buzen

Okay, come spring I have decided to sell my current car and get a track car. However, I am trying to decide between what car I should purchase next, and of course, since I am posting her I am interested in the rx7 (fd). But I am also interested in an E36 M3 ... and part of the reason being that then I can be a member of the BMWCCA and go to track days to fully exploit my car. Question is does the rx7club have a similar program where we meet together for track weekends?

Thanks,
Shawn aka boozin

afgmoto1978

iTrader: (6)

Not locally unfortunately, I always wondered about that.

PercentSevenC

That'd be nice. But no.

buzen

Hmm I wonder though that if you are a bmwcca member, could you still attend in a non-bmw car? If so that would be pretty darn cool.

afgmoto1978

iTrader: (6)

I do track days with the Porsche, Alfa and Audi clubs. As long as you have a membership you can bring whatever car you like. Alfa club is the easiest going group out there, but have a stupid no passing on the right rule for the front straightaway at PIR, so does the Audi club. You have to wait for the driver in front of you to pull over.

buzen

sweet thats sounds like that solves the issue. awesome...now hopefully a good red fd shows up for sale around spring time Thanks, guys!

Blake

If you do decide to go with the BMW E36 M3, there is a former Grand Am Cup car available in Seattle. This is the car I crewed on for years and years, which we raced as recently as a couple months ago at the PIR Enduro (finished 3rd overall). It's been on every major track in the country, like Daytona, Watkins Glen, Road America, VIR, Thunderhill, Fontana, Homestead, Phoenix, Portland, Mid-Ohio, yadda yadda...a lot of racing history, which adds to the coolness, IMO. Too old for Grand Am Cup now, but kicks *** for club racing. Not sure what Mike, the owner, is asking but I could give you his number and you could work something out.

buzen

Is it streetable or track only?

Blake

LOL! No. It has been a professional-level dedicated race car since it rolled off the assembly line and went straight to the fabricators. It's now ready to retire to the laid back world of club racing, but it will never see the street again.

woundup7

iTrader: (1)

Funny you should ask, My wife and I are members of the bmwcca, I asked if I could bring my turbo FB on the mountain twisties drive this last summer, and was politely told no, I would assume the same holds true for track events. I have never owned a FD, but we do own two bimmers, Buy the M car, any M car will do, Know why, because they dont have apex seals, LOL

Cgotto6

iTrader: (8)

You can get in very easliy with other clubs lapping days. Down at Pacific Raceways in Kent I have got in with a porsche club and an Alfa club.

cartapex

I too have driven my FC in the BMW days..they don't care as long as you have $$$$ for the track day. I cannot imagine them turning anyone away at PIR. Maybe if they had a max day with BMW cars, but that never happens. Even if it does, stick around and at least one of them will throw it in the fence, thus creating an opening for you. Besides, those BMW cars are heavy and sloppy.

MWMburton

why wouldnt they let you bring the turbo fb?

Boswoj

I'm both a member of ICSCC ("Conference"), the local racing organization and the Puget Sound BMW CCA and instruct at high performance driving events for both. We haev a shared pool of instructor with the Porche club and are welcomed pretty much at Mustang club, Corvette club, Alfa club, and even Speedware track days. I think the rules are pretty uniform. All cars are welcome, but if the school is full priority will be given to the proper Marque. The Northwest has quite a large group of high performance enthusiasts, so the schools are often quite well attended. BMW CCA novice schools, held as a two part experience with skills training at Bremerton Raceway followed by a day of instructed lapping at Pacific Raceways always fill up very quickly. It is a very well organized program run by an excellent group of people who are very passionate about driving. You pretty much need to be signed off by somebodies novice program if you want to run with any of the major groups so sometimes the best bet is to attend one of the ICSCC novice racing schools where an actual Novice Racing Licence can be obtained. The instructors are typically holders of a ICSCC senior race license so they have some great skills and experiences to share. Cascade holds two at PIR, and IRDC holds another two at Pacific so there are good oportunities to obtain the credentials that will then be well accepted by the other clubs for lapping days. If you have any specific questions, post them here and I will do my best to answer them for you.

Blake

I've been to both a Cascade (ICSCC) school at PIR and an IRDC school at Pacific. Both are great. One interesting difference is that the IRDC school included a lot of "skills" development, like slalom course, threshold braking and spin control, that the Cascade school lacked. On the other hand, the Cascade school had a lot more track time and focused on flags and other useful things for those actually getting a license. Both were excellent.

As for which car to get, I think the FD is fun but the BMW M3 is more reliable, has plenty of power and awesome brakes right out of the box. Additionally, if you ever want to race competitively, you have a lot more options with the BMW. The FD is pretty much limited to ITE, which is an anything-goes class that features mega-$$$ Porsches, modified Corvette Z06s and the like. If you have money to burn, that's where you want to go. An M3 can run in more SCCA and ICSCC classes, as well as BMWCCA events. Easier to drive, too. A full race-prepped car is not necessary for club lapping days and schools, but it sure is safer, less compromised and ready for a leap to club racing. Just my humble opinion.

