Sat 5/16 @ 1PM - Come see the 1 Lap car at our new facility in Winter Park!

Yes, it's kind of last minute, but if you've got nothing going on tomorrow(5/16) and 1PM, you're welcome to come by our new facility in Winter Park to hang out and check out the E46 M3 that won it's class, it's manufacturer title, and 3rd place overall in a field of 63 cars at the 2009 One Lap of America. We're going to be hanging out, talking cars and playing Wii from 1PM until whenever, so be sure to stop in and check us out!

5/16 @ 1:00PM

828 Cherry Street

Winter Park, FL 32789

One Lap of America 2009 Results:

The End:

A week of racing in the One Lap or an hour race always comes down to who crosses the finish line first or in this case with the most points. We are entering this event down 15 points on the 3rd overall position. For the final skid pad event we run an inverted field with the slower cars starting first. The wind is blowing what feels like 50mph and the temperature is dropping around 10 degrees in the next 40 minutes it feels like it has dipped under 40 degrees. Even better it is spitting rain.

We take cover under the overhang at the Tire Rack to get out of the wind and wait for our turn on the line. As I wait on the line the car is moving around from the wind gusts just sitting still. I launch the car with some nice Michelin black marks and try to get up to speed right away for my counter clockwise run and then spin around for my clockwise loops. Jose has pumped up the tires to our normal hot temps and then some.

The M3 is really hooked-up and hugging the middle of the circle, and even though this is billed as a dry skid pad event in reality the pavement is wet for the front running cars including me. I pull in to park and hear that the car has turned over 1+g on the run, good enough for 2nd Overall. Our competitors with the Subaru are a bit of unsure what is going on since they did not hear the announcement for all the other cars. Later I am going inside to change back to street clothes and hear from someone is scoring that the event that we have nailed down 3rd place by 5 points!

A long, noisy but satisfying week has come to an end. We have beat our goal of a top 5 finish for the Supercharged M3. The car has finished the event without any major issues despite its pre event teething pains created by a stock part failure and the tow truck guy wiping out the rear suspension piece. I am pretty sure that this is the highest placing BMW in the One Lap event, matching my 1999 finish in my 318ti with a AA Turbo system.

At the awards banquet we take home 3 trophies:

1st in Class SSGT Small Bore

3rd Overall

Manufacture Trophy, for top placing BMW.

Next year? Well nothing in stone yet. There is a rumor of a luxury sedan possibility. That might be a nice change after this years’ car with racing seats and a noise level that will be with Jose and me for the next several days. I also forgot to mention one of the best pieces of news when we returned back to Tire Rack. Jonathan Czarny (M5 driver) suggests leaving the car at Tire Rack for the guys at Exotic Car Transport to come and pick it up and bring it back to Orlando, we can jump on a plane with them from Indy and get back to Florida. Now that is the best news I have heard besides our coming in 3rd! I must be getting old.

After a fiasco at the airport securing a rental car, Hertz was completely sold out of everything! Avis (who tells us HERTZ put the HERTZ on us) set’s us up with a SantaFe Sport Ute and head over to Jonathans’ house for something to eat and get some much needed sleep, but only after a little Forza video game play on his 100” theater set-up!

Until next year…

Day Seven: BeaveRun | Tire Rack Headquarters

We arrive in Beaver Falls PA around 2:30am our ears are ringing from the exhaust. The cars line up early for the first run. Skies are cloudy but it is not raining. Last year I enjoyed my run on this track, but it is really bumpy in the fast sections at least this years M3 is pretty compliant.


I am now behind the Subaru by 40points so I need to gain as many positions as possible and get closer in the points to get near 3rd overall.
The Active supercharged M3 is running great and delivering solid handling.
The first session results give us a 2 second gap over the Subaru and allows for the Corvette to slip in and some more precious points.
Second session is similar but no car is able to slip in an steal points from the Subaru. We leave event 15 points out of the 3rd overall spot.

It will come down to the skidpad to decide our fate.......

Day Six: Carolina Motorsports Park | BMW Performance Center

Some bench racing was had at Fatz restaurant the night before with party of 12 or so. We get to bed around midnight to humidity but clear skies. The morning weather report is wet, it poured at some point last night and the rear wing is filled with H2O.



