Our VLN 10 race was the last in the 2014 series. It was considered a ‘small’ race with only 178 entries.
A big race has more than 220 cars. Oh My.
GAM S.W.A.T. team members (from left to right) Andres, Q, Lewis, Bruce & Kevin ahead of race start at ROWE Oil luxury suite.
The paddock was PACKED with transporters and equipment. I couldn’t believe the equipment people had. Imagine back to the days when there was both IMSA and Grand-Am, picture a paddock housing BOTH series. Mercedes AMG SLS, Lemans RSRs, Z4s, Lexus, Toyota, Renault, Ford, BMW, VW and Bentley – it was SUPER cool.
The 325 e90 BMW that we were driving was essentially a track day car. A stripped down street car with a cage, seat, shocks and wheels. Oh yeah, we had a tuner exhaust on it too. At 250hp though, we weren’t hiding any driver mistakes. You had to ROLL your speed in if you had any hope of carrying any out of a turn. The builder, Boes Motorsport had done a wonderful job with setup however. The 252 car might have been the best handling car I’ve ever driven. Super stable, slight understeer and excellent at telegraphing when you were at the limit. A real pleasure to drive. Actually, kind of a giggle to take jumps with such a heavy car…kinda felt like my high school days……sorry Dad 😉