Weekend Racing, Part 1

09 Oct Weekend Racing, Part 1

This past weekend, our photographer/blogger/social media guy went out to Road America with some friends. This is his story.

(Photographer’s Note: This entire post was shot with a camera that I had exactly zero familiarity with, and edited on a monitor that looks nothing like what comes up at work, so bear with me if some are a bit darker or brighter than they should be. Thanks again to Jeremy for letting me borrow his 40D body when I forgot my Nikon at work.)

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t really do too much in the way of weekend shooting towards the end of the “car” season. Work, life and everything else got in the way, but when it came down to it, I was a bit saddened that I wasn’t able to do a little extracurricular photography. That all changed last week, when professional photographer (and the snapper for our last Performance BMW shoot) Jeremy Cliff asked if I wanted to head to Road America this past weekend. Our mutual friend Stefan was participating in the last NASA GTS-3 race of the year, and he was heading there to shoot. A perfect opportunity! So, last Friday, Jeremy and I threw a bunch of bags into the car and drove up to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, about three hours north of our homes in the Chicagoland area.

After joining in on the evening debauchery a little late, we ended up crashing in Stefan’s hotel room around 3 that morning, with a wake-up time of 5:50. Boy, was that an exciting wake-up call. In order to set ourselves up, Jeremy and I headed to the track a little before the rest of the Zima Motorsports crew. Jeremy had planned to shoot not only the race, but also Stefan’s car as well as his father’s E92 M3 for a Performance BMW feature. We arrived at the track just as the sun was coming up, so we scouted potential photo shoot spots before everybody else arrived. With the colors of fall as far as the eye could see, we certainly picked the best possible weekend for some snaps.

We also checked out the various corners of the track for later during the races. He’d been there before, so I just tagged along and was utterly amazed by how many potential spots there were. Road America is HUGE, and you have practically the entire infield to mess around with, so the choices are practically endless. There is a weird, almost unsettling calm about a race track that has yet to have a car on it.

After a fair amount of driving around, we headed back to the paddock where Zima was setting up. There would be two drivers under the Zima Motorsports banner today — Matt in his E36 M3 and Stefan in his E46 M3, both of which were equipped with the tried-and-true three-pedal option. Matt and Stefan were suiting up when we arrived, ready to hit the track for the first run of the day. Unlike most weekends, in which the two main races were spread across Saturday and Sunday, both races were smashed into Saturday, leaving room for a four-hour enduro on Sunday. Stefan was leading in the championship points heading into the event, so he knew that he had to bust some ass to maintain that lead. Tensions were high, but preparation took place without showing an inch of that hesitation. Radios were plugged in, safety netting strung across the roll cage, and the battery switches turned to ‘On.’

A quick aside regarding Stefan’s livery — his cousin had come to the US from Serbia earlier in the fall for an international graffiti competition. Seeing as how he was a prolific artist, he agreed to paint Stefan’s car prior to this final race, using his de facto method of paint application, the rattle can. Each piece was painstakingly taped off (the area inbetween the puzzle pieces are the same base color as the non-puzzle-piece parts of the car) and every single area was rattle canned to its desired color, with some wet-sanding thereafter in order to keep it looking clean. Some spots weren’t able to be sanded prior to taking the car into the paint booth for the clearcoat, as deadlines were running tight, but it looked outstanding either way. Nothing like a hand-painted car and two-day-old clearcoat to outshine the competition.

With everything in place, it was time for Matt and Stefan to hit the track for their first outing of the day. They would be out on the track at least four times throughout the day, at roughly 25 to 35 minutes per session. And it wasn’t just the GTS-3 class, either; there were several classes competing on the track, many of which were racing at the same time. Spec 944, Spec Miata, and some seriously insane higher classes were all present and accounted for, making for a varied track with a good deal of overtaking and line-blocking. As the first cars hit the track, we shot up to Canada corner to see how the shooting would go for the day. Without media passes, we weren’t able to get right against the concrete barrier, but Jeremy knew a few spots that would work in a pinch. Having the right lens never hurts, either.

We also took a little time during the races to shoot Stefan’s dad’s E92 M3. The grey paint really popped against the bright fall colors in the background and foreground, making for a nice picture here and there. By the way, the DCT in this M3 is brilliant. It makes regular automatic transmissions and BMW’s earlier SMGs feel like they were developed 40 years ago. If you check out Jeremy’s shots of this car in the upcoming PBMW feature, take a look at the BBK on all four corners — Zima’s put our old E90’s brake setup to quite good use, including a fresh coat of red paint with Zima decals. They look rather classy against the red accents of the Volk TE-37s.

With the E92 back in Stefan’s dad’s hands, we headed down to the Carousel to snap some more race car action, including one of Stefan’s car (finally!). Sadly, we wouldn’t see him back around the track, so after a few snaps we drove back to the paddock to see what was up.

As a real fast aside, this blue Mustang was absolute bonkers. It was equipped with a turbocharger taken straight from the devil’s toy chest, and made that purpose-built Eastwind Surgical car look like a Chevy Aveo on the track. This thing was FAST. It was also having trouble maintaining traction, as one could imagine, making for some nice oppo coming out of the corners.

Over the course of this post and its follow-up, you may notice that some cars get featured several times. Not too sure about the science behind it (if there’s even any at all), but some of these cars were significantly easier to shoot than others. Again, no idea why, that’s just the way it turned out. Although I have about 300 out-of-focus pictures of the other cars if you’re really dying to see them.

The Zima HQ was roughly a five-minute drive from any good corner, so by the time we made it back to the trailer, the race had finished and both Matt and Stefan were back and out of their cars. Matt had already removed his GoPro’s memory card and was studiously scrutinizing his driving from the just-finished race, whereas Stefan was a bit occupied with his car.

You see, the E46’s front left wheel bearing had decided to shit out during the race, and they didn’t have a replacement handy. After checking with every other E46 M3 owner on the grounds, Stefan’s dad headed out to find somebody – anybody – that was both open for business and selling the necessary component. In the meantime, wheels and tires were removed, hoods were popped and the action continued on the track. This wheel bearing was important, as Stefan needed verymuchso to maintain his points lead over the competition during the season’s final outing.

The season could end one of two ways — with Stefan running on one busted bearing, doing only one lap per race just to receive some points; or with Stefan running at full force, keeping him in contention for some very large trophies! How did it end? Well, we’re not going to tell you until tomorrow. So stick around the FMU blog until we cap off this day at the races!