My First Time Racing a Car

[00:03] going to show you what happened to our lemons bmw at our very first endurance race so we just got to the track and i'm backing out our fully race prepped 240 backing out our fully race prepped 240 000 mile 18 year old 500 lemons bmw and

[00:17] little did we know this weekend was not going to go the way we expected and instead end in disaster so today we're in south new jersey at new jersey motorsports park and we're racing on the thunderbolt raceway which is a two and a

[00:29] quarter mile long track with 12 challenging turns and a half a mile straight that we're gonna hit over a hundred miles an hour on so this isn't starts in just a couple of hours and garrett's getting some of the sponsor

[00:42] decals on the race car like this peak decal and that's looking really good and we can't forget about the very important soapy water decals on the front because our team name is officially the soapy water racers soapy water

[00:55] and don't worry next race we will have a full livery there just wasn't enough time for this race but you guys sent me some awesome livery ideas so we do have to pick one but for our first ever race we went from this to this and now we're

[01:07] ready to head over to get our car safety inspected all right so we made it to important this is where all that hard work the preparatory work gets put into everything is safe for being on the track because this is pretty dangerous

[01:21] introduce you to the founder of the 24 hours of lemons jay take it away jay uh at 24 hours lemons we are going to tech this car sweet i'll go get in and uh

[01:34] a very thorough process and it takes car for example the roll cage is inspected to make sure it meets code and together safely the windshield is inspected for any cracks that could

[01:48] obscure the driver's view the wiring in the cabin is inspected to make sure it's and harness will be inspected for the expiration date and to make sure it's whole list of things that you need to get inspected and i'll put a link to

[02:02] you can download it and properly prepare your car before you get to the track so what you're about to see is not the complete inspection but a summary i the full inspection but i don't want to bore you guys so here's some of the

[02:15] highlights all right foot on the brake start it up right on the brake good rev it up couple thousand rpm hold good rev it up couple thousand rpm hold it

[02:40] you drained it you flushed it flushed it four times no holes in the firewall no holes all sealed up factory okay all right stock tank fuel cell uh stock tank you check the feed lines yep no rust all

[02:56] battery the trunk good secured in the case security in the case won't move back and forth and uh we have terminal covers on both positive and negative okay excellent

[03:09] i like the cage i like the landing pads that's good cool suit is strapped down okay good um very important gotta have those gotta have those

[03:22] have those all right that's good gonna fail you and you can't race until it's corrected and re-inspected this is taken very seriously all right you passed the safety tech uh

[03:37] car looks actually pretty good looks perhaps a little expensive uh now on to bs all right so we passed tech we are looking really good that's for safety field is level you're not supposed to have a car that's more than 500 that way

[03:53] affordable racing because the more money you put into a car the faster it'll go to do this on a budget so they have something called lemons bs inspection and this is our inspector right here that's right i am

[04:07] judge eric and i'm here to do bs inspection on this delightfully clapped out bmw e46 so let's kind of dig into what you got here make sure you spent the 500 bucks and then we'll get you out of here and ready to race all right so

[04:21] of here and ready to race all right so this car did not cost 500 unfortunately it cost 1100 but we did sell a bunch of parts we sold dash parts the speaker system the radio stuff like that to bring the price down and we do have

[04:35] documentation which i'd like to show you ari show them the documentation real photo proof i promise here's the transfer of money for the uh the trying to keep it legit we're trying to play fair you know

[04:49] and those are the parts that the guy bought from us those interior pieces yes so we have everything recorded so try to be fair try to play fair right and we've of course seen the videos we've been tracking your progress so we're we're up

[05:02] on it so let's make sure what you're supposed to have brought is what you actually brought okay start under the hood with the engine fair enough so i will warn you this is a very stock engine and

[05:15] not very clean 10 minutes of trying to convince the inspector this is a 500 car later all right well with the documentation with knowing that it's a crusty field found unsellable as a streetcar

[05:30] totally believable as a 500 car i'm gonna put you in class a which is the fast class and zero laps as a 500 car so i will get you your tech sticker and you are free to race chris fix awesome thank you very

