Photographic proof that Bimmervitch DID race!

Now, onto the gritty nitty.

Thursday morning, Kupper and I towed the car up to Petaluma to Casey Motorworks, owned by Sean Caseey. Sean is a friend of Kupper's and a BMW M10 supreme. He owns a neat little shop that had a few of the cleanest Tii's I've ever seen. Nice guy. He took a stab at our carburetor issues, which were still plaguing the car. In fact, that car wouldn't start Thursday morning and had to be pushed onto the trailer. Frustrating to say the least.

The magic bullet cause to THIS malady? Contaminated fuel. We discovered that the fuel that was filling the carburetor bowl was cloudy and worse, would separate quickly when poured into a container.

The culprit was discovered to be the fuel cell foam, which seemed to be breaking down after an unknown number of years. We removed the foam, drained the tank, wiped it down, and rinsed it out again with clean fuel. We would need more foam, so I started making calls.
 

The next morning we arrived at the track from our motel room. I had talked to a guy at McKee Motorsports, located conveniently walking distance from our pit. Dude at McKee said he had some irregularly shaped new fuel cell foam that might work, I said I'd take whatever he had and hoofed it over. He sold be all these chunks for $5.

Nice guy. Shop also had an epic collection of phenomenal cars... including the only 3.0CSL Works racer I have ever seen. Truly beautiful, which I had snapped a picture. 

We spent a large chunk of Friday morning doing final preparations on the car, as I was seriously stressing about Tech. The car had gone through tech twice before and sailed through, but I had made enough changes to a lot of the safety equipment that I was still nervous. 

Clint and Vadym's team were a big help. I brought my vinyl cutter to the track, which turned out to be a pretty huge bartering tool. 

Clint ran his ATV into our car. 

Me about to have a stroke before the tech inspection. 

Russel whipped up these nifty tail light blanks. Looked great. 

Our Ruskiefied names. 

Tinyvette looked as pretty as ever. 

Tech inspection. My car egress strategy wasn't too graceful, but got the job done. 

Murillee Martin, an unabashed hero of mine, spots Bimmervitch. 

I wish I had gotten a shot of all our bribes, but they included lots of Russian candy, chocolate, toys, booze, and a sweet Moskvitch rally car dicast model. Murillee spotted the toy car, snatched it, ran around showing all the other judges, and then sprinted to his personal car and locked the toy away. Success. 

I had to produce paperwork once Murillee spotted out suspension, but... 

...

0 BS laps and a B class rating. Wunderbar! 

After tech and BS, Russ set to making his "F1" style seat booster out of expanding foam... a pretty awesome idea that worked out fantastically. 

Friday evening is where it all gets a little hazy. I thoroughly blame Vadym and Clint's Ukranian vodka ceromony, for which I participated in strictly for the cultural exposure. 

A bit of the team solidarity between Clint and Vadym's car and ours. 

This is the next thing I remember. Russ driving me and Kupper to some pub in downtown Petaluma, where we ate a shitton of fried food. 

The next morning, we hit the track. I take the first stint, eager to see how the fixes to our car went.

There are a few problems. One, the track is completely soaked. There is no grip, anywhere. I suck at manual brakes. I put two wheels off the track a number of times.

The bigger problem though was massive fuel starvation issues we were still getting under load. Car would rev up to 4 grand and then fall on its face, and upshifting didn't help--bog would just continue at a lower RPM. 

Commies R Us also having issues--not unlike our own fuel tank woes, except their fuel cell costs 1400 bucks and not 50. Not cool man! 

Fradiecat looking pretty, even under 0 horsepower. 

I come in after about two hours. Car was slow because of the power issues, but handled fantastically. Car was 100% predictable, turned in great, cornered flat and level, and gave plenty of feedback. Without hyperbole, this is one of the greatest and most docile handling cars I've ever driven on a track. All the other driver's concurred.

Our first pit stop is quick, efficient, and well orchestrated. It was also futile, as #2 driver, Rich, didn't have the proper wrist band and was turned back to us before the hot pit. Kupper quickly suits up and jumps in the car.

Kupper picked up a black flag on his first lap for a spin and continue on turn 2. Stayed on the track during the spin. He spent all of two minutes in the penalty box, but Bimmervitch had its first black flag of the day, and early. 

Rich takes the third slot. He too comes in about an hour and a half into his stint with a second black flag, this time for passing under yellow. So far, pretty messy. Rich's cockup costs us 30 minutes off the track. The car is burning almost no fuel (less then 5 gallons an hour, we estimated), so Russ suits up, plugs in his seat cushions, and hits the big boy track for the first time in his life--leaving from the penalty box. 

