Putnam Park - NASA Spec E30

I came to Putnam Park a bit nervous. Not because I was feeling pressure to place well, but because I had pressure to just FINISH both races. The regional championship came down to this weekend. I was nervous because only part of this was in my control. I felt confident that I could keep the car on the track, but a mechanical issue or a rogue SpecPiñata could easily take the championship out of my hands.

Pre-race, I made sure the car had enough tire and brake and ensured that nothing weird was going on. But, the night before I was to head out, I heard a tick in the motor that I didn’t like, so I pulled the valve cover and reset the gaps on the rocker arms. Although I did find a few out of spec, it didn’t seem to have made much difference. However, I gave Nate a good scare when I sent him a picture of the exposed internals of my engine when I was supposed to be getting loaded up! As added precaution, during the races, Nate was stationed in the pit lane with spare tires, duct tape, and zip ties, as well as an assortment of tools; to get me back on track should something go very wrong. Both races would take place on Saturday.

I posted the best times for practice and qualifying, but the car wasn’t feeling particularly good. There was lots of oversteer, making it difficult to drive “flatout”. Yet, it was pushing notably in turns 9-to-10. It was more than a little hairy. We made a small camber adjustment, based on our tire temps, but we didn’t have much time to play with it and had to somewhat wing it.


Sean Louisin giving chase (Alyssa Nolan photo)

I started the race from the pole position, on the inside coming out of turn 10. With radios not working, it was up to me to look for the green flag to drop. I jumped at the same time as Sean Louisin, but he had a slightly higher starting speed, since he had come through the outside of the turn. He was pulling on me, but there was a slow 944 in the left lane and I wasn’t going to be so courteous as to move over and give him the room to complete his pass! So, I lead into turn 1 and stayed in front, despite a lot of lap traffic and a particularly annoying 944. He was fast enough to keep me behind him for several laps, but was also slowing me down enough to allow Louisin to keep me right in his gun sight. He made a couple moves, getting beside me, but I was able to emerge ahead each time. In his final attempt, coming out of turn 8, he pushed wide. He went over the rumble strips, over the access road and, when he hit the grass on the other side, he did his best Dukes of Hazzard impression, launching his car a couple feet into the air. After a hard landing, he was able to continue on at speed and cross the line. For me, I brought the car back cleanly in 1st place, save for a good coating of dust all over the back end. That was one race down; one more to go.


SpecE30 10/9/10 Race 1 - Putnam Park


Coming through the final turn (Alyssa Nolan photo)

It was great to have Alyssa, her parents, and my friend Luke all in attendance. Our future SpecE30 competitor, my buddy Denny, was giving rides in the HPDE sessions to Alyssa’s parents. The track was getting dustier and slicker after every session, as cars would put a wheel (or 4) off the track and kick up a cloud that would eventually settle back on the track. Alyssa’s mom wasn’t even fazed by her 4-off experience!


Nate and Anthony, getting ready to race

In the second race, we started in the same positions as in the first, but my start was no better. I had Louisin pulling me on my left and Richard Bratton III making a surprise attack on the right. We were 3-wide as we entered the braking zone for turn 1. I weighed my options… In the best case scenario, I could win this turn and stay in the lead. In the worst case, we could bang some fenders, get disqualified, and the whole championship is gone. I chose to brake early and let the other two duke it out. I got back by Louisin after turn 2, but Bratton went on to pull out a significant lead, while I had to deal with out-of-class traffic.


Out-of-class competitor (Alyssa Nolan photo)

Once I got through the bulk of the traffic, I set my sights on the fish tank in the distance, 9 seconds ahead of me (Bratton’s car has a vinyl wrap to look like a fish tank). There was an E36 M3, running in PTB, that was making my quest difficult, though. He would rocket down the straight, but held me up through the rest of the course. He got the picture when he passed me late on the front straight, only to have me re-pass him in turn 2, with my inside tires in the grass. He backed off and only passed me in the following laps if he could get by early down the straight. We eventually made our way up to Bratton and I regained the lead by taking him on the inside of turn 8. He remained close behind as the M3 more or less tried not to interfere. Bratton made his last ditch effort going into turn 7, but pushed 4-off into the dirt. The funny thing is that he didn’t seem to lose any speed at all and I’m sure he never came off full-throttle. I came across the finish line to win the second race and secure the Great Lakes SpecE30 Regional Championship!


SpecE30 10/9/10 Race 2 - Putnam Park (Championship Race)


Great Lakes Region’s 2010 SpecE30 Champion (Alyssa Nolan photo)

After having suffered heart-breaks and learning-the-hard-way in the last 3 seasons of running BMWCCA K-Prepared, then SpecE30, I am thrilled to have finally put a championship together. These things rarely happen by accident, though, and I had great support from Nate Thulin throughout the season to make it a reality. He has pushed me to continue to develop the car and not to let it sit idle, just because it’s a “spec” class. We’ve learned a lot about it and made improvements. These resulted in 9 1st place finishes, 1 2nd place finish, 8 pole-positions, and 0 DNF’s this year. I’m really looking forward to next season, when we can do some real testing and tuning to get the car, and myself, ready for the NASA National Championships, which will return to Mid-Ohio in 2011!





Thank you to Alyssa and Nate for all the support AND all the pictures!

A big thanks goes out to my 2010 sponsors: MyTrackSchedule.com, Ireland Engineering, DTR Performance, Bimmertools.com, Enthusiast Auto, and FASTtech Limited!

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.