I’ve been helping Dave Kern build his BMW rally car whenever I have free time. Unfortunately that isn’t that frequent! It has been teaching me a lot about cars and letting me do one of the things that I enjoy the most, figuring out solutions to problems!
Dave has about 16 months into this car, I have maybe a few weeks, so I can’t take a whole lot of credit, but I was down there the other night and we got some of the “you may actually drive this soon” parts put on. Brakes are bled, the engine is all ready, pedals are in, skid plate mounts are in. It is actually looking like we may run this and stretch its legs this Sunday!
A quick note about Dave. Man can that guy drive. It is pretty incredible really. You don’t really have a solid appreciation for what a good driver can do until you are riding along and seeing all the things they can do with a car. Last year he drove my car at Georgetown and I watched as my car did things that I didn’t know it was capable of. I am pretty sure that even Subaru may have been baffled. This year I rode in my car again with him at the wheel at BWDS and again, wow. How does it do that! However one of the most awesome experiences was in Mitch Williams rally car. Dave threw that thing around and at one point said “yeah, that is about as far as I would want to push someone elses car.” I was thinking “well that is about 45% more than I would want to push my own car! Allison, his wife and co-driver is brave enough to ride with him and incredibly skilled at keeping him on track. I suspect we will see her behind the wheel of the Bimmer soon! Check out their website in my links, you’ll be following along with their adventures soon enough.
When the pedals are in, the steering wheel was installed and we could sit in the drivers seat. Well your imagination puts a track in front of you. Your peripheral blocks out the shop walls and you create the sense of speed and suddenly you realize that you are making the engine sounds you imagine will emerge from the hood. Yes, we both did this, but Dave quickly remembered…. TURN THE KEY!
This year has been quite the year for speed on the ice for me. I have raced nearly the entire season at Georgetown and now I have had the chance to run up at Bridgestone Winter Driving School as well!
Georgetown is a pretty amazing thing to have nearby. The Our Gang Ice Racers provide very affordable racing very nearby. Heading up there takes an hour and the racing usually lasts all day. For only $20 on the race days and $5 on the fun days, well it is pretty tough to find any racing that comes close to that type of affordability. We’ve been having a lot of fun getting to know the crew up there as well, attending meetings and just basically hanging out with the guys and gals that run the racing up there. What a great group! I’ve had a great time getting to know them, racing with them and working with them on new ideas. With Jon’s suggestions they have started making some longer tracks which everyone seems to be enjoying. So now we have half to 3/4 mile tracks to run rather than 1/4 mile tracks, combos of sweeper corners and tight hairpins and man they are fun! Check out a video from the last race of the year.
Since I know some people in the racing world I happen to know some instructors at the Bridgestone winter driving school. Since I attended the school back in 2007, I was invited up there by Dave Kern. We headed up with two sets of studs, one car and a closing day at the track.
Bridgestone is a pretty cool place. They create the same ice tracks each year with the help of Gordon Speck, their track manager. It is all laid out by GPS and it is an amazing site when seen from the air. Unfortunately I don’t have access to that video to share with you, but hopefully I can dig something up for you in the future. In the mean time check out www.winterdrive.com for their information.
Bridgestone teaches winter driving skills to students that are novices up to advanced drivers. They do their entire school on bare rubber with Bridgestone’s Blizzak tires. They also do truck and trailer driving classes which are pretty incredible to see as well. We were fortunate to be able to try out the studded tires on the track. From what I understand this is either the first or one of the very few times a studded tire has ever been run there. I can tell you that it was an incredible experience!
We bolted up the tires on my car and we bolted up Jon’s set on Mitch Williams rally car. WOW what an awesome time. The studs hooked up like crazy, the track has big walls of snow which provide a bit of intimidation, but man, when you nail a corner it is just an incredible feeling. The studs scuffed up the track a bit and combined with the temperatures make the Blizzak’s hook up even better. HERO GRIP! So I bolted my studs onto another car to let others have fun with them then ran my Blizzak’s and had a blast as well!
In addition to driving the track it was incredible to be able to ride with some awesome drivers. Dave Kern took me for a spin in the Rally car and what an awesome experience. We hit 90+mph on the ice and the confidence and control that these guys have is amazing. Matthew Johnson was out in the rally car as well and it was amazing to see him tearing up the track.
I am sure you are wondering, where is the video from Bridgestone… well look no further! Click play and enjoy. Keep your eyes peeled for some rally cross videos this summer.
It was a beautiful day at Gerogetown Lake this week. Sunny, warm and the wind was only intermittent. We’ve actually had some really nice race days up there even if the first days were hovering around-50 with the wind chill!
This week I talked my co-worker, Szady, into coming up to race. He has an Audi S4 and we talked about winter tires for a while until he decided to go with the Bizzak’s. So what better way to test them out than to come up and race on Ice! He ended up winning his class!
