Thursday, December 10, 2009

DTR One Lap of America Effort Highlighted in BMWCCA Newsletter

I wrote and article for the Buckeye Chapter BMWCCA's Driving Light newsletter to highlight our 2010 One Lap of America effort. Click the link to read the article!

Buckeye Chapter BMWCCA's Driving Light article

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Watkins Glen - GVC BMWCCA Club Race

I flew up to Watkins Glen with the intent of co-driving the enduro in Mario Meise’s I-Prepared E36 M3. Unfortunately, his car broke on Friday, so he didn't even practice on Saturday. He found himself a co-drive with Tyler Munroe (IP). In part of the mystery of club racing, I quickly found a ride with Jason Micare in his JP car, but his clutch was slipping. I tested it in my instructor session and the clutch was manageable, but was annoying. He drove it in the sprint race and said it got worse. He wanted me to drive, but told me I could seek out another ride. Jesse Clark agreed to take me on in his JP car. He had finished 10th overall the previous day, faster than all the IP cars, if I remember correctly, setting a track record for JP of a 2:08.5! = O

Jason still didn't want to drive the whole hour, so I started the enduro in his car from the back of the grid (32nd) since I hadn't qualified it, but he didn't care about the finishing position. The enduro was wet. VERY wet. The car was insanae to be driving, as the windshield was fogged up completely. I'd lose sight of a car that was 2 carlengths in front of me. I had a t-shirt that I was trying to wipe the windshield with; whipping it at the windshield to the places I couldn't reach! I couldn't see a damn thing. I advanced positions wherever I could, but it wasn't too long before there was a full-course caution. There were no less than 3 wrecked cars. I did my requisite one lap after the green flag dropped again, and brought the car in. I coudn't get out soon enough. I had advanced to somewhere around the 16th place that the car finished. I then waited for Jesse to come in.



I got in Jesse's car at the mid-way point and we had a couple minutes to kill during the pit stop, which he used to remind me that he was going to O’Fest next weekend and needed the car brought back in one piece! I headed out after the 5 minutes was up. He had been running around 5th, or so, behind a few C-Mod cars and a D-Mod. The car was awesome. It was really well-behaved and had lots of grip (relatively speaking) from the Hoosier Wets. It was a LOT of fun. I flew around every car I came upon, but didn't see but one of the C-Mod cars. I passed with ease, looking for more. I assumed they were somewhere ahead of me and I just wasn’t catching them, maybe because I wasn’t pushing as hard as Jesse did. I didn’t know…

Jesse told me over the radio when the starter was playing with the white flag, alerting me that we were nearing the end. As I came down the front straight, the white flag was waving. Jesse got back on the radio and said, "Uh, dood?..... I think we're winning!" In fact, it was confirmed on the next lap, when I took the checkered flag, winning overall, 52 seconds ahead of the next car! It turned out that I had passed all the other cars while they were in the pits, and then just run away from them from there! In the meantime, I managed to set the fastest lap of the race, with a 3.4 second difference between me and the next fastest car! Jesse’s car was so great to drive!

BMWCCA WGI 2009 Enduro Fast Forward to 11:06

After we were done, I jumped in a D-Student’s MINI Cooper S, since his instructor had left. It was still raining out. We were headed down the back straight and braking before the bus stop. He had a wheel lock up and pitch the car to the right. With such a short wheel base, the car rotated very quickly and we got about 110 degrees around and hit the right-side wall (about 50 ft before the bus stop) with the left front corner. We glanced off and continued our spin, stopping in the entry to the bus stop. We were both sore in our necks, so the medics braced us in the car and then back-boarded us and took us to the hospital. We both received CT Scans before being released. While we were there, another instructor and student came in after having rolled in a WRX. After that, they closed down the driver’s school. I believe everyone involved is ok. It was a more exciting ending to the weekend than I had hoped for!



Sunday, August 30, 2009

Mid Ohio - 1974 Porsche RSR Replica Test

I took my student out in his car for a few hot laps. You can see the last few laps in the video below...


Anthony Magagnoli - '74 Porsche RSR @ Mid-Ohio






Saturday, August 22, 2009

Longest Day at Nelson Ledges

On August 1st, I found myself at Nelsons Ledges Road Course, instructing with the NOR BMWCCA, as I stopped by on my way up to visit family in Rochester. The place is even more horrible than it had been described to me. But holy crap was that track fun!! It’s incredibly bumpy, but equally as fast and just a really ballsy track to go fast on. I had a blast!

Now, my reason for stopping by, at the time, was to learn the track in advance of “The Lamest Day”; the 24 Hours of LeMons race there in October. I wanted to know the track, for myself, and also be able to prep our Toyota team for what to expect there. However, 2 weeks in advance of The Longest Day, Tim Smith called me up and told me he wanted me to fill a seat in his car, which he had specifically prepared in an attempt to win this race outright.

I was very interested in running with Tim. He had recently raced with Bimmerworld’s James Clay and won the 12 Hour of Summit, overall. I trusted that he was prepared to challenge for the win, and I respected him and the other two drivers who were on board. Jeffery Negus and Bill Heumann are both BMWCCA Club Racers who normally race M3’s in I-Prepared. Bill had recently run a Grand-Am Cup race, as well.

There were two big problems for me. The first was that my brother and his girlfriend were planning to visit me that weekend. Family is more important to me than a race, believe it or not, but I thank Joe and Danielle so much for their willingness to modify their plans so that I could attend this race and we could still spend some time together.

The second problem was funding... Racing is not light on the wallet, but that goes double if you’re looking to show up and drive a car that’s prepared for you, and even more so for an endurance race. I simply didn’t have that kind of budget. However, Tim really wanted me to fill that seat and I thought that it would be a great opportunity for me to broaden my skill set, compare myself to some other very good drivers, and experience how a “real” endurance race is run so that I could relay my learning points back to our LeMons team. Long story short, I needed help. To my own amazement, I was able to pull together a significant amount of sponsorship within one week’s time. Enough so that I was able to come up with the difference and get myself to the race. A huge thanks goes out to Scott Barton of MyTrackSchedule.com, Ken Herskovitz of Bimmertools.com, and Eric & Evan Keller of EnthusiastAuto.com. Please visit their websites in the event that you may be able to utilize their services!







