AudiOn19s

great looking car and really great looking shots!

Low 1:37's

All the pro organizations run the pro course configuration which provides an additional passing zone going into the keyhole by not running the Chicane. Based on previous data my car is right at 3 seconds a lap quicker on the pro configuration vs. the club configuration...so figure that was a 1:31.5 on the pro course. trying to compare to production based pro categories Trans Am TA3 qualifying from Mid Ohio this year. http://gotransam.com/events/results.cfm?eid=6853&sid=3172 NASA Great Lakes pro course current lap records. GT4 - Porsche 996 cup car: 131.2 GT5 - Porsche 997 cup car: 129.1 Time Trial lap records...my car would be a TT3 car TT3 - Corvette: 1:31.1 TT2 - Corvette: 1:28.7

Last track event of the season, and I laid down a lap at Mid Ohio that even I wasn't sure I could pull off. Club course (with Chicane). 2004 GT3 on used Pirelli slicks with 18 heat cycles on them. http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/DBFB5145-F763-48D7-A576-77C6D32322DF_zpsw0if0ug1.jpg Couldn't have had a better ending to the season esp after the crappy week we had last week. ..now she goes away for winter maintenance and dreams of track days next year.

Your dad is a good man. The car is beat to shit and he took every care and precaution with towing it to make sure it didn't get hurt any further. I really appreciated his efforts.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Ha! You were at Gabe's? I bitched out on the bonfire and was wrenching on bikes instead.

Her being ok was first priority. She's a little sore in the lower back but she was squatting 185 and deadlifting 155 the night before. So tough to say gym vs accident. We will monitor and go seek attention if necessary. At fault party was insured. Car is at Achbach in good hands.

That's how my morning started. I'm at work with coffee in hand ready to start my day when at 7:28 am I get the following text. "I've been in a horrible accident. Not my fault. Car is fucked" Call Yasmin to make sure she's ok, remembering in the back of my mind that she told me she was taking the Mercedes to work today. So I ask...you are in the E55 right??? No, it was nice I took the turbo. :-( So she was going down 161 when someone decided to change lanes and didn't see her, caught her in the passenger door and then really hit square on the rear wheel / suspension breaking the toe link and control arm on contact. http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/8AD4C885-A079-41E3-A912-9F5119EABFD3_zps09olj4t6.jpg http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/5556A62D-BAB6-4FFA-B418-DF5DF8EFA613_zpsayqanh7w.jpg So. Not so bad right? ...cept between the impact and the broken suspension the Car spun out of control and under a semi doing some pretty serious damage. http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/4BF8E27B-A103-4C13-B71D-9B8AF43E2D03_zpsqloytavm.jpg http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/922301AE-38D8-4AE5-9E2B-97CA1F2B1262_zpslqs2pa4w.jpg Good news is the airbags and safety equipment did their job. Bad news is the car is pretty bad. I know it's just metal but I'm pretty attached to my cars. Def a bummer. She's even more pissed than I am about the car...she loves this thing. Is what it is I guess :-(

I'll check around, but I don't think they will Rotors on S3 are like 340mm right? I'm gonna guess you'll need a 17 to clear them, maybe some 16's would, but 15's probably not.

bump

Pretty sure they make an AWD 535xi too if you need more room. Biggest question here is budget. There are a lot of big fast sedans but the AWD limits the choices quite a bit. For instance a nice,older E55 can be had for mid to high teen's these days it it's rear drive. We drive ours year round with snow tires in the winter without issue

I'm never in great shape, but I spend much more time in the gym and have better dedication to diet and exercise in the winter when there are less distractions around. Then in the summer I get distracted and get fat exactly the opposite of most other people who want to look their best in the summer. The track car broke most everything that was planned for preventative maintenance this winter already in the last few weeks...so there's not much really to do on it. I'll still spend an hour or two in the garage per week as weather permits. My brother and good friends are actually ramping up their track car builds so I'll probably spend good time in their garages. Since we sold the house I don't have room for my iRacing rig anymore...sucks because that's a fantastic way to kill many many boring hours in the winter. Wife and I aren't big fans of the snow / cold...don't do many outdoor activities at all in the winter.

