Ho! Ho! Ho!, Let’s go Racing!

BeerTech Racing and NASA South East present: Santa’s Toy Run at Road Atlanta December 5-7^th, 2008.

Who races in December? Its cold outside, that wouldn’t be any fun. Guess what, you’re wrong again! Okay, it was very cold but it was a lot of fun also. Atlanta in December isn’t supposed to be so cold. It was in the 20’s a lot of the time but when you have all of your race gear on, its not so bad and as they say, its good horsepower weather.

If you couldn’t tell by previous write ups, NASA likes to theme the weekends based on the venue and time of year, thus we have Santa’s Toy Run in Dec, at Road Atlanta. Each year during this time NASA holds a toy drive for underprivileged kids, which is awesome. Instead of paying an entry fee to the track, we all bring a toy to donate. Jim Robinson wanted to leave his car there for the kiddies but that would just be cruel. That thing is a Grade A turd, read about it here JIM’S BLOG.

Event:

This was a three-day event starting with an 8-hour endurance race on Friday and the regular two-race schedule Saturday and Sunday. NASA decided to run an endurance challenge this year with many 3 hour long races, this was the finale and they made it 8 hours. Saturday was a double points sprint race and Sunday was a combined group 1-hour fun race.

Track:

Road Atlanta is a world famous road-racing track, has been around for a long time and is an absolute blast to drive. Lots of elevation changes and blind corners make for an interesting experience. Not to mention all of the concrete walls in most cases only 20 to 30 feet off of the edge of the track. Road Atlanta demands respect and will bite you hard if you step over the line. You will not be a habitual line stepper at this track for long.

I know what you’re thinking. “Why do I read these things? They are so long and boring and I’m just trying to waste time at work.” Well, too bad, you’re in this far so keep reading, it will get better…. probably.

So lets get down to it!

Friday:

I was the Crew Chief for the BeerTech racing car #467 of Scott McMennamy. The Drivers were Ryan Osiecki, Scott McMennamy, Warren Turnipseed and Craig Geiger. Each driver would drive for 2 hours and then come into the pits and change drivers, re-fuel and change tires/brakes if needed.

Ryan started in the car as he had never been to Road Atlanta before and quickly learned the lay of the land and turned in some truly fast laps. The first 4 laps were run under caution so this gave him a good look at the track before it went green. First stint was uneventful and successful. The race started at 9:00AM and the track was icy in some spots so nice job to Ryan for keeping the shiny side up and all of the corners square.

Second to drive was car owner Scott McMennamy. Scott jumped in the car and became acclimated quickly, turning some good laps. About 45 mins. into his stint, coming thru T-12, a very fast, sweeping, downhill right turn which is flat out in 4^th gear in our cars he had a moment. The rear end decided it wanted to get to turn one first so it stepped out and started coming around. Scott tried to save the slide but it quickly developed into a spin sending him into the outside wall. There are no tires against the wall in this area because the wall is so close to the track, just lots of thick concrete.

The driver’s rear corner hit first snapping the driver’s front corner into the wall. This bent the whole front of the car over about 3-4 inches toward the passenger side and broke the radiator.

After the car was towed into the paddock, Scott decided we should try and fix the car and get it back out there and we did. Aaron Rankin, Craig Geiger and I worked fast to get the car back out there. A little bodywork, a new radiator, some cutting, banging and cursing and off we went, back into the race. At this time Warren Turnipseed took the wheel and headed out on track. We only lost about an hour and a half in the pits so we had plenty of time left to “test” our handy work and see if anything else was broken.

After Turnip’s successful stint, Craig Geiger took the car out to finish the race. The car took a pretty good hit and handled okay but not ideally. We did finish the race 12^th in our class, E2, and 24^th overall out of 30 entries. Not bad for having to fix the car half way thru!

The enduro saw lots of carnage for E30’s and we weren’t the only ones doing repairs during the race.

Chuck Taylor (right) and I racing hard.

Saturday:

Saturday was the regular schedule, Practice, Qualifying and Race. Yay!, now I finally get to drive Road Atlanta in my car. This was my second time ever at Road Atlanta and first time in my car. After taking last year completely off I drove in the March enduro with Scott. Practice was good, I just needed to learn my way around the place again and after watching lots of video thanks to Mike Skeen of Mikeskeen.com, I picked it up pretty quick. I ran a 1:48.8 in qualifying, good enough for 15^th. Not bad, Ill take it. Like I said before, Road Atlanta demands respect and I was definitely going to give it.

The race went well, a little boring late in the race as traffic stretched out but I was able to finish 10^th with a fast lap of 1:46.9. Much better! A few drivers dropped out due to mechanicals and one guy was DQ’d for having an illegal rear end. To his credit I don’t think he did it on purpose, it was the one in the car when he bought it and he had bad intel telling him that model had the correct rear end. Oh well, to the back you go!

Sorry, no video from Saturdays race, I forgot to turn the camera on….again.

(Steve DeVinney using all of the road...with his 4.10 rear end)

Sunday:

Since this was going to be the last event of the year, NASA decided Sunday would be a combined one-hour fun race. This put the Lightning and Thunder groups together. This would be interesting as we had LOTS of fast cars out this weekend. Corvette Z06’s, Porsches, IMSA lites and even two ALMS Ford GT’s. Those guys are crazy to put those million dollar machines out on track with the likes of us!

