Das Race: My '97 M3/4/5

[Jake]

October 2016 - "Zombie Sprints" - Dominion Raceway

Another great weekend in the books, even if my fastish driving was rewarded with a sinus infection as I got home.

I took the afternoon off on Friday so I could try to get down 95 before traffic sucked. Pro tip: it always sucks. Still took two hours to go 55 miles but yay, early entry list!



Staff got to paddock right up front which was helpful for the sake of sticking together and being near grid.

Saturday was great, I laid down a 1:36.0 which ended up cinching the win for TTD that day, and also setting a class record for Dominion! Was very pumped with the results. DJ also took home a few casual wins - MM was reppin' strong this weekend!





Goodspeed came down and got a few sweet shots of some cars, mine included. I think I convinced him to join some of us for the Refrigerator Bowl(s) coming up... maybe.



Sunday was more frustrating. I ran faster than on Saturday (a 1:35.7) but after the first morning session, I couldn't find grip an-y-where. The track seems to be very good at beating up on front right tires and generally inducing drastic levels of understeer. It was bumpy everywhere (moreso than July) and that was disappointing. I am really hoping DR can step their game up and get the track smoothed out now that they have some down time.



Matthew (white RX8) found the teeniest bit more grip and managed to take the win on Sunday, only half a second faster. We've had some very close competition all season which has kept things fun! I know he and Packer and I will all be at Fall Finale in two weeks, so should be a good rematch of sorts.

Tian got a few shots proving it's definitely how you stand by your car:



...although how you race your car is okay too:



Fun anecdote from Saturday... I was out in my last session of the day and tried carrying a lot more speed through T1. Which went poorly. I took a nice ride in the gravel trap and pulled in, as is required of any 4-off in TT. A 4-off is also an automatic DQ of that session's times. Apparently the corner worker at T1 was blind, as they called this incident in as "right on the edge of the track" and I was not DQ'd. Hmm. Just glad it wasn't my fastest lap(s) of the day.

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Actual hot lap video with data coming tonight...