So! On to the race…

I arrived on Friday night with just enough time to get behind the wheel for some night practice. This was new for me. The headlights on the car were covering just enough of the road in front of me so that I didn’t have time to react to anything I saw. I was trying to drive on reference points, which consisted solely of red reflectors in the braking zones and white reflectors indicating the turn-in, apex, and track-out points. It gave me a feel for the car, but little else. I was about 3 seconds off a typical day-time pace. Like I said, it’s a ballsy track, and I couldn’t find mine in the dark! To make matters worse, an RX-8 was going slowly coming onto the back straight, and I expected him to stay on line (as he should have). As I moved to pass on the inside, he moved down and pushed me into the grass at about 80 mph. Not what I needed! Regardless, I brought the car back in one piece. We worked on aiming the auxiliary headlights and got ready for the next day.

The car had been qualified in 4th place overall. We started among the Honda factory car (HART’s Grand-Am Cup Accord V6), the Bimmershop.ca E36 M3, the Berg Racing 1 Mazda RX-8, and the HIPII Racing Spec Racer Ford. Tim started off the race for us in good fashion. We didn’t expect to be the fastest car, but were prepared to win on pit strategy. With an additional fuel cell on board, we were looking to achieve 2 hour 20 minute driving stints. This would make it a 4-stop strategy, with Jeff being the repeat driver for the last night stint.





Tim was holding his own, hanging on in front of the RX-8. A short time into the race, the M3 pulled off with mechanical trouble. After hearing about their troubles with a rear shock busting through its mount, we played nice and I helped them locate another rear shock from our friend Bob Wright, whose race car was in the paddock. They lost close to an hour, though, and would not pose a challenge to us.



As Tim pushed on, the first round of pit stops came due for some of the lead cars. The HART Accord was very fast (3-4 sec/lap faster than us), but made its first stop at only about 1 hour into the race. And, on top of that, they were changing front tires. The Spec Racer had a very small fuel tank, and they were pitting frequently, as well. It looked like our stiffest competition would be the RX-8 and the Accord, barring any problems.

As Tim called in that the stock tank had gone empty and he was prepared to transfer fuel in from the fuel cell, we were amazed that he was nearing the 2 hour mark already. That meant that the car could go significantly longer than the 2:20 that we needed. The question was, could he? As I looked at the time that I figured he could go, I realized that, if we could make it close to 3 hours, we could eliminate an additional pit stop or, at worst, make the last stop a splash-and-go. That could translate into 5-8 minutes of off-track time that we could recover. I proposed this to Harvey and Doug, who were running our show, and they decided to push for this strategy. In the meantime, we noticed the RX-8 team beside us preparing a transmission for installation. That couldn’t be good for them. It turned out that they had lost their higher gears and then toasted the engine by running on the rev limiter too much. They retired before our first pit stop. Tim stayed out there for 3 hours and seemed relieved to finally be out of the car. The pit stop went smoothly, save for some minor fueling issues, and we clearly had the longest pit strategy of any car. With new Nitto NT-01 tires and a full tank of gas (as well as a good nap before his stint), Jeff got in the car to take over.



We had been trading the lead back and forth with the HART Accord as they passed us, then pitted, then passed us, but pitted again, etc. Jeff did great and posted our best lap of a 1:16.622. Without the few caution laps that Tim had had during his stint, Jeff was out for about 2 hours 30 minutes. I had been doing what I could to prepare. I was drinking lots of water, ensuring that my urine was running clear (too much information?), and trying to nap. When I got in the car, Doug got me strapped in, Harvey did a radio check and I was on my way. It was too bad that no one thought to clean the bug-splattered windshield! I got to work on trying to pick up speed. I was having a good run with the Berg II Miata until I was able to pick up enough to get past and start distancing myself from him. My improvements were put on hold, though, due to some rain that came down for about a third of my stint. I was actually amazed that the track didn’t slow down much at all, but I was breathing off the gas a bit before the 120mph kink.

The rain came down for just long enough that I was able to get the windscreen mostly cleaned of the bugs. I hadn’t run into too much trouble on the track, other than a few slower cars that weren’t yielding to lap traffic. The majority of the time, though, the other drivers tried to be very cooperative. There were just a couple scuffles with an Integra and a couple Miatas. As the rain let up, it came time to transfer the fuel to replenish the stock tank, and it was time to buckle down and turn in some hot laps. Tim came in over the radio and told me the announcers were making fun of me for being slow. Well, that was what I thought he said, anyway… This really made me want to buckle down and find some more speed. Unfortunately, it made me almost crash 3 times on that next lap! It turned out that the announcers were just teasing us because the HART Accord was so much faster than us, and they weren’t picking on me, specifically. Regardless, I was getting a second wind.

I had been trying to retain my endurance by alternately resting my arms on the back straight. With the track being so rough, I could really sense my wrists taking a beating. As for hydration, we had a camelback on board, but there wasn’t really a lot of time to be sipping away. So, at one point in the middle of my stint, I put the tube in my mouth and sucked on it for 3 laps straight, taking in as much water as I could while still breathing. Considering that my 3-layer nomex suit was completely soaked through with sweat, this was probably a good move. What? Too much information again? At least I didn’t need to relieve myself while I was in the car!

With some guidance from Tim on the radio, I concentrated on picking up speed through turns 1 and 2, as well as coming onto the back straight. Harvey called out some of my lap times and did show that I was able to shave off a solid .5 second from my times. I would’ve liked to be as quick as Jeff or Tim, but Nelsons Ledges is their home track and it was only my 2nd day there. While the track was simple, each turn became very complex to take quickly, since the bumps added so much more variation than just simply the shape of the curve. I managed to pull a 1:17.289.