I had the good fortune of winning one of my two classes this week. We had a subaru studs race and a Pro Street race on a big long track with lots of speed. I got a bit hesitant with the speed on some of my laps. Wow it sure seems different when you are hauling at 45+mph on a glaring sheet of ice into a hairpin turn. It is a LOT of fun though and I really didn’t get to comfortable with it until my victory lap… which seems a bit funny now that I say it.
Jon got 3rd in pro street studs, which is a solid accomplishment as well. I went out in the first round!
This time however we added more cars to the video. More jeeps, bronco’s subaru’s audi’s. Everything! Mix all that together with a bit of rocket man and tada! You have a cool Our Gang Ice Racin’ video.
Another weekend in Georgetown and another fun time. We headed up there to compete on the ice with the Our Gang Ice Racing club and had a blast!
I always feel as though I finally have the course dialed about 2 hours after my race. But I love going out there and doing lap after lap to go play on the ice. I am also glad that I haven’t gone out in the first round yet this year which at least gets me a second run. Hopefully at some point I will have some familiarity with their course setup and be able to start visualizing the fast way a bit sooner so I can be more competitive!
It has been great getting to know these guys too. It is a bunch of people who are basically just looking to have fun. I can appreciate that because that is my whole motivation for going out there. I just want to have fun! Sideways action and “fast” speeds always bring a smile to my face!
This time I made another video. I am fortunate to have a friend in the film world. I chatted with him last week and he gave me a few process ideas, pointers from a guy who uses Final Cut Pro for his job. “Naw, don’t use that format, use this format,” was how the conversation went. Use this format, do it like this, it will turn out awesome. So I did and I did a bit more research in color correction in FCP and a few other things and I am really psyched with the progress. I love making these videos because they all help me learn the program and the motivate me because I am so excited to actually work with this video. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this weeks installment on Youtube.
Yeah, ice is cold. Maybe too cold… But wow is it fun!
New years day we headed out to Georgetown to go racin’! The Canadian Conti Ice tires we have spec’d out to fit into the mens pro street class and we were able to race with the big boys. The day wasn’t without controversy, but Jon and I were, eh, less than impressive on the ice this time out. Maybe it was the recorded -20 degrees, maybe it was all the hairpin… Maybe it was the pressure. Who knows, but I ended up with 5th place and Jon, well I don’t know what he got. I did win $5 though with my certificate of AWESOME.
The day was very cold, we were able to get out and race however and unfortunately there were no practice runs on the course. It was a fun course however and definitely challenged me. The course was what they refer to as a “coke bottle” which should describe the shape well. At each end there was a hairpin and this was pretty tough. Without using the handbrake we had to rotate the car around this pin and I can honestly say that this isn’t something I have tried to do before. My first round I was doing horribly, but the guy I was racing hit a cone so I won by default. My second round I did fantastically, my turns were perfect and as I crossed the line I let the back end get away from me… and I hit a cone! My racing day was over, but we waited around and once the Pro Street class was done everyone moved to the Cheaters course. Jon and I spent another hour and a half driving the course. We got lap after lap on the course and had an amazing time. We are a bit competitive, but we mainly just want to go have fun, go sideways and just play! Of course, as you are aware, we will take a GoPro everywhere we go…
Another fun day on the ice, we are looking forward to more races soon!
I’ve been living vicariously through some of my friends by helping them with their race cars. Mostly I’d say it has been Dave and Allison Kern. Originally I had helped them with some work on their Pikes Peak Hill Climb Evo. I did a bunch of work on their aero package, but also ended up welding some parts as well as installing and fitting body parts as well. It is fun to get to work on this stuff. There is a lot of problem solving and a lot of building, creating and working with your hands. Currently they are working on the creation of a BMW rally car.
The BMW will be used as a 2wd Rally car. It is cheaper to run and compete in and with a privateer budget that is good news. It is also going to provide the opportunity to run in Max Attack which is a 2wd specific rally event that will give them good competition in an affordable package. If all that wasn’t enough the BMW will be set up so the drivers seat is able to accommodate a shorter driver or a taller one…so Allison now has the ability to drive!
The car has been caged by SCR Performance but Dave is taking on the majority of the rest of the work. The beginning steps (beyond all the research that he has into figuring out the parts for the car) is the underbody. The BMW isn’t exactly designed for Rally, so you have a couple options. Paint the car and replace the chassis when it gets wrecked or try to protect the chassis. The plan for this car was to protect the chassis with Kevlar and Macropoxy. Macropoxy is a paint that is a good barrier against rust and light impact. Kevlar, well that takes the bigger dings and dents well. The EVO Works well with the Kevlar under body, but it is separating a bit in places, so this time we tried a few different tricks to try to keep the body and the kevlar together.
