Today was this "big" day at Daytona. I have always wanted to race at Daytona since I was a little kid. Every time I planned to do a SCCA or NASA race at Daytona something came up, and I have yet to be on this famous race track. So, after a great night of being home for Cinco de Mayo and sleeping in my own bed we were ready to roll! Last night we went out to a block party near UCF for Cinco de Mayo, had a few Coronas, tequilla bombs all in the great spirit of the Mexican holiday. The M5 hadn't been washed since the begining of the event so after about an hour at the block party in Waterford Lakes we got to work. After the success at the drag races and the excitement of going home in the middle of the One Lap, we forgot to eat dinner! I only realized it when I was a few minutes away from Orlando! lol. There's so much excitement that it takes over your hunger.
Tom Long joined us for the run to Orlando, some friends met us up there, and we all partied it up for an hour and headed home. My wife, Rachel was soo great as to make everyone panini's for dinner and lots of other goodies. After we all ate, we split up to do different duties, Rachel and my buddy Sam washed the ultra filthy M5, Andrew worked on down loading the videos, and I focused on getting a few laps in on i-Racing (the best racing simulator used for driver training) at Daytona. Andrew had issues downloading the videos, and I needed some driving coaching around Daytona. Andrew took a few laps to show me the optimal line and I got behind the wheel to get some practice in before I actually have to do this in real life where the consequences of a mistake are steep. I got 20 or so laps on the Sim and I felt pretty comfortable... It was time for bed. Got to bed and crashed out, it was already 3:30am! Crap, we had to get up at 6am and prep for the 1 hour + trek to Daytona, which in normal circumstances is your regular "long" one hour drive, but it was more like a hop, skip and a jump.
Since Daytona is pretty much our stomping ground within just a few miles outside of Orlando, a lot of friends came by to cheer us on. Thanks to everyone that came out-- it was great!!! After lunch there was a full parade lap around the oval. I took my aunt Ela and three of our friends in the back seat around Daytona for a first hand view of what Daytona is all about. Driving on the high banks it feels like you are driving on a wall, literally. I had to keep the car over 75 mph to keep it on the banking without having to counter steer up. We got a little bit of distance from the cars ahead of us and took the M5 up to 145 around the oval with 5 people in the car! Everyone in the car riding along had a great time and left with big smiles!
Courtesy of Pat from the parade lap:
Some visitors!! (Thanks for coming!)
Daytona - 1st RUN:
I went out for a recon lap and boy is Daytona a very big and intimidating track. The road course is a 3.56mile beast. I took all the coaching from Tom Long and Andrew on i-Racing and went for it! The downward compression going around the high banking is almost unbelievable! The M5 ate up Daytona and we had to do good here since we are just behind the S4 Racecar in points for the class lead. Going around the tri-oval was almost scary, umm actually it was scary and the car felt unsettled going around Nascar turn 4. I just had to keep my foot planted on the throttle as the mph kept rising, and the speedo needle started to work it's way to the maximum value on the speedometer. I saw 182 MPH as I glanced down before the start/finish line and I was still at wide open throttle. Hustling the big M5 down from 185 mph or so is just nuts. The rear end got light under braking big time. Big Snow White did VERY well around Daytona's enormous high bank turns and I was Full Throttle 90% of the time where the M5 shines with it's BMW Motorsport developed exotic V10 powerplant. We finished in 6th place over all and 1st in class. Way ahead of our competition, lap times were right around 2:10's-2:11's.
Here's Andrew in between runs taking a nap:
Daytona - 2nd RUN:
I wanted to take it up a notch for the 2nd round. At this point I was freakin' exhausted from getting less than 3 hours sleep last night, doing the morning session and running around in the midday Florida sun. I was drained. Oah well, time to get out there and give it another shot! Since the track was hot and temps were up the track didn't have the same grip that it did in the morning session. For the infield kink, I did a light lift and went back to full throttle in 4th gear, oah crap, I pushed wide all the way to the outside yellow curbing and lined the car up in a straight line just in time for the braking zone. I kept at it and had a great run into turn 1 braking later than ever, the rear end started dancing around and this big girl dancing around at 180mph is a freaky feeling. Got her slowed down and hit turn 1 on the spot. Ended up running faster than the 1st session, even though the track had less grip. The last run was a total time of 6:36.4396, a second and a half faster than the 1st session of a 6:37.887. That was good for another 1st in class finish and 7th Overall, the Z06 Vette driven by Dick Clark moved into 6th position, with a 2 second total advantage.