The day looks like it will clear but my first session is WET and this track wet is gorilla snot slippery. I do everything I can not to accelerate too aggressively, if I do the tire light up and forward motion stops.



Turns are not better, the car is slipping and sliding. My competition for 3rd overall is in a 4wheel drive Subaru, this is not good. I do the best I can to keep it close but I hear the Subi edges me out by less than a second.

Unfortunately the track is drying out quickly the sun is out, so the later track cars will go way better than us. Cars are still running so we will have to see what is does for our point’s battle. Update in the afternoon.




1st round results are in and I miss beating Tony’s run in the Subaru by a few tenths of a second, ouch.

For the second session the sun is out and the humidity is gone. The track is dry so hopefully I can get enough ahead of the Subaru to open the door for a few competitors to slip in and steal some points.

Yikes it is dry but the grip is still lacking quite a bit. I run as hard as possible and perhaps overdrive the car, one enty into turn 1 was a late braking affair and I barely pull entry into the corner off. Let’s see what the results yield…a solid 2 second gap ahead of the Subi, but no one slips a time in between us to steal any points from him.

So at the end of the CMP event we are still a solid 4th overall position but are still 15 points off the 3rd overall we are shooting for. On to the BMW Performance Center for a fast autocross on their mini track.


BMW Performance Center

I jump on my competitors bicycle for a quick ride around the mini track. One of the wildest parts of the track is the back section where they set up cones to send you over blind downhill and going down are 2 semi banked turns leading into a decreasing radius 90 that then takes you up the hill to the left at a good clip.



At the end there is a very tight gate to slow you down before blasting past the start finish. This tight gate of cones was near the bottom of 3rd gear in the Active SCM3 so on the last lap of this trial I decide to try 2nd gear to see if will shave a bit off my time…BAD IDEA I cannot get 2nd gear to even consider an engagement ok lets go back to 3rd…nope. While I am through the gate and rolling I have lost all forward momentum and the clock is running, I grab 5th and go back to 3rd and it goes back in.



Well, so much for gaining ground with that event. Luckily that mess up only drops me to 6th for the event and we drop a bit farther off the Subaru’s stellar 2nd overall finish to the GT-R’s 1st. I was not the only one with bad luck, my Team Cannon Fodder GT2 hit 2 cones on what would have been a 1st place finish and ended up with 19th Overall. Same old story with One Lap, don’t mess up.



Now we are are on the longest leg of the event a 562mile drive to BeavRun Raceway in Pennsylvania. The GPS has us arriving at 2:30am add one more fuel stop, figure around 3am arrival. Then get some sleep for the 7am wake up to walk the track and the last 2 road course events on the schedule.

This week has flown by and we are within reach of 3rd overall.

Day Five: Daytona International Speedway

The day starts early with our friends from PSI knocking on my door at 6:00am, “we are here with a computer to load the new program into the ECU, keys please”. Awesome I hope this will fix the power issues we were having at Sebring. It did not show in the results but I feel that we would have been closer to the top cars if I had the extra 30mph on the straights, and there are a lot of them at Sebring. Daytona is another story it is around 75% straightaway and power is essential to a decent lap. Fingers are crossed for the new tune.

1st session the car the results of the tune are evident, the car pulls all the way through 6th gear to an indicated 170+ on the optimistic speedo. The StopTech brakes are fantastic giving me all the confidence to carry the throttle as deep as possible into the brake markers. The only challenge is the hood is lifting around 4 inches at top speed acting like a airbrake, and allows for the car to feel really light in the front at speed.



Along with this the front ducting is creating lift. Either way after one hot lap is see the temps rising up, the stock radiator is having trouble dissipating the heat the new tune is generating at speed. I have to take the 2nd lap easy and only run 140 to 150 on the banking to avoid a failure. After doing this I am able to get back to throttle in the infield and not leave too much there. In the end I find out that we have been edged out by Danny in his Vette. I think he was able to keep his foot down the whole time.



2nd session are similar, Jose taped down the hood & front holes so let’s see how is does. As well we flatten out the rear wing so it creates less drag. Wow what a difference I see an indicated 180+ and the front end is now planted. Unfortunately after a lap and a half the temps start to rise up again, but not as badly. So I do some short shifting and keep the speed down to let the temps come down. Luckily there is little drama elsewhere.