We drew numbers in the drivers meeting to form a random grid. I wanted to be as far to the back as possible with such fast cars out there. Some cars have several hundred more horsepower than our cars do and that makes for pretty fast closing rates on track. I was lucky and drew #70. Starting 70^th of 74 was a good thing. If there were any big wrecks up front, hopefully I wouldn’t be involved. Luckily everyone behaved themselves and there were no car to car incidents. Nice work everyone. See the video for some exciting footage:

>>>>>>>>>>BRIAN’S SUNDAY TOY RACE FOOTAGE PART 1<<<<<<<<<<<<<

>>>>>>>>>>BRIAN’S SUNDAY TOY RACE FOOTAGE PART 2<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Lodging:

Because of our antics at the last event, Rockingham we were all banned from camping for the rest of the year. Great. Who wants to camp in December anyway right? Thanks again to Jim Pantas. For this event we rented a Lake house in Dawsonville GA and had 10-12 people in it. Very nice place, pool table, foosball, ping-pong, hot tub and a lake for when you really get banged up and want to take a swim. Did I mention this is December?

We stayed Thursday night thru Sunday and had a blast. See below:

Shenanigans:

Thursday and Friday nights were pretty low key as we all needed rest for racing but the smack talk and games were still intense. I beat the hell out of Al Taylor at Pool and Ping-Pong and Skeen beat his ass repeatedly at Foosball. It wasn’t a good weekend for Al in the game room. Sorry Al, hate to do it to you but it’s the truth baby!

Saturday night was crazy! We had some more people over to the house including the BDR crew and had an old fashioned throw down. We all got pretty banged up, played some games, talked some sh*t and had a great time. Oh yeah we also paid Turnipseed $179 and he drank a bottle of Ultra Concentrated Dawn dish soap, green apple flavor! Bleh!

Since he is “The Man”, he is henceforth known and referred to as Officer Bubbles. $179 can get you a sweet nickname too!

HIGHLIGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS:

1. Having a 4.10 differential is an advantage when no one else does.
2. $179 is the going rate to see someone drink a bottle of soap. Thanks Officer Bubbles!
3. Al Taylor sucks at Ping Pong and is mediocre at best at shooting pool.
4. Road Atlanta is one of the most fun tracks I’ve ever driven.
5. I should get a hot tub.
6. If AMP ever becomes a reality, the lake house is where it’s at!
7. Jim Robinson listens to Christopher Cross. No, really, the CD is in his truck right now! So what do you do when caught between the moon and NY city? Jim?

That’s it for this installment! Hope you’re still awake! See you next time!

-BeerTech Racing, Car #380 Brian Jones-

BeerTech Racing Goes to the Rock!


Well racing fans here it is, the latest and greatest racing news from your favorite racers. September 20th and 21st we visited one of our favorite tracks for some great racing for possibly the last time, more on that a little later.

The weather was perfect all weekend and we had a great time on and off the track. JP and I made the trip down to Rockingham NC to hand out some beat downs to MLT. Unfortunately, Scott was unable to attend due to the man keeping him down.

Lets get right to the racing! BeerTech took two first place in class finishes in both Roll the Rock races this weekend. JP won on Saturday and I won on Sunday. This was my first victory and it was all I hoped it could be. What’s that you say? You heard that not all of the Spec E30 racers started the race I won? Hey, shut it! They could have …but didn’t. ;) I had some tough competition out there but was able to hold them off for the victory! Ill take it.This was my second time at The Rock and first time racing there.

When we run Rockingham we get four races in the weekend, I know pretty sweet. Each day there is one points race and one fun race. The points races are split as usual between two classes, Thunder (high horsepower cars) and Lightning (momentum cars) Spec E30 runs in the Lightning races for points. The Fun races, called Roll the Rock are both classes mixed together for one big race. Speed differentials are substantial and make for interesting racing. It’s an absolute blast!

Here is a quick rundown of the races and how I did. Yeah, this is all about me in case you are wondering.

Points race #1 Qualified 8th, finished 9th RACE ONE VIDEO


Roll The Rock Race #1 Finished 11th in class. ROLL THE ROCK #1 VIDEO
Watch for the punt I get from MLT’s Travis Wilson at 5:53 in the video.

Points Race #2 Qualified 2nd, finished 7th
Q2 Due to a few people disqualified for passing under yellow in qualifying. I didn’t get video of this race due to my car not starting on grid and barely getting it running before going out. I forgot to hit the record button, dagger!

Roll The Rock Race #2, finished 1st in class! ROLL THE ROCK #2 VIDEO

On the track the racing was fast and clean. No incidents this weekend except for M3 Bill losing a motor in Qualifying on Saturday. The competition is getting better and better all the time in our series also. I am obviously a fantastic driver with superhuman driving ability and I'm not even running up front! I know what you're thinking, they are all cheaters! I agree.

The competition is so close in fact that in qualifying for race #1 Laura Patton, JP Coates, Me and Al Taylor all ran our fast lap of 1:11.1x. All four of us within the same 1oth of a second.

Rockingham is a great track to race on. It used to be on the NASCAR circuit years ago but is now used for testing, ARCA and other track days like ours. We use NASCAR turns one and two and the infield road course making this into what we call a roval. See track map.










I have a new found respect for circle track drivers for sure. The concentration and stamina needed for driving thru the banking is amazing. In our cars we go thru flat out at the top of fourth gear with the car on the limit at around 105- 115 MPH or so. I can’t imagine doing it at 200 MPH, 3 wide for 4+ hours. Amazing.

The nice thing about Rockingham is that we can use the NASCAR garages. These are a nice break from the sandy, grassy paddock spots we usually have and we are also allowed to camp in them, which is nice, so I got that going for me.

Now the off track "activity."

Normally we throw a pretty good party at the racetrack everywhere we go. This event got a little out of hand Saturday night and we (the entire NASA group) were almost asked to leave the track for breach of contract Sunday morning. Ooops, sorry again Jim.





I can’t go into too many details here but when track management came in Sunday morning, they found a car parked on the start finish line on track…NOT happy about it. The Shenanigans were pinned on Spec E30 as a group, namely BeerTech and Malt Liquor Tech. Can you believe that???