We said our good byes to friends and family and packed up to head out to South Carolina. We just got into SC at 8:30pm, a good nights rest at last!
Tom Long joined us for the run to Orlando, some friends met us up there, and we all partied it up for an hour and headed home. My wife, Rachel was soo great as to make everyone panini's for dinner and lots of other goodies. After we all ate, we split up to do different duties, Rachel and my buddy Sam washed the ultra filthy M5, Andrew worked on down loading the videos, and I focused on getting a few laps in on i-Racing (the best racing simulator used for driver training) at Daytona. Andrew had issues downloading the videos, and I needed some driving coaching around Daytona. Andrew took a few laps to show me the optimal line and I got behind the wheel to get some practice in before I actually have to do this in real life where the consequences of a mistake are steep. I got 20 or so laps on the Sim and I felt pretty comfortable... It was time for bed. Got to bed and crashed out, it was already 3:30am! Crap, we had to get up at 6am and prep for the 1 hour + trek to Daytona, which in normal circumstances is your regular "long" one hour drive, but it was more like a hop, skip and a jump.
Since Daytona is pretty much our stomping ground within just a few miles outside of Orlando, a lot of friends came by to cheer us on. Thanks to everyone that came out-- it was great!!! After lunch there was a full parade lap around the oval. I took my aunt Ela and three of our friends in the back seat around Daytona for a first hand view of what Daytona is all about. Driving on the high banks it feels like you are driving on a wall, literally. I had to keep the car over 75 mph to keep it on the banking without having to counter steer up. We got a little bit of distance from the cars ahead of us and took the M5 up to 145 around the oval with 5 people in the car! Everyone in the car riding along had a great time and left with big smiles!
Courtesy of Pat from the parade lap:
Some visitors!! (Thanks for coming!)
Daytona - 1st RUN:
I went out for a recon lap and boy is Daytona a very big and intimidating track. The road course is a 3.56mile beast. I took all the coaching from Tom Long and Andrew on i-Racing and went for it! The downward compression going around the high banking is almost unbelievable! The M5 ate up Daytona and we had to do good here since we are just behind the S4 Racecar in points for the class lead. Going around the tri-oval was almost scary, umm actually it was scary and the car felt unsettled going around Nascar turn 4. I just had to keep my foot planted on the throttle as the mph kept rising, and the speedo needle started to work it's way to the maximum value on the speedometer. I saw 182 MPH as I glanced down before the start/finish line and I was still at wide open throttle. Hustling the big M5 down from 185 mph or so is just nuts. The rear end got light under braking big time. Big Snow White did VERY well around Daytona's enormous high bank turns and I was Full Throttle 90% of the time where the M5 shines with it's BMW Motorsport developed exotic V10 powerplant. We finished in 6th place over all and 1st in class. Way ahead of our competition, lap times were right around 2:10's-2:11's.
Here's Andrew in between runs taking a nap:
Daytona - 2nd RUN:
I wanted to take it up a notch for the 2nd round. At this point I was freakin' exhausted from getting less than 3 hours sleep last night, doing the morning session and running around in the midday Florida sun. I was drained. Oah well, time to get out there and give it another shot! Since the track was hot and temps were up the track didn't have the same grip that it did in the morning session. For the infield kink, I did a light lift and went back to full throttle in 4th gear, oah crap, I pushed wide all the way to the outside yellow curbing and lined the car up in a straight line just in time for the braking zone. I kept at it and had a great run into turn 1 braking later than ever, the rear end started dancing around and this big girl dancing around at 180mph is a freaky feeling. Got her slowed down and hit turn 1 on the spot. Ended up running faster than the 1st session, even though the track had less grip. The last run was a total time of 6:36.4396, a second and a half faster than the 1st session of a 6:37.887. That was good for another 1st in class finish and 7th Overall, the Z06 Vette driven by Dick Clark moved into 6th position, with a 2 second total advantage.
We said our good byes to friends and family and packed up to head out to South Carolina. We just got into SC at 8:30pm, a good nights rest at last!
No comments:
Post a Comment