I was recently pondering how many of the sports I've played throughout my life are judged subjectively, and how style plays a huge role in them. For instance, in mountain biking, I'd rather be known as a steezy rider (for lack of a better term) than...
New Catalyst 2 offers modest upgrades, but its smaller screen may disappoint. Meanwhile, tracks like COTA moving to membership-only indicate trouble for club racers.
While "Test Drive" practices and grinding Official Races in iRacing are great and both have their place, I've found a new love of League Racing. What could be better than respectful and clean, yet highly competitive racing in a field of over forty? What Are Leagues?...
With only three weeks between our previous race at Road America, the Condor team hauler stayed in storage up north before the Lime Rock Park Circuit Legends event. Thankfully, both cars had returned to reliability, and we didn't have to do much upon arriving in the scenic mountains of Connecticut.
The provisional 2026 rulebook for GLTC was released on Wednesday to very little fanfare. I'm not racing with Gridlife next year, so I won't harp on the class too much more, but I wanted to put the scattered thoughts I've talked with others about...
Round 5 of our GLTC schedule brought us back to Road America for the Summer Apex, Gridlife's flagship event. While Road America is one of my favorite tracks in iRacing, it didn't click with me the first time I raced there in 2024. Furthermore, before this...
My very long-time friend, Mike Burroughs of StanceWorks fame, recently posted a video declaring that he hates the nearly-perfect S54 E36 he has owned for 17+ years. This is an E36 that, by all measures, is one of the nicest out there – and it has been for the better part of two decades.
Racing and large egos go hand in hand. Over the years, I've seen drivers make questionable, sometimes flat-out dangerous moves to gain a position in a low-stakes club race [prototype and GT car tangling 2-wide at 130mph through Bishops Bend; one of them got air-lifted]. I've...
We are in an era where almost all professional race cars are official "factory" cars produced by the marque, as opposed to customer-built creations that started life as showroom production cars. It wasn't that long ago that teams had to build, develop, and campaign their own...
I love nerding out about roll cage design. Door bars in particular. There is something almost voyeuristic about seeing part of a roll cage through an open door. While a roll cage alludes to protection in a rollover, in wheel to wheel competition you are more likely to get hit...
I've been modifying cars for over 20 years now (it will always pain me to say that). Thus, I've probably known about string alignments for at least 18 years. It was not until recently that I started doing them myself.
Say the letters "PTG," and any E36 fan will immediately have a mental image. Prototype Technology Group campaigned their BMW-contracted E36 M3 program to great success in the mid-late 1990s. The GT3 class cars featured distinct bodywork, impressive development, and legendary drivers (Bill Auberlen and Boris Said, amongst...
What is an OEM-style shifter? On most manual transmission BMWs, the shifter linkage consists of a sub-assembly that includes it's own "carrier", selector rod, and shift lever. In addition, there are some bushings and shims involved to keep things tight. The pivot "cup" and...
As detailed in my recent post about Tire Parity in NASA Racing, there are new rules for NASA's power to weight racing classes (ST and TT) intended to create better parity between the bevy of tire choices. Thankfully these new rules are not based on manufacturer's...
Over the years, my track experience has mostly been relegated to the E30 chassis; up until recently, the only other platforms I had driven hard were an E36 on track and a GR WRX at autocross. While the E36 featured some very notable improvements in suspension design and chassis dynamics...
