Ice racing B)

Well, Ove isn't here any more, so I guess it falls to me to write about sliding my E30 around on the ice. Last weekend, just before the big thaw, our local sports car club had a great time driving our cars around on a course plowed on a nearby lake. It was the first time I had managed to get the iX out on the ice (the last few winters have been pretty dismal for good ice), and I must say I was thoroughly tickled with how well it did! This really is the greatest winter car ever made.

Driving on the ice is a great learning experience, because all the effects of driver inputs happen at much lower speeds, and it's a great opportunity to play around with left-foot braking, trail braking, trailing-throttle oversteer, and of course big fun power slides.

Unfortunately on Sunday the rain came, and it was just too wet to run our actual timed event, so all we got to do were practice runs. But those were still a huge amount of fun.

Here's hoping it gets cold enough to undo this nasty thaw we just had, and we can get out and do this again!

There are some pics at my friend Jim's page here.[attachment 31 325iX-ice-crop.jpg]

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Dave
'91 325iX

Excellent!
Alas, few hear truly appreciate how great the iX is in the slippery stuff

Wow, those are a lot of pictures Dave, some of the action ones are a little far away but....alot of great shots.

The weather here (east end of long island new york) has warmed up the last few days, tuesday was in the 50-60's and I couldn't resist a little trip on the motorcycle about 150 miles worth.... B) Where is it that you ice race Dave, I'm in Vermont occasionally and we have a summer house in Willsboro, right across from burlington. I'd love to see sometime, can you get close in the car, I'm not much of a walker.

We don't have ice racing here, just ice boating. My friend used to have a DN class boat, lightning fast boat!

Rick

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rkj
Where is it that you ice race Dave, I'm in Vermont occasionally and we have a summer house in Willsboro, right across from burlington. I'd love to see sometime, can you get close in the car, I'm not much of a walker.

We have two locations. This event was on Lake Iroquois between Williston and Hinesburg: here. He have also had events on Mallets Bay on Lake Champlain, just north of Burlington (here) (The squiggly line on Lake Iroquois is the course, and was captured with the GPS datalogger that I usually use for track events.)

Either of those would be pretty close to WIllsboro if you could take the ferry, which this time of year you can't, so you'd have to drive up to the bridge at Rouse's Point or down to the one at Crown Point.

You can certainly get close enough to see one portion of the course, though the far end would be kind of far away. But really, why would you want to just watch when you could drive?

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Dave
'91 325iX

Awesome!

How do get your GPS coordinates to map onto Google-Maps like that? That's cool!

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Dave_G

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rkj
Where is it that you ice race Dave, I'm in Vermont occasionally and we have a summer house in Willsboro, right across from burlington. I'd love to see sometime, can you get close in the car, I'm not much of a walker.

We have two locations. This event was on Lake Iroquois between Williston and Hinesburg: here. He have also had events on Mallets Bay on Lake Champlain, just north of Burlington (here) (The squiggly line on Lake Iroquois is the course, and was captured with the GPS datalogger that I usually use for track events.)

Either of those would be pretty close to WIllsboro if you could take the ferry, which this time of year you can't, so you'd have to drive up to the bridge at Rouse's Point or down to the one at Crown Point.

You can certainly get close enough to see one portion of the course, though the far end would be kind of far away. But really, why would you want to just watch when you could drive?

When the next race, and are you saying race my car?

I could do that if it doesn't cost too much

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Ferdinand
How do get your GPS coordinates to map onto Google-Maps like that? That's cool!

It is pretty cool, isn't it?

My datalogger exports the data to a GPX file, which I can then read into this extremely useful web-based utility: GPS Visualizer. That site converts the data into a .kmz file that can be read by Google Earth. I can import the .kmz file into Google Maps so all my friends can see it on the web by using the "My Maps" feature of Google Maps.

BTW, the color-coding denotes speed (although GPS Visualizer will let me set it a bunch of other variables too). Red is fastest, green is slowest.

Here are a few of my other favorite places:
Le Circuit Mont Tremblant (Turns 1 and 2 will absolutely get your attention)
Mosport
Calabogie (practically in your back yard!)