Here’s the last 30 minutes of my session:

12 Hour at Nelsons - Team KYFA - Anthony Magagnoli

My stint came to a close as I felt the engine stutter at the 2 hour 35 minute point. I immediately brought it in to hand over to Bill, as we were running 2nd overall, 2 laps behind the HART Accord. I loosened my belts before pulling to a stop and Doug pulled me out of the car, supporting me on my feet for a moment to ensure I could walk and wouldn’t topple over. Don’t laugh. I saw other drivers stepping out of cars and just falling to the ground! It was a long time to be racing continuously.

Bill went out on the faster BFG R1 tires, but that was when catastrophe struck. We soon learned of a full-course yellow and that we were the reason. The car had gotten squirrly on the cold tires and he lost it around the banked Turn 3. As he came down the hill and into the tires, the car went up on its side and then settled on the roof. There went our chance at the overall win. I suppose it could have happened to any of us, though.



You’d think that the story would end there, but the team actually got the car back on track in about 30 minutes. Bill went back out in the car, but came back in a few laps later with a stuck transmission. It had had some issue already, but having the fluid dump out of it when the car was upside down probably didn’t help. As the team began packing it in, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a spare transmission in the trailer, 3 BMW technicians on hand, and almost 3 hours left in the race. With a little prodding, the crew set to replace the transmission and Jeff was back in the car with 1 hour left in the race. Of course, we were way out of contention, but we finished the race in the dark, and that was certainly rewarding, in itself.

I had a great time and hope that I’ll be doing more enduros in the future. There was a strong camaraderie brought on by driving together and having so many people in support of the same goal. It was fun just hanging out, even when I wasn’t on track, but also it was good to push myself and see that I could race for close to 3 hours with room to go. Of course, there is no doubt that I could not have done this without Tim’s support, and the support of MyTrackSchedule.com, Bimmertools.com, and EnthusiastAuto.com. I look forward to everyone’s continued support in the future!





Sunday, August 16, 2009

August Mid Ohio NASA Spec E30 Race

Coming off the July race, I had pulled the transmission to repair a leak that had caused the clutch to slip and also solved my overheating issue, so I was hoping that the car would be good to go. My venerable competitor, Simon Hunter, was unfortunately unable to make this race, but Jeremy Lucas was joining Michael Osborne and I for what would turn out to be a weekend that Simon surely regretted missing.

The weekend started off problematic. I had been trying to diagnose what I thought was a steering issue that was causing the car to pull left and then randomly pull right. With the help of Kevin at DTR Performance, we had confirmed all the front end suspension components and aligned the car, but hadn’t found any problems. During the practice session, a loud clunk became apparent when transitioning load. Upon investigation, I still couldn’t find anything wrong with the front end. Eventually I discovered that my rear trailing arm bolts had loosened completely causing my eccentric bushings to shift under transitioning load. I tightened the trailing arm bolts and performed a rear toe alignment, but couldn’t get anywhere close to a desirable setting. Despite this, I managed to qualify the car on pole for our class.

While I had the preferred position at the start of the race, it didn’t much matter. By the end of the first lap I had lost position to both Michael and Jeremy. On the following lap though, I was able to use traffic to get to the inside of Jeremy when approaching Thunder Valley. As I made a chase for Michael, Jeremy was left to deal with traffic and a gap developed between us. I caught up to Michael within a few laps, but passing him was a different story. We battled lap after lap and I got along side him several times, but was unable to get up far enough to complete a pass. With our bout continuing, Jeremy was able to reel us back in once freed from traffic. He applied some pressure from behind me, but ended up going wide in turn one and took a trip, bounding through the grass and leaving his chin spoiler behind as a souvenir for the corner workers.

With Jeremy out of the picture for the time being, I concentrated on how to get past Michael. I could see that I wasn’t quite matching him under braking and tried to focus on this area. Drafting him down the back straight, I was able to pull to the inside and get up far enough under braking to at least go side by side through turn seven. As we came down from madness, I had the inside line for turn nine and was alongside him. Being on the outside, he was able to brake a little bit later and through what was purely a racing incident, I gave his right rear wheel a light shove with my left rear front as we were entering the turn. His car over steered, but fortunately he was able to save it and continue on. My steering wheel was cocked to the right, but otherwise drove fine. I continued to give chase right down to the last lap. Unfortunately for us this had allowed Jeremy to make up the time he had lost and he was once again on my bumper. I couldn’t hold him back and he got by me on the second to last lap. While I was still looking for an opportunity for them to screw each other up, it didn’t happen. Jeremy managed to get by Michael on the last lap to set himself up for an amazing come-from-behind win! We remained nose-to-tail and all crossed the finish line within one second! It was the hardest fought third place finish I have ever had.


Spec E30 - Anthony Magagnoli - Mid-Ohio Pro Course

After the race I realigned the front end to compensate for the steering angle “adjustment” in preparation for the next day’s racing. As a result of Sunday’s qualifier, I found myself starting second to Michael. In addition to this, having observed Jeremy’s tremendous braking capability, I knew I was going to have to step it up if I was to compete with them. I nervously had a new set of Hawk HG-10 brake pads put on, as I have never used that compound before, but knew I needed a fresh set. It turned out to be the right move. While I still wasn’t matching Jeremy’s braking points, I felt I was getting a better drive out of the corners and was at least matching Michael’s points.

As we came around the keyhole on the pace lap, I was positioned on the outside and some of the cars ahead of us blocked my view of the starter stand on the back straight. I was looking desperately, but had to react to seeing Michael jump on the gas first. Jeremy followed Michael as they pulled ahead down the back straight. I was back in third by the time we came through turn seven, however, as we came into the carousel, I was able to get to the outside of Jeremy and hold my position entering the front straight, which was relatively sideways for me. As Jeremy backed off, I pulled ahead into second place down the front straight. We maintained our positions as I went after Michael. In a repeat of the previous day, the competition with Michael was very close. We went several laps nose-to-tail, but this time I wasn’t losing any ground in the braking zones. As we came up under the Honda bridge, we approached a slower car. I took advantage of the situation and was able to make a pass while Michael was forced to check up. I’ll take it however I can get it. From there I pulled away, but unfortunately Jeremy had made his way by as well and was soon pressuring me. While he was racing hard, I could also see that he was exerting patience, just waiting for me to make a mistake. I knew where we each had our strengths and I was trying to use mine to maintain the position while not giving Jeremy the opportunity to out-brake me for position. This went down to the very last lap and Jeremy got a better than normal run down the back straight. I positioned myself in the middle of the track to defend my line to Jeremy’s imminent passing attempt. As we rounded the kink, I noticed the corner worker was waiving a yellow flag for a local caution. I pulled back on to the fast line, realizing that this would preclude Jeremy from passing. He followed suit and tucked back in line, making one last desperation attempt going into nine. It didn’t work and I was able to hang on for the win!


