Rallycross adventures in a BMW e28

Hello everyone! My wife and I have been rallycrossing our 1986 BMW 535is for the last year and a half.
People seem interested in the car everywhere we go so we decided to start a build thread. A few months ago, the car got a quick blurb in the Grassroots Motorsports magazine.

We got the car in early 2014. It was fairly clean and rust free. Old cars in Florida generally have problems with clear coat and the interior so I was happy to get one without those.

We spent the first six months baselining the car, then couldn't figure out what to do with it. We debated selling it until I found a couple of rallycross build threads from guys in the Washington DC region. We both did the rallycross school at the FIRM, decided it was awesome and started prepping the car for rallycross. I am fairly tall so new seats were a must along with a skid plate and some suspension improvements.

Our first event ever was an SCCA rallycross in April 2015. Since then, we have run in rallycross and autocross events with SCCA, local clubs, the FIRM, an abandoned military base, Middle Georgia rallycross, and most recently, the Eastern Rallycross National Challenge.

We took a long road trip up to Frostburg, MD to participate in the Eastern Rallycross National Challenge in early July.

Car preparation included adding a stripe and attempting and failing to add driving lights. My fog light mounts are long gone and I need 8 lights on the front of the car to be legal in the Prepared class. I took my two broken fog lights with me to duct tape to the bumper in case anyone asked at the event.

We took the long way north so that we could drive the Smoky Mountains and the Tail of the Dragon. As cool as Tail of the Dragon was, Wolf's Pen Gap Road in northern Georgia was my favorite drive.

We stayed in a cabin in Tellico Plains, TN for a few days. It is at the western end of the Cherohala Skyway. It served as home base while we hit the driving roads in the area. The Tellico Grains Bakery was surprisingly good and worth a stop if you are in the area.

I have seen lots of pictures and video of the Frostburg rallycross venue so I was eager to give it a try. I have never driven on gravel before. I was surprised by the difference in grip levels in and out of the ruts and how much the course changed from run to run.

Here are the fastest of my competition runs:
Day 1 morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eMmFdAxMTU
Day 1 afternoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9bCnRLhrmg
Day 2 morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g4q1lQzB8k

I ended up with a solid mid pack finish. I was not in the hunt for a trophy but I was pleased with how I drove and how the car handled the course. I did happen to edge out the other participant in the provisional class, Red Prepared RWD Cars on Snow Tires or RPRST. I am hoping to make it official for the 2017 season.

The trip home was uneventful. At least until the AC fuse melted itself without breaking the wire outside of Savannah. I had a spare fuse but didn't even think to try swapping it. The rest of the trip was hot and uneventful.

It was fun seeing your car out at Frostburg, I think we all enjoyed it. As I know you've read Nick's extensive e28 thread you know that car can be competitive (especially with the M30 you have) so keep it up!

It was great putting faces to names. I am planning on stiffening up the suspension and getting rally tires this fall. Debating moving the battery to the trunk. I can just barely get 4 tires in the trunk right now and I will only be able to fit three with the battery back there. Otherwise, the car is done as far as Prepared Rear prep goes. Hopefully, I can make it to enough events, improve my driving, and compete for a trophy next year.

Wolf Pen Gap, I grew up right outside there. Not too many people know about 180 through there outside of north Georgians. Keep it up!

Here are the three different surfaces I run on regularly.

The local SCCA chapter runs in the overflow parking for the St. Lucie county fairgrounds. The venue is huge and allows for two minute courses depending on the configuration. Our average course shows up on google maps.

The surface is a sand and shell aggregate underneath grass and a quarter inch of topsoil. The sand moves around enough that ruts don't really form. We just dig big holes. This one started as level ground.

Here are morning and afternoon runs from the most recent event. My wife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk1mEO91Cp0 and me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBq7MV912AE

We occasionally make the trip up to the Middle Georgia region rallycrosses in Byron. They run on a red clay lot that is very smooth and predictable.

As the day goes by, the loose layer of clay on top gets swept off and the hard pack underneath has more grip. This is my wife's favorite surface to drive on. The only negative is the clay dust that sticks to everything.

For the Dixie regional event this year, we also ran on the infield of the old Middle Georgia Speedway. It is a banked half mile oval that used to be used for stock car races.

Here I am on the infield and Danielle on the clay lot.

