2012 NASA Championships/SCCA - Watch Live

[D_Eclipse9916]

All of the SCCA/NASA championships are here this week! Watch live!

My co-driver, Mike Lane will be driving his BSP 350Z in SCCA nationals:
Watch live here:
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Live timing/results here:
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I will be driving my m3 in the NASA championships GTS2 (german touring series).
Watch live here:
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Live timing/results here:
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[xvxax]

Good luck out there. When are you headed out?

[D_Eclipse9916]

Soo... I am sure some of you have heard but here she goes. My review of Nationals.
Short Story: Car Broke, Legitimately made one lap in practice the entire week. Never got to race.

Long Story: Tuesday night head out for Ohio. About an hour into the drive, the alternator on the truck decides to shit the bed.... $80 and 35 minutes later we were back on thte road. Talk about GM trucks being easy and cheap to work on. Hopefully soldier on for another 110k miles without incident.

Get there Wednesday for practice. Pull jack out of truck and start lifting the car to change tires.....PING. Broke my jack... F! Really not starting off right.
Since it was a new differential and new suspension setup, I signed up for the Wednesday Test/n/tune. The entire car had been gone over by both RRT and I. Everything was new or fairly new and been checked. Wednesday was lots of shocks and sway bar adjustments, but by the end of the day we had the car "as close to right" considering the restraints.

Thursday morning. A practice session that qualified you for qualifying (yes you read that right :rolls eyes. I threw on a set of stickers and went out for my warmup lap. Right as I come across madness I hear a crack and the car loses steering. I get it safely in the grass. Have to get towed in to discover my lower control arm that was BRAND new decided to shear itself and then bend upon hitting the ground.


I ask Mike to remove and we proceed to scour around trying to find replacements. We find one....72 miles away in Columbus Ohio. It is 1:15 and one of my qualy races is at 4..... Time to move! Moving at an undisclosed rate, we get to columbus, grab the replacement arm and drive back to Mid-Ohio. 144 miles later at 3:15, we get back and take off the rest of the mounts so we can install the replacement. It is then that we discover this beauty:


The force of the arm breaking that broke the welds that held the nutserts in, as well as cracked the mount. That is frame rail mind you...

So...instead of giving up...AGAIN. We rally, cut the frame rail apart, find the nutserts, and weld it all back together. Hoping to at least make Friday's qualifying race.

Friday: We wake up to discover that the replacement AKG arm is not in, but F it, at least I can practice if we throw on the stock arm. We proceed to throw on the stock arm, and last nut to go on strips itself. It was a real old nut and I was using an open wrench with very little force. It was destined to kill me, 5 minutes before grid.
Okay, well lets wait for the AKG part to come in. Once it comes in we proceed to throw it on in time for qualifying on Friday.

Go out for the first lap and the car feels okay on warmup. Second lap I start dialing it up and I hear something crack. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At this point I am so angry, I should have pulled off. But I didnt. I proceeded to stomp on the throttle and get my goddamn lap in. The wheel is now moving freely within the wheel well and cuts itself ont he fender and bumper. Shredding the tire, what do I do? MORE THROTTLE!!!!! DAAAAAAMN YOU! Come into the carousel the whole car bucks and pops as the tire is freeing itself from the rim, not content to let me have my lap. I DONT CARE! THROTTLE!!!! At this point there are spectators pointing and the corner flagger pulling up a yellow flag in anticipation that I will pull off. Do I care? NO. THROTTLE! I Come across the line to get my one lap in and bring her to a slow 10mph and limp the poor bugger into grid.

This was the tire after my little fiasco for one lap....


Turns out the control arm pulled completely out of the frame rail and trashed the mounts. and I had been runnin on a tire that had come off the rim. Not smart, but I knew I was done for the weekend when it broke. This is how she sit on the trailer after loading up (with a spare tire on it, couldnt tow with the shot one) Notice the location of the front tire...

[Nis01]

Sorry to hear it DJ. I hadn't seen any updates on Saturday/Sunday so I was hoping to see you out running on Speedcast but apparently it was not to be.

[Jake]

Damn, DJ. I put together a story in my head that went about like this, based on the photos you uploaded to Facebook as things happened. Really sorry the event had to unfold in that way, especially after the fight for time off that you went through.

So then, what are you doing about the control arm + frame rail problem? I'm assuming a better weld can be made and fix it again?

[SlimKlim]

Major suck.

So the replaced nutserts came back out of the framerail when the tire came off the rim? I'm assuming that RRT will be able to properly repair/reinforce that mount once they have a full shop, right?

[D_Eclipse9916]

Major suck.

So the replaced nutserts came back out of the framerail when the tire came off the rim? I'm assuming that RRT will be able to properly repair/reinforce that mount once they have a full shop, right?

RRT was not there to support. I had another racer at the track to weld it up. I think RRT will be able to properly to do it in their shop with full facilities. Either way, I am mostly done for the season. I dont need to run October VIR as I have enough points even skipping both races to win the Regional. Looking forward to a break and actually getting my house together and a social life back :lol:

The replaced nutserst pulled out, causing the control arm to pull out, causing the wheel to hit the fender and bumper shredding the tire.

[ScottyB]

geez man. so sorry to hear but i gotta hand it to you, you're one determined sumbitch. I'm with Shea, i guess you'll have to disect your frame rail again to get the nuts back in place? and can you reinforce them for later?

i'm glad those things didn't let go at the end of the VIR back straight or someplace where you'd have been topped out.

congrats on more or less owning the field this year, your regional win is well deserved.