I might not be completely useless at this racing thing

"Will Race For Food" (willraceforfood)
11/20/2016 at 09:47 • Filed to: BMW, E36, Racing, AutoX, Autocross, winning

A bit more than a week ago, we had our final event of the supersprint (if you’ve not yet read my previous entries: supersprint = more awesome form of SCAA autox) season, with me having a chance to sneak in and steal second place in the championship.

Full oppo!

As you can see, the weather was quite wintry (on a side note, all of this has now melted, which is REALLY fun. If, that is, you hate winter, which I don’t). Having guaranteed at least third place in the championship, I actually had a chance to finish the season in second if only I could beat the person in front of me in the standings. Unluckily for me, he’s typically very fast in conditions like this. I had my work cut out for this one.

Having borrowed my friend’s car yet again (since it went so well !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ), I mounted the only set of snow tires that were laying around and went to the event.

With some snow covering the icy track on the first run, my tires apparently had much more grip than those of other RWD class drivers, with me coming out on top by an incredible 15 seconds (on a 5 minute long run), which, in supersprint, might as well have been light years. Unfortunately for me, though, the track was clearing and there would be more ice in the second and third run. Oh, one more thing - this was a very technical track quite a few tight corners, so handbrake really came in handy for everyone but me, as the one in my car didn’t work. Unfortunate.

Understeer in full effect

Despite running a bit wide in a few places, I still managed to get second place in my second run, guaranteeing at least second place in this event, and, more importantly, securing second place in the championship!

That was a huge relief, meaning that it would not come down to the last run, I could just cruise to the fini..
Oh, wait, the owner of the car then sent me a message saying that he’d like me to go for a win instead of prematurely celebrating some nonsense overall result. Being a good friend, I gave it my best shot:

And won! Sorry for the Bieber hair, I’ve been to lazy to go to the barber

Second place in the third run was enough to secure a victory, which was a great bonus after securing second place in the championship standings.

And, by the way, you can tell that Latvia really is one of the tallest nations on the planet, as I am 6ft tall and was still somehow the shortest guy on the podium.

Anyhow, that concludes my national championship season, hopefully it was an interesting read.

I do have some plans in the works for next year, not sure whether I’ll be able to go for a championship title here in supersprint, but will definitely do at least a few rallies, and will do a full season in a completely new racing series, about which I’ll likely be able to tell sometime in December, once everything is finalized.

DISCUSSION (7)

Leon711 > Will Race For Food
11/20/2016 at 09:55

Congratulations! looks like you had lots of fun.

Will Race For Food > Leon711
11/20/2016 at 10:16

Honestly, it was a bit too slow to have fun, here’s an onboard video from my last run:

The result was amazing, though, a fantastic ending to the season

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Will Race For Food
11/20/2016 at 12:04

Congrats on your finish in this event and the season!

I saw you had a post and as usual - settled in for a good read. I can’t wait to start doing rally write ups for the Capri!

Will Race For Food > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner
11/20/2016 at 15:23

Thanks!

Looking forward to your event recaps as well, let’s see what you can do with (what I assume to be) a somewhat competitive car :)
Is there an oppo blog other than rallytakeover for members who race themselves? That’d be a really convenient place to follow how everyone’s doing. If not, moving to drivetribe (once I get access, argh!) might make most sense

Kanaric > Will Race For Food
11/20/2016 at 16:33

Is this something that you can take your road car to and do like autocross or do you need a higher level of prepared vehicle?

Will Race For Food > Kanaric
11/21/2016 at 02:37

There are various classes, you can race in either a regular road car (which I did as part of the RWD class) or a race car. Since I was competing in the RWD class, I had to race in a borrowed car for the whole year, as my rally e36 would have to go in a different class for which you can’t become a national champion.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > Will Race For Food
11/22/2016 at 12:33

This is a fascinating idea. Like an Amateur Race or Racers of OPPO blog.

Oh and it has the potential to be middle of the pack and maybe podium season standings if I get REALLY good at driving it. The intention is to have as much fun as I can, throw a massive amount of dirt around, and murder as many cones as required to accomplish the first 2!

We might need to start something! Or maybe they’ll open Rally Take Over for more independent posting.