The FIRM, in Starke, FL, runs something in between a rallycross and rally sprint. They are a bit more relaxed with the safety requirements than the SCCA. Speeds hit the top of third gear and the course weaves through trees and other solid obstacles.

A large chunk of each course is their limestone skidpad which is good fun. Usually there are a few turns on the kart track and a jump thrown in for good measure. The longer courses use bits and pieces of their rally stages. I haven't been able to make it out for one of those yet.

Here is a medium sized course and what my car looks like when it runs out of steering angle.

ojannen wrote: It was great putting faces to names. I am planning on stiffening up the suspension and getting rally tires this fall. Debating moving the battery to the trunk. I can just barely get 4 tires in the trunk right now and I will only be able to fit three with the battery back there. Otherwise, the car is done as far as Prepared Rear prep goes. Hopefully, I can make it to enough events, improve my driving, and compete for a trophy next year.

That's funny, my e30 (with battery in the trunk) can still fit five rally tires. One advantage of 14s lol.

The trunk lid is just low enough that I can't stack the tires. I am running 15x7s. I bet if I took the vinyl lid lining off, things would be easier.

In between rallycross events, I run the 5 series in autocross. It is not particularly suited to autocross. It is classed in STX due to a few polyurethane bushings and the aftermarket seats. I normally bring up the rear but console myself with the ridiculous lean angles the car is capable of.

The car looks pretty good sitting on it's bump stops. Note how much of the roof you can see.

Here is a fast run from January: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwgpYMX7sQM

In Febraury, I made it out to Carlstromring for their inaugural tarmac rallycross event. The course was 5 minutes long and twisted through an abandoned military base. I only got two runs in before someone hit an electric pole, blew a transformer, and set a field on fire.

I took things pretty slowly and stayed in second gear for the whole course. Too many concrete trash cans used as cones and a 3 hour drive home kept me cautious. Hopefully, they do another event this year.

My second run of the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz2dWDp5SW8

Your car looks great! I wish I had made it to Carlstromring for that crazy event. It's not looking promising for any more activities at that spot :(

After running the e28 in autocross and rallycross for a year and a half, I decided I wanted someing competitive in autocross. I was running mid pack in rallycross but generally bringing up the rear in autocross. I owned a 2001 BMW Z3 coupe at the time which could compete in C Street or STR. After two months of work and a large chunk of change, I figured out there was no way for me to fit in the car with a helmet. Due to the way the rear bulkhead works, there is almost no way to screw in the rear seat mount bolts with the seat in place. I have a bad case of fatlegitis so a sidemount seat was out of the question. That realization made me a bit sad because I accidentally bought the perfect autocross spec Z3. The 3.0 M54 engine has more low end torque than the early M coupes. With no sunroof and a removable spare tire, it is 200lbs lighter.

I started looking for a car that was reasonably competitive in class, fit me with a helmet, was a roughly straight across trade for the Z3 and works as a daily driver in Florida (AC). I don't fit into most of the usable suspects due to legroom, helmet room or both including all generations of miata, s2000, rx8, brz/frs, corvette c4, and the E46 3 series with sunroof. I eventually settled on the first generation Mini Cooper S JCW. I specifically needed one without a sunroof. The JCW package came standard with a sunroof so I was looking for one where the owner specifically unchecked the sunroof option box.

I search for 3 months before I found a car in my price range in the eastern half of the country. My wife and I flew up to West Virginia to pick up the car and drive home. Other than a very stiff ride which I attributed to oversized 18" wheels, the car worked as advertised so we bought it and started driving home. The one weird bit about the sale was the West Virginia transit license plate. It was a piece of paper masking taped to the rear window of the car. The West Virginia pickup meant that we could hit some cool mountain roads on the way home. We didn't quite make it that far.

About 5 miles from our hotel on the first day of driving, the exhaust header detached itself from the cat. We decided to go to bed and deal with it in the morning. On Friday morning, with no cell service, we attempted to get our header welded back together. I think we found 3 shops that would take it off the car and 3 shops that would weld it back together but none that would do both. The nearest replacement part was far enough away that we wouldn't get there before they closed for the weeekend.

