As you may know, it is SEMA week and many of the worlds performance leaders have converged in Las Vegas for one of the worlds greatest automotive shows. Many shops have closed, as they have sent there staff their for the weekend. We will be posting pictures as soon as the team gets back. If you’re at the SEMA show, look for Nero in the crowd, I’m sure he will be lurking around.
Many people know Titan Motorsports from our history of drag racing and modifying Toyota Supras for straight line performance. While the Supra and quarter mile does play a significant role in our day to day operation, outside of work we are always looking to have additional fun driving or improving on our personal cars. Recently we have begun tuning European cars for our personal enjoyment and have been bit by the road course bug. As a result we have been enjoying DE or Drivers education events on our weekend, looking to improve on the most important aspect of a modified vehicle, the driver.
This weekend I had the pleasure of driving to Savannah, GA for a Driver’s Education event with the Porsche Club of America Citrus Region. Roebling Road is a 2.02 mile road course in Bloomingdale, Georgia. It is a great track to learn on as it has plenty of runoff and only 1 wall should a mistake occur. The PCA offers instructed driving sessions in a lead follow format that allows you to push the limits of your car, while minimizing risk of damage. It’s a great learning experience mixed with classroom education and on track driving with a qualified instructor sitting riding with you at all times, allowing you to learn the track lines and your cars limits. Once you have been signed off after a few events, Solo driving is available in a number of groups from intermediate solo to advanced solo.
I attended the event in my fiancés SMG BMW M3 (e46), which I had tracked once before in Sebring. This was my first time at Roebling and I was fortunate enough to have a great customer of ours Joshua Barnes as my instructor. Joshua has been driving Roebling for years in his Supra which we have modified to compete with Porsches. He is a great driver, and an even better instructor. From the first lap to the last lap I saw constant improvement, and by the end of the weekend I was maintaining great speed and had a great idea of the race line. I also had the pleasure of taking a few laps in the passenger seat of Joshua’s Supra. The car performs unbelievable and outperformed most of the Porsches and other prepped race cars on the track (with the exception of a Zotz prepped older RSR style race car with 14” slicks on the rear). Anyone who does not believe a Supra can handle the twisties needs to take a good look at Joshua’s car, and if you’re at the same event maybe even a ride. It’ll change the way you think about a race prepped Supra, and when you’re ready we can even build one for you.
A special thanks to Barbara for the great hospitality all weekend, Lauren and John for the great pictures and company. We are hoping to do another event at Roebling early in February, and I would love to see more of our friends and customers get involved and experience how much enjoyment and personal satisfaction a great day at the road course can bring.
You may think that Titan Motorsports is only interested in drag racing. But you’d be seriously mistaken. Every employee here is a motorsports fan. F1, ALMS, NHRA, NASCAR, ADRL, Grand Am, WRC, and even DTM are some of the series that come up in conversation around the office here weekly. It has been said that even the Brothers Grim in the office have been spotted running their BMW’s at Sebring.
If you have never seen an American Le Mans Series (ALMS) race in your life you are seriously missing out. Here in America there are plenty of series that offer good competition, and some entertaining racing but in the ALMS it’s a different story. There are no “spec” racecars, a la NASCAR, there are no teams with one single driver for the car, there isn’t even a single race fuel used. Anything from typical race gas to E85 and Diesel are used. There are also 4 different classes. So for any one race that you watch, you are actually watching four different ones, each with their own storyline and each has something different to offer.
To make it easy, I’ll classify them by speed, fastest to slowest. LMP1 is the fastest, followed by LMP2, GT1 and GT2. Obviously the LMP cars are prototypes, purpose built racecars. The GT classes are filled with cars that anyone can buy (well kind of). Corvettes, Porsche’s, Vipers, Ferrari’s, and Aston Martin’s are but a few examples and if those names don’t get your blood boiling, than you may need to turn in your man card. BMW will also make their series premier next year with an M3 in the GT2 series.
It really is an experience to go to one of these races. The drivers are all very open and friendly, and the pits/paddock area reminded me of an NHRA race. Fans are able to just wonder around checking out the cars, and chatting with drivers and mechanics (provided they aren’t busy of course). Hell about 10 minutes before the start of the race I was standing next to a couple port-a-potties and out comes Alan McNish and Johnny O’Connell. Emanuele Pirro was out the night before the race just chit-chatting with fans for about 30 minutes.
As I alluded to earlier there is a very diverse field. Each car looks, smells and sounds different as it goes by. The drivers hail from several countries around the world. Audi’s R10 and Peugeot’s 908 HDi cars are virtually silent as they pass leaving only a slight whistling sound of the diesel turbo’s and wind barreling off the wings. Corvette’s scream by letting out a burl that makes it sound as if the engine is a 15 liter V8, and Acura’s whip by with a sound that is so unique I’m struggling to find a good analogy for it. Day even turns to night by the end. It truly was a 10 hour assault on the senses.
