NASA, the National Auto Sport Association is a nation-wide road racing sanctioning body, that runs club level racing at courses around the country, and a championship event each year at Mid-Ohio, one of the top tracks in the US. Performance Touring is one of their catch-all classes that allows faster cars with less modifications to compete against slower cars with more modifications, and it is divided up into classes A through F. My car, a 1995 318ti has an average race suspension, but my strategy was to run less aggressive tires to run in the lower PTD category. The engine in my race car was pulled from a 1997 328, and with M3 cams and tuning puts down a torquey 200hp to the wheels, much more power than similar cars in this class. At 2800lbs it is a bit heavier though.
My first time at Mid-Ohio, I started out Thursday practice mired in the 1:47 range, and realized the cornerbalancing had been completely thrown off in shipping, we were nearly 50lbs too heavy on the front left...not what you want at this track, which is full of hard right-hand turns. I was third by Friday, then with a lot of hard work and late night phone calls to BTM Motorwerks in Campbell we got some problems sorted out, and was able to qualify on pole for Q2 with a 1:43.0.
The second qualifying race went well, but after some dicing late in the race, on the last lap, a 2150lb H4 CRX (Benny Pecqueur) was able to get by me in the carousel, and we crossed the finish line nearly side by side...but a win to him. With a 2nd and 3rd, but the 2nd fastest laptime, I was on the front row for the Championship race, but another twist, they decided to grid the slower PTE cars ahead of PTD for this race. At the green flag I got about half the PTE cars, but so did Greg Stasiowski, in his Miata. We diced for about two laps, him faster in the technical areas, me faster on the straights, until about 3 laps into the race I began to pull away. About 8 laps later, unfortunately, the new Toyo R888s were starting to feel the heat, and working to get by the PTE and Legends cars ahead of us wasn't doing them any favors. Greg caught back up, and we began a back-and-forth dash where he'd get by me somewhere in the technical sections and I'd fly by him between 1 and the keyhole or the keyhole and china beach. I worked like crazy to keep him guessing, trying to slow him up in the corners leading to faster straights, trying to take his momentum away, but he ended up in front of me going into T1 just as a lapped PTE car took my line away. It gave him an extra 3-4 second lead on me that I couldn't get back. I hung on for 2nd, and fastest lap, somewhere in the 1:42s. Anyway, an outstanding race at an amazing track. And a podium and winner’s circle for the team. I have to also thank LeMans Karting in Fremont, for making the trip possible.
Qualifying 2 Race Video
Championship Race Video
Championship Race Audio (Choose Group J)
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