Won my first national championship event!

"Will Race For Food" (willraceforfood)
10/24/2016 at 15:49 • Filed to: racing, bmw, e36

It finally happened! In my second year of racing (somewhat) seriously, I’ve finally won a national championship event in my own class (in a car that’s not mine). And yes, there is an onboard video.

There’s a reason for my nickname, you know.

The format of the event I’m competing in is somewhat similar to SCAA AutoX, with the only difference being that this is about 97 times more exciting, as we were racing on city streets closed for the rally.

With the season nearing its end and my e36 compact now having a roll cage, which means it would have to go in a different class, I borrowed a friend’s car for this event. Have to admit, the livery is awesome.

Anyhow, on to how it went in the event - we had to do three runs on the stage, and were given points for the position that we finish in our class (first place gets 1 point, second place gets 2 points, etc.), with the sum of your two best runs forming a result. Basically, you need to win two out of the three runs to guarantee a victory.

I usually need a while to get up to speed, so, typically, I move up the leaderboard with each run, resulting with a great last run, but not so great when it comes to finishing position in the event standings. Here, with me being in the thick of the battle for 2nd to 4th place in the championship and two more rounds to go after this one, I knew that there was no time to play around and slowly adapt while other drivers score better positions in the first runs. Got a good launch on the first run and had a clean, if a bit careful run, which resulted in a first place in my class by 0.5 seconds. Great!

Now, on to the second run:

For those of you not fluent in Latvian, @2:07 I’m saying “come on”, followed by “well, this should’ve been pretty good” right after the finish.

And so it was. Won my class by 0.9 seconds to guarantee my first win in a national championship series! With two rounds to go, I am still in with a shot at second place, and, if I can keep up the pace from last weekend, the small points cushion to fourth position should be enough to fulfill this season’s goal - to finish on the podium in the championship standings.

I know what you’re asking. Yes, this is the same shirt as in the first picture. Yes, it is, indeed, awesome.

The next event is this Saturday, so here’s hoping it works out as well as this one did!

Also, if you happen to have run into a large pile of money that you can’t seem to spend no matter how hard you try, I have a few good ideas regarding sponsoring guys who wear silly white shirts during awards ceremonies...

DISCUSSION (3)

RallyWrench > Will Race For Food
10/24/2016 at 15:57

Great work, congratulations! I agree, the car looks sweet.

sdwarf36 > Will Race For Food
10/24/2016 at 21:55

Thats some course. As someone who puts on hillclimbs-and knows the peril of making sure the course is secure, I was having a heart attack looking at all the places someone could get on a “hot” course. But then I remembered—it not America. If you walk in front of a race car, it YOUR fault.

Will Race For Food > sdwarf36
10/25/2016 at 05:33

This is actually the only time of the year this particular series takes place on the streets, we mostly race on tracks.

The only reason for this street stage was because this event was part of Rally Latvia, and the streets were already closed down for the rally cars.

But yes, not the safest possible layout, luckily there were no issues with someone destroying their car.