Words and photos by Warren Madsen
Dec. 2008
Team Santa Cruz Driving While Awesome was at it again- taking on Thunderhill Raceway Park in a new car- a BMW E30 325e- after our Porsche 944 had a rough go at Altamont. Our new entry fit the LeMons requirements perfectly. It had been in a garage fire of questionable intensity. It's side view mirror was bubbled and melted and we found a safety pin holding it's damaged distributor cap and rotor together. There were random singed wires dangling from the underbelly and yet when you looked at it just right, it had the look of a race car.
After installing all safety equipment, we painted it neon green and gave it black stitch marks and called it Frankenbeemer. It seemed fitting for such a burned up and used up car. The real question then was- would it LIVE?
At the start of the race, I was ready to go and strapped in but the car was never as eager. After hiccuping around the track just before the race began, I knew something was very wrong. Just as the green flag dropped, the BMW died and I coasted to the bottom of turn 5. Not a good start. After being towed to the pits, we tinkered endlessly. We assumed it was an electrical issue and finally secured a second computer and performed open heart surgery. That seemed to work as the E30 sprang to life and we were all able to get a turn flying around the track.
Only a matter of time before those nasty electronic gremlins rear their ugly head again...and sure enough, we were waiting for a tow and the car was dead. With help from the Autobahn team and their expertise in all things BMW, we were able to get the car running again but only for very short bursts and eventually we decided to give the tow truck driver a break. Our race was over.
Only much later did we find out the issue- a crank sensor had failed. The computer didn't like that, and the rest is history. Our Frankenbeemer had let us down, but not before we all got a few good laps out at Thunderhill. A tough one to swallow, but I hope we'll be back.
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