Time for a new plan. Other than being extremly loud, the car was working ok. There is a car train that goes from south Washington, DC to north Orlando once a day. We decided to drive 6 hours to DC in a car with a paper license plate and open headers. If I kept the speed below 65, I could drive without ear plugs. My strategy was to speed up, then coast past state troopers to keep the noise down. The rest of the trip home was uneventful. Amtrak for 17 hours wasn't fun but listening to
the exhaust while the car was being retrieved from inside the train made up for it.

Once I got the car to my mechanic, it turned out that the very stiff suspension was actually seized shocks. Instead of preparing the car for D Street, I decided to start on an STX build for the car. I picked up an RMW shorty header, a set of coilovers, and the bits and pieces needed to get the alignment right for STX.

Over the next month, we repaired and prepped the Mini including
- Ohlins DFV coilovers
- Vorshlag camber plates
- brake rotors
- adjustable rear control arms
- adjustable sway bar links
- RMW shorty header
- custom Jan tune
- replaced solid crank pulley with an ATI super damper
- wheel speed sensors
- radiator aux fan
- tie rods
- front ball joints

This list was a bit longer than I expected and I managed to burn through my wheel/tire budget. So I did my first set of events on 16x7 wheels BF Goodrich Sport Comp-2s. STX in central Florida is stacked with David Marcus, Ian Stewart, and Darrin Disimo among others so I wasn't expecting to win any time soon anyway.

By the time we got all the repairs done, it was early April. My wife and I drove at the Martin Sports Car Club April event at the Orange County Convention Center. I struggled to put together a clean run. Later, I figured out that the doors in the Mini are thicker than the doors in my E28. I hit apex cones with the middle of the car on nearly every run for the first few events.

Here is my fast run of the day. I believe I hit a cone going into the lane change box.

At the end of the month, I went to a practice autocross in Sebring to get some seat time in the car. Sebring is far enough away that the practice events usually have less than 30 people. I was rewarded with 16 runs. I was still struggling with the dimensions of the car and hit 13 cones.

Here are a few of my fast runs for the day. The course was designed to be run in the opposite direction for the points event on Sunday so the ending was a little awkward. I decided to slow down a bit and not take out the timing lights.

The SCCA managed to get a new site behind the Daytona speedway. We normally run in the cart track in the infield when they do track days there. This parking lot was huge and allowed a 70 second run. I would have been up into third gear for some of it if I was a little more brave. Hopefully we can do more events here in the future.

My fastest run

At the end of July, my wife and I headed over to the Deland Municipal Airport for our last autocross on street tires. The site is a no longer used runway at an active airport. It was once used as a drag strip and grip levels change as you move across the tarmac.

I still hadn't learned to turn off the traction control before every run. I managed to throw away two runs. Once traction control kicks in, it does not turn off until you get all the way off the gas and back on.

I ended up with a 51.722 in third place in STX. I was pretty happy with a 28/80 PAX time on street tires.

Danielle's fastest run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw27l-yGlOE

My fastest run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUBKJvnRFjY

At the beginning of the month, I finally saved enough money to get wheels and tires for the mini. I
decided on Rival 225/45r15 tires and 949 Racing 6UL wheels. 15x9 in the front with a big spacer and 15x8 in the back. It was a huge difference. I have previously run RE-11s on my E28 but it's
suspension was compromised enough that the grip level was not even close.

The front wheels poke quite a bit and they lower the car significantly due to the smaller diameter.
I prefer the term mexiflush.

The first autocross I went to on the new tires didn't have anyone in STX. There was an r53 in SMF. It was pretty much an STX prep car plus a pulley. It was on good 200TW tires. With around 200hp to
the wheels, it was roughly as powerful as my car. I ended up 42.055 about two seconds back from the other mini.

Looking back, there were a few points in the run where I did not trust the tires. Most notably at
the slalom just before the finish. I only threw away one run forgetting to turn off the traction
control so I am getting better at that.

My fast run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHUHv6BXlq4

Danielle's fast run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoC7ylxH5DA

The next event I went to was the final one before Solo Nationals. I was hoping to see how I
compared to the fast guys as they did their last tuning before the big show. I was running in the
third heat and we got a standard Florida 15 minutes downpour just before my first run. Thankfully,
there was a timing problem and I didn't have to run in the downpour. There was still a bunch of
standing water for all of my runs.

