Duncan Millar Uncategorized

Lessons Learned, Schmessons Schmearned: Part 2 – Be Aggressive, Be-Be Aggressive

If you’ve been following the blog as religiously as our chief priests and bishops require of you, oh parishioner of the Our Lady of Malfunctioning Dashboard Clusters ministry you would know our June 20th play-date with the southern format of the Autobahn Country Club left us sorely wanting. In our Covid-19 lonesome we were left to trek to the track alone and wallow in the sadness of reflecting on our Sport-5 class victory without the critical analysis we’ve come to appreciate from our teammates. Fortunately, the state, and so the track, reasonably loosened restrictions and we were thusly allowed “crew members” on the next outing. The July 3rd Full-Blown RYE30 Racing Trackday, presented by the Chicago Region Sports Car Club of America, and hosted by the Autobahn Country Club of Joliet, Illinois has been regarded by some as time capsulate to many of the greatest moments in motorsports history, and we will now telltale for you a synopsis of that great day via a format of learn-ed lessons.

Lesson #1: Anatomy Homework
Watch videos or play video games to learn the track (especially if you bring a newbie with you)
This would be our first opportunity to have full reign of this suburban Chicago jewel. We’d done two autocrosses on the southern format of the course, but even that only allowed us access to three-quarters of the track, and only for just over minute at a time. Fun, but not very conducive to learning. Covid has made many people’s lives more difficult so we won’t complain. Because we weren’t allowed an instructor, we made the best of our time there by treating it like a high-school independent study semester. We YouTube’d some videos to get use ready for the 20-minute sessions. We saw how driver’s setup for more difficult turns, where they entered the pit, and where we might have to give folks the good ol’ point-by. If you’re reading this in the past, you’re boned. But if you’re reading it in the future, you’re in luck. Assetto Corsa and Simm Trax have recently released the Autobahn Country Club for PC users so you can practice it in real time with better cars than ours.

Lesson #2: Brake Faded
An ex-girlfriend of your author used to make a wish any time she’d see 11:11 on a clock. Maybe one of those wishes came true when we gingerly floated into the grass after fading our Hawk HP pads on approach to Turn 11. According to NIOSH’s Hierarchy of Controls, we should have adjusted our driving style. Your author can be an on/off driver at times and that fade bit us in a way we had never experienced on track or in daily driving so it was an incredible surprise. The saving factor was that in still learning the track I was using a braking marker that was far enough back to give me plenty of time slow down, even with brakes that were far from adequate. You would think the opposite, but from our research of how SpecE30 does the thing, we learned that cooling isn’t as important as quality. The Hierarchy would demand that you give the car an occasional cool-down lap and that you then bump your pads up to something equivalent to PFC 08s or Hawk DTC-60s.

Lesson #3: FUN MAXIMIZATION
Pay attention to the schedule. If we’d at least glimpsed at the schedule to glean more than when it was our time to run, we would’ve noticed that the ‘track touring’ of the day. This time is reserved for the the spectator to leisurely gallivant about the course at spirited speeds in a competitors car or their own. This would have been our opportunity to take Papa RYE30 out for a run but we missed it by a throttle cable wire due to incompetence.

Photo courtesy of Austin Boynton

Lesson #4: Don’t Let Financial Ruin, Ruin Your Good Time
Be confident. But not wreckless. When a fellow participant is hogging the course, remind them gently (with your imminent presence) that they might be in the way. We were hesitant to crowd the lone, novice driven Ferrari that day. But in nearly every corner, we couldn’t stretch our legs enough to take the corner with any sauce seeing as the wet noodle ahead of us was still learning. After a stern talking-to by the crew chief about standing out, we stopped holding back on the corners and kept pace with the Ferrari enough to make sure it knew we were there. Good faith is often part of the equation unfortunately, but this time, surprisingly, the Ferrari took the hint and gave us the finger. The point-by finger. After that, the wind was in our hair. As much as can get in there with a helmet on.

Take it from us, you can have fast fun in a slow car. You just have to be aggressive, be-be aggressive.

Thanks for reading! And don’t forget to follow us here on the blog, Instagram @rye30racing, and Facebook @rye30racing. If you’ve read this far and you reside in the United States, give us a follow on Instagram and then DM us an address and we’ll send you two free 4″ RYE30Racing stickers! We appreciate your support! See a picture of the stickers below.

We’ll be racing plenty over the summer so we can bring you more high quality content like you read above. Our partnership with Diagonalt is still new and exciting, like that of a new romantic relationship, so check out Diagonalt.com for classic BMW prints and coasters (16% off using code “RYE30” at checkout) and calendars for the new year.

