Bimmerworld Racing debuts BMW F30 racer.

Virginia-based BMW experts head to Wisconsin looking to strengthen their standing in the Street Tuner championship while also starting the on-track development of its brand-new BMW F30 chassis

Photos: MotorsportMedia/Halston Pitman

Cheers to our friends at Bimmerworld racing for they debut of a new BMW race car built on the latest F30 chassis.  The new car will join the team's E90 based cars in the Grand Am Continental championship, Street Tuner class.

Leading GRAND-AM Continental Tire Series team BimmerWorld Racing will have two objectives in mind this weekend at the Road America circuit in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

The three-car program, which has fielded BMW’s 328i chassis built on the E90 platform since joining the series in 2010, is once again in the Championship hunt. Two of its entries are currently inside the top-10 in both the drivers’ and teams’ standings.

With seven rounds already completed in the 11-race season, Road America marks beginning of the final push towards the 2013 Street Tuner title for BimmerWorld. And with the No. 82 CRC BRAKLEEN® BMW 328i driven by Seth Thomas and Dan Rogers sitting fifth in the standings, and the No. 81 BimmerWorld BMW 328i of Gregory Liefooghe and Tyler Cooke in eighth, team owner/driver James Clay sees great opportunities ahead for both cars to improve their respective Championship positions.

“We are still nicely in the pack for the Championship race and with four rounds remaining; each race is becoming more important,” he said. “With Road America being the first of two back-to-back races, coming through this one clean and with a solid result is critical. We have a solid team and equipment, and this is our time to shine.”

How to drive FASTER: Road Atlanta

Axis of Oversteer, How to drive FASTER brings you detailed track guides and advice from professional racers aimed at advanced drivers, time trailer and club racers. You can find otherepisodes HERE

Road Atlanta in Braselton Georgia the home of Petit LeMans and another great old school and intimidating track. Built in the 1970s and eventually rescued by Don Panoz, the track was most recently part of the merger deal between ALMS and Grand-Am.

The track is literally in Bimmerworld Racing Seth Thomas's back yard so who better than a Georgia native to give up some of the secrets of the esses?


ROAD ATLANTA

Road Atlanta has always been my home track as I was born and raised 20 miles away. My very first memories of sports car racing are of going to the track  with my dad in the 80’s to watch the glory days of IMSA racing.   I still remember vividly the Camel GTP cars coming through the famed “Dip” and crest the hill at Turn 11 at speeds in excess of 100 MPH, right side mirrors about to touch the wall going under the bridge.
As a young kid I always thought about how cool it would be to drive one of these cars at Road Atlanta.

Fast Forward to 1998 when the opportunity to drive Road Atlanta arrived when I signed up for a Track Day with the BMWCar Club of America.   This was my first event with my new to me 1997 BMW M3.
I was hooked. I started looking for every track event at Road Atlanta I could attend.  Then I started racing in 2001 in a ITB 1984 BMW 318.  This car helped teach me the line around the track.  Since then I have modified the line I started learning at Driver’s Ed events to the one I use to race.  Racing for BimmerWorld in the Speed World Challenge Touring Car helped hone my line around Road Atlanta. Those cars were fast with a small tire with very little grip but the lap times were similar to a Porsche 996 GT3 Cup Car.

For my friends at Axis of Oversteer here is a detailed lap around my home track of Road Atlanta including pictures from inside the 2007 BimmerWorld BWM 325 Touring Car.

Front Straight

A lap at Road Atlanta starts with a fast run through T12 onto the front straight. This straight is not very long but it is fast as the entry speed is around 110-120 MPH. The important part to remember here is to look ahead for the brake markers for Turn 1 and pick them up with your vision as early as possible. The exercise of finding the brake markers as early as possible will help you for the rest of your lap.

Turn 1

Turn1 is a very fast constant radius right hand turn featuring both downhill and uphill changes in elevation. It slopes downward a small amount in the brake zone down to the apex and gains elevation from the apex out. It is important to take note of these changes to maximize grip and speed in all the stages of Turn1.

Heading into the brake zone for T1 the speeds will be around 120-130 MPH. Line the car up with the left side of the track. The importance here is to give yourself as much track surface as you can so you can roll big speed through Turn 1. This is the second biggest brake zone of the track but be careful not to overslow the car. I tend to give the car a big hit of the brakes on initial brake pedal application but roll off the pressure on the pedal fairly early to get the front tires ready to turn in with speed.

As I start to bleed off brake pedal pressure I slowly start to turn the car in a tiny bit early as the track starts to slope downward and the cars starts to slightly understeer. I release the brakes a little early to roll the speed down to the apex. At the apex point is the transition from downhill to uphill and the front starts to gain grip again. This is when I transition my right foot to the throttle pedal and start to aggressively apply throttle. I want to use the grip gained by the uphill run to help the car accelerate out. Once I turn in for Turn 1 I do my best to maintain the same steering input throughout the whole turn. Use the majority of the track but remember to start the setup for Turn 2 on the exit.

How to Drive FASTER: Laguna Seca

Axis of Oversteer, How to drive FASTER brings you detailed track guides and advice from professional racers aimed at advanced drivers, time trailer and club racers. You can find otherepisodes HERE

Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca California. The iconic Corkscrew, how do you drive it like a boss? We asked Grand Am Continental Cup Bimmerworld driver Gregory Liefooghe for some tips.


INTRODUCTION

Living in San Francisco, Infineon Raceway is my home track, I’m working there every week but Laguna is very close to home.