[05:45] much so after passing tech inspection and getting no penalty laps on the bs inspection the last thing to do is to get the transponder that goes in the car and counts how many laps we do so with all that done we are good to go and this

[05:57] took longer than expected and we're cutting it close at this point there's we still have some things to do so let's head back to the trailer and finish getting ready for the race back at the trailer it was awesome having an entire

[06:10] the car aaron and ari were able to do some last minute inspections they were able to check the oil which we changed only two days ago oil's good then the tire pressure we're running these tires at 27 psi cold which seems low but once

[06:26] lot of heat into these tires causing them to bump up to around 35 to 40 psi and as aaron's doing this ari's writing down all the pressure readings that way once we know what our hot tire pressure is we'll be able to track the pressure

[06:41] over time and it can help us identify a problem before it becomes catastrophic so after hundreds of hours of prepping this car it comes down to this it's finally time for me to get in and start the race at this moment i can't tell you

[06:53] if i was nervous or excited all the emotion got blocked out and i was just focused and that wasn't just me the entire team was focused and looking back come together as a race team to make this happen and although this is the

[07:06] first time for all of us look at us we're a real race team hans is good on your wheels turn to the right when you want to clock it on right yep

[07:22] we're good watch golf cart to your right and you're good thank you everybody [Music]

[07:38] start of the race but it's not the end of the world we're not trying to rush and in racing you can't afford to make a mistake also this is an endurance race not a sprint so the two minutes we lost by not being at the starting line is

[07:52] nothing compared to the 16 hours of racing we're about to do and right now checks everything to make sure you're safe to go onto the track safe to go onto the track yes sir

[08:08] good to go thank you very much [Music] oh here it goes now at this point i could tell you the nerves started to kick in this became very real very fast

[08:23] i was about to enter onto a racetrack with all these cars flying by and one thing you quickly learn being strapped into a containment seat all suited up in safety gear your field of view is horrible

[08:35] [Applause] [Music] so luckily merging went smoothly and i didn't cut anybody off and if you take a you can see there's the track with our gps location and then the 92 degrees

[08:49] fahrenheit is the temperature inside the car that's what i feel and that becomes very important in a few minutes you'll see why and unfortunately our forward-facing camera had a memory card error so we lost all that footage so

[09:01] this is the only angle we have inside the car but for our first lap you could me they're passing me and that's okay because my goal wasn't to push the car to the limit right away i wanted to be smart about it i wanted to learn the car

[09:14] i wanted to learn the track and i wanted to stay out of everyone's way there's no wheel before and as you can see there's a lot of cars out here there's over 125 cars on this track and it gets congested since everyone has a different skill

[09:28] level some cars are fast some are slow so i just wanted to stay on the track not cut people off and learn the track and surprisingly after the first lap you you could stay on the gas where you need a brake and i was getting more

[09:41] comfortable with this car but one thing we definitely need to fix for our next install a full length panel mirror because this single rear view mirror is not enough it's just not good not being able to see behind you but with that

[09:54] said i started looking less into my rear view mirror and started pushing the car harder and harder and i was finally starting to get comfortable with the car and i started making some moves to pass people

[10:08] car was running great not everything was going well if you take a look at the in the car this was just the third lap and the temperature inside the car was 115 degrees and it was climbing unfortunately i was not hooked up to the

[10:21] cool suit because we didn't have enough time and we figured we could get away didn't know any better because that was a big mistake and you can see the lens and then when i pop it up just take a look at my eyes i just do not look well

[10:35] and i could tell you i did not feel good either i started getting tired i felt weak and sick to my stomach it was not a good feeling and by the end of the fifth pit stop and either get in that cool suit or change drivers

[10:49] and luckily i didn't push it because once i got back to our pit i felt like i once i got back to our pit i felt like i was gonna pass out to come back to the pits and man oh man was that a crazy first few minutes on

[11:02] the track the car felt absolutely amazing out there but me me not so much it is very very hot in that car and since we were rushing to we didn't get the cool suit connected but we're connecting it now because

[11:15] whoever's driving next definitely needs it and i can't wait to get back out everybody in the car and get a feel for it and see what it's like because man that was sensory overload besides being overheated that was a lot of fun the

