I came across this last night from the BMWCCA Rondel 1988. It's a long read, but I found it very informative:
"Preparing a car for Improved Touring"
By Larry Resnick
from BMWCCA Roundel April 1988
PART FIVE
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In this fifth and last installment, Larry sums up their experiences building and racing an IT BMW, considers the costs in tlme and money, the wins and losses, the delights and the disappointments. Was it all worth it? Read on.
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The development of the car seemed easy, in retrospect. Deciding what to change to make the car better was difficult, but once we decided what to do, getting it done was far easier. The idea behind the IT class was to provide a relatively low cost entry level class for race teams with modest budgets. But taking the stock, street car and changing it into a race car was a lot of work. Many of the difficulties ahead of us were in determining what to do rather than how to do it. There were as many ways of accomplishing any particular goal as there were cars. Every race car was built by a different crew, with a different budget. We came to look at problems with the car in a different way, too. The car eventually became a tool to allow the tires to do their job, and little else. We wanted the car to look nice, but finishing closer to first looked better to us than a shiny paint job.
As we raced, we got to know other drivers and crews at the tracks, both in our class and others, and the discussions after each race were at least as much fun as the actual race, especially when our car was still running after the race was over. I could go on about on-track body contact incidents, but unless you were there, driving or timing in the hot pit lane, the discussion would not mean much to you.
We found that the car was reliable, not as fast as we would like, and not as expensive as we expected. We were doing all of our own work, so a large part of the cost, the labor of car preparation, was not there. At least the cost in dollars. We found that a good ratio of shop time to track time was about forty to one, which meant that we worked on the car forty hours for each hour on the track. This included preparation, testing, rebuilding things that broke or were damaged on the track, and chasing the large number of go-fer jobs. If you had to pay someone even minimum wage for just the go-fer work, it would just about double our modest budget.
Our biggest expense was tires. We could get between three to four races on a set of Yokohama A001R tires that were shaved to racing depth. We found that the less tread we left when we shaved them, the longer they lasted. The only alternative tire which we could have used was the Mickey Thompson 'Competitor' in the same size. The later, 008R tread design was not out yet.
Including preparation of the car, spare parts, tires, a trailer and tow vehicle, gas for towing and other expenses, it cost us about $800 for each race. While this was not cheap, it was at least manageable. If we had continued another year in the same class, this cost would have been lower, perhaps as low as $600 per race, since much of our equipment was paid for after the first year. This would not include replacement of the car if it was rolled up into a ball in one of the faster turns. Our weekend race cost was very close to one day of professional drivers school in our area, using a school-supplied car. Fortunately, we got a whole year of racing out of the car.
The first engine we built lasted the entire season, although it was getting pretty tired, so we did not need the back-up engine. We slowly raised the rpm limit, ending the season with the red line above 7500 rpm. This is higher than the factory limit, but if we used a lower limit we would be passed by two Mazdas coming out of every turn. We attributed much of this long life to keeping the oil clean and the temperatures down. We had installed an oil cooler, we changed the oil after each race, the engine had the benefit of an easy break-in, and we did not abuse the car. As the car was developed further, we realized that the class we were in was very close. Other cars in the class had different combinations of acceleration, braking and cornering, but on balance, were very close in lap times.
Our car, like many Bimmers, had suFrior handling and brakes when compared to our competition, but was low on power. This meant that we could not pass anyone coming out of slow turns. We could pass other makes going into turns, however. This required an aggressive driving style which took some time on track to develop. It was easy to judge things incorrectly. The penalties for this were quite severe. Going into a turn with too much speed meant that you would not complete the turn without a problem.
Other cars, those with better acceleration and poorer handling and brakes had a more forgiving environment to deal with. They could pass slower cars on the way out of a turn, where the consequences for miscalculation were less punishing. The differences in lap speed between us and the Mazdas were less than a sescond in a Solo I environment, with no traffic. During a race, with race traffic, the differences were vanishindy small. Traffic made things more difficult, and many times there were no opportunities to use the small differences at all. This was probably caused by the somewhat non-aggressive driving style our driver used.
The reasons for this style were several. First, if the car was totaled it would be the end of our race effort for a long time, until the car could be replaced. Second, there was a lack of the go-for-it approach, more commonly seen with male drivers. Our approach was one of working on each section of track until we found the best way of driving it. We spent a lot of time at this, and it sometimes tested our patience to the limit. However, once a second on a part of the track was found, it was there for good. It was particularly rewarding to finauy 'get' a turn, finding the way to drive it at the best time, and this approach eventually paid off.
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Note the giant idiot light for oil pressure to the right of the tachometer.
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There were as many different driving styles as there were drivers. Perhaps with a car which cost $50 as an ITA Mazda did, our style would have been different too. Other drivers who had gone to the same drivers school at the beginning of the season had totaled, in some cases, two Mazdas in the same season on the same tracks we were racing on. This, if nothing else, was an indication of some very different styles of racing.
