day before the race, and off I went.

My wife forced me to fill out my racing expenses spreadsheet a week or two prior. This was a little traumatic, as all the little numbers add up to be a much bigger number. The math doesn't lie: I budget more per month on racing than I do for rent. And rent in the bay area is pretty expensive. That struck home, so I changed my accommodations strategy a little. No more $100/night hotel near Sonoma. Nope, I drove up on Saturday morning and I slept in the ambulance that night. This was a bit rough, but I survived. It really wasn't too bad in the whole scheme of things, and it was immediately worth the discomfort the first time I stared out of my helmet on the grid.

Saturday Race
The race strategy for this weekend was the same as previous weekends: have a good time, find a couple of missing seconds, and catch the faster guys. On Saturday I picked up a set of used rims (thanks Scott!). To my surprise, they came with a set of tires that had enough tread on them that I couldn't bear to throw them away (maybe 2/32"?). One had a solidly bad flat spot, so I threw that on the rear and decided I'd spend some time trying to round it out.

Enter the Lazy
and that's all I wrote ...

The rest went into the Infineon Race Report on NorcalSpecE30.com. I added the sections that say Adam, big surprise there :)

I didn't harp on how badly the 3rd gear transmission thing was ... but it was bad. It got in my head on Sunday, helped along by the taps from Scott C., and cost me the coveted 4th place spot. I need to cut Sunday's vid down below 500MB and throw it on Vimeo.

Also, the pic of Tommy Lo at the bottom of the article makes me laugh every time.

Anyway, here's a video from Saturday's race:

Spec E30 Race @ Infineon - 2008-06-28 from Adam Lazur on Vimeo.

Karting

2008-07-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

People always talk about how karting is an affordable way to get into racing. I don't buy the hype for 2 reasons:
- racing is always expensive (AKA the fundamental theorem of race driving)
- the hidden costs include neck/spine injury. See this video:

my laps

2008-06-02T12:36:00.003-07:00

I've got a race weekend at Thunderhill coming up this weekend. Lots of car prep to do (highest priority: re-mount fire extinguisher, try to figure out how to get my transmission through another weekend).

While I'm thinking about it, I'll mention that you can check out my lap times at laz.mylaps.com It's not really that exciting, but you can compare my (slow) laptimes to the others.

Also, you can check out my mighty standing for the season at the 2008 season points page. Right now I'm in 6th place. I would blame my position on missing the first 3 races of the season (is there a drop X% of races policy?), but it would also help if I wasn't a slow rookie ;)

24hrs of lemons

2008-06-02T01:33:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to drive in the 24 Hours of LeMons. It's an endurance race with a twist: the cars cannot cost more than $500. Safety equipment (cage, harness, etc) is specified, and is not included in the $500 budget.

I weaseled my way onto team Golden Shower. We drove a 70's Mercedes 240d, painted all gold. The plan was to emit a spray of malt liquor out the back of the vehicle, but alas that did not make it into the final version of the vehicle. Here's a pic of me piloting the panzer Benz:

You can check out a gallery of our car, or a gallery of all the cars provided by the fine gents at Jalopnik.

Driving the car in the race was both fun and frustrating. It handled surprisingly well for how jacked up the suspension was (cut springs in the front, but not the rear). Though I suspect the handling wasn't horrible because the car really couldn't build up much speed. I think we topped out at 60mph. The motor in the 240d is a dog, putting out a factory stated 72hp. As a result, we were vastly out accellerated. This drove our team strategy: drive a defensive line, clog up the works as much as possible.

We had a rough weekend, full of car breakage. The car was taken out of commission by rear brake failure on the first day (due to a stripped brake line). During the rear brake inspection, we also noticed the rear subframe was tearing apart (that was the horrible clunking sound I heard while throwing the back of the car around the hairpin!). The subframe was fixed with some pop rivets (?!) while I was out with a team finding brake parts. In the end, the brake parts weren't much help, and the rear brake lines were bodged together with the help of an ingenious homemade tap. By the time we had the car back together, the day was called due to a tragic incident that took the life of Court Summerfield.

On day 2, we rotated a few drivers through and I got to drive again. I put in half an hour of driving or so and the car felt good. I was on the bumper of a Volvo wagon exiting the esses, the yellow flag went up, they slammed on the brakes and I didn't stop fast enough. I rear-ended them, and our bumper was about 6" lower than theirs, so it took out the radiator. We eventually got a spare from a team fielding a BMW 2002 (surprisingly, the spare worked well with our hoses). We sent the car back out, only to have the oil cooler pierced. We cut the oil cooler out and turned it into a bypass (who needs an oil cooler anyway?). About half an hour from the end of the race it came back in with a bent suspension. In a brilliant move, Dave bent it back using a jack and the weight of the car. We put the car back out on track for the finish of the race, though the suspension was toast.

All in all, it was a good time. I drove to the event in the ambulance, which turned out to be useful for hauling diesel fuel. Hacking things together in the pits was an excellent time, as always, though I wish we had to do less of it. I'm already scheming to make an appearance at the next 24hrs of LeMons in December at Thunderhill.

my tow rig

2008-06-01T16:48:00.000-07:00

I recently acquired a used ambulance for a tow vehicle. It's a 1991 Ford E350 van with 139k miles that was converted to an ambulance immediately after it left the factory. It's equipped with a Diesel 7.3L IDI motor, 4.10 ratio rear, and a super pimp assortment of real ambulance cabinetry and style. The lights and sirens still work.

In addition I picked up a used trailer for the race car, resulting in this setup:
I took the ambulance to the 24hrs of LeMons (I should probably blog about that too), but took the entire setup in tow configuration to Reno Fernley last weekend. The tow out was about 7hrs in Memorial Day traffic and rain/snow in the dark over the mountains. We made better time on the return trip and did it in 5.5hrs. The ambulance performed admirably, though some of the mountain passes required giving up and lugging it out at 45mph locked in 2nd gear.

The ambulance + ~3500lbs of tow weight averaged 10.7mpg for the return leg of the trip. Not so great these days when diesel is $5/gallon.

Llihrednuht race report

2008-05-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

See the link above for my write up of the weekend at Llihrednuht (Thunderhill backwards). I've been meaning to write up other races, but have been too lazy. Luckily, I was motivated to do this one since I was the "race chair" for that weekend. Being the race chair mostly means you're in charge of recruiting new people, making sure everybody in the spec e30 race group knows where to go and when, maybe hand out some contingency cash (though the series director usually handles that) and writing a race report afterwards.

Also, there's a version of this report with more pictures up at norcalspece30.com