Results we manage a 5th overall in the first session and a 4th overall in the second due to the signal “snot green” GT-R’s engine troubles.

Day 4.5: Last Minute Tune Revisions before Daytona International Speedway

With Karl Hugh keeping a close eye on on the behavior of the car at Sebring yesterday, he thought it was time to revise the tune slightly due to it running abnormally rich. Fast forward to Daytona Beach the same night after the Gainesville drag racing and we're scrambling to coordinate meeting with the driver/car to upload the new tune we received from Karl and Barry earlier that afternoon. Here's a quick timeline of how it all went down.

5/5 10:30PM: We meet up with Catesby and Jose at the Daytona Ale House. After sharing a drink and shooting the breeze with them and a couple others, it's time to upload the new file to the car. Sean, Surina and I step outside to do so, which is typically a 15 minute process start to finish. Long story short, it doesn't end up working, something with the laptop was not allowing our program to run to access the car's DME.

5/6 1:00AM: After quite some time trying to get the program up and running, we call it quits for the night, and head back to the shop in search of a solution for the morning.

5/6 2:00AM: Back at the shop, we had an idea to try one of our desktops that had a serial port; it worked! Now it was time to pack all that up, and be in Daytona at 6AM to get the flash uploaded.

5/6 6:00AM: Short on sleep, Sean and I make our way back to Daytona and arrive at the Ramada Inn at 6AM on the button. We get right to work and set up our makeshift workstation; finally some pics!



A closer look at Precision Sport Industries' Mobile Flashing Unit:



Waiting for the file to be uploaded to the DME



Success! Now time for a quick test drive and a couple gratuitous pictures of the 1 Lap car alongside the Precision Sport Industries E46 M3 with Horsepower Freaks stage 2.5 turbo.









Now you know why this update is called "Day 4.5" since it transcended the end of day 4 and the very beginning of Day 5. We're just glad we were able to get the job done, and the car back on the track with some more power for that back straight at Daytona. More updates coming soon from the track!

Day Four: Sebring International Raceway | Gainesville Raceway

Press on to Sebring a mere 8 hour drive from Talladega. We arrive to our hotel at the track at around 10:30pm. Looks like we are the 2nd or 3rd One Lappers to arrive and settle into the bar for a beer (or 2) before turning in for the night. The weather is breezy and around 75 when we arrive but the predicted high for the day is 90plus. A little background on Sebring and me, I have been driving Sebring ever since my early driver education events after getting out of college. So I have a little experience here and mostly in early pre 90’s Porsche 911’s and BMW’s.

In 2000 I had the opportunity to drive the Sebring 12hour IMSA race with my friend Carlos DeQuesada and Boris Said in an ex-PTG BMW M3. Check that off the list of racing events that I want to do. LeMans, 24hr Nurburgring (which I would have done instead of the One Lap this year except for business scheduling conflicts), 24hrs SPA and some others.



Getting back to the day’s events, I started out the day having breakfast with Howard LaFever and Mark Grzella who are running a new CTS-V and besides making it to every event for the competition their other goal is to visit as many Adult “dancing” establishments as possible along the way, I must say they look a little tired. Then head over to the track to unload the car.



Funny thing is in the middle of the night someone affixed a little devil pig sticker to the rear bumper of the M3…wonder who did that? Anyway the temps are heating up but the track remains cool to the touch. The first session is really felling good in the car, the track is delivering a ton of grip and everything feels great. The only problem is after my 1st lap I notice the power not pulling me to an expected, indicated 160+-mph. This continues once I hit the top of 4th and 5th gears so my speed on all of the straightaway's is not there. Nothing I can do except try to maintain the most speed in the corners and get an ok overall time.



I later find out that this turns out to be worth 3rd overall behind the Stewart/Leir GT2 and Taylor/Rankins GT-R. So results were not bad but I am not thrilled since I know I could do so much better. Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda this is the One Lap. I suspect that the car is running out of gas since the tank was not totally full.

Luckily Karl Hugh and Barry are here to cheer us on from Active Auto in Miami and take a look at the situation. They feel that it is something else like the boost pressure is dropping with the ambient temperature of over 90 making the mixture too rich. Their solution is to modify the ECU tune, and they tell us someone will meet us in Gainesville to re-flash the program. Don’t forget this supercharger is a prototype system and the HKS charger is SN# ending in 001 so a few bugs are possible.

