12 Hours of Summit Point Enduro

(repost from my thread elsewhere...don't want to re-type it all!)

Our SM car had GRM stickers on it, though they are hard to see in the pics right behind the doors....!

--

Went up to crew for a buddy's race team up at the 12-hour enduro at Summit. We ran an SM Miata and an SSM Miata, which we crewed and also teamed with an ITE Integra (that we didn't crew for)

The integra wrecked at abotu 8 hours in after locking up all 4 wheels in wet grass and going nose-in to a tire barrier. Only 2 other ITE cars were left at that point, so the teggy guys got third.

The SM Miata ran great all day and 9 hours in was 4th overall and 1st in SM class. Then a piece of asphalt kicked up and cut the rear fuel line = fuel starvation = bye bye engine. Race over, but we outlasted all but 2 other SM cars so still took 3rd.

The SSM Miata was slow and had an extended pit stop to replace a rear brake caliper, but otherwise it chugged its way to a 3rd place SSM finish as well and finished the entire 12 hours.

Race was black-flagged for a while during a torrential downpour/lightning storm that flooded the pit area for about an hour....fun.

A few interesting items: Bimmerworld was running a new 335i, which completed the entire 12 (not sure where it placed, but was probably top-5 overall), but they ran the last 6-8 hours missing 3d and 4th gears apparently.

The team pitting next to us was running a pair of Z06s. One cut out about 8 hours in (IIRC), the other made it the whole way. They were the fastest cars out there but had multiple issues, largely related to broken wheel studs (several of them). According to their crew, each car did 4 tire changes during the race with new rubber ($$$$$$!) and got a whopping 7mpg fuel economy average and had to pit every hour or so. They lost alot of time sitting in the pit.

I continue to be impressed by how strongly the Type R integras run in these things. One of them spent pretty much the entire race hanging with several M3s and the 335i.

Forgive me if any of the info above is wrong...I'm going by what my tired-as-hell ass remembers from the day. And when crewing there's not much time to look at standings, etc so alot of the info about other cars is secondhand

Anyhow, pics....

our SM miata

this M3 was very fast and had no problems that I'm aware of in the entire race...not sure, but I think it was the overall winner.

the bimmerworld 335i

our SSM Miata

our Pit

gratuitous race photo (hope they don't get mad at me!)

issues

yum

the z06's looked this way several times

Piper's car...pretyt sure they finished high

random rallicross guy fillin up at the pumps. Also saw a WRB WRX wagon with blue mudflaps driving through th pits too..

The integrra

Officials keeping a close eye on things

No windows are no fun

Use a gasoline drain pan as a window?

Oh, here they are..

I pitted in the tech shed across from the Carlisle 'Vette guys today. It appeared they had a 24' trailer completely filled with wheels/tires...

BIMMERWORKS ran the 335i. No transmission issues whatsoever! In fact when the first rain started car owner Ryan Dunn (in his first race) was lapping 4 seconds faster than the Corvettes! After the big rain storm Bimmerworks owner Steve Snow was running laps 11 seconds faster than the Corvettes! He finshed the last laps of the race on the bumper of the Bimmerworld E36 ex World Challenge car just to let James and the gang know that we may have a little something for them come October at VIR. It was great racing with the Bimmerworld, Carlisle, and Piper teams. These guys are true professionals and it was cool for a driver like me to run with the big teams for a bit. People thought that we were having either boost issues or other problems at points because we were short shifting the car. People were asking if it was a 335d! We had joked about that a few days before the event and thought about marking our fueI cans with DIESEL ONLY and running a 335d emblem. I was driving that stint and was able to run sixth gear out of turn eight up the hill under the bridge and thru turn ten! I was literally coasting to turn one after the start finish line to save fuel and push our fuel window as much as possible! I was able to turn conservative 1:31 lap times while short shifting the car at 4600 rpm! I ran fifth from the exit of turn two down to the brake zone in the chute. Simply amazing low end torque! Since we didn't have time to install and test the supplemental fuel cell we were limited to running the factory tank and with the weight of the 335 coming in about 3450lbs fuel economy was our greatest challenge. Once the storm and black flag drama happened we refueled and could run out the clock. We made up over four laps after the weather thanks to our crew's planning and Steve's experience running Summit in the rain. All in all it was a great race despite the low number of entries. This was my third 12 Hour and the most fun. I need to thank our tireless crew, Chris Bishop, Bob Trader, Joe Fritz, Ken Lin, Dave Edwards, Rob Unger, Luke Benner, Steve Narowcki, Dana Wolf and Kyle Maciejczyk. Without their effort we wouldn't have gotten the car ready in the short time that we did. I need to thank the car owners Ryan Dunn and Steve Snow for giving me the chance to drive an amazing car backed by a great crew. I take it as a huge compliment for those guys to trust me with their brand new car (it only had 2200 miles on it before the race!) Joe McCormick