Some old DMC'ers came out to watch... Sean, Megan and Glen. 

Geoff's mistaken penalty box tour. Kiss ass!

After a little over an hour, Russ finds his way into the penalty box as well, for taking his own route through the chicane (pylons had disappeared). His cockup was

about to cost us an hour, so we made a donation and I jumped in the driver's seat again.

I drove the car for the rest of the afternoon. What was concerning to me was that the oil pressure, which had been 50psi at 5k earlier in the day, was now 30psi at

5k. Nothing really to do but drive.

That evening, we make some changes. The shifter plate had come loose during the racing and was snugged up. We also lost a guibo bolt and the carb had cut out on me

during the last last of the day. I "borrow" Commie's R Us' spare 32/36 and bolt it on. At around 9pm, we fire the car up and it seems to be working fine, but since I

didn't feel like screaming around the pits and pissing people off, there was really no way to tell. 

We go back to the motel rooms and get some decent and well deserved sleep. I am pleased with the car. 

The next day I take the first slot again. Carb swap fixed about 90% of the fuel starvation and now the car is dancing through traffic, and I am able to pass many cars. There are few cars that have an edge over Bimmervitch in the corners, and the corkscrew, turn 11 and turn 2 become my most frequent and successful passing spots. Any open track is still trouble, but most of the 4 cylinder cars are catchable.

During a full course caution, I end up behind Clint in his E21. Once the green started, we both navigated 1-2 through thick and slow traffic, and it was a blast. Two commie-themed E21's cutting through packs of busted ass cars, it remains one of my favorite racing memories. We come across Tinyvette being piloted by Zep in turn 2, and I wave as I pass him. It was a neat moment, and maybe my favorite from the trip. I get stuck behind some dense traffic, and Clint walks away from me, never to be seen again. I back off and get into a rhythm with another hour to go in my session. Oil pressure is still concernly low, but the car is working, and I love it.

I come in after nearly 2:20 on the track (a good 40 minutes of it the initial parade laps) and Rich takes the second session. About an hour later, he comes steaming into the pits. Disaster has befallen Bimmervitch.

Steam is pouring out of the car from under the hood. From forty feet away, I hear the distinct and expensive noise of a nerfed bearing. Don't believe me? Listen for yourself

We do not have a spare motor. It is 11:30, and the chances of finding one and getting it in successfully before the race ends at 5pm are slim to none. We debate throwing some heavy oil in it and getting it back on track, but decide against it for fear of complete and catastrophic failure.

Bimmervitch's run is over. We made 139 laps. We learn later that M10's have particular trouble with all the elevation changes at Sears Point. The recommended procedure is to run them a quart over. This is little consolation when I see all the other M10's finish successfully. I am not that disappointed--failure was always an option, all our driver's got some seat time, and the car was going to drive up on the trailer under its own power.

The car has its battle scars. 

Later, 5 of my coworkers children descended upon the car. This cheered me up. 

The beauty of a kill switch is they would play with the interior to their hearts content and not mess anything up. 

I managed to get to actually watch some of the race after we packed up our trailer from turn 2. 

So that's it. I set out to make a bone simple race car that was both visually pleasing, simple to drive, honest, and dead reliable. I believe I succeeded on three of those counts, but admittedly not the fourth. From the brief moments I had with the car on Sunday morning where it was working well, I can tell there is a seriously great little race car lurking beneath some critical flaws. Once we can get a motor that both runs well and stays together in the car, it will be fantastic.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. This endeavor didn't seem too ambitious, but at the end turned out to be an undertaking the likes of which I had never attempted before. I have "worked" on cars for nearly a decade now, but the amount of stuff I have learned in the last six months makes me realize I didn't know much of anything before. There were moments when I felt like giving up, moments when I didn't want to do anything else, and moments when I wanted to take my .45 and go all Elvis on the bastard. I'm glad I didn't, and I'm glad the car got as far as it did.

She will be back in August and Thunderhill.

I'd like to thank, Russ, Steve, Glen, and Rich. Without their help (and cash) this wouldn't have been possible. Steve spent more then a handful of long nights with me in the shop banging out heads against the car. Russ wasn't able to help out much with the build, but he was a massive help at the race itself. I was so tired of working on the car by the time we got to the race, that it was wonderful to have someone competent there to singlemindedly hump away at a problem.

Thanks also to Vadym and Clint. It is great making new friends and I hope that Bimmervitch and "Lenny's" partnership continues well into the future.
Most of all, congrats to team Tinyvette. Finishing these things is impressive, and winning something is admirable. But winning your class AND the IOE? I personally feel this is a massive feather in the DMC cap. Amazing work.

As always, more to follow...

Steve Ryan