CALABOGIE (BMW Ottawa) July 18-20/08

[msix]

Registration is open for the premier BMW CC Ottawa event at Calabogie.

Two - or three day Performance Driving School / Club Race: July 18, 19, 20, 2008

For more information and links to the registration forms click here:
http://bmwccottawa.org/

Klaus

[johnmdanskin]

Who else will be at this event? This will be my first race, of course.
I'm really looking forward to my canadian summer.

BTW: Housing will be -very- hard to find at this event. I found a room, but not super close. The normal stuff is booked already.

[Lee]

Hi John.

You can get a condo (two bedrooms + sofa couch) for $180/night at Calabogie Peak Resort, which is 10 minutes away from the track, down the ski slopes. It is much more comfortable than Calabogie Motorsport Inn or Jocko's. I definitely intend to be at that event. Maybe we can find a couple more happy campers and split the fees...

[johnmdanskin]

I have a room here. I can't remember if it is shareable. I'll have to call and ask how many beds it has. i'm sure the condo is better. I think this is also close to 10min from track.

Rocky Mountain House
409 Stewart St.
Renfrew, Ontario, Canada
(613) 432-5801
1-866-372-2210
http://www.therockymountainhouse.com/

[msix]

Renfrew is about 30 min from the track. There's also a Best Western in Renfrew.
Arnprior is also about 30 min from Calabogie and there should be rooms available there too (Quality Inn etc.)

In our information package are a bunch of B&B's and Motels listed, but it seems that July is a busy time for weddings and lots is already booked.

G.L.

Klaus

[Andrei]

I stayed once in the Best Western in Renfrew. It was decent. The morning drive is not bad. About 25 minutes with little traffic to speak of. Stay on the bigger roads even if that seems longer. Don't go to the track on the shortest way visible on the map. Those roads are gravel. In one morning drive I saw 3 rabbits and 2 deer and 1 car on the road that was better suited to be a rally stage than a road to get somewhere.

Unfortunately I can't make that event. This year you could see even more of the race. The berm around the quarry section is much higher so you can see more of the track. There may even be real bathrooms in the paddock by then.

[sebdavid]

I should be there. I'm interested in any housing solution (Sharing a room) anyone can offer.

[sebdavid]

This is going to be a blast! Last event of the season for me, but what an event!

[Phil]

This is going to be a blast! Last event of the season for me, but what an event!

No kidding!

Lee in a dress. Come on, everyone. A DE, club race, and a "drag strip".

Phil
E30 M3 #52 JS

[Hugo]

I will be there with the e30 M3 :D

This car is just awesome to drive I miss it...

[sebdavid]

Yes, on va pouvoir avoir du fun ensemble!

[Gregster]

I'll be there on Saturday helping "Danskin Racing" out.

[johnmdanskin]

I'll be there on Saturday helping "Danskin Racing" out.

That's "!* Racing", pronounced "Bang Splat Racing".

I spent all morning and a big chunk of the afternoon getting insurance and registration for the car so I can drive to the gas station... RI DMV is a bad place. Bad bad.

Now, I need to be at my mechanic's at 6pm for the final seat fitting. Then I drive in the race car! Mike managed to drive it 20mi yesterday, but he's not super happy with the level of testing before the event. Oh well. As long as the wheel studs are torqued.

-john

[Andrei]

You don't really need to drive to the gas station. That's what gas jugs are for. But being able to drive the car on the street is a plus for testing purposes.

[johnmdanskin]

You don't really need to drive to the gas station. That's what gas jugs are for. But being able to drive the car on the street is a plus for testing purposes.


Basically, I'll be able to drive on the street until I get a fixit ticket for the RI inspection, at which point I'll be done. I had hoped that the car would be technically street legal, but it would be work to make it so. Maybe not so bad. I'd need seatbelts, the airbag light to go out (and I don't know what they'd think about the lack of actual airbags), and a horn. At least. It would be interesting to see what else comes up.

It was helpful to drive the 75miles last night. I spent a couple of quality minutes on a cloverleaf and got at least some clue of what the car is like in a corner. Very flat. Very stable. I didn't go fast enough to check out oversteer, but it's more stable on lift-throttle than my mini (now) or my m coupe (ever).

The exhaust isn't loud, but the rest of it sure is. Transmission whine, some dental drill thing I can't place, vibration, etc. I took my daughter for a ride and she wanted earplugs.

-john

[blacksheep]

... some dental drill thing I can't place ...fuel pump

[sebdavid]

can't wait to see it... see you tomorrow at the track guys!

[bmwqc]

fuel pump

All that interior noise was probably there all along (including the whine of the fuel pump), except it was muffled by the insulation, but now all that padding stuff has been removed when the car was converted from a street car.

[kenneth]

Have fun on the track guys. I will be joining you next year, when I get a little better! By any chance is there a library over there ?

[Phil]

The Ottawa Chapter did a great job and the weather cooperated except for
Friday afternoon. If you were there you know what a sweet event it was.