About half the class got a single dry run so I wasn't event close to them. I was about 2 seconds
back from the fast guys in the wet. Good enough for a 50/109 PAX.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHhTli228ps

I also center punched a cone at about 40 mph. Got a little behind while my arms were crossed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIo0Q-5M50I

After a two month break, I am back to rallycross. Before I could do that, I had to solve some car problems. During the national challenge event, the car randomly lost power a few times. One instance is on this video from 2:48-2:50: https://youtu.be/m0h9Z1e3uCE?t=2m42s. You can hear the car slow down and all engine noise stop for a second or two.

It always resolved itself and didn't happen on the 14 hour drive home. Once I got back to Florida it happened again a few weeks later. Two tows later, I figured out that the 2 screws that hold the ECU in place had backed themselves out. When the car would go over a bump, the ECU would bounce and disconnect itself temporarily.

I got all of that sorted just in time for a rallycross at The FIRM. I threw everything in the car and headed towards Starke. The events at the firm are closer to a rallysprint than a rallycross. The course was about 3.5 minutes long and wound through their gravel skidpad, on and off the track, and into some of their rally stages. I believe that some of the cars were well into third gear through the trees. I had to drive the car home so I was not.

My first few runs were truly terrible. After driving the mini for two months, I got used to mid corner power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUr4pOSSCts

My fastest run was in the late morning. I am not very consistent with handbrake turns so I downshifted into first and powered around the hairpins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrCH4vcgIV8.

In the afternoon, the course degraded. The start was a sand pit for 25 feet. The hairpins grew deep ruts at the entrance and exit. I slowed down to save my front valence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUr4pOSSCts

I ended up in fourth place in stock rwd. About 8 seconds from third place and 20 second from second place after over 20 minutes of driving. I am still searching for pictures of the event. I saw a photographer on course but I haven't been able to find the album anywhere.

Back from an autocross on the cart track in the infield at the Daytona Speedway. The course was very different from a standard autocross. The track was not quite wide enough for a safe slalom. It sort of turned into straight -> sweeper -> straight -> sweeper. I had some problems judging where to apex some of the corners. I think I messed up the turn around at 0:47 on every run.

My best run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSgYQLNN_ew

Danielle's best run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahFkSBYKvv0

The video is a little blurry because I hit a branch with the camera last week at The FIRM. I need to get a new gopro case.

Catching up on the blog after some time away. I have run in two SCCA rallycrosses at our awesome
venue in St. Lucie. I have been doing more autocross than rallycross recently and it takes me a few runs to get used to rear wheel drive. Then, a few more runs to be really happy with my driving.
That is bad news for my standings in rallycross.

October event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XnxYsCDCB0

In November, there were about 8 people signed up in Modified Rear so I jumped classes for a bit more competition. I did the usual with some slow early runs while running with the pack later in the day. I tried putting a gopro on my helmet for the first time during this event.

Novemeber event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW7uXpwP2p0
Helmet cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUvW_uuGK-A

Based on the helmet cam, I may have the worlds slowest steering rack. I also have the
instinct to correct a slide before I need to. Then, I have to make another steering input to get
around a simple corner.

I can't make the December event so my rallycross season is over. Now I am in repair mode for the
new season starting in January or February. Working on the following improvement for the car:

• Looking into rally tires for next season. I am looking at DMack and Indy Sport (from Rally.build). Any ideas about 195 vs 205 section tires for the fairly torquey M30 motor?
• I have been chasing down a weird problem with my throttle cable for the last two events. After
  going full throttle, the grommet holding the throttle cable to the throttle bracket pulls out
  slightly and stops the throttle from fully closing.
• I managed to land some used Ground Control coilovers with Koni sport shocks. I am trying to
  figure out spring rates and maintaining ride height but that is probably a question for another
  thread.
• I also have some basic repairs to make like a totally collapsed engine mount, lug stud conversion, and maybe a shifter rebuild

Here are some quick videos from the last few autocrosses

Every time there is a practice event at Sebring, I try to make it down. Some of them end up with 15+ runs and make up for the long drive. There was a timing problem at this event so full results never got posted. I spent most of the day blowing the turnaround and hitting cones with my right front tire. Here are our fastest runs of the day.

