I've been back at my job for two days now. I actually enjoy my work - I get a rise out of it, and I'm passionate about what I do...but man is it hard to focus after this past week. My friends will recognize this comparison - but there is a scene in the movie Fight Club, when the main character's boss is speaking, but the volume is turned down...it becomes background noise. I remember feeling this way after my first One Lap, and it's exactly the same this time. Around 3pm, I start panicking about how far I have to drive, and then I realize that the only place I have to go is the copier, down the hall.

My only saving grace is that I don't have the trophy. I don't know if I could stand it staring at me, begging me to hit the road, and go racin'. In the end, we did great. We crushed in our class- 1st place (and enough to get our picture on the front page of the One Lap website). We finished 13th overall as the 2nd fastest BMW. Without a couple of our mistakes and setbacks, we would have been a top 10 team. And with a little extra luck and with everything running smoothly, who knows...we could have been number 1. Oh well, Alex, the car owner, has the trophy, and it's a darn good thing. It could never sit still in my office. It would call to me, like an addiction. And I'd be on the road racin'

Just 353 more days until One Lap 2009!!

On the way home, the East Coast BMW's stop for gas, and a photo-op.

I got in late Saturday night and slept until about 2:30 Sunday afternoon. After a good night's sleep Sunday, I still feel like I have been beaten with a stick. 2 days in the office to get a lot of things done - the wild catch-up that a trip like One Lap demands is just nuts! I promise a proper ending to our blog shortly.

Alex and James took the superstar route and flew home. I drove the 600-some miles from South Bend, Indiana to Bethesda, Maryland, and literally just walked in the door. It was strange driving around without 200 pounds of gear and a couple of ripe smelling dudes...I spent most of my drive home on the phone with them anyways - call it withdrawal.

I'll get back on tomorrow (or Monday) once I'm well rested. For now, mission accomplished. It is GOOD to be home. Now where did I pack that sombrero...

Several points I have learned through this week:
- use all available sources of navigational information! We had the One Lap issued route book, Vic's Google maps for each leg printed before the event, and the nav built into my Blackberry (the 1 in true racecar keeping was a stripper with no nav). Anyway, that GPS nav unit in the Blackberry would have been pretty sweet to have on when we blew past our exit on the PA Turnpike at 2AM and had to drive 15 miles out and 15 back to get to our hotel.
- on the electronics side, keep them all plugged in, and all active at ALL times. Lesson almost learned with radar detector in LA now hammered home with the nav...
- we can now unload the 135 and remove the interior in about 5 minutes - I knock it out in about 10 alone as Vic and Alex walk the Beaver Run track. Slamming it back together and packing up only takes about 10 minutes. Efficiency is king and we are able to add nice chunks of time to get extra sleep this way. Which we never took advantage of.
- as awesome as sleep is, it takes a back seat to fun and the end result defined our trip. We wasted a lot of potential sleep time with fun, side trips, antics, etc that I would never have skipped. This approach however does not wear on the group through the week and 8 days is oddly enough seemingly the breaking point!

Well, Beaver Run was cold and damp - we have definitely gotten back to the North now. This event was Alex's turn to strap on the helmet and jump in the fray. After replacing the rear shock mounts. he was kind of back to an unknown setup now that we had regained all that control in the rear. I'll let him report on the results, but we did well and maintained position.

I was given the auto-X duty and after walking the course several times, I was ready to rock. Alex pulled the car off track from his session and we immediately went to the auto-X with hot tires and brakes - good. I launch out of the starting line and immediately want a redo - not that I did badly, but I really just wasn't fully prepared to go. Not a huge deal, I get a second run and this is my safe one. Or at least that is what the book said and I assumed. Mental note - James is not an autocrosser - stick to the high speed stuff!

Our day ends for all intensive purposes and night begins on the transit back to South Bend. We stop at Great Lakes Brewing Company and meet all/most of our BMW compadres for dinner and a few beers - great stuff! Vic and I then begin to push Alex's buttons for the remaining 250 miles, and he thought he left his two kids at home...

We were supposed to go out and celebrate Saturday night after the awards ceremony, but everyone seems to want to pack it in early, so we arrive at the South Bend hotel with only a skid pad requiring a 5 minute drive to the event and holding the wheel to make the car go in a circle. Both directions...and starting at 9AM. With this in mind, most drivers in the event take advantage and convene in the lounge.

Our #34 car enthusiasm continues and we dig in hard for a 3AM night topped with a wonderful Steak & Shake meal. Alex just happens to wake up at 8:30 which is roughly enough time for us to throw on clothes and make it to the skidpad. It would have been relatively idiotic to miss the final event. We do unfortunately miss the large group photo, and apparently the group screening of Vic's late night phone messages to everyone whose cell number he had.

We unpack and pull the remaining interior apart in under 5 minutes and Vic is on! His first direction leads to over 1G! Not bad for a street car on now worn-out tires. Reversing direction Vic is able to average 0.97G (or something close - I am too tired for fact checking). Some of the very light cars do well (including an almost 1G Yaris!!!), but we maintain position.