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Dave
'91 325iX

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rkj
When the next race, and are you saying race my car?

I could do that if it doesn't cost too much

Absolutely! Most of the cars there are daily drivers. The date of the next event depends entirely on the condition of the ice. We try to have them every weekend, conditions permitting, but this latest big thaw really set us back. It's cold again, but it will take time for the ice to be safe again. Someone will check the ice periodically and make a call for the next weekend. If you're interested, I'll keep you posted, or you could check where the announcements are made on the Sports Car Club of Vermont forums

BTW, it's not actually ice "racing" in the sense of wheel-to-wheel racing. We do time trials where one car is on the course at a time, though in practices we will have several cars out there. Any of the experienced drivers would be glad to give instruction, too.

The cost is $25 for non-members.

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Dave
'91 325iX

That's AWESOME! I gotta start playing with that right away...

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Dave_G

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rkj
When the next race, and are you saying race my car?

I could do that if it doesn't cost too much

Absolutely! Most of the cars there are daily drivers. The date of the next event depends entirely on the condition of the ice. We try to have them every weekend, conditions permitting, but this latest big thaw really set us back. It's cold again, but it will take time for the ice to be safe again. Someone will check the ice periodically and make a call for the next weekend. If you're interested, I'll keep you posted, or you could check where the announcements are made on the Sports Car Club of Vermont forums

BTW, it's not actually ice "racing" in the sense of wheel-to-wheel racing. We do time trials where one car is on the course at a time, though in practices we will have several cars out there. Any of the experienced drivers would be glad to give instruction, too.

The cost is $25 for non-members.

That sounds like fun, we'll see after I get my front hubs on otherwise the cars running well. The only thing for me is tires; these suemetomos are not that great on ice what are you guys running on the ice, studs?

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rkj
The only thing for me is tires; these suemetomos are not that great on ice what are you guys running on the ice, studs?

Some people (including me) run street studs, many run unstudded, and a few run specialized super studs, i.e. bolts or screw studs that offer huge amounts of grip on the ice. In ice racing, tires are almost everything. Tires matter much, much more than he car, and most groups class cars solely based on the tires, rather than displacement, mods, etc.

Unstudded tires obviously slide more, and speeds are slower, but it's all still fun. Are your Sumitomos actual snow tires, or all seasons? If they're snow tires, you could still have fun. All-seasons, on the other hand, would have trouble even getting going on ice.

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Dave
'91 325iX

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Dave_G


Unstudded tires obviously slide more, and speeds are slower, but it's all still fun. Are your Sumitomos actual snow tires, or all seasons? If they're snow tires, you could still have fun. All-seasons, on the other hand, would have trouble even getting going on ice.

They're all seasons. I decided to try them out as summer tires, and they're great but when it comes to winter stuff they are terrible my usual MX4's are fairly good in the slop but for ice racing I would need a dedicated tire. How are snow tires any good on ice?, are they a softer compound?

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rkj
How are snow tires any good on ice?, are they a softer compound?

Yes. The rubber compound makes a big difference on ice, and indeed on any surface in cold temperatures. Snow tires also frequently have lots of sipes, i.e. thin slits cut into the rubber, that help a lot on ice, snow, and mud. Between the compound and the siping, even non-studded snow tires can be quite good on ice.

There's a wheel-to-wheel ice racing group in the Adirondacks (AMEC) that actually mandates non-studded tires for their street tire classes.

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Dave
'91 325iX

When I've run ice races with Boston Chapter, I have been on either my Blizzak WS-50s in the E30, or on Dunlop WinterSport M3s in the E46. The E46 XiT was horrible, no fun at all. All the nannies kick in and don't let you have any fun. I'd either run with DSC on so I could get moving (all open diffs in the E46) but then it cuts the engine power when it detects sliding until you have good grip again, or with DSC off, but then the open diffs come into play and I can't get moving. It was not fun at all.

The E30, OTOH, was an absolute blast! I imagine an iX would be fun, too, but for my money, I like sliding around with RWD and LSD. It may not be as fast or quite as sure-footed, but it sure as heck is fun.

Cab
1990 325i(s)
2004 325XiT