Sunday, April 11, 2010

Mid Ohio - NASA Spec E30 Race

To recap the 2009 season, I ran strongly in the Great Lakes region, winning about half of the races I ran. However, I was underweight at Putnam, resulting in a disqualification. Unfortunately, a DQ cannot be dropped from the cumulative season points, resulting in a 0-point finish. That essentially eliminated my chance to contest the Regional Championship, so I substituted the last couple SpecE30 races with some “free” events instead.

In the first SpecE30 race of 2010, we visited Mid-Ohio, running the Pro-course with NASA (no chicane). I had done a lot of work to prepare my car for the 2010 season, trying to eliminate some of the little issues that were revealing themselves, but this weekend proved that I had further to go.



We had 6 SpecE30 racers in class, which is the largest that our region has seen thus far. I went up to Mid-Ohio with my friend Nate Thulin, who was a great help all weekend. I heat cycled a new set of tires in practice on Saturday, then qualified on pole by over 1 second, on my older tires. There wasn’t much of a story from the first race, as Sean Louisin (who qualified 2nd) missed grid and didn’t join until after our warm-up lap. Starting on pole for our class, with rookie Rob Thornton beside me, I got the jump and pulled from there. Squeezing between 2 GTS1 cars approaching the end of the back straight, I’m surprised I didn’t come through with my mirrors folded in! I had a great battle with Nick Decuzzi, in a Spec944, throughout most of the race, but I never saw another SpecE30. Finishing the season opener in 1st is a great way to start out!


Anthony Magagnoli - SpecE30 Apr 2010 at Mid-Ohio Race 1

We had a nice grill-out party and awards after the track activities were done. Since Sean Louisin had missed the pace lap, he was technically starting down a lap, so that left rookies Kevin Sweeny and Rob Thornton to claim the 2nd and 3rd podium positions in their first race! It’s worth mentioning that Kevin’s clutch had blown up on Friday and he had to drop his transmission that evening to replace it!


Anthony and Kevin, posing with trophies.
Kevin was wise to cover up his helmet hair.


On Sunday, I practiced on my old tires again, but then switched to the new tires for qualifying. I still qualified on pole, by a 0.6 sec margin. I had covered up my brake cooling ducts, as the brakes had previously felt like they were overcooling and not grabbing hard until partway into the braking zone. They felt better in qualifying, so I left them covered for the race. The tire pressures had risen significantly, mainly due to the higher ambient temps, so we had dropped them down some after qualifying.

Come race time, I started beside Sean on the back straight. We dragged it out down toward Turn 7, where I wound my way past some GTS traffic and pulled ahead. Within a couple laps, I could no longer see any SpecE30’s in my rearview. I went about my business, having a good time with some out-of-class cars that were all alone. One of the early cars that I had passed was a GTS1 E30. To my surprise, about 1/3 of the way into the race, he started to reappear. He closed the gap and I let him pass cleanly. I wondered if he had just picked up the pace, or if I had really dropped off that much. As Sean Louisin reappeared in my rearview, I could see the writing on the wall.

I knew that my tire pressures had gotten too high, as I was really struggling for grip. I fended him off for a couple laps, but he got beside me going into the keyhole. I drafted him down the back straight and got a run, so I pulled out to challenge him under braking. That’s when I realized that I really should have opened up my brake cooling ducts. With the brakes fading under the heat, I couldn’t get slowed in time, so I pitched the car sideways, in toward the apex, and managed to scrub off just enough speed to stay off of him. I now couldn’t stick with him in the corners, or challenge him under braking, so I settled into my position and just tried to stay close. I was only relying on a mechanical failure or a slip-up at this point, but neither happened. Sean took the win and I held out for 2nd place. Congrats, Sean!


Anthony Magagnoli - SpecE30 Apr 2010 at Mid-Ohio Race 2

What Nate and I learned the hard way, was that the continuous heat build up of a race generates much more braking heat than qualifying. We needed the brake cooling ducts to be open. Secondly, we miscalculated the pressure gain of the tires when the ambient temps rose. I was kicking myself after having tipped off Sean on Saturday that part of his tire wear problem was that he was running his pressures too high. While he lowered his down and improved his performance, I had allowed mine to creep too high, reversing our advantage! Of course, I’m kidding. We’re a tight-knit group and share our information and resources, but it certainly was ironic how that exchange turned out!

Lastly, we knew going in that I didn’t have enough negative camber adjustment, especially in my left front. We’re working on ways to improve this and hope to have it rectified by the next race in June at BeaveRun. Thanks again to Nate Thulin for all his help!

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