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SCCA National Tour: BMWs do good

I think the Official Name is SCCA Yokohama Solo II National Tour, anyway
it's the top guns in autocross and last weekend they traipsed up to our
corner of the USA (which ain't quite as far as Satch Carlson's corner)
to shoot it out bigtime. There were actually 4 BMWs entered in 7
separate events:

Bob Tunnell and his lovely and talented wife Patti, both 1995 National
Jackets, er make that Champions (really nice jackets...): AS and ASL in
their M3.

Carl Buckland and his ever quicker wife Julliana (sp?), in Carl's Dr.
Gas special M3, CSP and CSPL.

Yr hmble author in PeeKay the Wonder Car, ASP.

A gorgeous 318ti in DS and DSL (you out there? Sorry I didn't introduce
myself).

35 lucky people (including Mr. Buckland) were able to take advantage of
the school put on the day before, staffed by National level drivers.
Some of us (guess who) were too slow on the draw and wound up on the
waiting list. I'll let Carl describe what an autocross school on a rainy
Seattle parking lot is like...

The weekend was nice, though, with Sat cool and cloudy but dry. AS and
ASL were the races to watch, with AS pitting Bob in his M3 against
Stacey Rietmeier (I'm probably butchering the spelling of her name) and
local hot shoe Greg Fordahl, both in Porsche 993. That's Poar-sha,
Buffy. Both Stacey and Greg had one of those cute jackets, too, meaning
on at least one day they had crushed all comers in the Nationals. Not
bad. Bob started his day with a super smooth run that got a little loose
coming into finish line, clipping a cone. The time was less than a
second off the fastest ASP time (a Poar-sha RS America turbo, driven by
California's Curt Ordmundson)! It was unbelievable in a stock M3, just
unbelievable. Throw away your Dinan catalogs, folks, it's all in the
driving. Although Greg Fordahl challenged hard, Bob held his lead at the
end of Saturday.

Patti faced different challenges. A blinding migraine headache forced
her to take some heavy duty pain medication. Facing the last run of the
day she was behind, but somehow managed to blast out a killer run,
leaving her in the lead at the end of the day. Man, that's focus.

We had a great party Saturday night, all part of the event package, with
catered food and some suds. Patti, her migraine gone, practiced throwing
peanuts at people's heads. Apparently over the years everyone has
learned to humor her, cause nobody got up and pounded her into the
ground. Of course, Bob's pretty big...

Sunday dawned hot and clear (well, hot for Seattle) and we settled down
to finish what we'd started. Saturday's best time would be added to
Sunday's best time to determine finish positions. We ran the same course
backwards, but with the addition of a little slalom at the start. Sounds
easy, but twernt. Going left to right it was a completely different
experience, slower for most drivers. Bob struggled and while I thought
he perfect he got a little loose in his third run, costing him maybe
half a second. Greg Fordahl made his last run and edged Bob by a few
fractions of a second. Patti also struggled but blasted out a clean run
to end the day .030 seconds ahead of Jody Fordahl for the win in ASL.
Juliana Buckland, in one of her very first autocrosses, took first in
CSPL (well, ok, there was only one car entered, but she tried hard and
kept getting faster, so I say she earned it). The 318ti in DS and DSL
made a pretty good showing against the legion of Neons (don't remember
the finishes, I think mebbe 4th). Carl, battling back after a
disappointing Saturday, ripped off some blistering runs and finished
just a couple of notches out of a trophy in CSP against the Hondas from
Hell and a veddy fast RX-7. And his M3 sounds soooo sweet. And yr hmbl
author, well, finished <g>.

Anyway it was fun to see Bob and Patti stomp some Poar-sha butt, and if
Bob had to lose, I'm glad it was my friend Greg that got to win (these
things are hard!). It was totally cool to meet people like Bob and
Patti, Stacy, etc who are autox legends. And meeting fellow netter Carl
Buckland was a total trip. We each drove each other's cars to check them
out and were both pleasantly surprised. All you M3'ers out there looking
for serious engine upgrades should duplicate the exhaust work that
Carl's has done. As for his H&R coilover suspension, it felt great, very
comfortable, and looked very fast on the course and down a bit of twisty
road that I tried it on. 

If the National Tour comes to your town, try to get down and check it
out. I had a ball.

John Browne
BMW ACA Puget Sound Chapter
BMW CCA
95 ///M3 LTW (PeeKay)
95 ///M3 (scheduled to morph into a Suburban 2500 this week, sob)
91 iX (Spunky the Brave Little Car)