We were certainly making memories and it was a blast! Sometimes these things happen but we will try to take it easy in the future.
HIGHLIGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS:
1. Travis is a dirty driving Ba*#@&d. ;)
2. Look out for the man in Red.
3. Riding Lawnmowers make great pit vehicles.
4. Vic Hall is rotten on the inside. (You need to have that looked at.)
5. Spec E30 throws kick @ss parties.
6. Track management is lame.

Ill post a few pics as I get them but until next time, try to keep the noise down all right?

Oh yeah, don’t forget to look for me soon in Columbia, SC. I got a promotion and will be moving there at the end of October…right in the middle of all the Southeast tracks! Perfect!

-BeerTech Racing Car #380, Brian Jones

BeerTech Racing Presents: Team Mustache Ride at the 2008 24 Hours of LeMons at CMP.

I know what you’re thinking. This sounds stupid. And you would be correct. Here is some more information about the event that may reinforce what you already suspect. The rules? Find an automobile that can be raced for a 24 hour endurance race that can cost NO MORE than $500 total excluding safety gear. I.e. roll cage, seats, harnesses, tires and brakes. Okay, it’s not actually a 24 hour race but two days, 7 hours each day, with a break at night for beer and general debauchery. But c’mon, it’s a $500 car, you’re lucky if it completes the warm up laps without completely giving up and or trying to kill you.

If you want more info about the 24 hours of LeMons, see this short video;

THE 24 HOURS of Lemons

Let’s skip that crap and get right to our experience you say? Okay! Hopefully the other mustache wearing members of the team will give their perspectives as well.

THE TEAM:

Team Mustache Ride consists of 6 members, in no particular order, nicknames in parens; Brian Jones (Shady B), JP Coates (Lunch Box), Rob Maybach (Bobert), Ian Klass (Klauss), Steven Canterbury (Lurch) and our head mechanic and crew chief Big Tom Maybach. Special thanks go to Brook and her mother for excellent track support and money steaks on Saturday night.

JP, Steven and I are actual real live race car drivers. Rob and Ian are not but that’s the beauty of LeMons, you can buy a temporary race license for the event. This is pretty cool. Made me feel like I was really fast out there and knew what I was doing. Anyone who knows me will not be fooled by the videos but I don’t care. Screw you guys.

This was Robs first time on a race track and he did great. Ian has lots of track experience but has not been on track in about 5 years or so. Hopefully they can elaborate in their recaps.

THE CAR:

The weapon of choice, or circumstance, was a 1991 BMW 318is. This special ride was generously “prepared” for our use by a nice cell phone wielding driver who totaled the once daily driven race car. A $500 buy back from insurance and we have ourselves a candidate.

Yes. The car has a mustache as did all team members. We also had custom jean shorts, sweet T-shirts and cheap sun glasses to complete the ensemble. It was gross.

Since we are BeerTech and had months to prepare for the event we of course managed to throw this thing together in three days…the last possible three days mind you. Despite the efforts of some, we managed to get the car together and race ready. By race ready I mean the bare minimum safety gear that would pass the tech inspection at the track before the race began. Nothing like being prepared right?! Don’t forget to check out our sweet steering wheel in the pics and videos. Yeah, you like it.

A big thanks goes to JP for getting most of the car ready and many late nights to do so. Thanks also goes to MLT’s (Malt Liquor Tech) own Travis Wilson for some much needed assistance at the last minute.

Now that the car is complete we can race right? First you have to pass tech, no big deal but then you also have to endure the “judges” scrutinizing. There are two guys dressed as court room judges complete with gavels that pour over your car and insist that you are a liar and a cheater. They want to assess as many penalty laps as they can based on the Bull S**t Factor.

BSF points are based upon the judges decisions that you paid more than $500 for the car and or its performance enhancements or you are generally violating the spirit of the rules which is, s**t box cars for s**t box racing.

Luckily we got away with only one penalty lap. This means we start the race at negative one laps. They gave us one because they thought we were cheating but couldn’t prove it. Oh yeah and Rob called one of the judges a donkey, which probably didn’t help us but was funny. Penalties were normally between 5 and 30 laps. One team brought an all out race car and were assessed a 200 lap penalty from the start. More on them later.

The 24 hours of LeMons is technically a non contact race despite what you may find on YouTube etc. More on that later but the point is don’t bring a car you can’t afford to roll home in a little ball, if it’s not in one to begin with already. Oh, and to discourage cheating further, one car is voted on by its peers to be crushed by a 62 ton excavator. It truly is something to behold. More on that later as well as a link to the actual video. Aren’t you excited?

THE TRACK:

Carolina Motorsports Park (CMP) in Kershaw SC. Here is a track map for the race. In this configuration the track is 9/10's of a mile give or take.

TRACK MAP FOR THE RACE!

Executive Summary of our Performance:

I know, I know, blah, blah, blah, I don’t care about this anyway just tell me what happened. Okay here it is. Team Mustache Ride finished 12^th overall and 5^th in class. There are four classes in the Lemons and the judges also decide where you fall into these categories. They are; PW-prayer of winning, NPW-no prayer of winning, PF- prayer of finishing and NPF. We were in the NPW class. We finished 474 of 512 laps. The winner of the race did 512 laps over the 14 hours of racing.

MY RACE RECAP:

The race is set up as follows. Saturday race begins at noon and runs until 7:30 PM. Sunday race starts at 8:30 AM, stops from 11-12 to observe the quiet hour and resumes from 12 to 3:30. Actually went to 3:45 so we could finish the race under green flag conditions.

Our driver line up in order was JP, Steven, Me, Rob and then Ian. We inverted the order on Sunday.

