I decided last minute to attend a track day at High Plains Raceway (HPR) here in Colorado on Sunday with my street/daily driver Space Gray 2009 E92 M3. The track hosted an open lapping day. My wife was pushing me out the door to go do it (bless her heart!
). Seriously, it was her idea. hmmmm she never does that.....is she trying to get rid of me??
Anyway, I had never driven HPR. And I've never been on track with this E92 M3. So, it was a day full of new curiosities. These days, to go to the tracks in CA with my blue E90 is quite the logistical endeavor with flights, hotels, trips to race shops for maintenance, other errands.....it can be a bit demanding and time consuming. I was laughing because I packed the car Sunday morning and drove there in an hour---got there just after 10AM....Driver meeting was at 10:40AM and the track went hot at 11AM. I would say that's quite a bit less logistics. One of my CA track buddies always complains about all the early morning crap associated with track days. When I told him the schedule, he said, "that's my kind of track day!!!!" Anyway, the day was setup with 2 run groups---fast and slow, 30 minutes each, all open passing. Worked fine.
I guess I should talk about the E92 M3 first and how it's setup. I bought the car used in the Fall of 2016. (It had a few things done already.)
-It has stock power, no engine mods as far as I know. No bolt ons, no tune. I did put in GTS-DCT software because I like how that downshifts super smooth on my blue car. People around here say that you can lose up to 20% of horsepower at 5000 ft altitude vs sea level. I don’t know if that’s true, but it's a bummer if it is true.....
-Stock suspension with Eibach lowering springs. It rides pretty harsh on those lowering springs.
-A valvetronic exhaust----don't know the brand----might be a one-off.
-I installed my old AP Racing (Stillen) kit. And for track, I use Cobalt Friction pads--XR2-front/XR3-rear.
-For track, a set of Apex Arc-8 9.5" square. The tires are old 265 Pirelli scrubs left over from my track car. All four rims/tires fit in my E92 back seat.
So, brakes and tires are the main performance upgrades from stock. I don't consider lowering springs an upgrade. They are probably a downgrade when it comes to performance.
Let's talk about High Plains Raceway. I think two things that define HPR are:
1. Elevation changes - lots of ups and downs.
2. Blind hilltop turns - man, if you don't know where you're going, well, good luck to ya.
Usually, before I go to a new track, I watch a bunch of videos to get the flow and idea of the track into my head. Well, I didn't do that here. I literally committed to going at 11PM the night before, lined up all my gear and went to bed at 1AM and didn't watch a single video. We'll see how that turned out below. Anyway, HPR is a solid track with quite a few good challenging sections. The full course is about 2.5 miles. They did a repave in Oct 2017 on all the turns. That was nice. Some of the berms are pretty tall. The long back straight is a bit bumpy. As far as amenities, it's fairly primitive. The bathrooms are either mini porta-potty structures (
) or a trailer that has bathrooms, but the trailer was closed and had a sign that said it would re-open in the Spring when the water wouldn't freeze and ruin the pipes....Hey, IT'S SPRING!!! Let's get that shit open! (see what I did there?) Food comes from a trailer----hey that wasn't open either.....Apparently, I'm the only idiot who didn't know there would be no food......yay first timer!! (I had granola bars and water just in case.) The offices are in a trailer. There are no fixed building structures aside from some car ports. Something completely new for me is that corner workers don't wave flags at you. There are LED panels that light up with various solid colors or flash various colors or light up a checkered flag. It was fine. The track says they like the light system because they have 14 of them around the track, compared to maybe 4 or 5 corner worker stations waving flags, so drivers can be more aware of current track conditions. Ok, I can buy that reasoning.
How did the day go? hehe Let's just say I hit a couple snags. I was the only person who needed a tow truck to get home....ok ok I'm jumping ahead. I'll start at the beginning.
This was a funny day for me because I'm so used to having a trailer. Going back to the old way of packing the car to the gills with gear was a blast from the past. So, I get to the track and it’s the old clown car routine——I pulled so much crap out of the car that people walking by would ask me if I really was able to fit all that in the car. First task: install race pads and swap track wheels on the car. Great. No problems. Done.
First session: Well, I can tell you, that not watching any videos was a huge mistake. The first session was just embarrassing. I was in the Fast group, and I was so slow, so confounded by all the blind turns at the tops of hills, people passing me left and right and then I missed a turn and ended up in the mud just before the front straight…….I’m sure everyone was dazzled with that first session. I know I was.
Second session: Ok, got my act together and started learning the track. Followed a Porsche GT3 around and was keeping up fine. It was entertaining using him as a rabbit. The GT3 was pitted near me and we had chatted at the beginning of the day about my newness there. I don't think he was overly happy that a newbie was somehow keeping up---and in an M3..... In this session, I remembered to open the valves on the exhaust. Great.
Third session: As I was leaving the pit for this session, I tried to open the valves on the exhaust again (they default to closed on startup). Oops. Not working...... Was in traffic the whole session. While chasing an S2000 with aero, I got my fast lap. But I was getting held up on the straights by him. So, my fast lap was in traffic. During the third session, after the fast lap, the car dropped into limp mode----rev limiter drops real low, car shifts into 7th gear and the top speed is like 20 mph. Argh. Bring it into the pit. Turn it off. Turn it back on. Limp mode gone. Ok.......