Laguna has a few quirks, some interesting and at least one, very annoying: aside from a few official race weekends, the sound limit is 92 db!  Yes, you read that right, 3db less than what is street legal in California.
If you’re going for a track day, anything goes to pass that sound limit, from "lift and coast" as you’re passing next to the sound tower between turn 5 and 6 to adding an extension to your tail pipe directing sound to the left side, away from unforgiving track workers. If you are coming from far away, make sure you are below that sound limit because the track has a strict 3 strikes and you’re out rule

Laguna is a medium speed track. Aside from the corkscrew, there are no combination corners just good old fashion sweepers. The track is safe, thanks to Moto GP coming every year, with lots of gravel traps to catch the car. It is especially hard on brakes, with no real straight to cool them down. The on-throttle time is not very long compared to a typical track and we tend to use less fuel here than anywhere else.

DRIVING CONCEPTS

Laguna has a very specific surface, it’s very slippery. If you are coming from another track with a “normal” amount of grip, you will literally think something broke on your car.  You will want to change your car set up significantly to allow the car to roll more and produce more grip.

One of the key elements here is using the whole track width including the curbs. There really is only one rubber line that you have to use in order to get the maximum grip out of the track. What makes it tricky is that you have to come close to the red motorcycle curbs without hitting them because if you do, you will bend your wheels enough that they can eventually fail a few laps later.   

How to drive FASTER: V.I.R.

Photos: Trevor Andrusko/BimmerWorld

In this installment of How to drive FASTER, James Clay will coach you around one of America's best tracks: Virginia International Raceway,  first opened in 1957 and re opened in 2000 as the first model of the now very popular "race track resort".

James is the principal behind the super successful BMW tuning company BimmerWorld as well as  BimmerWorld Racing, currently fielding cars in Grand Am Street Tuner class.

VIR is Bimmerworld's playground, it's where they test their race cars and all their go fast bits for BMW tracktards like us.  James kindly shares his knowledge of this, one of the more epic tracks in North America.

Take your time, it's a lot of detailed information you'll find nowhere else that will be invaluable next time you are bombing the esses at triple digit speeds!

Virginia International Raceway by James Clay.

Virginia International Raceway is technically my home track but it took me a while to consider it such.

I started driving in 1997, a few years before VIR reopened and even when it did, it took me a couple of years to set tire on this revived historic track. 

I had become accustomed to the tracks I had learned on and never really saw the need to go there in my younger days.  Once I did drive VIR however, I realized it was a special place and a treasure of a track.  



Many years later, armed with experience from our BimmerWorld team and knowledge accrued at tracks throughout the US, North America and beyond, I understand much better the playground that is in my own backyard. 

VIR withstands the test of time, unlike so many soulless country club tracks designed in the modern age, with little flow, maybe overly safe, VIR inspires you to drive.

  

It's a perfect combination of many types of circuits.  It is a power track, it has lots of turns (17 in the traditional Full Course, which is my focus here, but the straights are long and many fast sweeping turns are taken on the gas.  As a gauge, VIR Full takes as much fuel as any track we race on and has more time at full-throttle than most. 

It is also a handling track, very fast sections are combined with several sections of quick turns flowing together perfectly, requiring inch-perfect placement with a car that transitions well. 

VIR also demands pure guts, in a perfectly set up high-powered car with fresh tires, you can exit turn 4 flat and never lift until the quick brush of the brakes at the top of the uphill esses, just enough to enter the next-to-triple-digit, blind, diving left-hander called South Bend.  This track really does have it all.


Welcome BimmerWorld!

We are very proud to have Bimmerworld join our Axis family as a sponsor of these pages.

We, like many of our BMW driving readers I'm sure, have been James Clay's clients for years. Aside from many assorted maintenance parts, I purchased the replacement S54 for my MCoupe as well as the Performance Friction big brake kit I recently installed on the car. I've been very happy with both and so, once again I can recommend Bimmerworld to you from positive personal experience.

Next time you need a track tested solution for your BMW performance issues, give Bimmerworld a call. In the meantime go check out all the tasty bits here .

Laguna Seca Shuffle

Seth Thomas reached out to share some of his in car videos and fancy footwork with us tracktards.
Laguna Seca is good timing, CG will be there in September with IMSA GT3 Challenge and the last time he was at there it was a track day in an Acura Integra Type R, sometime in the 1850's!
This might give him a little break from all those out hours training on rFactor and iRacing.



Seth drives the Bimmerworld BMW M3 entry in Grand Am Continental Tire Sport Car Challenge.

Above, a couple of practice laps out the front, below, the foot cam also from practice. Never driven Laguna but looking at the clips it seems like a track where one needs to be somewhat patient with the throttle, is that correct?



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BimmerWorld checks in

Seth Thomas, one of the drivers for the BimmerWorld SpeedWorld Challenge Touring Car team, sent us two great in car videos and some comments.  

The first is from a race at Watkins Glen. Having just driven there it's great to see how fast a proper race car can be, they run well below 2:10 in traffic,  that's fast.  From the in-car it looks like the BimmerWorld BMW 325 handle extremely well.  Still subject to the laws of physics though and when team leader James Clay gets into turn 11 a little too late and wide,  well...look at the video. (and yes, it was 3 out of 3 BW cars)...

Seth comments:

" This is a video I am not sure how to comment. This is how you don't take T11? This is how crazy and fast the Glen can bite you? There really isn't anything that can be said about this footage other than this is nuts!"

In the second video are highlights from VIR.  Great race for Thomas who went from seventh on the grid to second on the podium behind Kuno Vittmer's Real Time Racing Acura.

 "This is what racing is all about. The only part that could have made it better is if I could have made the pass. Kuno did a great job defending and if he did make a mistake it was always in a spot I couldn't take advantage of. It was a battle of give it take between two very equal cars."