SpecE30 Anthony Magagnoli - Mid-Ohio

This weekend was exactly the type of racing I expected coming to spec E30. It was a great time and I look forward to more of the same, joined by Simon and the others who are preparing to compete in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions!

A big thanks goes out to my sponsors: DTRPerformance.com, MyTrackSchedule.com, Bimmertools.com, and EnthusiastAuto.com!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

July Mid Ohio NASA Spec E30 Race

Coming into this weekend’s race, I was already basically out of contention for the regional title, since I was disqualified for being under weight at Putnam in May. However, that didn’t mean I was laying down and not pursuing some good racing. After all, I moved into SpecE30 for the learning experience and fun factor, at least for this first year, so that won’t be diminished. Like, how I learned how important it is to not to be under weight!

Simon Hunter was again joining me on the grid, this time along side Michael Osborne and Sean Louisin. 4 cars isn’t bad, but we’re hoping to double that in the Great Lakes / Midwest region next year! We were running on Mid-Ohio’s “Pro Course”, which does not include the chicane between Turn 1 and the Keyhole. I’ve driven this format once before, during a Grand Am Cup weekend BMW Club Race in ’07. Not surprisingly, I had to figure out my line there again through the keyhole, and I found several different approaches to the turn.

While we were concerned about rain on Saturday, I was more concerned about my wallet, and hadn’t come prepared with any full-tread rain tires. The Toyo R888 tires that I’ve hated so much are probably the better tires, IF they have tread on them. 2 of mine absolutely did not, and the other two were mediocre. Qualifying went well, as I would be starting on Pole, with Simon in 2nd, just beside me. Before the race, I found a couple take-off R888’s from a SpecMiata that had a little bit of tread. I figured they’d be better than what I had, if it were to rain, so I had the guys at Phil’s Tire Service put them on my rear wheels.

After qualifying, I went to weigh my car, to see if I’d need to add ballast to ensure I’d make weight after the race. While waiting for the scales, the car began to overheat. It doesn’t have a cooling fan, relying on airflow from driving to cool the radiator, which works just fine when I’m moving, but there’s no airflow when I’m not moving! I pulled away from the scales and drove the car around the entry road a couple times. The coolant temp was reading in the 250 degree range and not dropping, as I would expect to see within a few moments of driving. I pulled back to my pits and let it cool. That was already a dangerously high temperature for an engine to see. I couldn’t find any leaks or reason for the overheat, so I refilled it and bled it, and then drove it again. It held 220 degrees when driving around off-track, which is a little high, but it was holding. I added some WaterWetter before the race, and hoped for the best.

On the race start, I caught a bit of a lead as Simon got caught in traffic. Mike was between the two of us and making me feel none too comfortable. I kept my lead going for 4 laps, checking my coolant temperature every time I grabbed an upshift. It had even dropped momentaraily, but wsa holding steady at 220. Between turns 1 and 2, it was still at 220. Then, when grabbing my shift to 5th on the back straight, my jaw dropped out of my helmet as I read the coolant temp at 288 degrees. I immediately pulled off-line, gave up the race lead, and pointed for everyone to pass on my left side. I pulled off the track before madness and parked it in the grass at the top of the hill. I was fully expecting catastrophic engine damage (this engine is only 4 races old!). After being towed further out of the way of potentially stray cars, I watched the remainder of the race. Simon had gotten past Mike (who my have actually had an off-track adventure, if I recall), and hung on for the win.

I began investigating the overheating issue and eventually surmised that the resovoir cap had gone bad and wasn’t holding pressure in the cooling system. As a result, the water was able to boil and spill out into the catch-can, eventually draining the cooling system enough to allow air into it. I am still hoping that the 288 degrees that my gauge showed me was actually an air pocket and the water temperature hadn’t actually gotten that high. A future SpecE30 competitor, Scott, who had stopped by to check out the action for the weekend, had a friend run a spare cap to us so that I could run the following day. A huge thanks for goes out to him for going out of his way for someone who he didn’t even know!

On Sunday, qualifying went to Simon’s favor. I had switched to my RA-1 tires, which were a mismatch of similarly worn, but all heavily used, tires. The one thing they had in common was that they are all old! Regardless, they should have been faster than the R888’s from my past experience. I believe that all the SE30 cars were on RA-1’s for this race (either the R888’s and RA-1’s are currently allowed). I started the race beside Simon, coming onto the back straight on his left. The green flag dropped on the back straight and Simon gradually pulled ahead of me. But, as we quickly ran up on Spec944 traffic, Simon and Mike got caught behind a slower car, while I pulled a gap up into Madness.



All was well for the first couple laps, but I then noticed that my clutch wasn’t grabbing the engine as hard as it should when I was upshifting. Its as new as the engine and should not have any issue. In the coming laps, it started getting worse. I adjusted by slowing my upshifts and waiting for the revs to drop completely to where they would be in the higher gear, which made my shifts take 2-3 times as long.

Simon was steadily creeping up behind me. He got inside of me going down the back straight and we went side-by-side through all of Madness, up the Jump under the Honda Bridge, down through Thunder Valley, and still through the fast left approaching the carousel, until he finally made the inside line work for him entering the Carousel and he got his car in front of me. I did my best to keep pace, and only a lap and a half later, I was still behind Simon as we approached Madness. As he crested the hill, a Spec Miata momentarily blocked his view of his exit road and his line sent him off the road, bounding through the grass. I’m pretty sure I saw at least 3 wheels off the ground as I was rounding turn 9. He got the car straightened as it came back on the road, though, and managed to stay off any other cars.

