Monday turned out to be a good day for the BMW M5 team, with good results in both sessions which moved us up the order. But before we cover the competitive portion of the day, I thought I’d cover activities prior to getting on track at each event.
First order of business on arrival is to secure a good parking location for the day, preferably covered to protect our equipment and crew from any inclement weather or scorching sun. Once positioned we all have our task to accomplish, all of quickly unload the M5 and then depending on time, we’ll walk the track to getter feel for the racing line, sight lines and changes in pavement condition. If time is short Mike will walk the track, while Tom and I to work on prepping the car.
Tom responsible for checking mechanicals, tire pressures, wheel nuts, and fluid levels. I’ll check the video equipment and mount it on the M5. This year we have three video cameras; one on the front bumper, a second on the passenger door and a third in the cabin. Additionally we are using an iPhone App to record lap times and G loadings, which can be overlaid on video.
Hallett is a 1.8 mile, 10 turn race track with 80 feet in elevation change and located near Stillwater, Oklahoma. Today Mike really got the M5 hooked up and posted two good times at Hallett which help us climb up the leader board in both overall and c lass positions. We’re now 13th overall and 3rd in class, and now the it’s a matter of pinching a tenth here and there to hopefully creep into the top 10.
As things stand after Hallett we have 1915 points, good for 14th overall, and only 20 points behind the 13th place team in a Corvette Z06. So if Mike can continue to peddle the M5 round in the same manner as today, hopefully we can challenge for positions further up the leaderboard. Class wise we’re on 205 points, 15 behind Dan & Ben Schaut’s extremely fast E90 M3 and 35 points behind another highly modified E90 M3 of David Chow & Nathan Sumner.