The final spoiler result - we pull in the 1st in class trophy, and finish 13th overall. It is painful to know that without my Texas off we would have been 8th overall and the fastest BMW as well. I will have more of a summary later. For now, I am home (flew, sticking Vic with the responsibility of driving the car back) and I am headed to a long nights sleep!

Things have been pretty busy here. Tuesday night was one of the longest we have had, but I actually magaged to get some sleep. This was our No Problem transit where we slipped through New Orleans for some food and a drink or two - One Lap is supposed to be fun and I just don't buy into making it a job!



To backtrack just a tick, things went well at No Problem. The 135 was quick and more importantly consistent. We were sticking in our 10-15th slot range that the car probably deserves on its own merits with the other Hp cars around. And Vic got to change his forst brake pad with minimal supervision - joyous day!



As we blaze across the country from LA to SC for the Carolina Motorsports Park event, I first give staying awake a good go. We have been through multiple cases of Redbull at this point. At a fuel stop, I locate NRG potatoe chips. They are not a trip sponsor, so I feel completely comfortable in saying they taste roughly like sucking on aspirin. Behold - the dinner of roadtrip champions...



This is our mess of mobile electronics. Laptop, video camera, cell phones, and radar detector all have their slots - except for the brief period that I unplug the radar detector on Alex to plug in my cell - 5 minutes later he is bound for TicketTown. I hang my head and the next day, Harold (friend from New Orleans) gives us a splitter!



We get to CMP and things are good. I have already won a race here this year, even handicapped with my friend Jim as a co-driver, so I think chances are good! We can't quite stick the car in the top 10, but again, we may not have the overwhelming V10 Hp to do it so the fact that we get close is rewarding. Again, consistency is king and ignoring my nasty off at TWS in the rain, we are plugging along nicely!

CMP has always been brutal on brakes. In this event, I am overly happy to have the Performance Frictions on the car. Even though we aren't hitting 150 three times per lap like Road America, we are KILLING the brakes. After the first three lap session, I roll in and park the car. The tires are too hot for Alex to check pressures and in the process, the center cap falls out on the ground, melted. HOT.

Join the BimmerWorld 135i from the driver's perspective, starting with my idiotic 100MPH off at TWS in the pouring rain. Alex reverted to his 8/10ths credo for a while, but I snuck it back up to 11/10 while Vic distracted.

BimmerWorld TV - In-Car Videos

We get one good night's sleep, and get lazy on the blog- sorry!

Carolina Motorsports Park went GREAT yesterday. James rocked it: fastest BMW both sessions. That afternoon, we hit up the BMW Performance Center in Spartanburg, SC for an extended autocross type event. James had another great run - fastest BMW again, and 6th fastest overall! My Salazar hero Brian Hair would have been 2nd fastest overall if he didn't clip a cone to incur a 10 second penalty. The drive from South Carolina to Virginia International Raceway was relatively short (about 250 miles) so we got in pretty early. Instead of blogging it up, we enjoyed a beer or five with some of the other racers.



Today, James kept up the superstar pace at Virginia International Raceway. 3rd and 4th in the morning overall (North and South courses), and 13th on the high-HP friendly Full Course. His stellar driving has us back in the hunt for a top 10 spot. Our Bimmer brethren also did a bang up job at VIR. We're tightly packed in the standings, and I'm sure we'll all be dreaming of Top 10 finishes tonight.



Now, we're headed to Beaver Run, outside of Pittsburgh, PA tonight. We made a quick stop at the BimmerWorld shop on the way up to have them look at our rear shocks. The stock shock mounts have deterioated from our abuse and the ONE's been a little unstable, making it an adventure to handle. Jason Marks, the BimmerWorld crew chief nailed down a solution, and sent us on our way with new mounts. We immediately felt the difference. James surmises that Marks' improved mounts would likely have given us a few seconds on each track. Would have been nice to have them at the start, but that's the drawback with being the first to do the research and develpment on a new car.

While at BimmerWorld, Alex and I snuck off with the keys to James' Turbo-Uber-Wagon. It's a 600-HP monster that was featured in Grassroots Motorsports last month. Apparently James thought we were joking when we asked him to take the wagon. I could have sworn that he gave us permission. That's my story at least. Our spirited drive to get burgers was more like a NASA rocket launch. Holy schnikeys - the massive turbo spooled up with the fury of a jet engine and slammed us into our seatbacks. For a moment, I thought we were going to hit hyperspace or go back in time...Alex was probably screaming for help, but I never heard him. We must have been going faster than sound. We rolled back into the shop sheepishly grinning from ear to ear.

I clown around with Rob at the shop - you can see the Turbo wagon and James' new M3 in the back.

Alex or I will likely drive Beaver tomorrow. We've both done well there in the past in Spec E30's. The contest is really tightening up, and the pressure is on. The BMW's have been doing very well, and we're all clumped together, leaning on the top ten. Bragging rights are also on the line. With the forecast calling for rain, it should be a wild ride. Spirits are high in the mighty ONE, and we can't wait for tomorrow.