My fastest run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFGBIkRLwFM
Danielle's fastest run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-s7bFW_KlU

Towards the end of the day, a friend and I swapped cars which led to this and the best corner worker reaction ever. He made the good point that my brakes were a bit crap. Not much happened in the first inch of pedal travel and things felt spongy after that. I took a shot a rounding off the bleeder screws then sent it off to the mechanic. It was a good thing because they found the brake line to the right rear completely clogged. Things felt better afterwards.

Danielle and I made our way to Ft. Myers for the Florida State Championship at the beginning of November. It was a long and boring drive. The venue down there is amazing. It is a double wide runway about a half mile long. The course was over 70 seconds long with lots of time at the top of second gear. By the end of the day, I figured I could be flat after the first cone of each slalom. Got to hear what my rev limiter sounded like at the finish line of the faster runs. Fun stuff.

My fastest run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip_DV4-2X2A
Danielle's fastest run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrPK344gKOE

I won STX but it was a hollow victory as the only ones in the class. For reference, David Marcus in an SS Cayman GT4 beat me by about 10 seconds. The SS and STX PAX numbers are essentially the same. I don't expect to ever beat him but I would like to be a bit closer. I also got raw timed by a very good driver in an HS mini.

Back to my home region and the Deland Municipal Airport. The course was a standard runway course. The pavement in Deland has very little grip and I was fighting wheelspin all day. It made me wish my car had a LSD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwcD4DjHBq8

I was about 2 seconds off the fast guys at the end of the day. One of my better showings at 25/109 overall.

ojannen wrote: Catching up on the blog after some time away. I have run in two SCCA rallycrosses at our awesome venue in St. Lucie. I have been doing more autocross than rallycross recently and it takes me a few runs to get used to rear wheel drive. Then, a few more runs to be really happy with my driving. That is bad news for my standings in rallycross. October event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XnxYsCDCB0 In November, there were about 8 people signed up in Modified Rear so I jumped classes for a bit more competition. I did the usual with some slow early runs while running with the pack later in the day. I tried putting a gopro on my helmet for the first time during this event. Novemeber event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW7uXpwP2p0 Helmet cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUvW_uuGK-A Based on the helmet cam, I may have the worlds slowest steering rack. I also have the instinct to correct a slide before I need to. Then, I have to make another steering input to get around a simple corner. I can't make the December event so my rallycross season is over. Now I am in repair mode for the new season starting in January or February. Working on the following improvement for the car: - Looking into rally tires for next season. I am looking at DMack and Indy Sport (from Rally.build). Any ideas about 195 vs 205 section tires for the fairly torquey M30 motor? - I have been chasing down a weird problem with my throttle cable for the last two events. After going full throttle, the grommet holding the throttle cable to the throttle bracket pulls out slightly and stops the throttle from fully closing. - I managed to land some used Ground Control coilovers with Koni sport shocks. I am trying to figure out spring rates and maintaining ride height but that is probably a question for another thread. - I also have some basic repairs to make like a totally collapsed engine mount, lug stud conversion, and maybe a shifter rebuild

I like DMacks. Order them from demon-tweeks in UK and they're like $100 each (and shipping isn't terrible, especially if you order a bunch of them with some friends). Way cheaper than buying them in the US.

As to size, narrower is almost always better for rally/rallycross, unless you rallycross on compacted tarmac-like surfaces (like baked clay track).

For spring rates, my e30 is much lighter than your car and I run 350# front and 325# rear springs and like those rates for rallycross and for stage. Since you're not doing stage, you can probably use similar rates without issue since you don't need to handle jumps. Check out Nick's e28 thread though - his car was well-setup so use his knowledge. He was fast in that car.

My last autocross of 2016 and my first of 2017 were both run by the Martin Sports Car Club at their Tavares venue. Three days before the December event my right rear caliper on the mini stuck hard enough that I trashed the rotor driving the rest of the way home. Hopefully I am getting close to the end of the Northeast/rust based problems with the car.

Either way, I had to run the 5 series in the autocross. I haven't run that car in autocross since March. I wasn't sure what to expect coming back to it from the mini. I am aware that I am getting faster compared to other drivers but I didn't know how much was car vs skill. Here is my best run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhOpa1HsmVw

Terminal understeer followed by corner exit oversteer and understeer at the same time. It was fun to wrestle it around. Danielle and I finished in 4th and 5th place at the bottom of the class.