I regained the lead at that point, but Simon hadn’t fallen that far back. My clutch was steadily deteriorating, so I was doubting how long I could keep him back there. In addition to slowing my upshifts, I tried eliminating any shifts possible. Between the Jump and Thunder Valley, I was sitting on the rev limiter in 3rd for a moment, instead of going up to 4th and quickly back to 3rd, and I even tried stying in 4th down the back straight (that sacrificed too much). At this point, it started slipping so badly that, with the clutch engaged, the engine was breaking friction with the clutch and revving up, without a coinciding acceleration of the car. I was having to lift off the gas to get the engine and transmission to re-engage. It was definitely hurting acceleration and I could see the difference as soon as Simon got near me.

After catching up, Simon got to my inside down the back straight and we did our now-familiar side-by-side through Madness. We were together through 7 and 8, but going into 9, he had the inside and was able to sneak ahead. I followed behind and watched a gap open over the next couple laps and then saw the white flag. I had somehow closed the gap enough to make one more run at him and I got to the outside of him through turn 7, at the end of the back straight. I stayed there through 8 and was trying not to give up the position again through 9, even though I was at the disadvantage, being on the outside. I tried a little too hard, locked up the inside front brake, and that was it. I stayed on the track, but that was my last chance. Simon crossed the line in 1st, .632 seconds ahead of myself in 2nd, with Michael Osborne in 3rd. Sean Lousin had pulled out a few laps early with mechanical trouble.


Anthony Magagnoli Spec E30 race at Mid-Ohio



The weekend was plagued with mechanical problems, but I’ve managed to get them resolved. It seems that I was lucky enough to avoid any significant damage due to the overheating. Simply a new pressure cap on the resovoir took care of that. It seems that the old one was allowing the coolant to spill out into my catch tank, but once the resovoir emptied itself, it drew air into the system and immediately overheated on the track. I’m glad I caught it quickly and shut it down before doing any serious damage.

The clutch slipping issue was a mere coincidence to the engine overheating. Once I pulled the transmission, I found that the input shaft was leaking, and the pressure plate side of the clutch had residue on it from the transmission fluid. I replaced the input shaft seal, sealed up the freeze plug, and replaced the output shaft seal while I was there. That seems to have done the trick.

Thanks to Kevin Kreisa of DTR Performance for helping me to get it back together! Of course, all my sponsors help in one way or another, so I have to thank MyTrackSchedule.com, Bimmertools.com, and EnthusiastAuto.com!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Mid-Ohio - Memorial Day Weekend

Saturday and Sunday were host to a Northern Ohio Chapter BMWCCA Driving School and Club Race and Monday and Tuesday were a Chin Motorsports Driving School. I brought up my Z4 3.0si Coupe to use while instructing, but had also scored myself a co-drive for the club race enduro on Sunday.

Saturday and Sunday, I was instructing my friend Eric Keller, of Enthusiast Auto. He and his brother had brought down a pair of E36 M3’s, Eric’s having a Vortec supercharger on it. Nice car, but it only lasted 1 session before the head gasket let go. He drove his customer’s E46 M3, which had about $30k worth of performance-enhancing work done to it. This car was nasty in the best way possible. The owner, Kirk, had me take him out for a session in it. It was fast, but very well balanced and very easy to drive quickly. We had a blast, but the video camera he was running didn’t take… Aw, nuts. He made me do it again on Sunday ; ) That time I took Eric’s brother Evan for a ride. At the end of the day on Saturday, Eric took my friend Scott’s truck and trailer back down to his shop and exchanged his M3 for an S54 2001 Z3 M Coupe, which he would use on Sunday. Its really tough instructing students with such crappy cars ; )


Video of my session in Kirk’s M3.

I ended up switching co-drives for the enduro from my former nemesis / current friend, John Negus’s K-Prepared E30 (the class I used to race), to my friend Mario Meise’s I-Prepared E36 M3. Mario had never been to Mid-Ohio before and there were more cars in class, so it stood to reason that there was more benefit to both of us for me to run with him. I took out his car in the instructor session on Saturday so I could get a feel for it. Traffic was heavy and my closing speeds on other cars were often scary. Despite that, I ran a 1:40.6, whereas the fastest I’d run in my car was a 1:44.5. Nice = )


Video of my practice session in Mario's IP M3.

Saturday night was a hoot, as a bunch of the racers and some others went out for dinner, then hit up the go-karts at Bucks. We paid off the kids working there to just let us run as we wished, and they even joined in at times. They showed us how to reach back and pull the governor to increase our speed, and I have many bruises on my arm from doing that! There were about 15 of us and 2 12 year old girls out there, and were generally drove like we wanted to kill each other. Spinning each other out whenever possible, etc. The highlight, though, was when John Negus was spun around and proceeded to drive FULL SPEED IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION! The look on the kid’s face who was running it was priceless! We all survived to race another day, though…

On Sunday, Mario qualified the car and started the race. We weighed the car before qualifying and found that, with me in the car, we would be about 60 lbs under weight (there’s 75 lbs between Mario and I!). So, we ensured that we would run with a full tank of gas and threw a spare tire in the trunk.



Mario ran the first half of the race, hanging with Jeff Negus’ pace (John’s son, who races IP), 10 seconds behind him on the track. My friend Scott and I awaited Mario to come in for the mandatory 5-minute pit stop. I started the stopwatch on my wrist watch, thinking that it was only as a back-up. Well, it turned out that it was our only source of timing. I looked at my watch and noticed that my minute hand had not started on 0, and I didn’t know how many minutes we were into the stop. I tried to count the minutes, but was off, because I went out on the 4-minute mark instead of the 5-minute mark. D’oh!

I launched out of the pits, thinking I was in hot pursuit of Jeff Negus (when I was actually a minute ahead of him on the track by mistake). It was a major mental load to go from chilling out in the pits to immediately driving flat out with no warm up. I ran the remaining 30 minutes and caught and passed 2 I-Prepared cars in the process. Mario’s car was lots of fun and much less frustrating than my car, as it has about 50% more power. During the race, I had pulled off a 1:39.14, which was the second fastest of the ~10 in class. The fastest guy has a big-money build, though, and is, himself, going Grand Am Cup racing this month. I didn’t feel too bad about that at all for my first time in the car = ) A huge thanks to Mario for giving me the opportunity. I can’t wait to do it again, next time with more than 30 minutes of preparation!