Saturday started off great, we made up our negative one laps and then some. With three Spec E30 veterans leading the charge on our team we were gaining ground fast and completely embarrassing MLT as was expected. I was nearing the end of my stint, about an hour and a half in when it all went wrong. We were the overall race leader and had a 6 lap advantage over the second place car, see here:

BEER TECH LEADS LEMONS!!!

There were several lengthy cautions during both days as cars would inevitably give up and refuse to cooperate. The track would go full course caution as the wreckers came out to scrape up the remains and drag the steaming piles back into the pits.

When the track is FCY there is no passing. Once the green flag comes back out its easy to be caught asleep at the wheel and have many cars pass you. On the last restart of my stint I did like a always do and pass a ton of cars going into the chicane. This restart was no different except the #8 Miata (the car who was 200 laps down to start the race) tried to follow me, misjudged the braking zone and absolutely crushed me in the right rear. I’ve never been hit that hard in a car before. See the video here:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BRIAN'S RACE FOOTAGE<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

He knocked me through the tire barrier and through another car. He also managed to cave our right rear fender in against the tire. I had to limp around the track a full lap and into the pits where we went to work on the car.

We managed to get it banged out and stop the rubbing and get the car going again but we lost 30 minutes doing so. At about 1 minute 10 seconds per lap, this hurt our lead a little. We also got a 30 minute penalty for metal to metal contact! For getting rear ended. How do you like that? Then we were black flagged as soon as we got the car on track because we didn’t report to timing and scoring right after the incident to serve our penalty. Lame.

After that Rob and Ian kept it pretty clean and brought the car home for the night. All we did Saturday night was adjust our rear end a little more, rotate tires, flip brake pads and bleed the brakes. We were good to go for Sunday.

SUNDAY:

With an 8:30 AM race start and this truly being a full team effort, we took it easy on the partying Saturday night. We watched MLT battle several problems from afar. Man, I sure do love work. I could watch it all day.

We got Ian on track early and were the second car out. We started clean and he had a good run save one spin due to oil in turn one. Rob was up next and did well keeping the shiny side up.

The race was stopped at 11:00 for the quite hour and was a good time to crown the Peoples Curse. This was the car I mentioned earlier that would be crushed. It was decided by all the teams in the race and voted on. Looks like our pals at Salazar Racing or SaladBar as we refer to them, made lots of friends with their driving “style” on Saturday. See the video here:

SALAD BAR GETS CRUSHED!

Their T-shirts were pretty good though, I have to admit. “F**k BeerTech’s Mom” More like…F’ yo car homies! Man that made me feel good inside to see that happen. Does that make me a bad person? I did truly feel bad to see the poor E30 get crushed but it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of guys!

The race resumes at noon with me behind the wheel. I’m feeling good out there and car is still in decent shape, well, for what it was. It was still going and kind of stopping and turning also which is nice. Sunday was hot and dry. My stint Saturday was mostly wet and more than half of it was in pretty heavy rain. I like driving in the rain so I loved it. Sunday was a good change and was fun to get some dry laps in. I kept it clean tried to take care of the car but I was racing hard when I needed to. Camera was full so unfortunately no video from Sunday of me.

The car was doing great as long as you kept the heat turned on so it didn’t overheat. The little 318 was a champ but you can only beat on it so much. Steven was after me and as he went on track it was double yellow. He passed some cars under yellow and got black flagged. This gave us a 5 minute penalty and he came right back in to serve it. After he went back out the temp gage began to rise after about 30 – 40 mins or so. It quickly pegged in the red and he brought the car in.

We topped off the coolant after finding no obvious signs of a problem and then JP went out to finish the race. He was quickly back in and straight into the pits. Overheating again. Looking over the car we again saw no obvious issue. We bled the cooling system and this seemed to help. JP went back out after several lost minutes in the pits and was able to finish the race and bring us home in 12^th place. Nice work Team Mustache Ride. Looking forward to next year’s LeMons!

Some things I learned:

SC’s highways are amazingly road kill free I found out. Steven and I went out with Malt Liquor Tech Friday night looking for road kill. What else are you going to do with purpose built trap door in your trunk rigged up with a latch for the driver to pull? Put some road kill back there of course.

Ian got new nickname. He kind of grew a Wolverine style mustache/beard thing and he is a ginger kid so of course he was called the Gingerine for the weekend. Has a nice ring to it don’t you think?

Never let a Miata get in your trunk, the next day, your car will really hurt. That context may only be good to Chapelle show fans but I like it.

Bring documentation to the judges at LeMons for your car to avoid penalties.

Overall the LeMons was a great experience and I can’t wait to do it again. Another great weekend at the track with BeerTech, MLT and Salazar. Good to see you guys as always, hopefully you got all the good bits off of that car before it was “disqualified.”

---Brian Jones BeerTech Racing #380, Team Mustache Ride #88

Back from Lemons!!!

Beertech Racing's 24 Hours of Lemons 2008 effort is now complete. The results are a two sided coin: we and the car actually completed the weekend, much to our surprise. We are very VERY disappointed however, as we were solidly in the overall lead most of the day Saturday (again, much to our surprise), until a certain cheater Miata demonstrated its driver's lack of talent, and hit us hard on the right rear corner, cutting our tire and causing a lot of headaches, and effectively putting us out of the running.

Even with that, we had a great time and are scheming for our next years effort, learning the lessons of this year, and we'll be ready, cheater miatas or not.

More results and pictures as they become available!


Bobert aka Team Mustache Ride's Official Anchor

Zero Hour for 24 hours der Lemons!

After a lot of work on all of our parts, especially JP and Brian, the Beertech entry for the 24 Hours of Lemons- Team Mustache Ride- is close to completion, with a full cage, race seats, cool suit apparatus, fire suppression, race tires, etc etc. The final touch will be some clandestine visual enhancements to be performed tonight, most likely under the influence of Miller Lite, at the Track.