The afternoon session is really heating up, did I mention that one of the Subaru WRX’s grenaded his head gasket blowing coolant all over the motor and smoking up the back straightaway. Too bad because now they have to tow the car home to … Wisconsin or will they find a motor and show up later?



I head out for the 2nd session and try to short shift the car and keep everything as cool as it can be. I does not make much of a difference the car is not getting to the top of 4th and 5th gears. On top of that the track has lost the fantastic grip we had in the morning. I find out that it did not hurt me too much, or as much as I anticipated, we end up 4th overall for the session and remain in 4th place overall only 25 points down on the 3rd place Subaru.

It’s sunny and 96 degrees on the temp gauge as we arrive in Gainesville at around 5:30pm. On to the drag races, not exactly a BMW forte.


Gainesville Raceway



A short drive and we are back north at the Gainesville Raceway for a single ET drag event where the fastest cars in the ¼ mile will be rewarded with points and then a bracket drag event to reward the most consistent. My goal is to save the clutch and diff for the many remaining events we have till the end on the dry skid pad on Saturday.



So I am shooting for a repeatable and consistent time. Good plan I thought. In the ET with a really easy launch the M3 does a 13.13 at 113mph, I am pretty sure that I could knock quite a bit off (1sec?) that if I went for it.

So for the bracket drags I dial in a 13.0 figuring if I do the same thing I won’t break out. Well unfortunately I was gridded next to Hugh Bate in his 997 911 Turbo and guess what a 911 AWD is pretty good off the line.




I guess I should have had a Red Bull because I think I fell asleep at the line with a stellar .9xx reaction time and then I figured that Hugh had red lighted the start with his reaction time…but no, he killed me. Game over I am out of the rotations. Sort of to be expected in this car.

It was good to see some BMW fans out at the track, thanks for stopping by.

On to Daytona for a new flash on the ECU and some fun tomorrow.

Well not so fun for Jose, Officer Prevatt has just pulled us over in Bunnell, FL. She tells us that we were doing 80 in a 60 zone. Graciously she reduces the speed to 74 in a 60 so Jose is facing less points in along with the $191 fine. Luckily he had just slowed down from a speed where she might have been a little less pleasant.

I think we need a beer. Last year we covered 8000 miles without an infraction....

Day Three: Talladega Gran Prix Raceway

Redemption song?
Monday I awake in the Comfort Inn with one of the better nights’ sleep I have had since leaving home. A glance out the window RAIN, here we go again. A powerful rear wheel drive BMW competing against a pack of rabid four wheel drive cars that can really go in limited traction situations. After a little Rasin Bran, yogurt and coffee we head over to the track to see how it looks.

A walk around the track and I must say this is a really cool track layout. Turns one and three are nicely banked and the track has a decent crown for drainage. The surface is pretty pristine with little repair patches. I am told the paving is similar to Road Atlanta’s and that is good since it provides good grip in the wet.


For the first run the track is completely wet but there is little standing water so that is encouraging. I go out on my recon lap and try to push it and to my surprise the track returns grip in my favor.

As I sit at the start-finish I think I can carry some speed out of the corners to lay down some of that sweet loving M3 supercharger power. The run is pretty flawless and a bit conservative except for the fact that when I pull in I am informed that I took a bonus lap. Stupid mistake actually but the finish flag man was not waving the flag so I could not see it. In fact I could hardly see it when I came around the second time! Oh brother. The good news is Peter Leir and Ian are there to cheer me on about what a great 3 laps the AA M3 was able to lay down.

I was surprised that traction was so good in the wet, I had very little wheelspin at full throttle. The track is drying out for the competitors and nearly dry till around the last 15 cars are set to run then the sky rolls in and dumps rain on the track. It does not let up and there is some chatter that the next session might be rained out. Brock says let’s wait and see after the workers take their hour lunch break. Amazingly the skies clear and we run.

Results 4th Overall in the morning session, and 5th Overall in the afternoon.

Day Two: Turfway Park | Highland Rim Speedway

Autocrossing is not my bag. The last time I did more than one autocross in a 12 month period was around 20 years ago in college. At the time I was pretty decent at it. I moved over to track events immediately after attending my first Car Guys event at Roebling Road and came to the conclusion that it was way more fun driving the car for 20-30 minutes vs driving for 1 minute and then standing around for an hour. Nonetheless this is the One Lap and that means a variety of events you may or may not be good at or an event you have never done before. Jose is driving to one of those events, a 1/2 Oval track. Back to the autocross... we are allowed 3 runs taking the best time for the event standings.

