Taking on the World Rally Championship With an E30

Imagine how it would feel to fight for the highest accolade in the sport you hold most dear. To hear your country’s national anthem and see your reflection in an Olympic gold medal. To hoist the Lombardi Trophy in a stadium overflowing with screaming fans. To taste the milk at Indianapolis. Even if you didn’t win, simply standing on even …

Read the rest of the story

I lost my R too, I race with an ally America banner across my windscreen.

+1 ( because I got your joke )

I'd be lying if I said that Caswell wasn't one of the two major reasons I decided to get an e30 to start rallycrossing and eventually build into a stage car. I read that story back then and it was quite the inspiration. The other was the four local guys who at the time were all rallycrossing the same old, beat, 325e (one of which is now my stage co-driver, another of which currently crews for us). I was a japanese car guy (Honda/Acura/Nissan) with zero German car history, so it was a total lark for me to get that $1000 craigslist 318i and I figured it would be a total POS and hard to work on, but was totally wrong. 6-7 years later, 50+ rallycrosses and a few stage rallies in the books and the car has yet to have any kind of significant mechanical or suspension issue. They're tanks.

The last rally we ran (STPR) we followed Travis Pastrana through recce and our time one the super special was faster than David Higgins (granted, he had a blown turbo and was going really slow lol....). It's funny that once you get into the rally scene, even if you're a back-marker privateer, those guys just become "other guys that rally" (albeit with big budgets and factory sponsors). At events, the other amateur drivers talk about "travis" and "ken (block)" like they're just some other dudes that happen to do what you do. Not that they're hanging out with us at the local dive bar after the rally, but in person they're all generally pretty laid-back.

to

That story was a defining moment of automobiles for me.

Love love love this story. Absolutely epic what these two pulled off.

Thank you for the kind words! Reading back through it myself its almost hard to believe we pulled it off either. I wish the loophole was still open, we only had 4 years and I was lucky enough to run 3 of them. but now I need an FIA legal car if I wanted to go back. In reply to Hungary Bill :

Thats so awesome! If there's one thing that I could hope would come out of my adventure is that more people jump into the sport and have fun and meet awesome friends and go on amazing adventures.

Im also way happy that found the E30 as strong as I did! They really are special little cars. So true about rally. Its a special place. Drivers are just drivers. Even the best in the world like I found at WRC Mexico. And while Ken and Travis don't go out all the time, they go out enough that we've all had fun times celebrating with them after rallies - which I think is pretty awesome.
In reply to irish44j :

In reply to wcaswell:

Hey! Good to see you on here - have you had the 750il out recently?

Great Story, very GRM

wcaswell wrote: Thank you for the kind words! Reading back through it myself its almost hard to believe we pulled it off either. I wish the loophole was still open, we only had 4 years and I was lucky enough to run 3 of them. but now I need an FIA legal car if I wanted to go back. In reply to Hungary Bill :

Hey Bill! Good to see ya in the forum (see: "man, myth, legend" comment on facebook). Two things real quick:

First: If we ever meet, the beers are on me.

Second: Over the course of those beers I'll tell ya about how motivated I was after reading your story and how I went about living my dream of resurrecting an old Italian GT-ish sort of car (1982 Alfa GTV6) and how she's turning out.

Here's the basic idea in three photos:

That last one was after the ONE drive my son and I got to take after I got the car running (same kid in the first and last pictures but I did have another one along the way). Immediately after that I left to make the move to where I am now and the car rests in the capable hands of fellow forum member M4ff3w (entrusted with her care until I can ship her across the ocean one more time).

Looking back, much like you, I really didnt know how high the bar was when I decided to jump. Had it not been for me running into an article highlighting your race about the same time I realized I was in over my head, I'd have probably just resigned myself to other projects and said "Cant, it's too hard". The three pics miss a lot of the "in between" but I'll be sure to fill you in. I just hope you're up for at least a six-pack apiece because there's a lot of ground to cover

Cheers buddy

I think we need a follow up to what is our hero doing these days for fun and too bad that they closed that rules. I wonder if they closed it because of you or not. I wonder if you asked if they would let you run something old again in just the one rally cause its fun seeing old school run again and loved that story when it came out.

Robbie wrote: In reply to wcaswell: Hey! Good to see you on here - have you had the 750il out recently?

That's Happening like next month! Its in the driveway and we are going to cut it into pieces and its going to be so awesome! I love the 750IL. The motor is fun and fast and the car turns and brakes really well. It just doesn't turn fast through some of the shorter radius corners at tracks so I was thinking we should cut the wheel base down to like an E36/E46 which seems to have the right radius for racing. Its like a pair skis to me. The 750 is a GS and we need a slalom ski.

After watching the Roadkill episode where they dropped the body on the tube frame and shortened the wheel base by horizontally cutting the C pillar it all clicked! So were cutting like 14"(can't remember, prob less) out of the rear door area but leaving the roof intact and then cutting the C pillar horizontally so the roof slides back down the trunk. Then we weld the C pillars to the top of the fenders/ trunk and the car should keep nice smooth looking body panels. Of course well shorten the door and hang it back on the hinges so it works too! Or at least the little door is the plan.

Then we shim the fenders off the car till the 315 tires fit and fill the top gaps. It going to be a ridiculously fun car. Come help us if you want, Its not that far of a drive!