Race Report 2003 - Round 2

Date: April 13, 2003
Venue: Dolaca Motorplex - Brownfield, TX
Results: 1st in Class (3 total), 2nd in Street Tire (27 total), 3rd Overall (32 total)

This was our first event at Dolaca Motorplex.  Dolaca Motorplex was originally an alternate runway for Reese AFB, and it's out in the middle of nowhere.  The site is a combination of concrete and asphalt, and the course area is approximately 2000'x150', with the majority of this area being concrete.  The 150' width makes for a narrow course setup, but Sean Bentley was able to setup a great course and we had great weather to go along with it.

I've recently acquired some new racing wheels and tires.  A fellow M3 autocrosser in the Houston area upgraded to wider racing wheels and tires, and offered his previous MiM Brock B3 17"x8.5" wheels (a BBS RK look-a-like) with freshly mounted Ecsta V700 235/45R17 tires mounted on them to me for a VERY good price.  The 8.5" width of the wheels will make my car inelidgible for Stock class, but the offer was too good for me to pass them up, so I'm going to be running in Street Modified sooner than I thought.   My car would actually be legal for B-Street Prepared with these wheels, but the PAX for Street Modified is better than BSP and there's usually more competitors in Street Modified at our events (there's usually no BSP cars at our events and I would get bumped to SM anyways).  I hadn't received the new wheels and tires yet for this event, but decided to go ahead and run in Street Modified on my factory wheels and street tires (even though my car is currently legal for Stock class), so I could see how my car would do overall with the new PAX.

To my advantage, a few of the top drivers were not at this event (Steve Sucsy in his '00 Honda S2000 and Hisham Besheer in his '00 Mitsubishi Eclipse GT), so I actually faired pretty well.   I ran nine runs at this event, and I'm glad I did as my fastest run was on my 9th run.  The M3 was running and handling really well, especially for being on street tires.  I was able to win the Street Modified class, take 2nd place in the Street Tire class, and I even got 3rd place for the Overall event!  My fastest run was also the 2nd fastest raw time of the day, and the fastest raw time set by a production car (basically, the only one faster than me was Sean Bentley in his 125cc shifter kart)!  I have to give kudos to Jimmie Huffman in his '96 Mustang GT running in STX, as he had a great run that got him first place in the Street Tire class and second place for the Overall event.

My next event will be at my long-time favorite, Miller Field in Dalhart, TX on May 18th.  I'll have my new racing wheels and tires for that event, so it should be very interesting to see how well I do with the new setup.