It did not start out well, I blew a gate completely after the 5th cone under acceleration and DNF'd the run. Funny how these cones look different when you drive vs walk the track. As well the track was wet and grip for acceleration was non-existent.

The 2nd run I was relieved to nurse the short geared (4:10diff) M3 to a time of 44sec. The track was drying out so times are dropping like a rock. The top autocross aces are running around 4sec quicker and they all, with the exception of the rear engine GT2, have four wheel drive to help them launch out of the corners.



The 3rd run I am able to see a 43 and change time, so although better is far away from the top runners who are able to finish as follows:

Top 3 as of now:

1) Cannonball GTR - 38.9

2) TIC WRC - 39.5

3) Cannonfodder GT2 - 40.2



I just hope that this performance does not kill us in the overall to much. I keep saying it is very early in the event and everyone has to finish to win. Another plus is we are heading South to Florida and a few tracks that I have some experience, Sebring & Daytona. First We have to get through the 1/2 mile and "Mini" Talladega sports car course.



Highland Rim ½ mile Oval

Cancelled-Rain
After waiting around the local Shell gas station along with a congregation of One Lappers for over an hour we head over to the track to find that the event is cancelled. The event staff is unable to dry the track enough to run the event. Well that is too bad, it could have been fun.

Jose is back at the wheel and headed to Alabama the Garmin Nuvi GPS has us arriving at the hotel just before 10pm. The rain is coming down at a steady pace.
Hopefully we are headed to clearer skies, the weather report last night looked promising for the Sebring and Daytona events. It can rain in Gainesville for the drags, 1st and 2nd gears are sort of worthless and wheel spin is pretty dominant in those gears and I know the manumatic GT-R’s will have us covered on the drag strip. Perhaps they will open up the old IMSA course that used to be set-up at the track that is so well known for it’s drag strip.

Report in the morning.

Getting To Indy and Day One: Tire Rack / Autobahn Country Club

One Lap, an adventure just getting to the start.

Jose, my co-driver for this year and last is entrusted to drive the car from Greer, SC to Indianapolis where I am set to arrive around 11am on Friday and then drive the 3 or so hours up to the Tire Rack in South Bend, IN. This plan sounds good until I get a call late Thursday night… the power steering line has failed, this is the 2nd time, it blew at Carolina Motorsports Park at testing last week. Jose is at a gas station 60 or so miles outside of Indy. So the plan comes together, tow the car to the hotel in Indy (downtown) and Peter Lier would come with a replacement hose.

Not so simple, the next morning Jose calls to inform me that the tow truck operator secured the tow strap the rear lower control arm of the M3 and when Jose backed the car up into the parking spot….it broke. So change of plan. Peter would still meet us in Indy but now we would load up the M3 on the trailer and drive his GT2 to a place we could fix the car. Luckily we have the wonderful support of Karl Hugh and the whole crew from Active Autowerke who make some calls and arrange for a pit stop at Zionsville Auto, luckily right on the way to South Bend.

We arrive at Zionsville after lunchtime and Dwight gets the M3 on the lift to figure out what is going on. Luckily the rear control arm can be fixed with a welding torch, so that get’s patched up and then we decide to reinforce the other as well. I forgot to mention that the power steering line is the not the easiest part to find, there were none from Indy to South Bend, but there was one at a BMW dealer in Louisville and that is sort of on the way for one Jonathan Czarny (driving from Orlando as a last minute entry) who has taken Peter’s co-driver Ian Stewart.

They arrive at Zionsville around an hour later hose in hand! After inspecting the hose and hard metal ends it is determined that some brass welding reinforcements are needed to stop this one from failing. Part installed and slightly reshaped to avoid any further failures and we are on our way to the start. We arrive at Tire Rack around 6pm so it is too late to install the tires that will have to wait for Saturday morning. Luckily we find Brock and are able to register and grab out stickers for the event. Whew finally made it!





