This past August, we at NEO Motorsport decided to dust off our BMW E36 race car for the first time in 10 years to finally let it meet glorious race pavement again.
It was a brilliant two days of racing filled with many ups and downs. The first ending with just under an hour and a half of race time cut short by casualties mainly due to aged parts.
The major casualty being a hole that blew out in the aged custom headers, causing excessive engine noise and major power loss, which led to it almost ending our weekend.
Some teamwork and perseverance prevented that however. We swapped the damaged custom exhaust system for open OEM headers and we were ready to take day two by storm.
On the second day we started half a lap behind due to vehicle checks, but the E36 ran at a blistering pace.
Not only did it catch up to the rest of the pack but it overtook several cars by the 4th lap!
Showing its spirit, it ran strong, lap after lap for a solid 5 hours, but unfortunately, the intake ended up eventually giving out on us.
A shout out to Alan Balinsky of ABR Racing, our sister car that came out Sunday for some sprint racing. It was fantastic fun running alongside the Catfish Camaro in orange and white livery. Props again for making the best lap time of the day at 1:34.276.
Completing 5 hours 24 minutes 5.033 seconds of the 8 hours, the E36 came back to us with no power but a champion still. Even though we couldn't finish, it was an outstanding effort from the car, team, and those that supported us.
Thank you to Lucky Dog Racing Canada for a fantastic weekend and all the other teams that came out, for results check out Lucky Dog Racing Canada's website.
Even though we couldn’t finish the weekend, it was the most fun we had in a long while. If you’re an adrenaline junkie like us, you’d be hard-pressed to find a high quite like open-wheel racing or a challenge as satisfying to tackle as endurance racing as a team. Now that we had another taste of it, you can bet you’ll see us on race pavement again soon. Until then, happy racing!