Three weeks later, I went back to Tavares in the mini. It was an extremely cold day for Florida in January, around 35 degrees when I left the house. Everyone's tires were just at the line where they stopped gripping. On my second run, I managed my first spin every after some sloppy driving:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fX_zMYTIy4

After another run or two, I finally put everything together and ended up with a reasonable time and 2/6 in STX.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEF5j4yQEkY

One driver beat me at both events. I lost to him by 2.626 seconds in the 5 series and 0.997 seconds in the mini. The big difference between the two cars is that I think I am driving the 5 series as fast as I can but I can still see more time in my runs in the mini. I will see if I can reel him in over the next few events.

Last weekend, I drove out to the Brookesville Airport for the first SCCA event of the season. Most
of the really fast guys have changed cars away from STX or gone to a pro class so I was hopeful
going into the day. The class had something I have never seen before, a 318ti clubsport. It had
the front clip of an M3 but the back half of an e36 compact No idea why that is in STX and not
STF or STS. Only ~140hp but it does have an LSD.

On the day of the event, a bad storm was supposed to roll in around noon. We split up into heats
and only ran three times for the competition. This worked great for me as I was able to get up to
speed by the third run and won the class by 2/3rds of a second. If the event had gone on another
run or two, things would have been a lot closer.

Here is my fast competition run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZeQ2v4_wnQ

And Danielles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfKmEP_QQ94

After watching other drivers' videos, I am losing over a second in the start. I think I am letting
out the clutch too fast and bogging the engine down. Does anyone have a guide about how to launch a FWD car for autocross?

Catching up from the last month of autocrosses. I am going to the Dixie regional event in March so I tried to get as much practice as possible.

The first was back in Tavares for a Martin autocross. The course featured a big sweeper with a light pole in the spin zone that I never got the nerve to take at full speed. With that in mind, I was feeling pretty good about my fast run. I was about a tenth off of first place in STX. I know I lost time in the second to last corner with a bit of understeer. Then, the guy in first picked up another half second in his final run. Either way, I narrowed the gap to him from about 0.9 in the January event to 0.6 seconds.

Here is my fast run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_QD15SOpmw
And Danielle's fast run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkDgsIALHj0

Before this event, I installed a Minifini trailer hitch system to the mini. I have the same harbor freight tire trailer that everyone else has. The car pulled the trailer with no problems but the trailer was a little bouncy. I may remove a leaf spring and see if it helps.

After the event, I was swapping tires back on and noticed that both of my inner CV boots on my front axles were leaking grease. That is an annoying job to do once so I sent it into the shop for the repair. Turned out to be a good thing as both engine mounts and the transmission mount needed to be replaced. While the car was apart, I had the shop put in transmission mount inserts. I am not exactly sure what they do but the end result was a significant decrease in slop in the transmission. Definitely worth the $35.

I also met sherman89 from the forums. He won the novice class again and posted a DS pax time somewhere in the top quarter for the event.

After a few weeks off, we went back to Brookesville for a test and tune. The course wasintentionally set up to be simple. There were evenly spaced offsets at the start, 4 sweepers in themiddle, and an even 6 cone slalom at the end. There was sector timing for each section of the course. Danielle and I focused on improving on the sweepers. We both picked up multiple seconds after gaining more confidence in the car. The car did 20 runs on the day and didn't miss a beat.

Here is my fast run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBS9HGYASAs
Here is my fast sector 1 and 2 with a missed cone on the slalom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Y2VJ5-WZM

Here is Danielle's fast run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCX57Z417Ro
Here is Danielle learning the limits of the car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKDvsg_6JU0

The following weekend we went out to The FIRM for an autocross with the Buccaneer region. We weren't going to go because it is a 2.5 hour driving starting around 5am. Then I found out that there were already 17 people already signed up for STX. The class had 22 people on the day of the event.

The autocross takes place on about half of the track there. There are a bunch of slaloms because there isn't enough room for much else but there are also some high speed sweepers that are rare to see on an autocross course. I got into third gear for the first time on an autocross course hitting around 75mph according to gps.

At the event I had a nationally competitive driver sit in the car for a few runs and drive on one. On his only run in my car, he was 2 seconds faster than my best run of the day. I think it would have been a top 12 pax time on the day. Between his run and some tips, he showed me how to catch oversteer with the throttle and how much earlier I could get on the gas in corners.