The remainder of the Duct Tape Motorsports folks rolled in on Sunday. I instructed our friend Dan, in a very pretty white 911. We had a great time and I got to drive a plethora of fun stuff. I took out Scott’s ’84 911 and had fun tossing that car around, took a few laps in Dan’s car, took Scott’s student out in his own brand new E92 M3 (and scared him), and took another guy, John, out in his S50-powered E30 (that’s a 3.0L E36 M3 motor in an E30).


Scott Barton's '84 911


Dan Schultz' '93 911


James' E92 M3


John's S50-powered E30

Toyota friends Tom Duesing (Cayman S) and Chase Nelson (G35 Coupe) showed up for Monday and we had a good time tearing it up. Tom brought his father with him, driving a 350Z.Tom and I had a great battle in our last session. With our cars similarly prepared (he on Nitto NT-01-R’s and me on 5-yr old RA-1s, both with Hawk HP+ pads), Tom was already on track with his father riding shotgun. In an effort to reduce any differences, I grabbed my student, Dan, to ride with me and we waited in the pits until Tom came around before heading out after him. I basically held my distance, as we had a car between us, but then a car slowed him down, bringing us together. I had already told Dan, “Make no mistake, we ARE racing right now!” We went nose-to-tail, with me literally a foot off his bumper at 100+mph. I could see him overdriving the car on corner entries and I got a run on him coming onto the front straight. He gave me a point-by, but I waved it off. It was too much fun! We went another 2 laps with the draft keeping me right on his bumper down the back straight, while I was lifting in other sections to keep my position behind him. I finally got such a strong run onto the front straight that I had to go by. I just wish the memory card on the camera hadn’t filled only a lap into it! Tom was a good sport to accept some of the smack-talking in return, but I have to say that having been driving the track for the previous two days certainly helped to warm me up. I’m sure there will be a rematch in the future ; )


A couple minutes of video






The weather prediction for Tuesday was bleak. It suggested rain all day. The track was, in fact, wet in the first 2 sessions, but it dried up and the sun even peeked out from time to time! It was perfect! The benefit to us was that many people didn’t return for Tuesday, and the event was lightly attended to begin with, so there was TONS of open track on Tuesday!

I rode with Chase, Scott, and Ed at other points and I’m simply amazed at how fast all the DTM’ers have gotten! By the end of the event, Scott, Than, Ed, Mike, and myself were all running very close with each other, making for some great times!

I had given John a ride in my race car at this event last year and apparently made enough of an impression that he sold his Mini and went out and bought himself an E30! The fixed-position seat was too far back for me, so I put my racing suit behind me to get pushed forward. That kindof worked, but I lost the lateral support of the seats. It wasn’t easy to drive that way. In any case, we went out to run some hot laps. His big Wilwood brake kit felt great the first time we hit them at the end of the back straight. The second time though, though, they began to smell like they were overheating. I proceeded to ask him what pads they were and he confirmed that they were a race compound… Weird. So, I continued around the next lap and hit them at exactly the same spot as before. Only 100 feet into the braking zone, I knew we weren’t going to be slowed down in time and I told John that we were going off. He responded with a chuckle… I repeated, “No, REALLY, we’re going off.” He replied that it was ok, he had gone off here yesterday. As I questioned why he hadn’t mentioned that to me before, I was trying to pull the car around the turn and had to give up about ¾ of the way through to ensure that I drove straight off and didn’t slide off sideways, which could easily result in rolling the car there. We and the car were fine and we drove back onto the track. I told John that it felt like there was a lot of air in the lines, as the pressure was there (I even tapped the brake on the straight to make sure before I hit them), but the car just wouldn’t slow. Inspection of the brakes revealed heavy scoring of the rotors, pointing to the same thing. John later bled the brakes and confirmed my suspicion. We live and learn, I guess. We’re lucky nothing worse happened and I will definitely be asking more questions about the critical things like tires and brakes before I take someone’s car out again.


John's E30, with Scott in the background

All-in-all, it was a great way to spend 4 days. I wish Katy could have joined us! But, work schedule wouldn’t allow = ( I hope her and all of the DTM’ers who didn’t make it will realize what a great event this is and be sure to join next year!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

SpecE30 Race #2, Putnam Park

Coming off of a very positive start in my first SpecE30 race at Mid-Ohio, I was looking forward to having some good racing at Putnam Park. I arrived on Friday to claim paddock space, and fortunately, my Indiana-native friends Denny and Jason had already been there to cordon off some prime real estate. After unloading, I met up with SpecE30 racers Kyle Smith and Sean Louisin, as well as my friends Henry and Christian, for some dinner.

I had the car sitting on the old Toyo RA-1’s that had proven themselves as the tire to run at Mid-Ohio. I wanted to try running the higher pressure theory in the new R888’s, though, to see if I could get them to work and slow their wear rate. So, I ran the RA-1’s in practice, but ran qualifying on the R888’s, trying out the new pressures. The tires gripped better and the car turned much better than before, but they were very “skatey” and the car was oversteering more. Qualifying was short, though, as a car had hit a barrier and landed on its roof. I don’t think that anyone else got a decent flying lap in, as my qualifying time was over 2 seconds faster than the other SpecE30’s.

In the race, I was starting on pole for SpecE30, with 3 guys behind me, including reigning regional champion, Simon Hunter. The track was still damp in the beginning and as the green flag dropped, I put the gas down and had a full-on drift through Turn10, while Simon was waiting behind me to see if I’d spin. I drove out of it and continued down the straight, but traffic about came to a halt as a SpecMiata had spun in Turn1. Continuing past that, a Civic went spinning off before Turn4 and I almost had another SpecMiata fishtail into me through Turn5 as I passed him. From there, I kept working through traffic as the conditions began to dry until I couldn’t see any SpecE30’s behind me. From there I enjoyed racing with the PakistanExpress Civic and I’ve found that we’ve been closely matched in every race so far this year! I hung in there for the rest of the race and, on the last lap, though the last turn, an RX-7 and I raced hard to the finish line, side-by-side through Turn10, just for fun (for the record, I crossed the line first ; ).


