Fountain Motorsports Miami and Iowa (win)

[R4][N_M4l{3R]

I figured i'd make a quick post, thought this might be kind of neat to share with everyone. Thanks for taking time to look at something near and dear to my heart.

I crew for a BMW team In Grand American Koni Challenge. we ran an event in Miami and then an event in Newton, Iowa the next weekend. It was my first time having to do back to back races and it was a big push to keep everything running smoothly.

In Miami, everything went well for us until the event. Our cars are the 126 and 127 BMW 330i's







As you can see, the first few laps went well, as we gradually moved our cars up the field from mediocre qualifying positions.

Then our first incident, the 31 iMoto Acura TSX made contact with the 96 ROAR Mazda RX-8 and both cars spun directly in front out our 126 car (you can just see the roof of it about to plow the Mazda)



This did heavy damage to the car and lead to a prolonged pit stop in which we removed part of the front bumper cover with the help of a sawzall.

Here is a shot of a Davis Acura lifting the rear wheel up.



On the last few laps we also had a mechanical failure with the 127 car. The power steering pump seized, damaged the drive belt. This decommisoned the water pump and the engine overheated and blew. The car dropped out of the race.





In Iowa our luck would change slightly. We stayed in Miami to fix the body damage to our 126 car, but we still had a car with a blown motor. We arrived at Iowa on wednesday night and could not get access to the track. We parked our hauler on the side of the road and put our spare motor into the 127 car. A several hour job, done in the dark on the side of a lonely Iowa access road. The spare motor was in awful condition, the cam tower was full of holes (!) the oil pan had a hole in the bottom of it (!!) and after the first practice session, we dropped the oil filter and it was full of shavings (!!!) We actually ended up using JB Weld to patch the hole in the oil pan, and miraculously, it held for the race. We only asked 3 hours of the motor and that was exactly what it gave us. Our cars finished 1st and 4th, our best finishes yet.









The margin of victory was .3 tenths of a second, which is quite a visible gap (as seen here) at these speeds.



Our drivers, Guy Cosmo and David Tuaty, with the trophy in victory lane.



A few Additional photos:

The flag ceremony


Initial Gridding:


The technical section:






I didn't get my personal photos back yet or the photos from our crew so I am limited to press pictures to post at the moment. I do have a short home video taken from the pit, its not great, but probably worth posting.

http://www.youtube.com/v/qiDEImzWZDc

Also, the car that won the race was built entirely in-house. We bought it as as a street chassis with something like 130,000 miles on it and the motor, body, prep, fabrication, and even paintwork was done almost exclusively in house. Working 14 hour days really paid off !grin

Our next race is at the famed Laguna Seca track in CA. We leave May 15th.

[s62mark]

Wow! Awesome post!

You should consider keeping this thread up to date blog style. I am subscribed!

[austra]

very nice. good luck at laguna seca. one of my favorite tracks i will race on it soon for not i have to stick to portland's pir and seattles PR

[caracas_e30]

Awesome post and its nice to see a fellow grand-am crewer here on the site. I havent been able to work a race so far this season because of college but post-laguna seca i'll be around. I can def. relate to your stories of ups and downs, it happens to everyone and is a big part of the job...dealing with damage and working to get the cars back into working condition.

Good luck at laguna.

[R4][N_M4l{3R]

Originally Posted by caracas_e30

Awesome post and its nice to see a fellow grand-am crewer here on the site. I havent been able to work a race so far this season because of college but post-laguna seca i'll be around. I can def. relate to your stories of ups and downs, it happens to everyone and is a big part of the job...dealing with damage and working to get the cars back into working condition.

Good luck at laguna.

Thanks! What team do you crew for?

[legendary]

I agree - awesome post. I will definitely subscribe as well.

Great job and congrats!

[E30mademepoor]

Congratulations Guys! GAC is some competitive racing, and a win is not a trivial thing!
-Ted

[deep throat]

Subscribing.....

Awesome how hard work can pay off, hats off for not giving up even when working in the dark in an accesse road :thumbsup: