ChumpCar's Longest Race in History writeup

[sbarton]

The Duct Tape Motorsports 1991 BMW E30 318is won ChumpCar’s 25Hours, 25Minutes, 25Seconds race at Nelson Ledges (dubbed the Longest Race in History). Our driver lineup included experienced BMW Club Racers Mike Skeen, Anthony Magagnoli, Tim Smith, Scott Barton, Simon Hunter, and Ryan Schuster, as well as an excellent crew support including Nate Thulin, Denny Barker, Mike Fitch, and Anna Barton.


We lost a cylinder during practice on Friday. After diagnosing the problem, the team worked together to get the old engine and transmission out in an hour flat, and we had the spare engine and transmission in 2 hours later, in time to finish up testing.


We started the race on Saturday morning with a 4 lap deficit in the 75 car field, and worked hard to make it up in the first 7 hours before the corner worker safety break. We finally got caught up and on the same lap by the time Skeen took the wheel with just over 2 hours left before the safety break. Mike fought hard for almost an hour to get us into first, and in doing so set the Fastest Lap of the Day (FTD) with a 1:20.534 on the 2.0 mile track. This was probably the most exciting part of the race as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place were battling it out with position changes every single lap. Unfortunately a required driver change dropped us back into 3rd right before the safety break.

Video of Mike Skeen fighting for 1st





After the safety break, Anthony Magagnoli again fought to get into 1st, but as soon as it got dark, we started lapping the field as our drivers only lost about 2 seconds a lap in the dark while most other teams where losing 6-12 seconds a lap. By about 3am, we had a very comfortable lead of 10 laps, but ended up losing 12 laps when we were hit and lost the exhaust and were required to make repairs before being allowed back out. This bumped us back into 3rd with 3 laps down. Again we were able to make up the laps and ended winning by 7 laps overall when we took the checkered flag after almost 25.5hours of racing.



The trophy is a very cool replica of the Alien from the movie Aliens made entirely out of car parts.



Thanks to our sponsors without whose help, we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this. Guten Parts + Service, BimmerWorld, D-Force Wheels, Driving Impressions, BimmerTools, MyTrackSchedule.com, Chin Motorsports, and DriveFasterNow.com.


(Anthony Magagnoli, Mike Skeen, Denny Barker, Nate Thulin, Tim Smith, Ryan Schuster, Simon Hunter, Mike Fitch, Anna Barton, Scott Barton)

-Scott

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[kbrew8991]

congrats!

[f1rocks]

Awesome guys congrats!!