Featured image courtesy of Austin Boynton

Duncan Millar autocross, bmw, e30, Uncategorized

Lessons Learned, Schmessons Schmearned: Part 1

After a lengthy rebuilding of the rear end on the E30 (something we’ll get into later), the Rivals met their first rival when they hit the ground for the June 20th Tri-State Sports Car Council TrackSprint at Autobahn Country Club. It was their first event of the season in this new COVID-19 world and our first opportunity of the year to embarrass ourselves in front of better cars and better drivers. But in the shadow of such daunting things, there were bright spots. Like when you smack your palm against your face hard enough to see bright spots.

Lesson Learned #1: Install Your Car Parts Correctly

The night was a short one for everyone. With it only being a three-or-so hours, you still get a lot of track time when everything goes perfectly. But timing tent issues and weather acted like a COVID-19: 2 on the nights activities. Conveniently dramatic strikes of lightning played before us like a movie as we came around our favorite turn, The Kink. The looming rain clouds seemed to sneak up on the entire event because our car and the two or three that were released behind us were the last to touch the track that night. It seemed like only seconds after re-entering the paddock, torrential rain hit.

Out of a potential ten, our night consisted of a whopping three laps. Rain aside, we lost a session to the incompetence of your author. The backwards installation of a throttle cable retainer was the accomplice in this case. Slamming the car into second gear after getting that exciting “go” signal from the start line could be likened to getting walked in on by your mother when your just getting to that special scene in James Cameron’s Titanic. The car fell flat and we idled gently to a stop in the grass on the outside of Turn 1. We could immediately feel in the throttle pedal that something was no longer connected and since the engine was still running, it didn’t seem like we’d fallen into a worst-case scenario. For our safety and theirs, we stayed in our car and let the services do their thing.

When we made it back to the service road we popped the hood and found that the throttle cable had simply popped out of the retainer. Being confused as to why it had popped out at all, we chocked it up to they-don’t-make-them-in-West-Berlin-like-they-used-to logic and recycled a small flip-up notepad for its wire and safety retained the throttle cable end into the plastic retainer. Ever so proud and narcissistic of ourselves as usual, we posted the humble repair to our Instagram. Our friend @robotron, with the graciousness and humility of someone who courtesy flushes the toilet, let us know that as heroic as our repair was, if we’d installed it correctly it would’ve never failed. We owe him our lives and our first born children.

Lesson Learned #2: Mufflers – For Your Health

After re-establishing the rear end, the exhaust was re-installed without the muffler. Enjoyment of the sound being of paramount priority, we decided to leave it off and took it easy getting to and from the event so as not to attract unwanted police attention. Without the auditory padding of the rear interior in place, that sound becomes more than a drone as it became a genuine pain. Fortunately, because of the authors habit of hoarding PPE from job sites, we had a set of earplugs in our backpack to save our hearing. The next time we raced, the muffler was pleasantly and jubilantly installed. The ride home was by comparison, delightful. Not unlike falling asleep amongst the gentle embrace of your favorite spouse. Everyone has more than one spouse right? Am I in a cult? Please help me.

Lesson Learned #3: A-B-R-B-R-R-R-D-P-L: Always Be Referring Back to RYE30 Racing’s Race Day Preparation List

Because we’re as clumsy as we look, our phone has been “upgraded” since the last time we raced, which means the notes entry we always used to make sure we had everything ready for the next track day had pined for the fjords. But lo! We remembered we posted once, neigh, twice, what we believed to be the most useful list the average autocrosser will ever need: Preparation – R: The Best Way to Prepare Your Ass for Seat Time on Race Day. We opened the link and within the hour the car was packed and ready to go. So simple. So organized. So RYE30 Racing. If you make it out this season and you need a list that’s optimized for performance and fun, click that link, because we think we’ve got you covered.

Those are the few lessons learned from the few laps we had the opportunity to complete. The night was awesome nonetheless. The friends we got to see again and the friends we made were worth the trek alone. We always recommend racing for those reasons alone.

Thanks for reading! and don’t forget to follow us here on the blog, Instagram @rye30racing, and Facebook @rye30racing. If you’ve read this far and you reside in the United States, give us a follow on Instagram and then DM us an address and we’ll send you two free 4″ RYE30Racing stickers! We appreciate your support! See a picture of the stickers below.

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We’ll be racing plenty over the summer so we can bring you more high quality content like you read above. Our partnership with Diagonalt is still new and exciting, like that of a new romantic relationship, so check out Diagonalt.com for classic BMW prints and coasters (16% off using code “RYE30” at checkout) and calendars for the new year.