| In preparation for Sunday's event Saturday night out in the Z practicing my snow sliding and drifting abilities. I spent about an hour in the parking lot at work trying different turn in techniques and basically learning how hard I can push the Z without going around in dounuts. After feeling confident that I know the limitations I went home and waited for Sunday morning. The morning arrived and I found 3 new inches of snow at my house and a 1 degree temp with a -14 wind chill. I knew that was just a small amount compared to where the event was being held. For those of you who do not know, anywhere around a large body of water there is a phenomenon called "lake effect snow" when the cold wind blows across the warmer water and picks up moisture then deposits large amounts of snow after the moisture reaches land fall. Well, when I arrived at the event (just north of Muskegon Michigan) around 9:00am I found 10-12 inches of new snow but, the track layout was groomed to about 10" hard pack and 4-5 inches of fresh snow. I signed in and started to tralk to the people in my class (7 BMW's including a new M3, 2 Vette's, 3 Camaros/Firebirds, 1 Supra and me). Everybody was on winter tires except for the Vette and 1 Firebird. Those 2 on all-season tires were complaing about the class since there was not a winter tire/all-season tire handicap. The AWD cars went first and it was very entertaining to watch them blast through, around, and in some cases off the course while learning the layout and trouble areas. FWD's went next and were surprising alot worse than the previous group because of driver experience and equipment levels (alot of all-season tires). This group had several very young people and watching them crash through the berms and drifts off course was good for more than a few chuckles. Then came the RWD class who were at a pronounced disadvantage in the white stuff. I was third in line and watched the new M3 go first and DQ followed by a 330CI who posted a time even though he spun twice so, it was a beatable time of 2:18.35. I pulled up to the line got the wave and started spinning and fish tailing up to the 1st corner (a hard left) hit the brakes (lightly) and went into the turn at about 2000rpm. Exiting the corner the back end came around very smoothly and I held it out there until the next corner (a sharp right with a quick transition into a 5 gate slalom) let off the accelerator and the back end grabbed and snapped back around putting me 180 degrees to the layout but, straightening out nicely. I babied my way through the slalom and hit the "high speed" section where I hit about 45mph in second gear. Then I downshifted to 1st and spun the car though a 180 degree turn where I actually spun about 270 degrees and came to almost a complete stop before gathering the car and proceding to the rest of the course and the finish. The time of my first run was 1:58.65 after a few other mishaps and over corrections. After 6 runs (we were allowed to throw out the worst 2) I was in a dead heat with the E46 M3 with one run to go. I watched him put down a better than average run so, knowing I had to make a very good pass for the win I went for it. I over cooked it into 3 different sections and ended up almost going off course in the last corner but recovered nicely. it wasn't nice enough to garner the class win though. I finished 18th overall and second in class and even beat several 4WD cars and alot of FWD cars. All in all it was a blast even the 3 off course excursions (on the 2 runs I though out) and the occational mid run dounut. The FTD was 1:04.99 (Audi S4 APR Stage III w/K04's)
RWD Class best 1:27.04 (My Z32) RWD Class winner overall 6:59.58
My total 7:01.11 (just 1.53 seconds out of first) Somebody said they got a video of me sliding through a fluffy snow drift and the car disappeared in a puff of white I'll see if it gets posted. and I still made it home by 4:30 (after we went for a warming lunch/awards ceremony)
Luke Pavlick
'90 Z32 Stage III Twin Turbo
 
Items in the mirror appear ... TO BE LOSING
I want to die peacefully in my sleep ... just like Gramps
not screaming and terrified like the
people in his car at the time |
