Virginia
International Raceway 500
Marcus Motorsports brought 2 E36 M3s to the VIR 500. The 2 door #9
that sits 8th in the standings and finished on the podium last race at
Watkins Glen and the new entry, a 4 door M3 #69 were looking to expand
on recent accomplishments. This was the first race in a long while
for the 4 door, so we gave it a good shakedown during the Thursday test
day, and the car did fine except for clutch and gearing problems that
were easily fixed with a new drop-gear ratio and slave cylinder.
The entire weekend was plagued with torrential rain, making off-course
excursions incredibly hazardous. Cory and Bryan, again in #9,
managed to keep the car safe up until raceday. The #69 car, driven
by Bob Chase, Chris Mitchum, and Chris Cobetto, was not so lucky.
Contact with a tire wall during practice was repaired without too much
difficulty. The damage was primarily superficial. The second
incident during qualifying, however, was fatal and the car did not
race. Just as the 20 minute qualifying session started, so did the
rain. Both BMW's suffered from badly fogging windshields.
Cory proceeded at a reduced pace, but the 4 door was brought in on a
flat-bed after the left rear corner contacted with a guardrail.
The impact damaged not only the bodywork, but also the suspension, and collapsed
the exhaust.
There was hard rain the entire evening before the race, but by Sunday
morning the rain had stopped and by race time on Sunday afternoon, the
track was primarily dry. Off-track instances continued to be a
problem, because cars slid very far on the wet grass and pulled a great
deal of mud and red clay back on the track with them. The race was
scheduled for 500 miles, but in the wet conditions and the inevitable
yellows, we planned our strategy around the 5 hour time
limit. Cory began the race, and his first stint was
uneventful, we were running in 6th place behind the Mosler, Ferrari, Zip
GT3RS, The Racer's Group's #66 GT3RS and the ACEMCO GT3RS. A
yellow just before the one hour mark proved to be a convenient time to
make our first stop and driver change. When the yellow ended,
Dobyns was still 6th in class, but the standings were a bit
different. The Mosler had made an early stop and lost many laps,
but the Marcos, who started the race from pit lane was running the same
pace as the class leaders and managed to get around us. Buckler's
#66 also lost time due to problems, so we moved to 5th in the GT
category, where we stayed for most of the race.
A second full-course yellow came out about a half-hour into Bryan's
stint, so we used that opportunity to do a quick re-fuelling and let
Bryan double-stint. Our first unscheduled stop came when a SRP
inexplicably checked-up in front of Bryan, causing contact to the left
side of the car as well as trip through the grass which damaged the
splitter. The damage to the left rear caused the bodywork to scrub
badly on the left rear tire, so we lost about a lap replacing the tire
and "adjusting" the broken fender flare. About half-way
through the race, another trip off-track finished off the splitter. The
remaining pieces of carbon were removed and the bumper was taped
on. Because of the front end repairs, only the right front tire
was changed, and Cory went out on 2 good and 2 very old tires.
Once acclimated to the newly induced aerodynamic understeer, Cory began
to turn some very quick laps and we were catching the Marcos by a few
seconds per lap. Even at this rate, we would not be able to catch
the brightly colored Mantis, but attrition is a significant factor in a
5 hour race, so we were still optimistic.
With about one half-hour left in the race, an announcement came from
Grand-Am that the Marcos had lost a wheel, and a few minutes later, the
Marcos came onto pit lane sparking from the brake disc dragging on the
ground. The Marcos team got the car back on course, but not before
losing its position to our M3. At the conclusion, the BMW narrowly
missed the podium with 4th in class, and 9th overall for our second
straight top 10. Though the podium eluded us this time, we realize
that our reliability allowed us to beat some very fast cars and are happy with a 4th place finish.
Most photos
courtesy of elams.org
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