Saturday morning, the rest of Team Mustache Ride will arrive at the track, including me (Type Rob), our Yankee hotshoe Klaus, and Head Crew Chief Big Tom. Cigars, beers, lots of meat and lots of ice are packed and ready to go.

Pictures, stories, and videos will be shared as soon as they are available

Until then, take care, and don't let your PBR get too warm...

July 2008 Firecracker Run at CMP by BTR #380

Weekend Recap:

FRIDAY:
6.5 hours for me on the road means no enduro this time. I did show up in time to catch the end of the race and hear the lies from everyone about their motorsport prowess as usual. I knew it was going to be a good weekend when I started hearing about the MLT enduro award party favors...I mean c'mon, who dosen't like live chickens, malt liquor and fireworks? Sign me up!

SATURDAY:
Race was awesome. very intense, hard fought and a lot of fun. I qualified 10th but got a DNF for aggressive driving, doh! (would have been 4th but woulda, shoulda, coulda right?). Im fine with taking the DNF, it was completely my own fault. Ill post video as soon as its done uploading.

We had a standing start and I dropped the clutch with a few too many RPM's and spun the tires through first and most of second gear. Once the tires hooked up I was shot right past M3Bill on the outside and clear into T1. Lots of close racing ensued with R. Allen, R. Patton, Al Taylor, S. Canterbury and probably a few others.

I do want to apologize to Robert Allen again for running him off track. I feel really bad about that because it could have been a bad incident. Luckily Robert has great car control skills and managed to get the car back on track without hitting anything.

I botched T14, hit the rumble strips and then had to down shift into second. This gave R. Allen a good run on me and he went to the outside. As we approached the start/ finish line in a true drag race he was gaining. if all went as it should have we would have been side by side at turn in for one and I would have had the inside, no big deal. But since I was feeling racey, I wanted to practice some of what Ive been taught in my few races thus far.

As we went down the straight I started to take a line to the out side of the track to one, get a better approach into T1 and two, squeeze Robert to the edge of the track to defend T1. As I did so, I went a little too far and hit Robert right before the start/finish line. My passenger door hit his front wheel and he got sideways and went screaming off track in a cloud of tire smoke and dirt. I continued on but did feel terrible. I really didn't mean to hit him and it was a stupid thing to do. That was near the end of the race, and you can see it in the video.

I finished the race but was called up to Timing & Scoring to get a talking to and receive my DNF. I didn't argue.

Sat Race>>>http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8262836003680570314&hl=en

SUNDAY:
Sunday was a great race also, Qualified 7th, started 3rd and finished 6th after all the cheaters got by me. ;)
See video for action!

Sun Race>>> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7184612890027446906&hl=en
Of course there was some drama Sunday morning. As we made our way through the grass pre qualifying to take a team BTR photo with all three cars, I heard a loud clunking coming from the right front. Didn’t hear it on track but the front end felt a little funny when I ran through the kink, a 100+ MPH turn that you use a lot of curb in. When the front end would "land" after hitting the curb the car would bounce a little.

It turned out that the gland nut holding the strut in place was completely loose. Seems these have a way of working themselves loose. This left me with no right front shock, only a spring and my anti roll bar. Disassembled the front end, screwed the gland nut back in place and all was good once again. Seems the same thing happened to JP's car and Jim Robinsons the event prior. Will have to add this to the tech check before race weekends.

Congrats to R. Allen for a great Qualifying (2nd overall), and a great race (2nd place finish)

OFF TRACK HIGHLIGHTS:
1. Found out chickens can fly...sort of. and they will sleep in a tree.
2. Heard some of Travis' top shelf game for the ladies...pretty solid.
3. BRE Luke likes to have live chickens in his trailer at bed time.
4. Bicycle > pit bike...again.
5. Scott Mc can draw a kick ass possum on anything.
6. IndyJim has a generally negative disposition.
7. SC does have some laws that will be enforced...who knew?
8. Turnip can wreck anything with a motor.
9. As suspected, Sasha and Geeger are confirmed nancies.

Thanks for reading the blog, tune in for more accounts of the weekend and look for the 24 Hours of LeMons, should be ....interesting....

Brian- Car #380

Lemons Car Update

Finally got started on our steed. Stage one is to gut the thing, and I got most of that done today. I really need a garage. JP and Brian are picking to car up this week to take it to the Beertech Lake Retreat, where the prepping will continue. I remembered why I hate northern cars.

A couple of pictures...

Beertech goes Guerrilla

Beertech Racing Goes Guerrilla!

This is just a small update, but a precursor to a frenzy of near future updates. Beertech Racing (and its subsidiaries, trusties, hangers-on, lackies, and wenches), have officially been accepted into the 2008 24 Hours of Lemons on July 26 at Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, SC (http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/events/carolina/ ). We are excited because this event embodies the very essence of Beertech, and of course we’ll get to drink during the festivities (once the cars are parked that is)

Due to an unforeseen personnel change, Beertech Racing is pleased to announce that a member of our chief competitors, Malt Liquor Tech, will be putting on his drinking shoes and trying to hang with the big dogs. Hopefully Steven won’t embarrass us too badly, or at least no worse than we already do to ourselves (I’m looking at you Ian…). The storm of mudslinging has already begun, although hopefully both teams have better drivers than they do shit-talkers.

On the equipment side, a wonderful young Indian lady was gracious enough to total one of the Beertech Wench’s daily drivers, and now that a suitable replacement has been found, our trusty steed is being prepared to carry us onto the fields of battle, conquer the competition, and still start (hopefully) the next day. Pictures of our weapon of choice will soon be posted.