There is never a lack of action either. There are more passes in one lap at an ALMS race than you may see in an entire race from other series. The different classes on the track at the same time can make the race interesting as the faster cars us the slower cars as picks to gain an advantage, but of course the traffic can also be a severe disadvantage at times. Many lap times varied as much as four seconds because of it.
We camped at the track for the weekend. There is something going on at the track almost all the time. Not only is there the ALMS race, but there is usually a bunch of other series running that same weekend. There was also IMSA Lites, Star Mazda Championship, Cooper Tires Atlantic Championship, and the Volkswagen Jetta TDI cup going on this particular weekend. Racing action galore, and we never left the track once.
The story of this race had to be Alan McNish and his LMP1 Audi R10/TDI. No more than 40 minutes from the start, McNish gave his Audi a little too much gas (on cold tires) coming out of turn 4 on grid formation laps and lost the rear end sending the R10 into the wall. The front end was destroyed and the rear was damaged as well. McNish was devastated telling his team on the radio “I’m sorry lads, I’ve damaged the car badly. But if you can rebuild it for me I WILL win this race.” It took the Audi team 45 minutes to get the car put back together and McNish was on his way already 2 laps down.
By the end of daylight the race was running down and things were getting interesting. McNish, Pirro, and Capello had made up their two laps and were sitting in third right behind the Peugeot 908 and their teammates Lucas Luhr and Marco Werner in the #2 Audi R10/TDI. After a restart, Christian Klien piloting the 908 got a run on Werner down the backstretch and overtook him as they entered turn 10. The 908 was able to pull a one second gap on Marco Werner. McNish had pitted for fresh super soft tires at the last caution and was soon hounding Werner to get by so that he could have a crack at the Peugeot. It seemed that Werner digressed (the team was hinting at him to let McNish go; scanners are great!) and let McNish go on the backstretch and within a lap the Audi and Peugeot were locked in a bumper to bumper duel. Using the traffic perfectly McNish got a run on Klien coming out of turn 5 and used the traffic to his advantage perfectly picking Klien into turn 6 and passing another lapper into turn 7 to give him a 1.5 second advantage onto the back straightaway. Klien wasn’t finished with the Audi yet though. A few laps later he got a run on the Audi on the backstretch. He made a fatal error however. Due to his inexperience at the track (it was his first race there) he seemingly forgot that there was a slight kink to the right at the end of the backstretch. McNish positioned his Audi right in the middle of the track and when they got to the kink, Klien put the left side of the 908 into the grass at 195mph. That was all that McNish and Audi needed to seal up the victory. Klien never got close again.
The drive that McNish put in was the stuff of legend. You’d have to see the replays (probably available on You Tube) to see what I’m talking about. He was driving like a man possessed in the final hour.
If you’ve never been to or seen an ALMS race I urge you to. If you are a fan of motorsports you will love it. The next ALMS race is October 18th from Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, another one of America’s premier racetracks. Unfortunately it is going to be tape delayed on NBC, but that shouldn’t stop you from watching…
On Saturday, some of the Titan crew visited Orlando Automotive Club’s monthly Cars & Cafe meeting in Lake Mary. This meet has seen an increase in attendance since its inception, and this month’s meet was no different with a reported 193 cars. All makes and models are invited to attend, and the variety of cars allows everyone to find something they like in the crowd . This monthly meet happens at Colonial TownPark in Lake Mary from 9AM to 11AM on the last Saturday of every month. For more details visit http://www.orlandoautomotiveclub.com/
Last evening Nero and his girlfriend Deepal, my fiancée Jessica, and I had the pleasure of attending the Cars for the Cure Event Preview being held at Starports gorgeous hanger at Sanford Airport. We take great pride in giving back to the community as much as we can, and Cars for the Cure allows us to mix our greatest passion and our desire to help others. This annual event occurs the first Saturday in February and benefits the American Lung Association. There were a few open spots inside the hangar so we decided to bring our project 996tt to display; we were in great company as you can see in the pictures below. Lamborghini of Orlando had the new LP 560 and as well as a RR Drop head Coupe. It was a treat to be able to sit in and enjoy Lamborghinis newest model, and while similar the upgrades over the previous Gallardo truly make a grand impression. We plan on experiencing the performance of these cars in November at a private track event and look forward to future blog postings after that event. Overall it was a great social event, and a great start to the months of planning that will lead to another great Cars for the Cure event in February of 09.
The 2008 BMW Poker Run presented by CFBMW.org and Angel Flight Southeast should be judged as a huge success. Well over 90 BMW’s and a few other odd make cars made their way to the Orlando Executive airport to partake in a worthwhile charity event and to have some fun causing havoc on the streets of Central Florida.
Of course a poker run isn’t a race. Instead it is a point to point drive picking up cards at each stop to put together the best poker hand. That is what decides the winner of the event. Someone forgot to tell Bottle “like you drink out of” Deliwala and Nero “Danger Zone” Deliwala. Testosterone, competition and the battle for title of fastest Indian took charge.