[11:28] able to really push the car on the track is so amazing so now it looks like it's aaron's turn to get some laps in so now aaron's getting in the car and making sure he's connected to the cool suit that way he has nice and cold water

[11:43] overheat like i did [Music] good luck and with that aaron was off but little did we know everything was about to change for the worst so out on the track aaron was killing it

[11:56] he moved up nine positions in just seven laps even though this was his first time wheel-to-wheel racing just like the rest of us he's very familiar with this e46 more than i was and he was just looking really good out there but then disaster

[12:12] really good out there but then disaster struck okay are you coming to the pits he's gonna have to wait for a tow from

[12:25] the track no no if anything uh chris mentioned something with the filter near the oil the oil filter housing tow truck driver that's a copy we're prepared to tighten

[12:39] anything up we have to and uh we'll see you in the pit expect we just knew that there was smoke and oil we were hoping that it was just an oil leak somewhere and we could repair it and get back on the track ah

[12:51] repair it and get back on the track ah shoot i have no clue unfortunately no one hit record when aaron got in the car but luckily the schumacher taxi service team had some good video that they sent us

[13:06] coming down the street aaron is just straight you can see that huge cloud of smoke aaron said that he saw the smoke thought it was just tire smoke from locking up the brakes or just break

[13:20] that turn i mean we did hit 100 miles an hour so he really didn't think much of it then aaron radioed into us saying that the car was vibrating and that he that we could try to figure out why since someone skated off the track there

[13:33] slowed down so aaron was off the gas pedal for the caution because he was off the gas he didn't realize what happened to the engine then after the caution noticed that the car was not only vibrating but down on power he then

[13:47] oil pressure light on so he shut off the engine immediately and pulled off the engine immediately and pulled off the track out what went wrong we were all hoping it was something simple like an oil

[14:01] bad on these and you can see there is oil around the oil filter housing and that was a good sign then the next thing we did was check the oil to see if our end right no metal either right it was running it

[14:16] wasn't running great but it was running was the vibration from the car engine i thought it was tire at first and then it kept going when the speed changed not really we're using really good oil so it was down on power and i the

[14:32] around after two seconds to see if you don't have broken sponges the temps were completely fine well let's see what that metal is first metal is first yeah on the tray

[14:45] failed and somehow broke apart or was it the block so we jacked the car up and as around trying to figure out what the problem is gary do you see any holes

[15:04] that is a rod well it was it was at some point that

[15:25] there's got to be three or four in the paddock you think so yeah yeah yeah running bmws are going to have spares just start working the problem i mean get on a bike get on a car everybody's got a bmw go [ __ ] them

[15:38] yeah okay so our engine is toast and the goal now is to get an engine and swap it in and get back on the track after a few calls a local junkyard says they have an engine so aaron and pierce went out to get that and right after they left a

[15:51] fellow race team named garage heroes in training stopped by and saw our dilemma garage spot and their portable lift to put the new motor in which was really and without the lift we wouldn't be able to do this swap so we pushed the car

[16:06] home until we could get the car back on the track now as some of the team was getting the car in the garage the other part of the team was at the junkyard and part of the team was at the junkyard and just bought our very important engine

[16:19] not going anywhere this is the same exact m54 engine as ours so we should be able to just swap it in at least that's what we thought after a short trip back to the track with precious cargo it was make or break

[16:32] time right now it's 12 noon and we need to get this swap done by 3 pm tomorrow have swapped an engine from an all-wheel drive bmw so what could go wrong so things were moving along nicely then we removed the radiator which gave us

[16:48] plenty of room to remove the motor next we were taking bets with how much there's going to be a bunch of oil let's see there's a lot of smoke other people told us about the smoke other racers came by and said are you

[17:03] guys on fire yeah we should get a sample of this for black stuff yes there's a lot of oil there is a lot of oil i'll give you that so we have an oil sample we'll send out we'll see uh the results honestly

[17:16] we'll see uh the results honestly there's still

[17:29] that the oil pump failed and that's a very common problem on these m54 bmw engines at high rpms the oil pump nut loosens up and backs off causing the oil remove the exhaust that way we could drop the transmission the exhaust system