Saturday morning we rise early to enjoy a little Bob Evans breakfast after a late night of installing all graphics on the car and then heading over to the bar for a burger and a beer. 8am and the Tire Rack crew is ready for us, I pay for the tires as Jose oversees the tire swap to new Michelin PS2’s 295/30 all around. Wet Skidpad, we are car #6 so I don my driving suit and helmet and get in line to see what the brand new tires have in store for us with a 200’ wet circle of asphalt.





Last year we placed 2nd overall in with a .918g and the Active Auto E46M3 SC but it was running on 19’ staggered size PS2’s and a very mild suspension set-up. I figure this car should do better since it has Moton shocks, giant swaybars (not good for a skidpad) and other suspension upgrades for adjustability.

You cannot really practice a wet pad event unless you live near one so this is always a bit of a nail biter. Luckily the car seems to stick ok with fairly mild understeer and the back end stays tucked in. The only bummer is I have to run in 3rd gear which bogs the motor a bit more than I would have liked. The 4:10 rear end is good for most tracks but 1st and 2nd gear are near worthless for anything.

I find out that my overall average was .923 G good enough for 2nd Overall and 1st in class, Will Taylor busts out a .953 G for 1st Overall those GT-R’s are amazing for being so heavy.In typical One Lap fashion we load up our stuff and head to Autobahn Country Club in Joilet, Ill a mere 106 miles away.


Autobahn Country Club


Autobahn Country Club is a fantastic facility in the middle of who knows where. The grounds are lush and green from the copious amounts of rain the area has seen for the past few days. Not so fantastic were the track conditions, more in a minute.



First we need to stop for lunch at the club’s mess hall. Short of the brat’s at Road America the chicken Panini sandwich is the best I have had at a track. Now despite the fact that the Active/HKS supercharged M3 is making giant power up top this car does not have the low end torque of a turbocharged car or big block. The track conditions are similar to a wet track with some areas that have semi-normal grip levels. This is now a point and shoot event.



For the M3 to lay down a decent lap time I have to be able to carry speed & that is not happening. Bummer really because had the conditions been better the results would have been very different. I pull of a 6th Overall getting beat by some obvious cars the GT2 (great for pointing and blasting), the GT-R, 2 Subaru’s with great turbo power and AWD, and Dan in his well sorted and powerful big block Corvette. Good news it it did not hurt the overall too much.



Pack up now for the 300+ mile haul to Kentucky.

-Catesby

One Lap of America 2009

For 2009, HKS, Active Autowerke, and Precision Sport Industries, Stoptech, and Okada Projects combine efforts to sponsor the 2001 E46 M3 into the One Lap of America 2009.

Follow this blog to see up to the minute updates on the car and the drivers, Catesby Jones and Jose Collado, as they work to complete the 2009 One Lap of America. 

The event begins May 1st at Tire Rack's headquarters in South Bend, Indiana and takes drivers to:
Autobahn Country Club (Joliet, IL)
Turfway Park (Florence, KY)
Highland Rim Speedway (Greenbriar, TN)
Talladega Gran Prix Raceway (Talladega, AL)
Sebring Int'l Raceway (Sebring, FL)
Gainesville Raceway (Gainesville, FL)
Daytona Int'l Speedway (Daytona Beach, FL)
Carolina Motorsports Park (Kershaw, SC)
BeaveRun (Wampum, PA)


The Car: Active Autowerke Supercharged E46 M3

Unique for 2009 the M3 is fitted with the new HKS GT Supercharger which is making just over 11 lbs of boost, giving this M3 well over 500 RWHP to be a top 5 competitor in the 2009 One Lap.  Along with new charger, the fuel system was modified with larger lines, modified fuel rail and inline fuel pump to make sure the new Bosch 60 lb/hour injectors had the necessary fuel to match the extra boost.

A new 18 inch core AA intercooler was also added to help in consistency on the track, along with a methanol injection system to increase the fuel octane for increased engine safety.  To match the extra boost Okada projects coils were used to increase the spark for maximum  and consistent power output.

A full 6 piston Stoptech brake system was also fitted into the car to increase safety and stopping power for the track.  The massive 380mm slotted rotors were chosen to provide the maximum heat capacity for the stresses of Sebring and speeds of Daytona.

To match the increased performance of the engine and braking system, the cooling system was also heavily upgraded and includes an AA prototype radiator, BMW Motorsport 55 degree Celcius thermostat and sport fan clutch.