Fourth session: Go out----first hot lap. Same limp mode. Come in. Check codes. Clear codes.
Fifth session: Go out----first hot lap. Same limp mode. Come in. Check codes. One code has repeated. 27E4: Underpressure pump Mastervac plausibility.
That's it. Day over. Pack up. Start leaving the paddock
limp mode. Shut the car off. Restart. Keep driving to the track exit
limp mode. Restart. Turn onto the highway----limp mode.......turned the car around and parked at the track entry.....called a tow truck. Bummer....
Thoughts on driving the E92 M3 on track:
-I'll start by saying DSC was off the entire day. Lateral movement in this car is in slow motion compared to my track car. Going in, I had wondered if not having any aero would require some adjustment, but it was fine.
-Stock power at altitude (5000ft)
I'm used to a lightened supercharged car at sea level---around 550whp. Let's say the stock power at sea level is 350whp, and then at 5000ft altitude you lose 20%......so this car might be running 280whp at altitude??
I hope no one is offended when I say 280whp is just sorta boring on track in a full weight M3.....ok, maybe I gained a few hp by running 98 octane.....but still, I was ready to nap on the 2000 foot long back straight.....
-Balance---The 50/50 balance of an OEM BMW is a very nice thing. The rear is predictable. My supercharged track car is so light in the rear that it can be twitchy at low speeds if you gas it too hard. I actually had to specifically tell myself to get on the gas harder out of corners because the tail was very stable. In fact, the car from a balance standpoint was a highlight of the day.
-Suspension----so---uhhh stay off the berms at HPR if you have stock suspension and lowering springs. Yeah, that's no good at all. I tried attacking a couple tall berms and bounced off of them. No good. If I stayed off the berms, the car was generally ok. Hard braking was generally fine from a suspension standpoint.
-Speaking of braking - I just love that old AP Racing kit. With the Cobalt Friction pads in there, I was able to pound the brake zones as hard as I dared on my first day there. Braking was another highlight. To be clear, I didn’t find the limits of braking in the 2 1/2 sessions I was able to run. That will take more time.
-The Pirellis were old but still fine to run. Not massive grip, but not bad grip. Just fine.
-Sitting in an OEM seat and seat belt was one of the most startling differences from my track car. Once you get used to being secured by a 6-point harness in a nice race seat, sitting in a leather seat and sliding around is jarring and unpleasant. So, there I was, back to bracing my left leg against the door, and yup the outside of my left knee is sore today. Might have to look into one of those harness solutions. I was always against them without a roll bar, but I just don't want to brace my knee......that just sucks. It doesn't even really work anyway.
-Sound/Volume--hehe---the E92 is so quaint and silent compared to my E90 which is a raging monster by comparison.
It’s not every day that you go to a new track and drive a car you’ve never driven on track before. I was really curious how quickly I would adapt. Overall I felt that it went fine if you ignore the mud from session #1 and the limp modes. Of course, I left the day wishing I could have driven more to learn the track better. I really only got 2 1/2 sessions in before the limp modes ruined the day. As far as lap times, my fast lap was a 2:03.5 in traffic in session 3 just before the limp modes hit. I had a couple 2:02 laps going but limp modes and traffic killed those. Obviously, I have much more to learn about HPR and I believe there’s time to be had everywhere. I don’t know what’s considered a decent M3 lap time there with stock power and no aero. Perhaps someone familiar with the track can chime in on lap times.
Ultimately, I have no plans to turn this into a crazy track car. This will remain a fun daily driver that can do occasional track days around CO. But a suspension will go in. (I already have it.) I have always hated the ride quality of the stock suspension with lowering springs and I finally found a used suspension that I wanted.
Anyway, once the car is back up and running, I plan to visit HPR again soon and give it another shot. I enjoyed the little bit of driving I did, and now that I have the track's layout in my head, I'd like to build on that.
A few pix:
Beautiful day (although it was funny to see piles of snow at the edge of the paddock.) The car is still not fully unpacked here in the AM.
Don’t be jealous of my incredible AIM Solo mounting skills! Hey, it worked! Did I mention this was a last minute track day?
There are worse places to get stuck waiting for a tow truck. Might as well enjoy the scenery:
Ah, the tow truck……actually I am quite thankful that he arrived quickly—less than 45 minutes after I called AAA. HPR is very much in the middle of nowhere.
Here's video of the fast lap in traffic. You can see at the end of the back straight, I'm barely braking because I'm cruising behind the S2000. And then, you can see in the Time Diff window that the second lap was 0.5 sec quicker than my fast lap after just a couple turns---but then we all caught up with a purple Miata and that was that....and then a couple minutes after the video ends, the limp modes started......
This is the beauty of the dual clutch system. You can downshift ANYWHERE and the balance of the car is maintained, and the revs are kept high, so when you exit a corner, you're not slogging out of low RPMs. Yay DCT! But it's not perfect----DCT is 50lbs heavier than MT.....and it overheats.....and sometimes under stress it double upshifts....and the OEM DCT pan system is prone to oil starvation under high G's.......boo DCT...... I mean, if I have to be totally honest, the DCT system installed in my car was not made to do what it is doing. I am stressing it far more than the factory intended. And it has done really well over the years. So----yay DCT! 
