I finally got the chance to do something I’ve always wanted to try- endurance racing. It was a real gas!

Terry Forland, Jim Froula, John Hill and I all went together and bought a 1989 E30 BMW Pro3 car. It was an old war-horse needing a few things, but E30’s are pretty simple, and the rules for Pro3 require only factory parts. We also purchased a couple of extra sets of wheels for the car.

We ran it in the Cascade 8 Hour Race in Portland last October as a warm up for the 25 Hour race at Thunderhill in December.

The 8 Hour is run without the chicane on the main straight. I used to race PIR in a lay-down go-kart without the chicane, so I quickly adjusted to not having to break at start-finish. The biggest problem for me was heading off into turn 1 in the pitch black at very high rates of speed. It was my first experience driving in the dark, and the lack of visual cues required some re-thinking.

All in all we had a good race. We finished 4th in class and 14th overall. Here’s the video from that event:

The 25 Hour Race at Thunderhill is held the first weekend in December, and it is a really big event. There are typically more than 50 entries, with several big teams and big names that run it each year- Randy Probst, Al Unser Jr., and Kurt Bush were all entered this past year.

Walking through the paddock Friday afternoon before the race was eye-opening! The amount of equipment, people, and support stuff was mind boggling. It was not like the vintage races we usually attend. One team had 3 Radical sports racers they were running, with 6-8 mechanics for each car. Mazda had 3 diesel 6 series sedans entered that were being driven by a collection of their dealers.

We arrived with the Racecraft semi loaded with our car and a spare E30 we could use for parts if the need arose. We figured that if the weather turned nasty the semi would also make a dry place for the team to hang out. As it turned out, that was never an issue.

Once the car was unloaded and our pit area was set up the crew set about giving the car a last once-over. Brett and the crew spent time checking everything over one last time- the suspension, the brakes, the engine, and even the lights. Once that was complete it was time to tech and qualify the car.

We had a bit of a problem in tech. When the officials looked over the roll cage they found some areas that had not been welded fully. These were up on top of the main hoop, and on the outsides of some of the diagonal braces. These were areas that you could not see, but had to feel by reaching in with your hand.

The crew surged up and down the paddock looking for someone who had a welder. Finding one, Jim folded himself up and jammed himself into some tight corners, and welded up the bad places. The car went back to tech and passed.

Qualification was on Friday night, and it began pouring rain about 30 minutes before we were scheduled to go out! I was chosen to qualify the car because I was the only one lacking sense. Being the old guy on the team has some advantages.

The big plus for me was that the rules required the driver that qualifies the car also has to start the car in the race on Saturday afternoon. I ended up qualifying 43rd out of the 56 cars entered.

A big problem I had to deal with was the fine spray put up by the cars with ground-effects. With our bright headlights it made it almost impossible to see. Quite a thrill!

This time of year it gets dark in northern California by about 4:30, and the sun doesn’t come up until after 7:30 AM. This means you spend a lot of hours racing in the dark at this event.

Thunderhill doesn’t have any lighting around the track itself. They have pretty good lighting in the paddock, and they rent portable lighting for pit-in and pit-out, but the rest of the track is pitch black.

The lights you have on your car are critical. We had invested in a powerful LED light bar we could mount on the hood, plus a set of aircraft landing lights in place of the factory high beams.

Qualification showed me that we needed to adjust them all slightly for maximum vision, but in general they were pretty good.

Saturday dawned clear, dry, and cold. The norm for this event is pretty nasty weather, with cold temps, lots of rain, and even snow some years. Looked like we had gotten lucky.

The cars are required to be on grid and ready to go by 10:30 or you have to start at the rear of the field. There is a lot of pomp and circumstance before the race with military color guards, bag pipes, and dignitaries walking up and down the grid of cars.