By the way you have the results a little skewed.... the yellow E36 M3 did have a mechanical issue and was pushed in to the paddock for several laps a little after lunchtime if I remember. That car was silly fast and the drivers were certainly aggessive, that was the BImmershop team. They did get the car fixed and back out on track but lost to much time to make a challenge for the win. The yellow and white Bimmerworld E36 sedan won the overall with a flawlessly executed performance. Our Bimmerworks/DINAN/Victory Brewing/Toyo Tires 335i placed 12th, running 93 octane, street tires, and an off the shelf Bilstein PSS9 kit! Steve Snow qualified the car in third place! As David Hobbs would say, "It has the minerals boys!" So we had Bimmerworld, Bimmerworks, and Bimmershop at the 12 Hours at the Point 2009... rematch at VIR in October???

The integrra

That was our car, it was an ITA car and this happened after we came back on track after some time in the paddock to fix a fuel system issue we had while 7th overall and leading ITA by 6 laps. Driver is ok and the car can be fixed.

This is me, it's cool. I am the one with the white shirt....

Both the vettes finished. 03 ITE was 5th overall, 3rd in class, and 28 T1 was 10th overall (only car in its class). One car completed the race with no mechanical problems, the other suffered from the broken wheel studs after hitting a pot hole. The cars did use 3 sets of tires (still very much usable when they were taken off), but it was 2 sets fo scrubs from qualifying and pre-race weekend testing, and a new set. The cars sure were thirsty

Great race weekend and tons of fun. Congrats to the Bimmerworld guys and to everyone that finished.

joesellshomes, do you have any insight as to what was causing the fluctuating rpms down the front stratight on the 335?

nasaregistrar wrote: This is me, it's cool. I am the one with the white shirt....

BUSTED!

I'm watching my manners around here from now on. Especially after Smokey's daughter chimed in my thread about his book. If I had known I was speaking to the guy's daughter I would've been more PC! I'm beginning to see this forum gets a lot more mileage in the real world than I ever thought.

Great write up on the race. That rain must've sucked hard...

Xceler8x wrote:

nasaregistrar wrote: This is me, it's cool. I am the one with the white shirt....

BUSTED! I'm watching my manners around here from now on. Especially after Smokey's daughter chimed in my thread about his book. If I had known I was speaking to the guy's daughter I would've been more PC! I'm beginning to see this forum gets a lot more mileage in the real world than I ever thought. Great write up on the race. That rain must've sucked hard...

Busted??What did you do??

nasaregistrar wrote: Busted??What did you do??

Maybe I'm the one who's busted...

I figured he was busted showing the gratuitous "Hot girl at the track" photo. Then, it turns our her track date named nasaregistrar shows up on the thread!