As soon as we got our directions to the first start it was go time. The 335i quickly made its way to 90 mph on the short access road from the parking lot. This stop was Lollicup (I think) by University and 436. Luckily for us, we weren’t the only ones flying at mach speeds through the roads of Orlando. The competition was fierce as evidenced by one competitor going over the center median in his E46 M3 and dragging some of his car while making the U-turn to get to the stop.
We noticed on the way that there was some sort of heavy object knocking around in the trunk. The plan was for me to jump out, get our first card and for Bottle to get what turned out to be a case of water out of the trunk and plan our exit strategy. He was still in the trunk as I got the card and came running out screaming at him to get his ass back in the car. First card down, next stop…Fields BMW.
Since Bottle knew the area quite well, we were sure that we could find some sort of shortcut to one up the competition but we just didn’t know where to do it. The route took us through downtown Winter Park with some agonizingly slow traffic lights and an accoutrement of traffic. We did manage to find a shortcut and get in front of a couple cars by the time we made it to Fields BMW. Although a short leg, we did almost catch some air at an intersection on 17-92 by the Winter Park Village. Second card down; on to the third stop…some random parking garage downtown.
This was the normal leg consisting of a short jaunt on I-4 and some 120+ mph speeds. Whoever was on the road probably didn’t have enough time to even see the black blur go whizzing past them. Once downtown their were cops crawling everywhere so we had to slow to normal speeds for safety and to not get a damn ticket. Someone was even unlucky enough to get popped by the cops, I think it was the same dude who hopped the center median. Oh well.
Once we got our third card it was go time. This stop would take us out in to the sticks to a vineyard and some highway driving on 408 and the turnpike. We still haven’t really seen Nero yet on our trip. We got on 408 and the pedal was mashed as we did some reasonably fast speeds on the 408. It was here that I was treated to a quote from Bottle. It started to rain, so I said I wish I had put rain-x on the windshield, then I looked up and saw that the rain was already removing itself from the windshield.
Me: “Oh you already have rain-x on there, sweet…” Bottle: “We don’t have rain-x, that’s just how fast we’re going“
Since I travel the road often I warned Bottle that the cops are pricks and often drive unmarked cars. So he took it relatively easy and I use the term relatively loosely. In hindsight he probably shouldn’t have because by the time we made it to our exit, Nero and Brian went flying past us at speed with their fingers flying out the window. (wish I had my camera out, but I was too busy white knuckling the “oh shit” handle) Turns out our plan call and “warn” them about cops was foiled because they didn’t buy it. Hey, there was no rule about playing dirty!
Now off the highway, and catching up to some of the “slow” group, we were about fourth in line on the county routes of central Florida. Since we had our destination programmed into the GPS we had a decision to make. The directions we received and the GPS we conflicting on the best way to get there. We opted to follow the GPS and it turned out to be a good decision. By the time we got to the vineyard we were easily 10-15 minutes ahead of everybody. However, we had no clue of that fact.
The last leg of the trip was pretty uneventful. We didn’t see another BMW from the group once. However I was treated to some more white knuckle moments as we picked our way through some rural twisty roads. I had to remind Bottle a couple times that I had kids and our second passenger Boost Bear even took a water bottle or two to the head in the back seat. We also passed a Porsche club out on a leisurely drive. From what I hear they weren’t too impressed with the speeds they were witnessing from the BMW drivers. Piss on them, at least the cars were being driven to their potential (the BMW’s that is).
This is where the second memorable quote from the day came.
Me: “So Bottle, IS this the ultimate driving machine?” Bottle: “ANY car I’m behind the wheel of is an ultimate driving machine…” Nice…
The only other moment we had was on 441 on the way to the finish. A pickup truck pulled out in front of us causing us to have to slow considerably. Baadal and I were cussing up a storm because the driver of the truck obviously didn’t pay attention to our closure rate on him (do any drivers?). It actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because there was a cop just on the other side of the road. Had that truck not turned out in front of us, I might have had to finish the run and then go bail Baadal out of jail.
It was clear sailing from that point, we pulled up to the finish. We got there so quickly that they were still setting up the scoring table to see what hand we had. We almost got an Ace high strait. A, K, Q, J and the last card that I personally picked from the deck…a 4 of spades…W.T.F!!
Nero and Brian would arrive about 10 minutes later and as soon as they stepped out of the car the shit talking began and the excuses were flying. “We had to get gas!”, “We stopped and got water!”, “you started before us!” etc etc. Hey, whatever they need to say to sleep at night. Wasn’t our fault they started the event with only ¾ of a tank of gas and used it all (the route was 96 miles). They ended up beating us in the poker hand with a pair of 4’s. Pricks. At least Wes Bourne stepped up and beat them with a pair of 10’s so we didn’t have to hear about how they are king.
All in all it was a very fun event that went towards a worthwhile charity. Hopefully Titan Motorsports will take part again next year, provided we weren’t banned after this years display. JMO
