A bad day at the track isn't necessarily better than a day at work.

I've been planning since last year to go to VIR to watch the UTCC and do the NASA HPDE the Saturday and Sunday. Last year was a blast and VIR is an awesome track. I had the car prepped Wednesday night - new Brembo rotors w/ 2 hour old Performance Friction 06F and 97R pads, fresh Redline in the engine, trans and diff. Brake system flushed and bled w/ ATE Super Blue. I have a set of RA1s on 17x9s that only have a couple hours on 'em...

• Friday I had a ton of E36 M3 to do and didn't get on the road 'til about 1:00pm. The unspeakable traffic on I95S made the trip (strapped into race seat w/ 6 point harness) a truly long and painful exercise. I missed the entire UTCC by hours.

• Saturday AM I'm ready to go. Car is teched, wheels on, suspension set. A friend who's a NASA instructor and who did the UTCC Friday and was doing TTC the balance of the weekend is going to ride along on my first session. I haven't been to VIR in a year and it'd be nice have a baseline after one session to get the most from the weekend. On the final lap of the session I'm scanning the gauges at the exit of T3 and the oil light illuminates. I check mirrors for oil or smoke, lift, move off line, and at the exit of T4 key the engine off and roll off track.

• I receive the "towstrap of shame" back to the paddock.

• Diagnosis reveals no codes - a properly functioning pressure sender - and when I remove the cover from the oil filter housing and crank the engine; no oil flows.

• It is nearly certain the only possible cause is that the nut on the oil pump sprocket backed off.

• The best possible outcome is a bunch of disassembly to get to the oil pump to re-affix the nut and pull a the rod bearing caps and main caps to see if there's damage - and finding none.

• My wife is a turbo-rock-stud for having arranged the rental of a U-Haul 10' box truck and a car dolly in Danville VA, available Sunday afternoon.

• A benevolent racer local to DC offered the exceptional kindness of clearing space for my car in his behemoth 2-car rig in which he'd foolishly only brought one solitary car.

• Did I mention that it is positively thermonuclear weather? The "Real Feel" temp is like 111 degrees F. It's unspeakably hideous.

• A racetrack when you've nothing to do and it's 1100 degrees celsius is actually not much fun at all. I think my highlight was hanging out w/ some of the GRMs before the award party.

• I was aware of the potential folly of driving a track car to events - and it was "fun" at first, becoming more of a pain in the ass with each additional layer of performance and safety - I'm bringing the thing on a $49 rental U-Haul dolly behind my V6 Tacoma next time.

• And now I'm eating a pile of freebie hotel cookies in my slightly odd smelling room for dinner.

(end rant)

how did it go the first three corners?

3 corners? hell, I got 5 solid laps in. Factoring in the event registration, hotel, food and drink, fuel... it was about $9 a turn...

I was planning on being there for a while. I went whole hog on the car for the past two years and this was gonna be its first track event. I go to get it tech inspected and hear clunking... Yes, the control arms are bad. But they're only 100 miles old. Oh, the shop where I bought them gave me what turned out to be some garbage Chinese ones and they were defective. So I spring for new ones and get them on. Then the first three places I'm supposed to get tires from fall through and I end up waiting outside of a used tire store more than hundred miles from my home when the heat index is over 110. I get some and... they have a puncture in the sidewall they neglected to tell me about. But they mounted them all first, so I have to pay twice - first for the four I can't use and then to get my old ones put back on. The hotel also lost my reservation, somehow. $9 a turn sounds pretty good to me right now I'll have to wait until September.

Sorry to hear it! I was nervous as hell bringing the E30 down. As of Wednesday, I had two people coming with racecars/trailers/etc. By Friday it was just me, and I drove down to the event with a list of UHaul locations just in case. Thankfully, the 240K mile sensation made it through the weekend without even a hint of trouble - coolant barely got above 1/2. Just got back from the drive home. Tired.

You know, if you get stuck doing nothing, we can often use help somewhere. Go to the tech shed and ask if assistance is needed. Then you can stand out in the heat with a "job". All the water and gatorade you can drink. Sorry that your weekend was otherwise poor.

I always find a team with a car Im interested in and see if they will let me help. Made some good friends that way and get to race vicariously thru them.

My 5 crappy auto-x runs ended with a rather loud valve-tap from my E30... I'm hoping it just went out of adjustment and it's nothing more serious... it was freakin fast course and I was against the rev-limiter twice during each run... (a guy in an '95 M3 said he was shifting into 3rd... )

On the plus side, I got to get a fun-run in an F500....

To be honest, the S50/52 oil pump nut issue has been known for a long time. I knew about it back when we had one (8 years ago). I would not track one w/o tacking or safety wiring it.

The U-haul dolly won't do you much good if the car can't roll. When I hit Armco, the front and rear suspension got twisted, and the rear trailing blade was into the tire. In my case, an awesome Lotus driver loaned me his trailer to get my wreck home.

Since you already have a tow vehicle, I suggest you just save up for a cheap trailer.

Ian F wrote: My 5 crappy auto-x runs ended with a rather loud valve-tap from my E30... I'm hoping it just went out of adjustment and it's nothing more serious...

You broke a rocker. Its easy to replace but you have to yank the cam out the front so the hood has to come off and the rad has to come out. If you get lucky its on the #6 cyl and you can just pull the cam like 6", swap it and push it back in. I have also pulled the motor mounts and jacked the front way up so the whole cam would clear.

Its a good time to swap timing belts and clean all the dirt/oil off the front of the motor since you will be replacing seals on everything that leaks up there.

■A racetrack when you've nothing to do and it's 1100 degrees celsius is actually not much fun at all.

At least the bathrooms are air conditioned.

I lunched a motor at VIR on the first warm up session at a SCCA National...I feel your pain.

motomoron wrote: - And now I'm eating a pile of freebie hotel cookies in my slightly odd smelling room for dinner.

You are really funny! The above is how I end my sales calls when I am traveling on the road.........Holiday Inn Express!

bummer :(

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: You broke a rocker. Its easy to replace but you have to yank the cam out the front so the hood has to come off and the rad has to come out. If you get lucky its on the #6 cyl and you can just pull the cam like 6", swap it and push it back in. I have also pulled the motor mounts and jacked the front way up so the whole cam would clear. Its a good time to swap timing belts and clean all the dirt/oil off the front of the motor since you will be replacing seals on everything that leaks up there.

Thanks. That doesn't sound too bad. Would that also explain a sporadic stumble/bog off the line which occured during my 5th run and once during my drive home? I have new motor mounts to install anyway... Given the engine has 211K miles on it, I wonder if it would best to replace all of them.