Hay everyone, longtime lurker, first tiem poster. Love the show. Anyway...
TL;DR: Hi, I'm Festus, and (apparently) I drive like an asshole. I'm really sorry. Seriously.
I had a fantastic time at Sears this weekend. It was my best finish by far (9th) since my first race (ever) at Sears earlier this year, I set multiple personal best laps, and had an absolute blast driving my old street car around one of the best tracks in the country for hours on end. Frankly, I was a bit crushed and mortified to find this thread full of people who I might have pissed off this weekend.
Note: I am not the donut guy; that's another member of my team. If he wants to pipe up, that's up to him. My only stints this weekend were in the yellow M3 (#13) from 12:30-2:30 on Saturday, and 12:30-3 on Sunday. If you were on-track during those times and felt like I drove like a dick, I sincerely, truly apologize.
First, answers to a few questions I've seen posed above:
An E36 M3 for $500? Blow me, dude.
Yes, it's an M3. Yes, it was purchased for $500. Trust me, I sold it.
I bought the car in sorry mechanical shape in 2007 with ~200K miles; it'd had a rough life at the hands of a previous owner. I put in a new diff (you should see the shredded bolts that came rattling out of the old one), clutch, suspension & brakes at all four corners, motor mounts, fluids, belts & hoses, etc. But, while I owned it, it lived on the street in SF, then spent some time in a covered (but leaky, outdoor) garage - the body was rough. After failing smog three times in two years, CA blessed it with gross polluter status, and I'd need new cats before it could be registered. The E36 M3 has two cats that run $1800 (each) from BMW, and need to be welded in. Tack $4-5K onto the on-the-road price of a 20-year old BMW with 220K+ miles in rough cosmetic shape, and you get a pretty valueless car. After putting so much love into her, it broke my heart to see the car just sitting in my garage, useless. When a friend offered $500 to turn it into a race car that I could drive, I jumped at the chance. This was my first weekend racing my old car. Tell me you wouldn't.
Why didn't an M3/those dicks get any penalties?
The car was assessed penalty laps during BS. It's an M3, are you kidding? I wasn't there when it went through, but it got more than a handful. As far as other penalties go, I was flagged once during my time in the car (Sunday early afternoon), but was released by A-judge-who-I-shall-not-slander since it "was our first of the day, and we'd had a clean race so far." Other than the original subject of this thread, I believe one other team member was BF'ed, but I was with two teams this weekend, and wasn't always in the Rubber Chicken pits. As far as cheatiness goes, the only non-OEM parts I put on the car when I owned it were Konis, since they were way cheaper - and better - than replacement Beemer parts. I know the new owner put some coin into the seat, cage, wheels/tires/brakes, but there's no blower V12 under the hood or anything. We had a theme, but some of the drivers felt it was too much (yes, even for Lemons), so we abandoned it - come find me in the pits sometime.
So, my driving.
I know this car extremely well, and am intimately aware of its capabilities and limits. In my previous Lemons races (Sears, Butt-Turrible, & T-Hill), I wasn't able to drive anything nearly this fast, and I was reveling in my chance to truly enjoy the limits of a car I'd driven on the street for years. Seriously, a full drift all the way through the Carousel, passing slower cars on the outside? Dicing with an equally-matched competitor, lap after lap, trading spots as you chase each other around the track? GO.
Since I know the car, the fact that I made significant contact twice this weekend is inexcuseable. In the first, I was coming up the inside line into T1 when the black coupe to my right came in quickly onto the line quickly - that cost me a mirror - and one on the front straight when I got squeezed out between the drag strip wall and another car to my left. I was not rear-ended in T11 (that might have been a teammate), and don't believe I made any other noticeable contact during my time in the car. In both of the above instances, I thought I had a clear lane, and watched it disappear while I was in it. My driving was too aggressive in general, and I probably shouldn't have taken the chance either time. If you were in one of those cars, I owe you an apology now, and a six-pack at our next race.
This is my first year, so more than anything else, I'm concerned with making a good impression and doing well by the people that brought me into this series. Most of them have years (or decades) of experience racing & winning in everything from Lemons to the IOM-TT and they're all outstanding people who I respect a tremendous amount. My goals on their team(s) have been:
1. Don't get hurt - done
2. Don't destroy your car - done
3. Don't embarrass yourself or your team(s) - yeah, so.
The third point initially signified a desire to be fast enough to hang with my more experienced teammates, and I achieved that - I get around a track okay. However, this weekend has shown me that's only half of it - I've clearly come up short in the "don't be a dick" area. Though a halfway competent driver, I am still an inexperienced racer, and need to be a bit more polite if I want to remain welcome in this sandbox.
I don't know about the rest of you goons, but I'm here because I FUCKING LOVE THIS. If it has a motor, I'm in. I live and breathe motorcycles (MSF RiderCoach, USA Cycling Motoref, tour guide, photomotor), have drifted, jumped, or otherwise hooned every car I've ever owned (and many I haven't), and have been a car guy since my diaper-clad ass put grooves in my parents' floors drifting my plastic banana-car. When I found out that I could honest-to-god race cars in my backyard for relatively short money, I never looked back. Because racecar.
Though I'm irreverent as hell, I do take this seriously. The woman who rode the del Sol into the T1 wall is a teammate, and my heart dropped when I heard she was in it (she's okay). When my other team's car was involved in a pretty bad accident this weekend, the first thing I did after confirming our driver was okay was to go to the other team's pit and immediately apologize for ending their race (through their apparent skill and impressively crude efforts, we didn't). Two bad accidents is too many. I love driving hard, but I don't want to be responsible for hurting anyone, including myself.
So, if I ever piss you off out there, come find me and let me know. I'm wearing a purple Crown Royal suit with flames on it; if you can't spot me in the pits, you probably shouldn't be in a race car. I'm still going to do my damned best to pass your ass in whatever car I'm driving, but I'll do so cleanly and respectfully.
As someone said above:
Look to Cerveza or Eyesore (or MTGT for that matter) for how to drive a fast car through traffic. If done right, you don't even know they're there until it's done.
Challenge accepted, slowpokes. See you out there.