Boswoj

Honestly, if you want a BMW track day car you would be better off with an 87-91 325i (E30)than with an E36 M3. It is true that an E36 M3 is much faster on track than an equally prepared E30. They are also MANY times more expensive to operate and prepare. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of E36 M3's out there lapping and they are very good cars but an E30 can be obtained and prepped for lapping days for well under $5000 and are pretty cheap to operate and hard to break. In addition, the E30 is very forgiving at the limit and that limit can be reached before getting into some seriously ridiculous speeds which is something that cannot completely be said about an E36 M3. An E30 can also be developed to be raced in the Pro-3 class which runs VERY respectable times, and boasts some of the largest groups and best racing currently in the area. An E36 M3 is so fast and capable out of the box that it can easily fool novice drivers into thinking they are fast rather than the car being fast. When they finally do approach the M3's surprisingly high limits they lack the experience of stepping over the limits and recovering in a car that has more gradual breakaway characteristics and is more forgiving like an E30. Get something that will leave money in your pocket so you can afford to spend more on going to driving events, properly maintaining your car, and developing yourself as a driver. I learned to slide a car before I was 16 in a 1963 Chevy Nova station wagon. It would do the most beautiful four wheel drifts around 90 degree corners at the safe a managable speed of 20 mph. All cars have limits and you can learn just as much from cars that have low ones as cars that have high ones. Difference is that you usually learn about twice as quickly in lower limit cars becauce the overall speed is so much less intimidating and the penalties for making a mistake are so much lower! Don't worry about how fast the car is, first order of business is to develop yourself as a driver. If you need an example, catch me at the next BMW CCA event and I will give you a demonstration ride in one of my E30's. They are tons of fun.

Blake

What you say is totally true. We are always getting customers who are novice racers wanting more power and we usually tell them their money would be better spent on track time in a slow car. It's not the danger element but rather the discipline instilled when you have to manage your resources and use all the track...not to mention the passing and being passed skills.

As far as the E30 vs E36, I agree there too. However, those E30s are drying up fast. My buddy, who is a professional race car fabricator and BMW nut, tells me he is having a real hard time finding inexpensive E30s lately (in the last 6 months). That's not to say there aren't a bunch of halfway decent drivers out there, but the bargain basement race car shells are about gone as far as he can tell. Perhaps it's just a seasonal thing, I don't know... Anyway, if the orginal poster is planning to race at all, he is far better off buying an already prep'd car than building one himself. Usually a used race car will come with a trailer of spare parts, which will put you way ahead of the game. The E36 M3 race car I was talking about is definitely not a car for a novice, but it is something totally prepared and ready for any serious club racing for the right person.

Boswoj

I wholeheartedly agree. I have preached the gospel of "buy, don't build" for new racers until I am blue in the face. I bought a 1st generation Rx-7 that was prepared to a level somewhere between Pro-7 and ITA for less than $2500 and ran it for the better part of two years (on the tires that came with it!) and learned a huge amount! I am the first to point out that I would probably STILL not be racing if I had decided to build my own. Now, a few years down the road I know I am in for good (you don't really know that when you start!) and have dumped plenty of money into modifying that car, and am building another as we speak. Get into a beginner car that allows you the time and money to develop yourself as a driver. It may get into your blood and you will know this is the hobby for you. On the other hand, you may discover that you don't love it enough to justify the HUGE amount of TIME, EFFORT, and COMMITMENT it takes to do this and you won't have flushed your life savings finding out, because even at the lowest level racing is foolishly expensive.

The fantastic success of the Pro-3 class as well as the fact that the E30 stands up as a pretty dang good daily driver even by todays standards is making them a lot harder to find than they used to be. Luckily, I have one that I use to instruct in that I have had for several years and then found a slightly scruffy but running and driving '88 325iS on Craigslist last year for 600 bucks! It is undergoing a Pro-3 transformation as soon as I can dedicate the time required. The deals are out there, you just have to be patient and put in the effort. They are definitley a lot scarcer these days, and there is plenty of competition for those that turn up so be prepared to jump on a good one.

Oh, and I agree - Heltons car is scary fast, and not at all the kind of thing someone should learn to race in!

Blake

And it could be way faster. We've been running junkyard Euro 3.2L engines (from the UK) from day one, plus the car is about 400 lbs too heavy. We were just a privateer team with modest goals, so it works fine for us. But that car could win the Portland Enduro outright (again) if someone put some time and money into it. I will say that car is bulletproof! Never blown an engine. We retired the first junkyard engine last year, after years and years of racing (since the early days of Motorola Cup!). Apart from "racing incidents", there was virtually no maintenace. We did overheat a lot of diffs at Daytona on the high banking when the diff cooler was damaged (some bright person mounted it inside the bumper, so the smallest contact would crush it) and we lost a transmission once in the heat at Phoenix, but otherwise we just show up at the track, bleed the brakes, run it for 3+ hours and lock it back up in the trailer for the next race (or body shop, as the case may be). The car is a tank, as well. Check out the attached pictures: Before and After one race (granted 25 hours long). Also another shot of typical race damage that we always have to repair between races. Always comes out real clean for the next race, though.

buzen

Hey guys, thanks for the enormous amount of info! Do appreciate it. Unfortunately, at this point I am not interested in racing partly because of financial reasons, but more importantly because yes, I am not sure about myself racing on the track yet. I adhere to the develop the driver before forking over money on a car as well, however, I am just excited by the rotaries and wanted one to tinker with rather than getting involved in racing. Of course I want to take it to the track every now and then to let the beast out...but only in HPDEs.

I guess depending on the school/track other marques are allowed in club track days, so thats a good thing. I will keep in mind to sign up early and get to the track in case someone flakes out. Thanks again.