So this thing costs about $1 per use, holds 9,400 bikes, and only takes 23 seconds to store/retrieve it for you. I'd ride everywhere for this kind of security and convenience. Hooray technology!

source

Those British sure have a unique sense of humor.  This one's pretty 4/20 appropriate.
...why aren't you back on yet Top Gear?

Well everything is getting better, slowly but surely. I'm learning how to drive the BMW better and better every event and the car itself gets a little better each time as well. The big change that I made was using less steering input. It's always been a problem for me because my Integra has the slowest steering rack in the history of the world. This means whenever I get in a different car I input way too much steering from habit. The 27th should be the true test as the ABS should be working and the shaved Dunlop Z1 Star Specs will be our rollers of choice so we'll see what happens. I finished 5th in PAX with Chris 6th, just .013 seconds behind me.
PAX RESULTS

The preceding Saturday was also ours clubs autocross school. I had two students, and as always, the results at the end of the day from these two were very rewarding. My first student was quite good to begin with. Most of the time was spent just getting him to stay on the gas longer and leave less time getting from the gas pedal to the brakes. My second student was another story. This was his second event ever. Back to basics it was. Huge improvements though coming from the simple stuff. I don't consider myself an excellent instructor by any means but it does feel good when you see their times drop throughout the day!

During the school Chris took the BMW out for a run and did one of the coolest things I've ever seen during a run. This one's a must watch!

Finding a unique looking AE86 these days is nearly impossible. Everything that could be done to this quarter-of-a-century old chassis has already been done. This example built by Australia's JDM Garage is nothing special. What it does accomplish is a great sense of the whole becoming greater than the sum of its parts. The chromed 15x9.5 Longchamps and crystal LED tails give just the right amount bling to set this ride apart from the crowd. Clean body lines, perfect ride height, and beautiful paint sure go a long way! Makes me wanna clean the bimmer up for this weekend.

Put the ol' BMW on the dyno to get some good air/fuel numbers to send to The Racer's Market.  From that they'll be  sending us an oh-so-sweet re-tuned chip.

I'm not at liberty to disclose numbers just yet, but I'll just say that we're on the right track! ^_^

This weekend was also an opportunity to get the 325 on the scales and try and corner balance it. We put it on the scales and everything just fell in place. Didn't have to touch a thing. All the cross weights are plenty good for now.

2823lbs isn't too bad for a sun-roofed '95.  We should be looking at 2750 easy by the time Nationals rolls around.

All I could think of while watching this video was "how fast Mark Daddio's SM Evo 'could' be". But it doesn't have to because he wins with it the way it is. Yep, he is indeed "The Alien". But anyway, there is one thing you really wanna look out for in this clip. At the early 55" mark this Evo lifts the left-rear wheel. Tenths of a second later and the left-front wheel is in the air. How does that work? AWD cars make no sense to me...but this one surely is awesome!

Mmmmm nine-six-fours.  By far the coolest of 911 series, closely followed by the 930s.  I think it's the giant double wings with integrated air intakes, humongous rear wheel arches filled with super low-offset/super wide wheels, and the general air-cooled awesomeness that makes them so freakin' rad.  My favorite example is RAUH-Welt's race version.  It's got all the goodies mentioned above, plus!  The silver rivets popped over the matte black paint really set this car off.  The perfectly fitted and mismatched colored Work S1-2Ps complete the package.  This Porsche seems to stretch it's legs quite often on Tsukuba circuit.  Yeah, it's no show queen.  Image credits go to the great Mike over at Auto-Otaku.

The busted up front license tag is a nice touch.


Vented rear flares barely contain the enormous wheel and tire combo.
I'd love to know the specs for the rear setup!

First home-club event of the year. Familiar faces but foreign soil. We acquired a new lot for this season. It's one of the parking lots used for the Wake Forest football stadium. It's small in size but the layout for this event was pretty good. There is a much larger lot adjacent to the one we used that we should be able to get next time.

The BMW had some work performed since last time.
Alignment
Front camber was at 4.3-ish and is now at 3.7 degrees. Rear is 2.2 degrees. Toe is set to 1/8" toe-in rear, 1/8" toe-out front.
Brakes
Axxis ULT pads were also added since the Tour.
Aero
The car finally has the wing attached! It's a Megan Racing part with custom risers.
Stickers
We also had 1/3rd of the vinyl installed and it looks pretty...and shiny.

Wing endplates need straightening.


Even though the car was better sorted, we didn't fare so well. The BMW was between gears through the whole course. Stay in first gear and you're on rev-limit. Stay in second and you bog on the exits.  Not much fun, but made you work...so...not much fun.  Although leaving it in first would result in very controllable power oversteer.  That was fun!  Braking is still a big issue.  With the good pads we now lock the inside front tire entering pretty much every corner.  The ABS hasn't worked since we've raced the car and we didn't know that we really needed it.  Apparently E36 BMWs are more or less impossible to drive to the limit without it.  That's what the top autocross guys say anyway.  Guess we should get that working.  I ended up at a respectable (for now) 14th place in PAX.  I should really be in the top 3 when the car is working correctly.  I'm holding myself to that goal.
EVENT RESULTS (PAX)

After the event we did some fun runs.  We thought our 245 width Bridgestones were not on par with what they should be.  The theory was tested by doing some runs with the 225 width Falken 615s we use for daily drivers.  The Falkens have been sitting outside for an entire year.  They're also skinnier and supposedly not as fast as an equivalent sized Bridgestone.  Boy howdy did they feel better.  The car transitioned, braked, and felt better in steady state cornering.  Not only did it feel better, but the times were lower too...by an entire second.  So we need new tires too...well we kind of need them now anyway since the B-stones are flat-spotted to hell.  It's kind of strange, but I'm really happy that the car has this many major problems.  Just means we can only get faster! 

Before my last fun run Chris told me that I wasn't using the full grip of the tires around the sweepers.  I thought to myself, that's impossible.  When I push the throttle it just understeers worse.  There is no way the tires have more grip.  He then told me I should let off of the brakes completely before turning in.  Ok, might as well give it a shot.  First sweeper...oh my God!  News flash: you don't drive a rear wheel drive car the same as a front drive.  I was braking too deep into the corner.  See you can do that, and should do that, in a properly setup FWD.  The front end is soft (comparative to RWD) and braking into the corner loads up the front tires.  The small front swaybar on the FWD allows the front end to roll letting the tires maintain their grip deep into the corner.  On the RWD car however, the huge front swaybar keeps you from being fast using that method.  Braking while turning actually overloads the front outside tire (no roll compliance to aid grip) and it locks up.  Once the tire locks it takes forever before it regains traction (too much steering input/angle).  So the key is to enter the corner off of the brakes faster than you think the car will turn.  It's definitely a new sensation.  The tires work really well if you trust them.  I can't remember the last time I've had a driving revelation like this!  Can't wait to try it out.

Yeah...didn't post yesterday.  Went to work, came back and immediately fell asleep.  That was at 5:30pm.  I woke up enough to look at the clock at 3am today.  Figured I might as well keep sleeping till 6, so I did.  Yay 12.5 hours of sleep on a work day.

Autocross tomorrow.  Got a good feeling about.  I'll try and get new pictures of the car up!