Here’s a summer flashback article for your enjoyment –
Can I count this as seat time in a GT4 Sprint X race car?
My son Nathan works at Honda R&D and one of his car guy friends at Honda, Robert, is a team member for the Classic BMW GT4 Sprint X Class car. Classic BMW races in the World Challenge series which came to Road America on September 19-21. Since I was going to the races, Nathan told me that Robert would show me the race car and talk about the team. Here was an opportunity I could not pass up. I checked on the racing schedule for Saturday to see what time could work.
The two qualifying periods were at 9:45 and 10:05 am, one session for each of the two drivers required for Sprint X class. I arrived at Road America before the first qualification and watched both Sprint X qualifying periods. The class has two drivers and they qualified individually. Their combined times set qualifying position for the car. After the second qualification I went looking for Classic BMW’s pit location. My son had sent me a photo of Robert to help me find him. I spotted Classic’s pit location and headed that way and saw Robert. My son must have shown Robert a photo of me because as I got closer it was apparent that he recognized me.
Robert was with the Sprint X cars which were corralled together waiting for inspection and release. Robert and I talked about his involvement in two different race teams, my Chump car endurance racing and our Club’s driving schools until the cars had to head to inspection. I spent the rest of the morning watching the Saleen Cup race and qualification of the TC class cars which Classic BMW runs two M240i cars in. After lunch I headed toward the Classic BMW trailer and arrived as the M4 GT4 Sprint X car was being set up to conduct camber adjustment and alignment. Robert talked about the car and we compared it to my similar chassis F80 stock M3. The GT4 runs a wide 305 x 18″ tire where my track tires are 275 x 18″. The GT4 brake calipers were really massive 6 piston AP calipers with Performance Friction Yellow pads about 1″ thick. They made my stock Brembo calipers look puny. The engine is basically the same as my M3 but Sprint X series controls the HP output. For this race the output was set for 380 HP. This is controlled by a power stick, a USB flash drive they plug in. The 380HP is less than my stock M3 at 425HP.
After talking about and looking over the car, Robert asked “Do you want to get in the car”? Needless to say the answer was YES! I opened the door and saw an X brace at the door which provided a lower opening in the roll cage than our Chump Endurance car cage. This simplified entering somewhat but climbing in is still the best description. I entered the same way as our chump car, both legs over the cage bars and drop into the seat. The race seat was snug and fit me well. The steering wheel was in a good position for me but is adjustable. Robert then repositioned the peddles and I was ready to drive, as if that would happen. Sitting in the cockpit was quite amazing and the gauges and information was far beyond any performance street cars and our Chump car. The steering wheel has neat features that we could use like pit speed limiter (PSL), drink button, radio and other unidentified buttons that I did not know the function. The dash and information pod contains numerous pressure and temperature read outs, info that I like but is now lacking in the modern street car. After a good amount of time in the seat I needed to get out since they wanted to move the car to check the alignment on the TC class M240i’s. No, they did not ask if I wanted to move the car to the next stall.
This was a cool experience to be in a GT4 at the race track. I am looking forward for the next World Challenge at Road America to visit with Robert and the team. Car 29 placed 2nd in the Sprint X class in Saturday’s race. Classic BMW is battling with 2 other teams for the championship and they were 2 points behind going into the weekend.