We had our share of problems. Once while at Laguna Seca the car came into the paddock, late, with the engine not running and the entire front of the car covered with oil. With this problem, the crew started the process of going through all the things that could cause this symptom, from the worst to the best. It did little good to dwell on the worst. Closer examination of the engine showed that the nut holding the front pulley to the crankshaft had come loose, allowing the front pulley to come forward out of the front oil seal. This allowed the key inthe crankshaft to no longer engage the pulley, and the pulley stopped turning. This stopped the fuel injection pump from turning, and the engine stopped. When the pulley was pushed back into the front timing cover, it engaged the key, which meant that the key was still present.A brisk drive home, 128 miles each way produced a new crankshaft nut and washer, and this time the nut was Loctited to the shaft. Everything else was working, so we just continued on.
Another time we had a slight collision by a slower car and the bottom of one fender was pushed in by the offending car, a Pinto, if I remember right. And we were developing a driving strategy which cannot be found except on the track. We felt that just finishing a race was enough. Placing anywhere above last was an additional bonus.
During the race season we went to all the Solo I events on the calendar. This turned out to be some of the best track time available. Many of the IT group of drivers looked askance at Solo I events. So we sho ved up at all of them, and the worst we did was third. This was good enough for us to win Solo I in our class for the year. The checkered flag is still hanging from the ceiling in the garage.
We also found a hierarchy among drivers at the tracks. At the top were the formula car drivers, with the sorting in this group mostly by lap speed. The Atlantic cars were on the top, followed by the Super V's, and then the Formula Fords, with the Formula V's next and the 440's last. The formula 440 were actually faster, but, being newer, were held in lower regard than the formula V, one of the oldest classes. Then came the fendered cars, again sorted by lap times, with CanAm cars and sports racers first, Sports 2000 next, followed by all the GT classes, the production classes, and the IT group bringing up the rear.
The reasons for these feelings were mamy. It is only after becoming a little familiar with open wheeled cars that I can see some of the reasons for them. You see a healthy respect by open wheeled drivers for each other's tires, and after you have seen what happens when two cars at speed touch tires, you begin to understand why. And the feeling by the open wheeled drivers that there was a lot of 'door handle rubbing' by the fendered cars was accurate. As mentioned above, the average for a regional race is about one IT car on the trailer for the last time, per day of event. With the starting field limit of 25 fendered cars per mile of track a typical race would have from 45 to over 50 cars in each starting grid. This large a starting field looks like the Santa Monica freeway during a weekday commute, before the green flag is dropped, and can resemble a destruction derby once the green is out. This is especially true the first race after the drivers school in the spring, when there are many cars with N's on the sides.
The typical racing career of an SCCA driver lasts four years, from the first drivers school to the last race. It takes that long to completely run out of money. Racing is not a cheap hobby. Even doing our own work, which is typical of many low budget race teams, it cost about what the payments on a new 7 would be. Whether it was more fun than driving a new 7 is a matter of opinion. A racing experience of even four years is certainly worth more than none, especially if it is something you have always wanted to do. An article in Road & Track by Peter Egan, within the last year, which elaborates on this very topic comes to mind. In it, the author explores the thought that many enthusiasts choose not to go racing because they mistakenly think it costs so much they "cannot afford it". It certainly costs less than buying even a new bottom level Bimmer. So many people who do not go racing because of incorrect cost estimates are making a mistake. They may have other valid reasons for not doing so, but cost is not one of them.
After our first year of IT racing we looked at the cost, the class and the alternatives. We could quit. Some racers say that being on drugs is better than racing, because drugs can be cured. This is true. We were having too much fun to consider this choice. But we began to look at other classes more closely. Many of the comments about the IT class were true. There was some cheating. There were also some cars that were prepared by teams that were on budgets even tighter than ours. That had to be pretty tight!
There were other things which we had to consider. Some teams were able to take advantage of factory support which was available for some makes, but not ours. There was modest contingency money available from some factories. If you place, you get a small award from the company. It is not a large amount of money, but it is a help, and it shows that the factory is behind you and your efforts to bring their cars to the winning circle. The benefits in brand loyalty far exceed the modest cost, especially when this cost is compared to the advertising expenses of even the smallest importer or domestic manufacturer of automobiles. There was no such support from BMW. This is not criticism, but only our observation. Obviously, our racing would not help BMW sell more cars, oreven sell them to race fans. We were not kidding ourselves about this. But some support would have helped a lot.
Making a street car into a race car causes problems. Some of them were mentioned above. Others are that the IT class was intended to be restrictive, and was becoming more so. Unfortunately, some of these restrictions were interfering with our goal of developing both the driver and the car. Finding a class which would allow more attention to racing and less on the car was becoming our goal. Finding such a class was difficult, and in the end we concluded that there is no perfect class, but there are some that are better at meeting our requirements than others. Finding this class was more difficult than deciding to race a BMW had been a year ago. We eventually chose Formula Ford. This class has progressed over the years so the differences between cars are vanishingly small, and the big differences are between drivers. And, it is a real race car.
Exploring our new car and open wheel racing could be the subject of a series of articles about racing, but it brought racing a BMW to an end. We enjoyed the year of racing a BMW, the experiences and the friends that we still have because of it. And we went on to race a formula car, with the chalilenge an open wheeled car represented to both the driver and mechanic.
Ed. note: Few Roundel articles have run as long as this one, and few articles of any size have garnered so many nice comments. Many people have said "Even though I had no intention of racing an IT car, I enjoyed reading about it." Our thanks to Larry Resnick for his efforts. Watch for his next article on his ten years as Tech Rep.
Note that some things never change, like the cheap to ball up Mazdas