That would be my luck anyway.

joesellshomes wrote: BIMMERWORKS ran the 335i. No transmission issues whatsoever! In fact when the first rain started car owner Ryan Dunn (in his first race) was lapping 4 seconds faster than the Corvettes! After the big rain storm Bimmerworks owner Steve Snow was running laps 11 seconds faster than the Corvettes! He finshed the last laps of the race on the bumper of the Bimmerworld E36 ex World Challenge car just to let James and the gang know that we may have a little something for them come October at VIR. It was great racing with the Bimmerworld, Carlisle, and Piper teams. These guys are true professionals and it was cool for a driver like me to run with the big teams for a bit. People thought that we were having either boost issues or other problems at points because we were short shifting the car. People were asking if it was a 335d! We had joked about that a few days before the event and thought about marking our fueI cans with DIESEL ONLY and running a 335d emblem. I was driving that stint and was able to run sixth gear out of turn eight up the hill under the bridge and thru turn ten! I was literally coasting to turn one after the start finish line to save fuel and push our fuel window as much as possible! I was able to turn conservative 1:31 lap times while short shifting the car at 4600 rpm! I ran fifth from the exit of turn two down to the brake zone in the chute. Simply amazing low end torque! Since we didn't have time to install and test the supplemental fuel cell we were limited to running the factory tank and with the weight of the 335 coming in about 3450lbs fuel economy was our greatest challenge. Once the storm and black flag drama happened we refueled and could run out the clock. We made up over four laps after the weather thanks to our crew's planning and Steve's experience running Summit in the rain. All in all it was a great race despite the low number of entries. This was my third 12 Hour and the most fun. I need to thank our tireless crew, Chris Bishop, Bob Trader, Joe Fritz, Ken Lin, Dave Edwards, Rob Unger, Luke Benner, Steve Narowcki, Dana Wolf and Kyle Maciejczyk. Without their effort we wouldn't have gotten the car ready in the short time that we did. I need to thank the car owners Ryan Dunn and Steve Snow for giving me the chance to drive an amazing car backed by a great crew. I take it as a huge compliment for those guys to trust me with their brand new car (it only had 2200 miles on it before the race!) Joe McCormick

ah, that explains it. We could just hear it, sounding like you were lugging it and then the rumor of missing gears came up....

Of course you guys were still blowing by us Miatas :)

joesellshomes wrote: By the way you have the results a little skewed.... the yellow E36 M3 did have a mechanical issue and was pushed in to the paddock for several laps a little after lunchtime if I remember. That car was silly fast and the drivers were certainly aggessive, that was the BImmershop team. They did get the car fixed and back out on track but lost to much time to make a challenge for the win. The yellow and white Bimmerworld E36 sedan won the overall with a flawlessly executed performance. Our Bimmerworks/DINAN/Victory Brewing/Toyo Tires 335i placed 12th, running 93 octane, street tires, and an off the shelf Bilstein PSS9 kit! Steve Snow qualified the car in third place! As David Hobbs would say, "It has the minerals boys!" So we had Bimmerworld, Bimmerworks, and Bimmershop at the 12 Hours at the Point 2009... rematch at VIR in October???

ah, sorry...by the time it was over all I wanted to do was load up the 32' trailer, 2 miatas, and get the hell out of there....was totally dead to the world and hurting on a bad ankle :)

Our team primary (chris mitchum) though we could have gotten the SM Miata into 3rd overall if it hadn't died (we were running 4th or maybe 5th at the time) - especially since it had zero mechanical issues until the fluke fuel line issue..dammit!

btw, yeah, those vette guys must have gone through about $10k in tires during the event....ridiculous. We only changed once, and that was onto the rain tires in the evening...

nasaregistrar wrote:

The integrra

That was our car, it was an ITA car and this happened after we came back on track after some time in the paddock to fix a fuel system issue we had while 7th overall and leading ITA by 6 laps. Driver is ok and the car can be fixed. This is me, it's cool. I am the one with the white shirt....

lol, yeah I talked to you at the beginning of the day at like 7am when we were the first people there. Happy to hear the car can be fixed - I never got to take a good look at it.

camaroz1985 wrote: Both the vettes finished. 03 ITE was 5th overall, 3rd in class, and 28 T1 was 10th overall (only car in its class). One car completed the race with no mechanical problems, the other suffered from the broken wheel studs after hitting a pot hole. The cars did use 3 sets of tires (still very much usable when they were taken off), but it was 2 sets fo scrubs from qualifying and pre-race weekend testing, and a new set. The cars sure were thirsty Great race weekend and tons of fun. Congrats to the Bimmerworld guys and to everyone that finished. joesellshomes, do you have any insight as to what was causing the fluctuating rpms down the front stratight on the 335?

goes to show how little you know about what's going on when you're busy pumping fuel all day. All my info that I posted was basically "what I heard" :)

And yeah, those vette tires looked to have alot of life left on them when taken off!

