Eurotrash Motorsports

A few weekends ago, Jeff and I signed up for a lapping event for the morning of October 18th through Midnight Runs, and then for one in the afternoon through KPlayground.  Both these events were at Shannonville Motorsports Park, using their long track (4 km) and we were extremely excited.  Jeff had never been lapping, and I couldn’t wait to get back on the track!

I decided to put a few touches on the car before heading out – I reinstalled the 12 volt adapter so that we could use a portable air compressor, and I jimmy-rigged a power window connector for it so that we could roll the windows up and down from inside the car (as opposed to using an external battery like we used to).  Both worked great and the weather forecast said it was going to be a nice day, so our spirits were up!

Once again, we had to leave extremely early as we needed to be there for 8:45am.  So we hit the road at 6am to make the 2.5 hour drive.  Everything went smooth, and we even ment up with some fellow racers on the 401.  I took the first lapping session to try and get Jeff used to the idea and to show him what the car can do at higher speeds.  The car was hanlding awesome, and I could really feel the traction improvements that the camber was giving us.  We played with the tire pressures a bit and we found the sweet spot for the car in no time.  The second session went to Jeff, and he quickly got the hang of – he learned the lines, and was able to maintain a pretty good pace throughout the whole track.  In fact, in the first right corner coming out of the first straight, he was feeling gutsier than I was and shifted to fifth to take the corner, whereas I was only taking it in fourth (he didn’t realize at the time that he was going faster than I was)!  It was turning out to be an awesome day.

Unfortunately, during the next session, I came out of that same first corner and tried to shift to 5th, but the gear selector was jammed.  I couldn’t move it at all, even with both hands.  I finished the lap and pulled off the track to tell Jeff the bad news.  We missed out on the last hour of the morning session, and we were able to get credited for our afternoon session.  Trying to get the car on the trailer was exciting though – as soon as I touched the ramps, the clutch started slipping and then smoking!  With the help of some friends we were able to get it up anyways.  We were pretty dissppointed, but it really could have been a lot worse.  We had picked up a used transmission this summer and were planning on swapping it anyways this winter, so this just added a bit of fuel to the fire.  We were also considering replacing the clutch, so now we have even more reason to do that too.  All in all, we still had a blast, and nothing “serious” happened.

A photographer got some really great shots of us in action, and Jeff should be uploading some soon as well!  Unfortunately we didn’t get any in car video, as we wanted to wait for the afternoon… so much for that!

Shawn

On September 27th, Jeff and I participated in a joint CADL-MCO event hosted at the PMG test track in Blainville, QC.   I had brought the car to Canadian Tire earlier in the week to get our alignment done, and we now had some negative camber at the front and the back, and a light toe adjustment that would benefit us both for Solo II and for lapping.  After a long night of getting the car prepped and loaded on the trailer (beacuse I ended up in the hospital for having dropped the trailer jack on my finger and required 5 stitches…), we left EARLY in the morning for out 2.5 hour drive to PMG.  We got there just before 8:30am, and unloaded the car in the rain.  Because of our mods and the different point system, the BMW was in the ‘Open PAX’ class with 4 other drivers.

At PMG, we were escorted onto the grounds, and we were not able to leave without the same escort since Transport Canada and other agencies often uses these grounds as there test facility.

Hoping the rain would let up wasn’t enough, and the weather remained wet all day.  The track was really fast despite the weather, with me hitting fourth gear on the rear straight before braking for a technical left corner.  I thought that the track was really cool, with a good mix between high-speed and tight, technical sections as well.  Obviously it would have been much better in the dry, but regardless it was fun!  Both of us had a lot of trouble figuring out our car in the rain with the new alignment though.  We kept getting really loose in certain areas, and I have a feeling it was because we were not adjusting our tire pressures properly.   Similarly to my last event, I scored my fastest time early in the day, and couldn’t beat it, no matter how hard I tried.  And try hard I did: I ended up beating my record for worst lap ever, hitting 4 cones, and then ending up off-course (first time ever!).  Once again, Jeff continued his steady improvement (despite having bad luck with cones in the morning), and posted his fastest lap on his 5th out of the 6 runs we received.  Our times were good enough to place me 3rd and Jeff 4th out of the 6 that were in our group.  Translating this to the MCO point standings, out of the 3 drivers in our category, I came 2nd and Jeff came 3rd.

This was the last event of the season, and first year championship left us with a 7th and 8th place finish in C-class.  Both Jeff and I are EXTREMELY happy of our results (especially because we were competing at a lower level for the first half of the season), and are extremely greateful for all the help and guidance we received from some of the more experienced drivers in the club.  As for the rookie championship, I finished 6th overall, and Jeff finished 8th.  Both of us had an incredible season, and are really excited for next year’s auto X!!

Check out the gallery for pics from PMG!

Shawn

Yes its been a while, and yes we feel bad!

Jeff and I have been neglecting the site for the past bit, but we’ll be catching up soon!

 So september 13th, we had the MCO’s final hosted AutoX, and it was a members only event.  The track setup was a little bit different this time – we were scheduled to have 4 runs in the morning, and then another 4 in the afternoon.  The catch was that the afternoon runs were gonig to be run BACKWARDS, without any changes to the track!  So basically, we had two events in one.  The scoring was then a sum of the fastest morning time and the fastest afternoon time.

I was able to score really great times in my first two morning runs, but never able to improve after that (after the first run group, I was in 1st in my class!!).  Same with the afternoon – my fastest run was my first, and then I was never able to beat it!  Jeff didn’t share the same fate – he showed steady improvement during both the morning and afternoon, with his final runs being the fastest.

Both of us had a blast, and it was really cool to be able to do that many runs.  Our times were good enough to place me 6th, and Jeff 9th.  The competition was extremely tight in our class!  The 3rd through 7th place drivers were within 0.6 seconds of each other’s combined times!  Unfortunately, our in-car camera’s batteries were dead, and no one was there to take any pictures, but stayed tuned for our next event results!  On the plus side, I won a free performance alignment for the car, so we can finally get it setup properly!

Shawn