Monthly Archives: February 2021

2002, M3, Projects, Swift

Update on OFF-SEASON PROJECTS

We have a bunch of projects going on this winter with the cars. Some are repairs. Some are for fun. In no particular order here is what’s happening.

Street 2002- This project has been going on for 3 years. It is one of those projects that has taken much longer than I had hoped. It is now finished and on the road. I’ll do a separate post on it soon.

Koepchen 2002- This winter I decided it was time to refurbish the Koepchen 2002. I have been racing it for about 12 seasons and it was beginning to show its age.

After being stripped down the car spent several weeks at the body shop being cleaned up, straightened up, and made to look new. It received aa new coat of paint from the belt-line down. Here’s how she looks:

Back from the body shop and ready for re-assembly.

M3- We have been waiting for weeks for parts for the transmission in the M3. You may remember that it broke at the September race at Road America. The shift linkage broke and fell on the spinning output shaft and tore things up. The repair parts come from England, and between COVID and the mess in the shipping world it is taking forever to get them.

Fortunately the internals of the transmission were not badly damaged.

NSU- I found a guy who can build a race engine for the NSU. He lives in Eastern Canada and grows grapes for wine. What a coincidence! He has been busy preparing the parts he has and ordering parts from Germany. Unfortunately he has been experiencing the same delays in shipping that we have had with the transmission parts for the M3.

Used barrels, pistons, and heads from Switzerland. Thomas will perform some magic on them.

The block assembly is just about done, along with the installation of the timing chain housing, timing chain, and tensioner. I hope to have the engine back and in the car in time for the June SVRA race at The Ridge. The car should be much more competitive with its new, full tilt race motor.

CSL- Luigi has been taking the winter off. He has been on display in the showroom of BMW of Salem. He had a fresh engine built over last winter and only had a few laps at Oregon Raceway Park. He will need a race prep and he will be ready to rumble.

Swift- The swift had an engine change over the winter. The previous engine had an unknown number of races on it and it was beginning to loose power. I found a spare YAC engine and had Jay Ivey rebuild it for me. It has now been put in the car and is ready for the first race in March.

I have attached our proposed race schedule for this coming season below. Hope you can make it out to an event to cheer us on.

2021-Racing-ScheduleDownload
2002, History

New Car Coming!

I must be crazy. At a time in my racing career when I should be finding good homes for my cars and slowing down I purchased a new car.

The car I found is one of the 3 GS Tuning Team cars from the 1976 DRM series in Germany. The DRM (Deutschen Rennsport Meisterschaft) was the predecessor to the current DTM series. It began in 1972 as a series for Group 2 touring cars and Group 4 GT cars. Races were divided between over 2 liter and under 2 liter divisions, with separate championships for each.

Jörg Denzel piloted the car to several top 10 finishes in the 1976 DRM season.

The car was driven during the 1976 season by Jorge Denzel. Jorg began racing in 1970 and moved to the DRM series in 1975 driving a BMW 2002 and finishing 10th in the championship. For 1976 he hoped to build on his success and so he moved to this BMW 2002TI prepared by the well respected GS Tuning company.

He had an up and down year with several DNF’s and several top 10 finishes. His best finish was 3rd at the final race of the year at Hockenheim. He ended up 15th in the championship. You can view the results from the full 1976 season here: http://touringcarracing.net/Pages/1976%20DRM.html

After 1976 the FIA changed the rules for Group 2 so the car was put into long term storage. It was seen again in 1995 when it was sold out of the collection of Mr. Klaus Rath to Mr. Rudiger Julius. Mr. Julius began a restoration and had a new Wagenpass issued for the car in 2004. The car was sold again in 2002 to Christoph Haas who drove it in a few hillclimbs between 2003 and 2012. In 2015 it was sold again to Christian Traber who commissioned a complete restoration of the car. Mr. Traber raced the car a few times between 2016 and 2019 and vintage racing events at SPA and Monza.

The car has its original M12/7 engine developing just over 300 HP.

I saw the car advertised last year in Switzerland. When I first saw it the price seemed a bit high so I didn’t pay much attention. A few months later I saw it again and the price had come down to the point that I sent an inquiry to the owner.

I also began to research the history of the car and the more I discovered, the more I became interested in adding it to my collection. After some back and forth negotiation we settled on a fair price and the car became mine.

The car still looks great from its restoration in 2015-16.

The car is currently sailing up the west coast of Baja California headed to Long Beach. From there it will sail up to Seattle and should arrive the end of February.

The car came with 2 sets of wheels and a few spares. It also has a current FIA HTTP. It has several unique features including axel driven alternator, 4 wheel disc brakes, rack and pinion steering, and 10X15″ wheels. It weighs 895 kg, or about 1900 pounds. The M12 develops about 320 HP so it should be quite a quick car.

The axel driven alternator set low in the car to lower the center of gravity.

I hope to race it 4-5 times this season. I have entered it in the Rolex Reunion races, as well as the Sonoma Speed Festival. Hopefully you can come out to one of these events and see the car in person.