Like many here I've been a gear head since Day 1. I started working carrying golf bags and doing whatever I could to stash away money at the age of 13 so that I could have a cool car for myself as my first car. At the age of 15 I bought a 4 cylinder S-10 with a great body and a blown engine and did a v8 swap. It was a fairly simple configuration. Short block was actually built by NAPA but was a 4 bolt block, 9.0 compression with Hyperutectic pistons, blah blah blah. Had a couple of shops help me with little things like positioning the engine, welding in the engine mounts, and fabricating the transmission cross member that were a little above my head at the time. Went on to add a mild stall, good set of aluminum heads, intake, carb...oh and yeah the NOS system to it. All pretty much from reading hot rod and car craft magazine articles and working on the thing in my spare time in my driveway. Thing ran high 11's regularly on the setup it roamed the streets with. Not bad for a daily driven car in the late 90's. Wish I had a decent digital picture of it, loved that thing. I also started to Auto-x in various Porsche 944's with my father at the age of 16. Found this to be fun as an add on to the stuff I was doing "At the dragstrip" (on the street) with my truck. The nicest one was fully setup with coilovers / bars / etc and was a hoot to drive. I spun this car into a ditch on the first date with my now wife. Looked similar to this except it was an NA car with turbo look http://www.bakody.com/Rennlist/CharlizeEbay10.jpg When I graduated from college I bought myself a brand new '01 GSXR 1000 and immediately started setting it up for track days. Brake upgrades, shock and fork upgrades. Did a couple seasons of track days on bikes as I could (not nearly enough) until I made a mistake and went down. Injured my shoulder pretty badly. 6 months of recovery and not being able to ride for nearly 9 months I sold this to pursue track days on 4 wheels. In many ways I regret not going further on bikes, but in my fat / old state I wouldn't be worth a damn anyhow. Pictures of my bike: http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/Picture015-1.jpg http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/rear1.jpg So then I focused on HPDE / track days on 4 wheels moving forward. Tracked the M3, 996 Aero and finally the GT3. I started as a driving instructor in these events in limited exposure in 2010 and then in 2012 went through PCA's national program and became nationally certified as an instructor for them. http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/CRRollingPictures095copy.jpg http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/Picture127.jpg http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q192/ZainoDetail/DSC_0353.jpg While I have always had the desire to race, and feel I'm talented enough to give it a go on a pretty decent level, I don't have the resources to do so, particularly time. I'm never going to be paid to race a car...I'm way past that prime, and as much as the desire is there I've found the sweet spot where I spend alot of time at the track, and more importantly alot of time ON the track for relatively little money and commitment. I get way more seat time than most racers could ever get, and while it's not for a trophy seat time is seat time. I enjoy instructing and helping others more than I could have imagined. It also drives my never ending desire to acquire knowledge on all things performance driving related. It's actually allowed me to break through a couple of driving plateau's of my own and become a better / faster driver in the end. I set a personal best lap time this year at Mid Ohio in the GT3 just to prove I'm not getting old and slow just yet. I dipped into the 1:35's on the club course and had the thing not broken this last outing that would have translated into a very low 1:32 or high 1:31 on the pro configuration. Not too shabby for a 380hp / 3000lb car. I can't see giving it up, I'm hooked for life. I'm going to be that old man still out there lapping when I'm 70 and hopefully not in everyone's way...cause I'm still going to be enjoying the hell out of it.

CR is fine. I will come visit every day no matter what even if I don't post all the time. It's evolved in ways, it hasn't in others.

A lot of the road racing series including FIA GT3 run basic power to weight formulas for the cars that helps even performance and keeps the HP wars away. 600 is about the top of what you'll be able to get within the rules and then you'll be one of the heaviest cars on the grid. I'd have to look it up, but I believe, like F1, there is a limit to how many engines you can use in a year before you have to start taking penalties for going over your allotment hence they want to make them as reliable as possible to boot.

Nick Tandy and the Porsche RSR were magic in the rain. Top 2 cars were GTLM cars...as a matter of fact 6 of the top 10 were GTLM cars. I know the conditions sucked but I hated to see the race shortened by 2 hours pretty much un-announced when some teams had pitted and others stayed out anticipating another 2 hours of racing. It change the end results of the prototype championship as a result. none the less, the Porsche still would have won overall

Watched it a few months back on a whim. I usually can't stand Reeves but thought the movie was fantastic.

Ryan, it's great to see you actively posting here again. Can't wait to see the build as it moves along.

Bump ...make these go away. Need more Pirelli slicks for the GT3

bump 5x112 wheels and winter tires. $200

I hoped to make it to the new full Pitt track this year but am not personally going to drive it until next year. That said a very close group of track junkies that I'm a part of say the new track is challenging, has a great flow and rhythm to it and has really turned a rather boring track into a great venue for driving. There are some good videos of the full course popping up on YouTube as well and it looks good. Curbs are not going to be placed until next year, there's still a lot of gravel getting kicked up onto the pavement because grass hasn't grown yet, but once it matures I think from a drivers perspective it's absolutely going to be a track to pick over Putnam any day. That said they're still going to be two very unique tracks to drive in their own respects. Putnam is known for being FAST with huge fast sweepers and gobs of runoff room in the event you make a mistake. It's a track you can really go test how big your balls are without many repercussions if you make a mistake and go off. Great for really pushing the boundaries of what you are comfortable with and making 9/10's driving second nature. You won't get that at Pitt, there aren't many places you can do that at Mid Ohio, and you certainly don't want to be chancing an off at NCM with the walls as close as they are everywhere. For that reason I think Putnam is still a must-do track for everyone as well. I really hope they get their heads out their behinds and put new blacktop down on Putnam soon though. I've resorted to only going there once a year because of how hard it is on tires. I can get 45-50 heat cycles out of a set of NT-01's at Mid Ohio...at Putnam I can barely run a 3 day weekend before they are down to the cords.

They changed the laws a couple years ago and in my opinion it's not worth it unless you just need to get rid of the car. Max write off is $500 these days...or you can gamble and hope it goes for more than $500 at auction and then you can write off whatever it seeks for at auction. But if that's less than the $500 you could have claimed by default then that's what you are stuck with. Also consider this is $500 x your tax bracket when it comes to the amount that you will actually get back in taxes. So really expect maybe $150-200 max for the effort.

First F1...now modern sports cars...all going to turbo power plants that sound like garbage. I'm sure it will go like stink none the less. All I could do was shake my head at how the Cadillac ATS-V.R sounds in world challenge now...disappointing

I haven't been to Nelson in a few years either...I can't say it really looks that much worse than the last time I've been there...or the first time I ever went there years ago. It's pretty much always bad however it's a really fun track to drive. If you all remember there was a deal on the table to buy Nelson a few years back, the buyers wanted to turn it into a country club track format similar to VIR / Putnam and others that have followed this model as of late. As I understand it, the deal fell through in part because the EPA came in and demanded that the tires be removed as part of the transaction and the bill to do that was something north of 1 million. I'm sure that wasn't the only factor but I had high hopes it was going to be revamped and fixed. Now that Pitt Race (formally Beaver Run) is completed if I'm going to make a 3-3.5 hr trip it's going to be to that facility instead.