So, I had finshed the race in 1st, with a healthy margin of space between Simon and I. Coming off the track, the SpecE30’s were impounded and checked for weight. We all must weigh over 2750 lbs, including ourselves, after the race. At Mid-Ohio, I had weighted 2753 when starting on a full tank of gas. I had started this race also with a full tank, but weighed in a 2744. That was 6 lbs under the mininmum weight, and so I was disqualified from that race, handing Simon the win. OUCH. That was a 9 lb difference from Mid-Ohio, which only accounts to about 1.5 gal of gas. I think that my average rpm was higher at Putnam, increasing my fuel consumption.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it, as Simon had handed me a win at Mid-Ohio since he had hit another car, so I felt like we were even. But I’ve more recently found out that I cannot “drop” a disqualification from my season points. See, we get to drop our 3 worst finishes (or no-show’s), but this will not be dropped. So, I will have to spend the rest of the season trying to make up the 100 points that Simon got for winning while I got a 0. Truly, my only chance of winning the championship is if he misses a race other than the weekend at Grattan that neither of us are attending. Oh, and I have to win every other race! Man, its so easy to screw up big.

My video camera was zoomed in on the windshield wiper (d’oh!), but here’s Simon’s in-car video. You only see me for the first few laps, but at least the first lap is pretty entertaining.

Simon's Race 1 Video.

On Sunday, I added a spare tire to my trunk so I would make weight and I ran qualifying on my RA-1’s. I ran a time of 1:22.3, which was almost a second faster than the SpecE30 track record held by Simon. In order for it to be official, though, it must be set during a race. I was starting on pole, with Simon in 3rd, since his tires had given out during qualifying and he hadn’t been able to set a great time.

The race was quite exciting. Once I cleared some traffic on the start, though, I realized I had forgotten to turn on my camera. D’oh! I continued on with Simon visible in my rear view mirror. I never gave him the chance to race me, but it wasn’t easy. As I approached traffic on different occasions, I more than once committed to passes that I wasn’t 100% sure I would come out of. 2 of which were, in fact, made with 2 tires in the grass. The most exciting one was passing 2 cars at the same time going into Turn 9 with only my left side tires on the pavement. I knew that I would need to be efficient through traffic so that I wasn’t slowed down, allowing Simon to close the gap and attempt a pass. Once I pulled out of the last large group of slower cars, I pulled away while Simon was still negotiating them.

Other than that, I was actually having some great racing with a Civic in the PTE class. I got by at one point, but he later got back by as I approached a corner worker who I was unclear as to whether he was displaying a yellow flag or not. I slowed in caution and the Civic did not. After that, though, I couldn’t keep up, as my left-front tire was toasted and began to cord by the end of the race.

Simon’s in-car video, which keeps me in view for a while and shows some of the passes:

Simon's Race 2 Video.

I won the race with room to spare, and had, in fact, beaten the standing lap record by a few tenths of a second. Simon, however, ripped off a lap that was .014 seconds faster than mine, resetting his own record!! That shows you just how close we are!


Eric Waddell on my tail with Simon Hunter close behind.

So, as for season standings, Simon and I are currently even on number of wins, but my DQ will be next to impossible to recover from. Our next race was supposed to be at the new Bluegrass track, 25 minutes from my door, but the track will not be ready in time, so our race was changed to Grattan, in Michigan, 6.5 hours from me. I won’t be attending that race, and it seems there will be only one SE30 in attendance. The next race will be Mid-Ohio in July. Stay tuned…

Here’s the OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE.


Left to Right, Dave Nalley, Henry Schmidt, Jason Kohler, Christian Schwier, myself, and Denny Barker.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Mid-Ohio Apr'09 - First SpecE30 Race!

With a new season comes a new series and a new car number. I’ve moved from BMWCCA Club Racing K-Prepared to the National Auto Sport Association (NASA) to run in their SpecE30 class. The reason for the move was intended to run in a more competitive series, where variability between cars is diminished and the focus is on the driver competition. Being a “spec” series means that everyone is running the same car (the E30 BMW 325i/is from 1987-1991), with the same engine, on the same tires, same suspension, etc. A couple other reasons are that there should be more competitors running in this series than in K-Prepared, and the season should be less expensive to run since the races are more local to me (3 hr tow, max).

I’ve been working over the winter on converting the car over to the new class. I’m actually slowing it down a bit by getting rid of my coil-over suspension, stickier Hankook tires, modified engine, etc. Selling a lot of those parts off has been financing the new spec parts. While I was shooting for a $0 changeover cost, it was at least less than $1000. I was working on the car right down to the Friday that I headed up to Mid-Ohio. I didn’t have a chance to confirm anything and didn’t want to spend the money on the test day, so I was headed in blind. The reigning SE30 Regional Champion, Simon Hunter, was running this weekend and my hope was just to be able to run with him for a little bit!

This first race had low attendance, as weather can often be sketchy at Mid-Ohio in April (we’ve had snow before) and it was Easter weekend. I had my friend Denny and his friend Jason paddocked with me, as they were attending the driving school. Simon Hunter and Tom White were the only others in-class. In practice on Saturday, the car was oversteering quite a bit, so I looked at a couple countermeasures. I first borrowed a set of wheel spacers from Simon to widen my rear track, but I also suspected that my rear sway bar end-links were binding and making the rear sway bar act stiffer than it was. So, I removed the spacers I had in them, hoping that it would give them enough additional motion so as to not bind up.