That’s all for now, please be on the lookout for updates in the near future!

Type Rob

Roebling Road Raceway BeerTech #380

RRR? Yeah…I was there. IFU2?...done.

I hated this track 4 years ago. I was there once for a DE during my first or second year of chasing the coveted HPDE championship. I was in my E36 M3 and this was before the track was resurfaced. I never did get comfortable on track and being new to HP driving didn’t like the various amounts of grip or lack thereof provided by the different surfaces.

I was excited to get back and try the new surface in my raze car. I kept hearing about what a great track it was to race on and after missing last years IFU I was chomping at the bit to try it out again.

I felt great once on track and after taking almost all of 2007 off from driving/racing, I felt like I was getting back to the level of confidence and comfort that I was used to.

Saturday- Practice was great, took it easy learning the line again and feeling out the track. Thanks to Mike Skeen for lots of good tips while we were walking the track on Friday, I was paying attention and able to remember what he said and apply it. That really sped up the process for me. I also learned quite a bit following R Patton around, nice work Robert, we had a lot of very close racing that was a hell of a lot of fun.

Qualifying was good, I qualified 9th and finished 9th in the sprint race. I was extremely happy with that performance. Had some great racing with Al Taylor and was able to hold him off at the end.

IFU. I started in the last spot of the 4th group and was moving up pretty quick, I caught lots of people and was running great until the restart. At the start stand it was Pantas, Lear, Skeen, Damion and I at the front. I had a good start and was holding my own coming out of 2 when Skeen and I had to quickly split Scott Lear, me to the inside Skeen to the outside.

Having successfully negotiated that situation, I promptly went wide in 4 and off track trying to keep the fast guys behind me. Oops. Oh well, I had good racing with Foushee for several laps and had great runs on him out of 9 but the car was starting to starve. I was getting starvation after turns 2 and 9 consistently with about ½ tank of fuel. I had a great run on Steve coming out of 9 on the last lap and would have passed him for the position but the car fell on its face and he was able to hold me off for 19th place.

Sunday: Wow, I thought I was feeling good during qualifying and my suspicions were confirmed when the times came out. 7th place. Uh oh, this means someone will be coming up quick! JP was right behind me as well as Travis and Geegar. I knew this was going to mean no mistakes to keep my hard earned spot. Oh yeah, Sasha was back there too but he was my whipping boy all weekend so he was more of a chicane for the others. Thanks for the help buddy.

I was holding my own for most of the race up front. I think I was up there until lap 2 or 3 when I went off for the first of my 3 offs. (Turns 6,7 and a good one in 9) I managed to turn my 7th position start into a solid 18th spot finish. Get some. I was bummed about not keeping it on track but I was still happy overall. I knew my comfort level was going to be pushed a little further and I needed that. Don’t worry, I’m coming. Give me some time to work on my race craft and consistency and chumps like Geiger and Wilson will be back where they belong…with Jim Robinson behind Beertech. That’s right, you just read that. ;)

Unfortunately I screwed up the AV portion of my weekend pretty good. I have no IFU footage, bummer, ½ of Sundays race and I think all of Saturdays race. I also didn’t have the image stabilizer on so the videos aren’t very good. Ill post what I have, hopefully some of it is good.

Thanks for reading teh blog. -Brian Jones BTR #380

Back in the Saddle Again!!!

This was officially my second race weekend ever and first with the NASA South East group. I did run the 3 hour enduro at RA with Scott Mc but not the sprint races. I now have my four races (2 from last year at VIR) in my rookie booklet and off it goes for an actual comp license. Now on with the recap….

Friday: was going to be nice and relaxed. A leisurely ride to CMP, unload, hang out and crew for the enduro boys. I had been itching to do the enduro myself, as I have only been to CMP once and that was 3 or 4 years ago and I wanted the seat time. In the weeks leading up to the event I couldn’t find a driver willing to drive my non ABS car nor could I find anyone dumb enough to let me drive their car….and then there was Geeger.

JP and I talked Craig into doing the enduro with little effort as he already wanted to do it anyway. It was fun until we retired early so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings by winning the whole thing. It would have been awkward for the rest of the weekend you know? I’m pretty sure we were leading when we had to pull it behind the wall. We had a slow leak in the left rear tire that was getting worse every lap and shaking the car apart.

I drove the first stint and a couple of laps in I swore I flat spotted the front tires in one of the braking zones. This was the first time I’ve experienced a tire going down at speed on the track. It feels just like having a flat spotted tire that keeps getting worse.

Weather was great all day until the evening when the storm rolled in. We had a great lightning show for about an hour and then Al said….”Hey, I think it may start to rain soon.” And then a split second later the skies opened up and absolutely poured on us until Saturday night. Awesome. This meant that Casey, JP’s brother, would be sleeping in the BeerTech Motor Home with us instead of his tent. I can still hear the snoring. That was remedied for Sat night.

Saturday: Since I got zero sleep thanks to the Snore-a-saurus, I was wide awake as the rain poured down and filled my race car full of water. I enjoy driving in the rain but having a car with no ABS and no rain tires makes for interesting sessions. Practice, Q and race were all very wet and slippery. I changed tires three times for three sessions that day. talk about soaking wet. I Qualified 13th then finished 15th and a big thanks goes to Steve Foushee for selling me some rain tires that I had mounted for the race.

We had a rolling start and I didn’t start well. I dropped two spots right off the bat. I was running well besides the fact that I could not stop the car in any of the braking zones. I would start to brake, lock up, release, lock up, release, turn in, at every corner. It was interesting and manageable for a while until I went off in 14 once and lost two spots, oops. I got those two back but in 15th is where I stayed. It was a lot of fun though. Scott Gress and I had a great run for a while and I managed a last turn pass for 15th!