I enjoyed myself despite getting hit hard in the left rear quarter panel during the Saturday afternoon race.

But fellow club members came through and did what I could not do, banging out the damage and helping me get back on track for the races on Sunday.

A big "thank you" to everyone who lent a helping hand and salvaged a fun weekend from a near disaster.

Phil

[johnmdanskin]

Yes, a very good event. I took the spece36 class win, but also consistently last overall 8-). I did improve my times every session though. Early on, consistent 2:38s. At the end, consistent 2:35-2:36es. The e36 is not the same as the mini. Hugo and Lee had some very good ideas for how to make the e36 negotiate tight corners. I'm used to giving a teensy tiny lift to rotate. The e36 apparently needs to be aggressively trail-braked to the apex. It will take me a while to be able to bring myself to do this at speed. In the mini you'd be cartwheeling into the tire-wall if you tried this. At least my mini.

The races were good. Clean except for Phil's incident, which actually happened -right- in front of me.

Getting home was more dangerous than the racing for me. I was in torrential downpours driving at 45-55mph for 8-9 hours. I lost about 90minutes due to the slow driving. About 1/3 of the way into this, my trailer started having electrical issues and the brakes were only working "sometimes". I wasn't sure about the lights either, but every time I got out to check the lights were fine.

I'm not going to drive all the way home from Calabogie after an event again. Too dangerous.

I have ordered some pix from the photogs.

On the downside, I thought I had forgotten my video camera (silly me), but it isn't at my house either. I think someone must have walked off with it somehow. Ick.

I'm glad that I didn't see Hugo losing to Stan. Some things are better not experienced.

Antoine and Greg crewed for me. They were incredibly helpful, thorough, etc. It was really fantastic to have this support from my friends. I love driving but the friendships and friendly and helpful people are what keep me coming back.

john

[sebdavid]

Amazing event. 3 days at Calabogie is really good because the track is so challenging, and there are so many ways to go around it that you can keep trying new things for days without getting bored.

The varying conditions also helped in making things interesting, some very heavy rain at times on Friday, hot track on Saturday and sometimes a bit greasy due to light sprinkles and lower temps on Sunday.

Hugo and I played around a little bit towards the end of the last day, exchanging the lead back and forth, watching each other's lines and learning from them, and just generally had a lot of fun challenging each other to exploit the strengths of our respective cars to the fullest.

As Lee said, we had lots of fun and great accommodations off track as well. If you share a room with Hugo, make sure he sleeps as close to the door as possible in order to minimize in-room spillage. Lee, on top of being an amazing driver (gave me an eye-opening ride), likes good food and is a fine cook, so he took care of us while we were away from our moms/girlfriends/strippers. No, he didn't take care of us in THAT way, just food, you pervs!

The club race was fun to watch with some close racing, I'm sure John will report on his first racing experience as soon as he can.

As usual I took some footage of the event including in-car videos and some of the club race from the very nice vantage point up in the Quarry complex. As usual I won't be able to share much of it for a while due to lack of time.

Big thanks to the Ottawa chapter for making this happen, I sure wish more people from around Montreal came to this event. The 3 hour drive is really not that bad when you break it up with a nice meal/refuel at Casselman (you can even buy fireworks at the Canadian Tire! ;-) and the track is SO much more challenging/interesting than Tremblant.

My tires are bald, my pads are done, so it's a good thing the season is over for me. I'll be back mid-October at the earliest, so I'll see you guys at next year's events (or at the karting events this winter, I fell in love with karting recently, or at the winter events at Mecaglisse, everybody should learn how to drive on snow/ice).

[Gregster]

What a great day I had! Thank you everyone!

I love the fact that when Phil's car needed fixing everyone pitched in and helped out.

Here are some fine photographs.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v99/theneonracer/MM3669.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v99/theneonracer/MM3679.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v99/theneonracer/MM3680.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v99/theneonracer/MM3678.jpg

[kenneth]

The camaraderie is indeed addictive! How many enrollees were there?

[johnmdanskin]

The camaraderie is indeed addictive! How many enrollees were there?

24 racers at the start. 20 at the end. Mechanical, rules, other issues. I don't think anyone suffered event-ending damage.

I don't know how many DE. It looked like a lot, but I heard that ottawa lost a little bit of $$.

My camcorder turned up. Yay! Black bag hiding in the black carpet in the crack behind the black seat in my mini. I'll be able to get video from bab.

-john

[johnmdanskin]

Tim Pelosso blew his S50B30 motor and dumped oil and shrapnels entering Temptation. I even managed to extirpate the connecting rod from the side of the block, all twisted. No piston, pin or end cap.

Lee

I don't think anyone suffered event ending -collision- damage.

There was another event-ending engine explosion between temptation and brow. A six foot wide oil and coolant slick crossing the track from -almost- the left side off the edge of the track to the right. The local effect on the race was interesting. Like a one-lane road coming into the brow.