The Kevlar now has epoxy that has been seeped into all the welded seams so it hopefully gets more adheason, also we put chunks of Kevlar into some of the gaps between seem welds so those will hopefully give the kevlar even more places to adhere.
It is a messy process, so we only have a few photos of this part. This is what the end result looks like. Almost time to flip the car over and start putting parts on it!
I’ll be helping them out whenever I can, so keep an eye back and I’ll post up some progress as we go. In the mean time you can check them out on Facebook
I have known about Ice racing in Georgetown for years but this year was the first that I have participated. I was fortunate to have a good friend, Jon Coln, that was motivating to the point of letting me borrow his wheels/tires to go play on the ice. So lets give a bit of an idea of what Georgetown Ice racing is all about.
The Ice racing at Georgetown is organized through a group called Our Gang Ice Racing. They are a group of Jeep guys/gals primarily that have been racing up there for many years. This is a close knit group of families that all race together. Mothers, daughters, fathers and sons all have turns behind the wheel. Everyone has responsibilities besides their races as well. There are people who set up the track, others who manage registration, some who run the races and others who help keep everything organized. Overall it is a fun group who just want to go out and play with some big kid toys. I have been going to the meetings as well and this is a really fun group of people. I thought I’d feel like an outsider, but they were incredibly welcoming and pretty much excited that I was willing to go to their meetings.
When Jon and I went out there the first time we were met with a bit of disbelief. The suby with the studs was a big hit with the locals. We would pull up in line and the officials would mention that “everyones asking about the ‘subaru with the roof rack on it.'” Every time we stopped the car people would come and check out the studs and ask us where we got them. The next time we headed up both of us had studs and they got a bit pickier about the legality of them by their rules. The studs that Jon had were a little outside of the rules which indicated that in a 7-1/8 inch circle you may have 20 studs or less. Jon’s wheels had 30 studs in a 7-1/8 circle. It seems that at first they were willing to let him race anyway since the tires were only 5 inches wide and all the comp Jeeps have tires that are 12 inches wide. In addition they figured the Comp jeeps are lighter with more horsepower and purpose build braking helps them get around corners faster. Unfortunately one of the other drivers questioned the tires and based on the count he had to switch out. This put him and I on Continental Contact Ice racing tires. These tires have 17mm studs (rather than 20mm studs) and have them at a density of approximately 15 studs in a 7-1/8 inch circle. We are going to propose an amendment to the rule at the preseason meeting however that asks for a count of the number of studs contacting the ice rather than the number within a set circle. (the comp Jeeps have, at my count, 36+ studs on the ground at any given time)
Ok enough of the technical talk. Lets get to the fun stuff!
Friday I went up to the lake for their Practice day aka a fun day. The practice days are just a free for all. You can race anyone and you can run as many laps as you can bring yourself to run. My co-worker Stephen came out. He had raced once before and has gotten the bug as well. This time Dave Kern came up to join us. Dave is an actual professional driver and a very impressive one as well. In addition to those two guys Matt from BikeRadar came up to join us as well. Matt was doing a review on a set of Dugast studded tubular tires and this was a fun way to compare them. We arrived up on the lake and switched out tires. I had a chance to go ride along with Stephen in his pristine 325ix. This thing is so nice inside and out and it is nearly 25 years old! After racing in the bimmer we took my car out for a spin. the studs just tear into the ice and it is quite an eye opener when you experience it for the first time.
Eventually Jon got out on the ice as well and we had a chance to race, then Dave arrived as well. Dave didn’t have a car to drive so I let him drive mine around. He was great with tips and pointers every time I drove. and when he drove it was fun just to watch the lightning fast movements that he was doing to constantly control every aspect of the car. We battled with my ABS and hoped to turn it off, but unfortunately had trouble getting that to happen.
Throughout the day I was playing with my new GoPro HD camera. This is also a fun toy…for me at least. But I had a good time finding angles that would look good on camera. I put together a little video from that footage as well.
I put a quick vid up of Dave driving as well, this one you can hear the engine just screaming!
At the end of the day I had logged over 9.5 miles of driving at full throttle on the ice. This is in 1/4 mile increments since each track is probably 1/4 to 1/3rd of a mile. We maxed out at 35.1 miles an hour as well, which I would say is pretty impressive considering how small the courses are and how tight they are as well.
We even had a couple fans. While I was in the pit I talked to a couple people who pulled off the highway to come check it out and were drawn to the fast subies on the studs!
This was the last weekend for racing this year. There is actually plenty of Ice up there, but this was the championship weekend so the next race will be on New Years day…I CAN’T WAIT!
Dave has about 16 months into this car, I have maybe a few weeks, so I can’t take a whole lot of credit, but I was down there the other night and we got some of the “you may actually drive this soon” parts put on. Brakes are bled, the engine is all ready, pedals are in, skid plate mounts are in. It is actually looking like we may run this and stretch its legs this Sunday! 
