After a crazy amount of work, a great mid-corner save, and some help from the BMW community, project E30 competed in its first grassroots motorsport event, the Empire State Performance Rally. Ryan and co-driver Alex Jagger made a valiant effort to bring the BMW home. Indeed, it takes a village to run a 1988 3-Series.
But there’s no time to rest. Now Ryan and Alex have to transform the gravel-ready E30 BMW from a rally car into an endurance racer. Their plan is to enter the 15 hours of Barber Motorsports Chump Car Endurance Race, but that’s only possible if they can get the car fixed, updated and re-tuned to handle a full tarmac circuit in time.
The conversion focused on suspension, braking and tire setup. That, and some extra safety requirements for circuit racing. But the first thing they had to tackle was the rally damage. You don’t go flailing through the woods without knocking things a bit off kilter and cracking an oil pan.
Almost make you want to dance.