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A slew of E46 M3's line up for their afternoon runs.
Two days after Coloradans celebrated America’s 236th anniversary of its Independence from Britain, Rocky Mountain BMW club members gathered in the expansive parking lot of Pikes Peak International Raceway to shred some tires in the clubs 4th event of the 2013 summer autocross series. Event #4 also marked the middle of the season, so if your one of those gunning for end of year championship trophies; you only have 3 more events to try and boost your standings!
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Mark Gerrard brings the car out of the tight 180° corner at the end of the course.
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| Dan Barbattini had a blazing fast final run in his nicely upgraded M3 |
Bryce Kliewer has no problem with his season standings with his 3rd BAS win in a row in the grey 330i sedan; he has pulled a solid lead by over 100 points to second place Dan Barbattini in season points. Eugene Yen lead the battle of M3’s, and Dan made a banzai last run to jump from 6th all the way up to 3rd place!
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| Kris Lee clamps down hard on the brakes after passing the finish line. |
The MINI’s continue to mop up BBS class with Kris Lee at the front for the 4th time this year! Ryan Telford brought his shiny new 2013 Pepper White MINI Cooper S out and was very consistent all afternoon. As a former Pepper White Clubman S owner, this author enjoyed Ryan’s performance. Mario Ricci snagged 4th place in his very nice Graphite Silver 2006 M3 and was the fastest BMW… in BMW B Street tire class, hmmm.
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| Ryan Telford and the other MINI's were fast all day. |
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| Sarah Long entered her very first autocross & Fox Chung helps her navigate the course. |
The round headlight battle in BCS continues, but with hot shoe Carl Levonas MIA, Eric Long grabbed the win from Karl Parsons in the lone E30 M3.
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| Eric Van Der Heide makes his dad's 330ci dance through the slalom. |
Eric Van Der Heide found the very last bit of grip in his Dunlop Star Specs to take the win in BDS class. BDS is always great for close competition, and this event was no different! The top 6 drivers were all within a ½ second of each other in cars built over a 32 year span. Gary Allen avoided the pointy orange things this event and wheeled his 2002 into 2nd place, his highest of the year! Although Tad Kaminski and Robert Critchley came in an unusual 3rd & 6th place respectively; these two are only 12 points apart in the season standings, the closest race in the field.
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| A stock E30 in great condition like Deforest Hamilton's is hard to find now days. |
Chris and Ian Guy brought out their well-loved E28 535i and ran it in BES. Chris hacked a staggering 2 seconds off each of his 4 runs, but in the end lost to Deforest Hamilton by 24 thousandths of a second! Hamilton and the Guys were all first timers to BMWCCA events, and I hope they continue to campaign cool joungtimmer BMW’s!
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| Karen Lange has been consistently quick all year in her Daytona Violet M3. |
The Ladies Class once again brought in a large crowd of fast drivers. Amanda Hahn showed up in a monster of a Honda S2000 appropriately dubbed “Big Bad Wolf” and handily took the win at her first event. Jessica Feldpusch drove the green 325is to a solid second place while season point leader Kim Kliewer rounded out the top 3. Karen Lange placed 4th in her purple people eater, and I made sure to take extra photos of the Daytona M3 as I must have missed it last event.
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| Amanda Hahn makes this S2000, dubbed BBW, really move! |
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| Steve Hamilton zooms into the finish box. |
Chapter president Steve Hamilton snagged the top spot in the BMW race tire class in his beautiful Estoril Blue 1999 M3. Yarko Thomas’s blue MINI with extra wide hoosiers posted a fast time on his first run before the electronic throttle cable do-hickey decided it didn’t want to work any longer. Cory Rowan cruised into 3rd and mid-season class leader, Geoff Kampe 4th. If you are reading this from the email newsletter, you can thank Cory for putting the email together as well as working on updating/streamlining many of the social media avenues. If you are the Charlie Sheen (the social media genius part, not the drug-induced crazy) of your online circle, I’m sure Cory would like your ideas on making the RMCBMWCCA’s online presence more valuable! Drop him a note at marketing@rmcbmwcca.org
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| Kevin Aiken pilots CSU's FSAE car. |
The usual suspects in X class were all out paced by Robert Throne’s Big Bad Wolf. Wearing beautifully machined CCW wheels, Robert’s Honda S2k beat out Mark Baer by just a little more than a second PAX time. In season standings, Mark has a solid 90 point lead over auto-x chair Michael Feldpusch after 4 events. Barry Ott in a Honda-powered tiny open wheeler came in 3rd and course designer Christopher Mayfield landed in 4th before chording the front tires of the co-driven Mitsubishi EVO.
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| Salil Shukla is always smooth and well poised in his Porsche Cayman R. |
Ryan Schossow’s Mitsubishi EVO handily beat Sali Shukla’s fantastic Cayman R in the non-BMW street tire class. Brett Almquists piloted his Subaru STi into 3rd. Non BMW class always has an interesting mixture of cars, and this event was no different. The Stingray Corvette and original MINI were my two favorites.
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| The green-tape-on-a-spoke trick looked great at speed! |
Our next event will again be at PPIR on 27 July. Click here: http://rmcbmwcca.motorsportreg.com/ to register, deadline is 6:00pm on the 24! Colorado Springs’ own Short Stop will be on hand brewing coffee and tasty breakfast burritos in the morning and hearty burgers at lunch. Be sure to support the guys that support our events!
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| Heat A preps for the afternoon runs. |
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| Mario Ricci looking far ahead for the next corner segment. |
