Sacramento Valley BMW Club

Come on out and enjoy BMW's in full racing trim. Your local club racers, Gil Caravantes and Walter Ford are inviting local chapter members to the races. October 27th and 28th BMWCCA will be racing in conjunction with NCRC/ARC, a local club based organization. Walter Ford's M3 led the ARC Reno Fernley race from pole to take the checkered flag against much more powerful GT2 and GT1 cars, he is also in the lead in the GT3 time trial and race categories.

Gil and his E30M3 placed 3rd in class at Willow Springs. Gill went on to score a 1st at Buttonwillow and also at the following race in Willow Springs.

Kevin our supertech / in house SpecE30 wheelman and I took a trip to Buttonwillow last weekend. Neither of us has ever been there before but we had adequate warning NOT to join the Sunrise club.

Saturday

Practice was frustrating for both of us. Gil Caravantes took care of Kevin and Dave Lang was going to show me the line around the track. Dave lasted about 2 corners before he took off with Josh Zwart. I was left fending for myself behind a JS car which was fine with me. The first half of the session sucked. I was not slowing enough for the technical sections which resulted in blowing every apex. The fast sections such as the esses and Riverside were fun and I was running flat out in a few laps. I was able to eek out a paltry 2:17.201.

Qualifying was a little better I was able to slot in behind Gil and get a good look at the fast line. I improved my lap time by over 5 seconds at 2:11.654. I was quite a bit off the pace but was satisfied.

Saturday race videos:

The race was quite an experience. Everyone wanted to win the race in turn 1 and consequently there were some thrills. Dodging a side view mirror I was able to get through cleanly. I slotted in behind Mark Ghafouri who promptly ran away up through Lost Hills. Lance Boicelli schooled me in Off-Ramp only to have Tom Bell spin in front of us in Star Mazda. I ran off the track exiting Cotton Corners and had a really wild ride at about 4:12. A few laps later Paul Quattrocchi spun and lost fire in his turbo'd M42 E30. There was a lot of "moon dust" hanging in the air on the track. As I passed through I caught a glimpse of Paul sitting across the track, 8:55 on the video. It scared the bejezus out of me! About that time I caught up to Jim Bassett and Lee Papageorge. Lee dove under Jim at Star Mazda but I was unable to follow him through. I got around Jim in turn 1 on the next lap and passed Lee in Star Mazda. As Lee put it I pulled a "Lee" on him in his favorite corner.
I was rammed (rear ended) by Claudio Pecora at the exit of turn 1, yes Virginia, at the EXIT.
At 14:30 I was exiting the Buttonhook (Lost Hills) and received a passing flag from the corner worker. I glanced in my mirror and saw a heated battle between 2 very fast cars, Mirzayan and Pecora. Their closing speed was going to be very high and they were running 2 abreast down the front straight. I decided to run hard for turn 1 and stay wide to let them through. I entered the corner on the left edge of the track and stayed there until the exit at which time I was struck from behind. I was hit very hard... so hard in fact Pecora's Vanos was smashed and he had to pull out of the race!

Sunday
We missed practice due to a light rain. We bought a set of R888's for each car so we could qualify and race later in the day.
Qualifying was allot of fun, patches of water and fresh unshaved Toyo's! The R888's are AWESOME tires even at full depth. They do not squirm and are very predictable.

Sunday race videos:

The race was really uneventful save for a yard sale I held at the Bus Stop. At 12:27 I demonstrate how to lose an expensive LTW splitter and fender liner. The runoff did not seem so bad but it was worse than I remembered. I left a trail of parts along the infield at the Bus Stop! The car didn't turn right very well anymore either. I suspected a tire going down but it never got worse. At 18:00 Tom Bell dives through the double garage door opening I left for him in Off-Ramp. I returned the favor in turn 1 despite not having any camber and very little caster on the left front. When I got back into the pits I noticed the car had no camber and 2" less caster on the drivers side! The berm is MUCH bigger than it seems.... I was able to rip out a 2:11.519 which is a testament to the Toyo's.

All in all, despite being rammed and running off everywhere, I had a good time. I LOVE Buttonwillow Raceway, just stay on track! I inspected the car with Kevin and my right strut tower is cracked where the edge of the camber plate tried to force it's way through the top of the strut tower. Both sides (towers) are bowed up significantly...

Walter Ford of Valley Motorwerks and club webmaster, was kind enough to fill us in on the club racing event from this past weekend as well as providing links to videos he shot:

I really enjoyed the weekend and had a great time with my fellow racers at Thunderhill. Tom Bell, who drives a JP Z3, barbecues both days and hands out popsicles after every race. Brad Otoupalik and Evosport brought along 2 turbocharged fire breathing BMW’s that make well over 600hp each!

Practice was cut short due to an off-road excursion by one of the Evosport cars, he did not make it through the first lap cleanly. There were front end parts strewn all over the track between turns 9 and 10. We were black flagged and had to wait in the hot pits until the track was cleared. As a result we could only muster 2 or 3 hot laps before our time was up I ran a best time of 2:04.693.

Qualifying was nerve wracking for me. I have never run with the BMW club before and did not want to either hold someone up or worse, run off the track. I did rather well by turning a 2:02.344 which, while fast, was way off the pace set by Dave Lang in his M3 at 1:58.465.

I was expecting to start at the back of the pack due to my rookie status but I was allowed to grid in 7th where I qualified. The BMWCCA uses a rolling start and at the drop of the flag we were off and running. The race was pretty uneventful as Dave Lang ran away from me and I was already ahead of the other competitors in my class. I used most of my track time working on my line and trying to go fast. I was able to turn a fastest lap time of 2:02.763 in the race which is very good since it was very close to my qualifying time.

Practice was uneventful; the big players from Saturday took the morning session off to work on their cars. I was able to muster a 2:05.418, the difference being we were practicing with the NCRC group and consequently there was quite a bit of traffic.

Qualifying is where it got exciting, as it consisted of a reverse grid start based on yesterday’s best times. I was gridded 16th and all the fast cars were behind me including the pair of fire breathing turbo’s as well as Matt Bell’s ex-World Challenge car. The key was to stay out of trouble and let people around me that were faster. I was able to stay alive and get through it ok, the longer video is from this session as it was the most exciting!

The start of the race was also a rolling start. Gil Caravantes was next me at the start and was able to get past me in an attempt to leave his closest rival, Lance Boicelli behind. Gil and I ran nose to tail for a few laps until his clutch started to go and he waved me around. The rest of the race I was reeling in Brett Strom in an E46 M3 and Mike Allen in his CM E46 M3. I was able to catch Brett but his 90hp advantage kept him out of my reach!