I was running on the new spec tire, the Toyo R888's, on Saturday, and Simon was clearly faster. But, I was able to battle with him. It was my first SpecE30 race, and I was happy that I led for part of it before he managed to get back by me! The oversteer in my car was gone and the racing was clean from my perspective, despite the fact that we were running among several other racing classes at the same time. The only incident that I was involved in was when an ’86 Porsche 911 tried passing me on the outside at the end of the back straight. I didn’t see him there and when I did, he was running with 2 wheels in the grass. I tried to move over to give him room, but when he pulled the car back on, he over-compensated and shot across the track. He grazed the wall, but there was no serious damage. We talked later and determined that there was no fault on my part.

My left front wheel bearing had been making vibrating and was getting progressively worse. I was unsure about the condition, so I had made sure that someone would have a spare at the track (Simon to the rescue). I replaced the wheel bearing, including swapping over wheel studs, in 45 minutes, making it to grid with about 2 minutes to spare! I’m no master mechanic, so I felt pretty good about this!

In the second race on Saturday, I got a jump on Simon on the start and put 4 cars between us. I led from the first lap to the last, but throughout the race I watched him pick off one car at a time until he got down to just me and him. I was just praying for that white flag to come out before he could get to me! He got up to my back bumper in the Keyhole and drafted me down the back straight. I defended the inside line going into T7, so he was forced to make his move on the outside. We went side-by-side up and over Madness and it wasn’t until we were coming out of T9 that I was able to pull back ahead of him. The white flag came out when we went by the starter’s stand. One to go! Simon was on my bumper again through the Keyhole and we replicated what had happened on the previous lap. Again, we were side-by-side as we went up over Madness. Except this time, I got loose as we crested the hill and I couldn’t make the drive down to T9 to get that dive-bomb I needed to stay in the lead! Simon pulled ahead and I followed him across the finish line. He had gotten by me on the last damn lap! It frustrated me, for sure, but I was thrilled to even be giving him a hard time!

We had an awards ceremony on Saturday and they announced the winners from the morning’s race. When my name was called, I went up to receive what I assumed would be my 2nd place trophy. But I was given first place… It turned out that Simon had hit a Porsche 944 during the first race and was moved to the back of the field (3rd place) for that race. Sometimes you’re fast and sometimes you’re lucky. That time I was lucky!

Saturday night, we watched Simon’s in-car video from when he was behind me. That was very telling, as it was clear to me that I had not adjusted myself to the new suspension and was generally over-driving the tires. I was turning in far too quickly and could be using significantly more trail-braking than my old suspension would have allowed. I reflected on this and made mental notes for Sunday.

My R888's were wearing extremely quickly down the center. The left front was almost to the carcass (they were brand new, shaven to 4/32”). I had read about this issue with these tires and realized that I was facing the dreaded “groove of doom”. I ran my practice tires in the morning (the older Toyo RA-1's) and found that I was eating up Simon. I had changed some things on my line, so I’ll take a little bit of the credit, but the car was just turning and hooking up so much better than on the R888’s.

It turned out the tires had made a huge difference, so I ran the RA-1 practice tires in the race. I got a good jump on the start again and I led from the first lap to the last. Simon was back there, but he was never able to catch me! This time I won “legitimately”, making it much more satisfying! NASA counts the best 2 finishes from the weekend, so I'm starting off the season with 2 wins!

There's been a lot of discussion on the message boards about these R888's grooving down the center and the suggestion is to run HIGHER pressures, contrary to common belief. Something like 47 psi hot. Simon tried it between practice and qualifying/race and he said he was definitely faster with the higher pressures. I'll try it at the next race (Putnam in May) and see if I can salvage these tires. It’s depressing to have a set of Toyos last only 2 weekends! So, it was a good start to the season and I’m hoping to keep it up as the competition steps up!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

2008 KP Season Recap

2008 Season Recap - Anthony Magagnoli - #007 KP

While I had a lot of fun last season, I also had an incredible series of bad luck, especially at the end of last season.

I started off the 2008 BMWCCA Club Racing series with a penalty at VIR that I thought would keep me from making a run at the championship. While I didn’t think a 20 point penalty was reasonable for going off by myself in practice and nosing a tire barrier, I’d have to work back from that deficit.

At Oktoberfest at Watkins Glen, our biggest race of the year, I pulled off wins in 2-of-3 races (I broke an axle in the 3rd), among the largest field we've ever seen in K-Prepared, and all the fastest guys were there. The points from those finishes launched me back into contention for the championship.

I went to Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham and just had to finish 1 of the 3 races. I broke a rocker arm in the first qualifying session and spent the day and night replacing it. On the next day, the motor totally blew up 1/2 a lap from counting as a finished race for me. I was 1/2 a freakin lap away from the championship!

I had a new motor built (to SpecE30 regulation, so basically stock) and installed over the next few weeks and went down to Roebling Road, in Savannah, GA, to take one last shot at the national championship. I brought in a soon-to-be pro driver, Mike Skeen, to co-drive with me. I planned to both to learn from him and figured he’d help me out in the enduro. There were a few quick KP cars in presence.

In Friday practice, I felt I had the speed to win, but I had an issue with the motor. It ended up being the Air Flow Meter. I had suspected it before, so I had a spare on hand. When I changed it, I needed to confirm it before qualifying, so I went out on the road with Katy and pulled through a couple gears a few times. It was fixed.

Unfortunately, when I got back to the track, a neighbor had come by, all irate over the noise and the speed at which I went by his house. Keep in mind that my car is street legal, registered, and insured. Well, they somehow came to the conclusion that I should be booted from the track, and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't race, and it left me in 2nd place nationally for the season.
What a way to go, huh?

I am the North Central K-Prepared Regional Champion for the 2nd year in a row.
I ended up 2nd in the K-Prepared National Championship, improving from 3rd in 2007.

I looked back on the 2008 season and saw that I had done everything that I had intended to do. My outright wins at Oktoberfest against the fastest guys left me feeling like I had proven myself. Here come the “what if’s?”… If it wasn’t for the penalty at VIR, I would’ve secured the championship after Oktoberfest. If I had blown the motor ½ a lap later, I would’ve secured the championship after Barber. If I hadn’t had a stupid incident at Roebling, well, that would have been some good racing! I was ready to move on…

Thanks for keeping up on my racing this year and thanks to all those who have supported me on and off the track!

-Anthony Magagnoli