[17:44] on this car is pretty heavy it's 75 pounds but we're pretty creative and pounds but we're pretty creative and removing it wasn't difficult

[17:57] had was the exhaust on this car was way too quiet you could hear everybody else's car but we couldn't hear our own car and that made it hard to race also even though there are probably more important things to do we found the time

[18:10] to cut off the muffler so it's been about three hours and we are really on our game at this point we removed basically everything we so we thought luckily there was another race team that let us borrow their

[18:24] engine and things were looking really good and at this rate we thought we the end of the day and then we tried pulling the engine out but since this is learned that the engine and transmission won't come out unless we remove the

[18:39] entire subframe so a couple of bolts later we removed the subframe completely and then tried removing the engine again not really not admitted one minute minute grab that chain

[18:54] grab that chain or the top ever removed an engine if it comes out on the first try without disconnecting

[19:10] more stuff if they say it came out on the first try they're probably lying in connected to the transmission so we disconnected that and gave it another go disconnected that and gave it another go yeah

[19:37] the damage it's crazy to think aaron raced a half a mile on this engine after it sent the rod to the moon i don't know whether to be upset or impressed with bmw at this point but the engine actually still runs so with the old

[19:50] damage engine out it was time to get the junkyard engine in now it was getting exhausted but we still pushed on we spent the night getting the new engine ready to install and a priority for us was to get the red thread locker on the

[20:03] off and then we just blow the engine again but fatigue was definitely kicking again but fatigue was definitely kicking in for all of us

[20:15] to sleep all of us need to go to sleep yeah by all of us need to go to sleep yeah by somebody i mean everybody everybody you can't tell we really needed some

[20:28] sleep so we decided to torque down that oil pump nut and call it a night that's it i'm gonna click it again please okay you guys heard it there you go

[20:43] got that straightened out is pretty much time to head back to the track none of us got any sleep and to make things worse there were only a couple hours left in the race now to be completely honest with you we are all feeling

[20:56] pretty defeated at this point we were exhausted the team morale was low but at away and we're still trying to get this motor installed but it wasn't looking good all right we're running into problem after problem with this new

[21:09] engine new junkyard engine uh so the biggest problem right now that we're having is the wiring harness this is for this came from a bmw x3 which is the suv version it's all-wheel drive same exact engine three

[21:22] is well it doesn't match up to the pins and well it doesn't match up to the pins and everything on our car uh so and our ecu all the good stuff you know so we are taking the wiring harness off of this

[21:36] need to remember where everything goes and we're gonna transplant our old motor with the hole in it we're gonna transplant this harness onto

[21:48] our new motor at least that's what we hope to do so see if it'll work all right so here's where we ended up uh fit right we have to spend some time swapping harnesses and stuff so we have

[22:01] the subframe in it's a roller i mean this is a learning experience it's real life it is what it is type of thing and we did our best and you get to see for real how how it goes doesn't always you know it's not always perfect so it

[22:13] doesn't always go as planned now although our team was defeated by our very first lemons race we still put up a good fight and with the race just ending cheer on the cars that made it the whole weekend it was really cool seeing the

[22:25] final parade with all the cars that finished the race and it was at this moment all of us knew that our goal for next year was this right here we wanted to be in this final parade this race taught us a lot it's not about speed

[22:37] it's about endurance being so new to this race don't focus on finishing first instead just focus on finishing this 18 hour race so next year that's exactly what we're gonna do and to end the race weekend we attended the race ceremony

[22:58] for racing first place in class b was the c team and first place for class c was team brf racing it's been a long time it's been a long with you

[23:12] with you thanks for being here talking about strategy for the next race and how we're gonna come back and do

[23:26] even better so we finished the race weekend in a way no one wanted to shaft of shame just flopping around under the car back into the trailer now we learned and we're gonna be back better than ever and in the next video

[23:40] we tore apart the entire engine that way we could see what went wrong this is this to happen again we'll also show you the new engine that went in as well as what's next for this car including what livery design we're gonna go with so

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