BMW 540 Breadvan:

 

 

Normally when I corner worker mentions a car over the radio, they say the number of the car and the main color. In our case, it was "#3 silver". None of the corner workers could figure out what color the Mutt Cutts car was so when they got on the radio to say anything about the Neon, they'd call it "#22 fuzzy".

 

Here's a shot of our motley crew minus myself and Mike, who was in the car at the time:


Going into tech:








Friday night in the garage during final prep:


This is Jon. He was our resident Richard Hammond this past weekend. He made himself a booster seat because he couldn't see over the dash.

 

I tried to post some video footage but I guess 15 min clips are too long for Youtube. I'll shorten them down to a lap or two and get those posted as soon as I can.

In the meantime, I've got a bunch of new photos I can post from the race weekend.

We shared a garage with these guys and they were definitely our biggest rivals of the weekend. The eyes on the deer light up red when the brake lights are on.














Paddock view on Saturday


Replacing the broken gearbox






Dropping the front subframe was definitely the worst part of the gearbox swap


Bad gearbox out




Spare gearbox in the car


Just getting the last few bits in place before heading back onto the track!




Jon getting ready for his stint


A quick dash of fuel and we're back on track!


I don't have any more pics from the rest of Saturday because I had to get ready to race shortly after Jon went out.

 

As I said before, Sunday was wet and miserable. Really windy too.







This Saab was really fast on Saturday but had issues with their intercooler and eventually retired when they couldn't hold boost.


If you look closely at the front bumper, you can see where it just kissed the wall the previous day.


Here's Nick, the team manager, listening in to weather details to report to Mike who was driving at the time.






This little Spec Miata wasn't running in the ChumpCar series but was allowed in to race in the Exception Class which is meant to get drivers from other series interested in ChumpCar. These guys ended up being a lap ahead of both of this weekend's winners by the end of the races.


When I went up to the timing and scoring station to see how the team was doing, I was given the chance to go out on the start/finish bridge to shoot and watch the race!












Here's where we went off at Turn 12. The back stretch is probably 3/4 of a mile long and the snow that was melting on the hillside runs across the track making it very slippery. Nick was making an attempt to pass the #01 car on the outside when #01 lost it and Nick had nowhere to go but the gravel trap along with the other car.


But, we got out and kept soldiering on. Reeling in the competition lap by lap.

 

Due to the cold weather I was having issues with my camera and wasn't able to get any snaps of the finish. In any case, we finished in 6th with Jon taking the checkered flag for us.

After we celebrated a bit, we headed back to the garage to look over the car.

 

Awesome pics Alex, looks like a fun weekend of racing.

 

Looks like you had a fun weekend!!

A bunch of my friends and I are trying to do the 24 hrs of Lemons this winter. Still looking for a car to meet the $500 criteria.

 

If anyone wants to get into ChumpCar, make sure you read this on the ins & outs of finding a car to drive:

So you want to be a Chump - Invision Power Board