It turned this spin: https://youtu.be/gjop49D-cFU
Into my fast run of the day catching the oversteer in the same spot: https://youtu.be/tHtU0grs7ro

Towards the end of my fast run, I accidentally shifted into 5th instead of 3rd gear and lost time downshifting. I ended up in 7th place, a third of a second out of the trophies. All together a good day

I am taking a weekend off, then traveling to Indiana for the North American Brass Band Association Championship and south Georgia for the Dixie National Tour the following weekend.

I attended my first regional autocross event at the Dixie Championship Tour at South Georgia Motorsports Park.

The weekend was complicated by an oil leak on the way up. I was missing a bolt on my coil pack and it put a small hole in the valve cover. For some reason, it sprayed oil straight up into the strut bar and underhood insulation. I temporarily solved it with a hardware store bolt.

On Friday, I attended the Evo Advantage School. I got about 10 runs in on the practice course. About half were with Jinx Jordan, 2016 SMF national champion, as an instructor. My big takeaway was that I need to get back on the gas much earlier in turns. My tendency is to not give full throttle until I have unwound the wheel.

The two competition courses were fairly straightforward. Out and back on the long, narrow lot. The course consisted of a section of offsets, a big turnaround, 6 cone slalom, and some slow, sharp turns on the other side. Saturday's course had two 180 turns that were a bit weird. I decided not to downshift into 1st gear for them which was a mistake. On Sunday, they were replaced by a sharp left, right that worked a bit better for me.

Both days, I struggled with nerves. On the first day, I ran slower and safer than I needed to. On the second day, I overcompensated and ended up with cone problems. Despite the poor finish, I am looking forward to doing this again next year. Here is Saturday's fast run, Sunday's fast run, and what it looks like to understeer into a cone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcLXJYKrXNo

Central Florida SCCA just finished our second points event of the season. I haven't made it out in a few months due to schedule conflicts.

It was my first time on rally tires on the e28. They make a world of difference. I noticed the most change on front end grip. It was much easier to place the front of the car. I kept having to correct in the middle of turns because I was expecting the front to wash out.

I ran Racechrono on this event and got a cool overhead view of the course. Morning and afternoon courses are roughly the same except the directions were reversed. The afternoon (counter-clockwise) course redirected around ditch which allowed us to remove the slow kink about half way through.

Morning course:

Afternoon course:

Towards the end of the day, I pulled off a good feeling run around the sweeper on the East end of the course. I felt like I was finally able to place the front of the car exactly where I wanted it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrpwYgFxXzw

I tried mounting a go pro just infront of a rear wheel to see what it looked like. Watch for the cone at 0:05 and the big rock at 0:23. I didn't realize my suspension was moving that much https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEdbAvpXnuk

Here are my fast runs of the day. My wife and I were the only ones in class and MR ran in the other heat so it is hard to compare times. With minimal course changes, the fast MR guys were running about 3-5 seconds per run faster than me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo13DsyNdkg

This month we ran a rallycross in the Daytona Speedway infield. The local scca region runs a few times a year at the speedway. Normally, the club racers run the endurance track and autocross runs on the kart track. This time, the region was doing a membership and visibility push and they wanted all three programs in the same place at the same time.

The course was laid out in a fairly confined space about 30 feet from the infield section of the track. It was mostly 1st gear with a faster section towards the end. It started with a nice set of sweepers that kicked up enough dust to be seen on the outside of the speedway.

Here is my fastest run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_is1B0k23A
I had a buddy codrive at his first rallycross ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbyXKoMAlxE

I got some pretty good pictures too

All RWD cars ran in the same group so I could directly compare my times to the Modified guys. My raw time was less than 1 second a run behind the fast guys on an 80 second course. I missed the second day due to a wedding but, somehow, everyone in Prepared missed the second day so I won the class.

The event ended up with about 60 drivers. We could have had more but we couldn't have multiple cars on course at once. The venue attracted the regulars, the stage rally guys, and a bunch of people who would never normally make it out to a rallycross. Among other things, there was a Leh Keen 911, a Buick Roadmaster and most of a Lincoln Towncar.

Someone put together this video that captures the event nicely: https://vimeo.com/216338395?ref=fb-share-v

The great news is the board of governors liked rallycross enough that they are inviting us back. We should be back for a two day event some time next year. This time, day 1 will be in the infield and day 2 will be in the 30 acre lot just outside the stadium.