Sunday: Beautiful day once the sun came out. Qualifying was wet at 8:50 AM. Nice. Back to shaved tires I went and managed to qualify 10th. I had a decent start and a good race. Steve Foushee and I had a great race together for several laps, should be good video. Thanks to Steve for the clean, fun racing. I managed to finish 8th.

Over all a very good weekend for me on the track and as always, the Spec E30 community is amazing. What a great group of people and a fantastic bunch of racers as well. Its great to finally have all three Beer Tech cars back on track. Thanks to NASA-SE as well for again dealing with the weather and keeping things on schedule. I cant wait for Roebling and the IFU2. Maybe Canterbury can bring some chicken to cook up?

Brian Jones car #380

CMP Report from BeerTech #467

I pulled into CMP friday afternoon at around 1:30 and committed to be the fire bottle/fueler for 3 teams (BeerTech, Malt Liquor Tech and #82 car). The sky looked threatening but didn't interfere with the race. It was interesting to be a part of each teams strategy to beat the other. In the end it came down to team MLT making a bad call on a fuel stop. If they had filled up all the way... they could have had the overall win. But I'm sure the #2 car (Al's car number not a reference to the condition of the car) team is happy with the 2nd place trophy.

Friday night was a low-key affair. Hamburgers, hot dogs and a few spiked beers. After a fairly impressive light show (complements of mother nature) the sky opened up, blew our tent into a worthless ball of metal and fabric then proceeded to rain... and rain... and rain.

Saturday was wet and miserable most of the day. Practice was alright but the track during qualifying was some of the worst conditions I have ever been out on. I was slipping and sliding all over the place. I couldn't even keep the car in a straight line on the straights. I qualified 16th out of the 19 cars that showed up (3 cars either didn't go out or didn't do a full lap)... so I was dead last. And after watching the Thunder race I was telling everyone I wasn't going to race because I didn't have rain tires... of course I was saying this as I'm putting on my drivers suit and climbing into my car.

While race conditions were far better than qualifying it was still pretty slick. My fastest lap was a 2:10.498. But none of that mattered. It was a great race and it was the first race where we had all three of the BeerTech cars actually racing. JP started somewhere up front (1st I think?) and Brian and I started towards the rear. Things started off cleanly and without any of the turn one excitement that was seen in the February race.



I had Brian in my sights for the first several laps but with my tires being what they were, he was slowly putting some distance between us... that was until I passed him as he tested the waters of the outside line coming out of turn 14. From there I was able to move up spots but the highlight of the race was on the last lap, when coming out of turn 8 I got in front of IndyJim as he was coming back on to the track after a spin. We had a great race all way to the start finish. We were drag racing down the front straight while all the cars passing the start/finish line were almost coming to a complete stop. With Jim and I door to door... I wasn't going to lift until I reached the finish line. I'm not sure if I was more than an inch or 2 ahead of him or if our transponders were if different locations, but it didn't matter. I had beaten the February, 2008 CMP 6th Place Award Winner.

Sunday didn't start out as sunny and clear as we had hoped. For qualifying we were the second group to hit the track and there were still several slick spots. I got behind some traffic that was wasn't going to willingly let me by so I came in early (2 laps left) and settled for my 12 place starting spot.

I completely blew the start by spinning my wheels and then shifting to 2nd with nothing to go on. I got passed by 3-4 cars before ever even getting to turn 1. I was able to work my was past a few cars and played leap frog with Bob Chrystler most of the race. The highlight of the race (for me) was on lap 11, when I caught up to the Pink Panther, Gasman and Bob going into turn 1. We were all bunched up and we 3 wide coming out of turn 3 and I was able to pass all 3 of them.



Soon after that, my brakes had started to fade and I was having a much tougher time going into 1, 11 and 14... and my lap times had started to go up. Steven's #77 had been reeling me in for a while and I could no longer fight him off. Going into the kink with a lap and a half to go, he moved ahead and held on to that top 10 finish that I've been chasing since the start of the race.

While 11th is pretty good—especially when you consider the level of drivers that were in our 19 car field, I was mostly pleased with the fact that I left CMP with the 9th fastest lap of the day (1:54.963), the satisfaction of knowing I'm improving my performance (with lots of room for improvement), and that I still have my car and friendships in tack.

Looking forward to RRR and the IFU2... oh and a 10th or better finish

Some random off season pics

Twas the night before BeerTech Christmas

'Twas the night before BeerTech Christmas, when all through the house
Not a person was stirring, except for Brian who was concerned about the Russian Army
Scott and Shelby has prepared the house with diligence and care
In hope that a Santa Klaus soon would be there
Little did they know he blew all his cash
On booze and cheap floozies and now has a cream for that rash

The boys were nestled all snug in their beds
While vision of Lemons (24 hours of) danced in their heads
Rob with his coozie and Brook with her cloak
Had just settled down for a long trip back

When from the back of the house there arose such a clatter,
We all sprang from our beds to see what was the matter
Away to the bathroom we flew in a flash
Tore open the door only to turn back
It was the Puke-A-Potamus giving his drinks back

Then he was harassed into his E30 with Lisser in tow
And away down the street giving the gear box a good row

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,





This bedtime story has been brought to you by Ian "Santa" Klaus
(BeerTech Director of Operations)

I lost something at Roebling

With the start of the 2008 season fast approaching, I wanted to weigh in on the last Spec E30 race of 2007 for BearTech. Roebling Road may be one of the further tracks for us to haul (350+ miles), but it's worth every bump South Carolinas I-95 has to offer. The track was resurfaced last fall and that has earned it the BeerTech seal of approval. The votes were split after our last trip down there in 2005 (or was it '04?) for an HPDE with the Dark Side/ Sand Piper PCA. While RRR may not have been the best lapping track, it is one hell of a great place to race.