Xceler8x wrote:

nasaregistrar wrote: Busted??What did you do??

Maybe I'm the one who's busted... I figured he was busted showing the gratuitous "Hot girl at the track" photo. Then, it turns our her track date named nasaregistrar shows up on the thread! That would be my luck anyway.

I see, yeah, that is pretty funny. He was busted! Notice the 1979 Plymouth Arrow?

I'm the one who busted you and told Nasaregistrar about his newest claim to fame when I saw the photo posted of him and his friend.

Eyes are everywhere! All your photos are belong to us.

btw, that 1979 Arrow finished all 12 hours of the race......

I'm suprised that the Piper M3 and the older (84?) Porsche 911 weren't running up front like usual. Too bad I couldn't watch this year, had to work to pay for my racecar.

irish44j wrote: btw, that 1979 Arrow finished all 12 hours of the race......

After rolling it in T1

nasaregistrar wrote:

irish44j wrote: btw, that 1979 Arrow finished all 12 hours of the race......

After rolling it in T1

lol, yeah I saw the damage - surprsingly light though. Makes it all that more impressive that he finished!

In reply to StevenFV19:

The Porche wasn't there (I assume you mean the light blue one that won it in '06-07?). I only saw one Piper car running (the 330ci) and another Piper 330 sitting at their trailer. There was another 3-series with a large wing in the paddock area, that was showing some gray/silver paint, so maybe that was their M3 - the cover stayed on the entire rac and I never saw it.

I watched when I could rom the pit wall...I was a fuel/fireman so I spent alot of time hauling aound he 90-gallon fuel cart and filling it up at the pump, then pumping it into the gravity tank, then filling the miatas.

btw, if anyone here has any control over it: the GAS PUMP IS ANNOYING in that it will only let you use the same credit card once, and then only for $75 worth. We were scrounging all of our drivers' and crews' credit cards to buy our gas since the Team Cards would only work once each on that pump. Other teams were having similar problems from what I heard...

Now that you mention I do. I didn't at first because my eye was drawn to other focal points of the shot. I'm also heterosexual. <img src="" />

(re: above) Ha ha!

I heart the Summit Point main circuit.

Nice photos! (of the cars)

We ran the -2009 Jefferson 500- there earlier this year.

Just to clear a few things up. The Corvettes ran times in the 25's and 26's with a few 24's thrown in, all day long until the rain. We did not have rain tires and didn't have a position to gain or lose by the end of the race. We did back both cars down considerably for a few laps in the rain. The 03 car had 0 issues for the entire race. The team of drivers and crew worked very well together and really ran a perfect race. The 28 car (my car) had an off by one driver about 40 mins. in while leading (I think). No damage and really didn't cost us much time. Then about 4 hours in another driver hit the curbing in 8 and caused 2 fractured wheels studs. Thirty some mins. later we where back out in 18th place. Over the next few hours we fought back up to 6th, only to find 2 more broken studs on the same wheel, during a pit stop. Back to 14th and ended up 10th. The Vettes really held up great with this small exception. Tire and brake usage was less than expected. Fuel is the major drawback and we knew this going into the deal. We are working on a few options now to get 25 gallons in the cars. With this being accomplished we will anxiously be anticipating our next event.

All and all, we learned a lot. The drive trains hold up great, TOYO 888's held up amazingly well, the team was the perfect mix and hot brake pads will burn right through the sole of shoes ! Hopefully we can make it so no one can short shift and get away with it, at the next event ! LOL

irish44j wrote:

Now that's grassroots!