Saturday was practice/qualifying. Track was cold and damp but not wet.
Spent some time fiddling with the car, but it was clearly a lot better than it had been - only a bit faster, but a LOT easier to drive. Tried the new Federal tyres, the Yokohama AD08s and the AO50s. Short version is that the AO50s are fastest (derr), the AD08s and Federals were about the same speed, but the Federals were easier to drive on, especially after they got hot.
Based on tread temperatures, the Federals want a LOT of negative camber, AO50s want less, AD08s in between.
With rain forecast, we decided on a setup that suited the AD08s.
Qualified 8th on the AO50s with a 63.3. Would have been a 63.9 on the Federals.
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Sunday.
Heavy fog delayed the start by half an hour. Track was wet, everything was damp.
Starting from 8th, Pete redeemed his poor start at the last Cheap Car by dragging us up to 4th by the end of his stint. Dropping to 5th with the driver change, I dragged us to 3rd before I got out.
This sounds better than it was - our pit stop/driver change strategy was always going to make us look like we were doing better than we were - the event mandated four 5-minute "fuel stops" and another eight 90-second driver changes. We elected to put the long stops off as long as possible, which meant that we'd (appear to) be ahead of the teams that spread their long stops evenly, and that we'd plummet back to our real position later in the race.
The race itself was remarkably uneventful. The Paulie had a big spin during his first stint, but didn't lose position and lost surprisingly little time. I actually saw it all - it stepped out coming down the hill and he fought the tank slapper until it beat him. It was only funny because the car was not damaged. El Wifeo was clearly much more comfortable in the car than last round, and able to hold position in every stint.
The day generally got wetter as it went on. This was great for us - both Celicas lived up to their reputation for sucking in the wet and we snuck past one, then the other.
The rain was great for us - the wetter it was, the faster we were (relative to the overall pace). In fact, very late in the race, with Pete at the tiller, the BMW was literally the fastest car on the track.
We even lead a couple of times, but it was an illusion - we'd done less stops and/or less of the long stops.
Late in the afternoon, we were hovering around 2nd or third place, but I was expecting we'd drop back to 5th or 6th by the end - with three of the cars being much better/higher spec, not-Cheap-Car-legal MX5s and GT86s, this made me very happy.
In the end, we finished 3rd on the track and 1st Cheap Car. Turns out the #75 MX5 had made a mistake with the strategy and copped a bunch of penalties, which dropped them from 2nd outright to 10th or so. And elevated us to 2nd!
In the end, we completed 284 laps to the winners' 290, which I am entirely comfortable with - it's brake calipers cost about the same as my whole car did. :)
The little BMW was brilliant. Literally didn't put a spanner on it all day. The rear muffler blew out about halfway through, but it kept running the same. The wet track meant that it used hardly any fuel, the brakes and the tyres were happy - the AD08s have now done 10.5 hours of racing in the wet and another hour or practice and are still good.
I discovered a problem with the power steering being inconsistent during my first stint. Seems that the continual steering corrections on a slippery track might be aerating the fluid. The problem came and went during the day, but was merely disconcerting, rather than an actual problem.