As JP has pretty much covered... this was a great race weekend for all. And while many of the racers were heard to say "this was the best race ever", those words couldn't have been more true for anyone more than they were for me.

I left for the track a day ahead of JP to get some extra track time in Friday's test-n-tune with Seat-Time. Things didn't get off to a very good start, due to RRR management not letting anyone in until the last minute, no schedule available from Seat-Time and the solo group being sent out on track 2 minutes after the drivers meeting.

Not that I'd complain... but REALLY? Even with one missed session, I was able to get in more than enough time on track that I had a much higher comfort level, going into Saturdays race.



It's been a while... so I'll spare you all the hazy details. But in a nutshell... Saturday was OK.

OK... until the Factory 3 IFU Challenge. (read JP's account for the real details)

Starting up front and having the opportunity to race side by side in a way that I hadn't really been able to do... helped me figure a lot of things out.

One of those things was that the guys I'm out there racing with are really good drivers.

Another was that I can race closer to them anywhere on the track... straight aways, braking zones, turns...



And while all those guys were saying "the IFU race way the most fun they had ever had"... The most fun I ever had on a race track was to be the next day. The Sunday race.

As JP has pointed out (thanks JP)... my Sunday qualifying was less than spectacular. Sure, it was on par with all my other back-of-the-pack postings. And I guess there may have been higher expectations after the IFU? But it wasn't from a lack of coffee or the extra beers the night before... I just didn't want to be overly confident. I wanted to make sure my last race of the season wasn't going to be like my first race of the season.

Never to be.

I don't know when or where it happened? But somewhere at Roebling Road I lost that "turn 10" monkey that had been on my back all season long, and I found my confidence.

I didn't give away any track. I mixed it up. I stayed in close a fought for positions—every turn of every lap.



I know I'm no Skeen. I didn't start in the back and work my way to the front in the 2nd lap. But I finished better than I start. Not just in that last race, but in my rookie season.

I can't wait for CMP.

Roebling Road Race Recap

Very late posting, good thing don't have a following that reads this with frequency!

This was by far the best weekend race experience that we have ever had. We is Scott and I as Brian spent another weekend at home clipping coupons for canned food from the paper so he could eat...... And Al actually washed his car, at the track no less.

Aside from the normal two races we run, Factory 3 Performance sponsored an IFU Race (Inverted Field Unlimited). We took the quali times from Sat. and inverted the field. Good times ensued but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The weekend started on Friday with a LONG haul down to Roebling. On the way I managed to loose both my trailer license plate and a trailer brake light. Who knew towing at 100+MPH would do that? After arriving later than planned I set up camp (literally) and unloaded the car in the dark and without cranking it due to Roebling's draconian rules.



At this point in the season I was simply hoping that the motor would hold together long enough to finish the weekend and not explode on track. I set out for my first session on the track in two years and was surprisingly on pace for the mid-pack. I qualified 13th of 22 with Scott posting a nice 19th of 22. I was well ahead of Robinson but shocked to be so far behind Geeger (6th???) Fortunately both would graciously drive off track to help me move up.

I finished the first race 8th ahead of some truly talented driver, and also Geeger and Robinson. It should be noted that both Geeger and Jim practiced all day on Friday while I was towing down..... Scott was able to maintain a clean race and finished in 18th.

After every other race had ended on Sat. the main event was started, the Spec E30 IFU Race. Everyone at the track was there to watch us. I started in 13th and Scott got to start in 4th! Outside second row. This race was absolutely incredible. There was very little time when you weren't involved in some sort of battle with two or three cars. Scott later said that it was like a year's worth of racing experience in 45 minutes. Invaluable to rookies like us.

I had worked my way up to 4th!!!! before I saw a double yellow fly to remove poor Laura from the dirt berm. Oddly, they had us stop single file on the front stretch. Little did we know that they were going to invert us for a second time, madness. I was heart broken as that forth would have been my best race of the year. So, as we restarted I was forth from last, 19th. By the time the dust had settled I crossed the line three wide to finish 8th. I lost out to 6th and 7th by a bumper. Scott crossed the line in a great 15th with a new found aggressiveness that was lacking before.

The night was spent swilling beers to drown the red dogs and mini bike fumes and listing to lies from Travis about how crappy his car is leaving only his talent to blame for his great race. Lame.

Here is the video. Its long and the sound is turned off due to technical difficulties, but it is still exciting to watch:

IFU Video

The Sunday race had me a little worried because the car was acting up a good bit. The alignment, or lack thereof, was making the car very nervous through T3, a very high speed left hander. Also, I was fouling spark plugs every two sessions due to my crapbox motor's dying rings. Last race of the year, oh well.

I quailied 9th. Two spots better than Sat. but Robinson was right on my heels. Lame. Scott qualied 20th obviously hungover on a great IFU race and maybe some beer.

This race didn't do to much for me other than to reinforce the fact that my motor was done. I would get pulled by everyone down the straights. The video really shows this. An early spin in front of the entire field by Damion left the whole field mixed up. I was up to forth when we all came back on track. Feeling out of place I decided to drive straight off in T9. This put me back in a much more familiar 7th. Fortunately for me Robinson and Geeger were kind enough to realize that I had much more talent than themselves and drove their cars off as well. Good job guys!

I followed Patton for the rest of the race and finished 6th, or so I thought. The pink panther car was found to be under weight and was DQ'd. Preesh fellas. I finished 5th and even squeaked some Toyo bucks out of it. Scott however had the race of the day. He went from 20th to finish 13th. His best race of the year.

Sunday Sprint

It was a great end to a wonderful Rookie year. I really hope B. Jones gets to join us for some races next year.