An update from R&T's Dankquility Base: We're goin' club racing!
Just about 53 years ago, we proud Americans put boots on the moon. Those first words crackled back to Earth from the powdery lunar surface. “Houston, Tranquility Base here,” Commander Neil Armstrong said. “The eagle has landed.”
Aside from invoking a moment of American exceptionalism, or another excuse to link the Arctic Monkeys’s bizarre and brilliant concept album, sung from the perspective of a lounge singer at a luxury resort on the moon, what the hell does Apollo 11 have to do with anything at Road & Track? Well there has been a personal moon landing of sorts. It is my great joy to inform you, Houston, that The Shitbox Eagle has landed.
Welcome to Kinardi Line, mouthpiece of the free world’s most self-loathing auto writer. Home to questionable takes, reviews, and shitbox worship.
I’ve addressed shitbox racing many times before, often to espouse the joys of racing fifty deep in cars that cost less than your last dentist visit. But it’s more complex than that: here’s a primer. Often, I lament the unreliable machinery and growing gap between the haves and have-nots in those circles, how it has gobbled up thousands with nothing but a streak of slick hot coolant to show for it.
Despite all the pain it’s caused me, I’m still in it for the long haul.
And still, my hunger for a step up into spec and club racing persisted, a series that could offer more serious and capable machinery, some modicum of reliability, and more importantly, some parity on the time sheet. A brief survey of the options lead to the obvious — Spec Miata, Spec E36, or similar. Something that could be run locally, nationally, in vintage races, across the various sanctioning bodies, and on.
Your resident dingus (and author), collecting the latest addition to the fleet.
Levi Dale
My focus narrowed on the SCCA’s Spec E30 platform. As a lifelong BMW apologist, the platform pushes all the right buttons for me. For a blessed time, I owned an E30 M3, among other lesser but no-less-special E30s. My devotion to the chassis runs deeper than I’d care to admit or like to confront. When I die, perhaps my colleagues will lay my body to rest in a casket built from all the torn M20 intake boots I’ve replaced over the years. (But then I remember how every time I get drunk, I tell my wife to save on cremation fees and just dump my naked corpse in a dumpster. I think the garbage dudes would get a good laugh or crippling PTSD.)
Then a Facebook ad popped up. E30 race car. Dirt cheap so far as race cars go. Ready to rumble. More importantly, it was local, just not in the series I had planned to run.
Pro3 is the Pacific Northwest’s answer to Spec E30. The idea behind the series is exactly what I’ve been chasing: spec Bavarian shoeboxes, stock engines in the mildest state of tune, suspension options within reason, and a few different rear end ratios to choose from. That’s it, for the most part.
My buddy and I picked the car up from the kindest owner, who had used it as a street car, converted it to an autocross weapon, then decided to make the leap to Pro3 in 2013. A move forced the car out of his garage and COVID had stunted his racing in the first place. We were there to pick up the slack and a fair deal was struck. I’d like to express more of my gratitude here with particulars, but never ran the idea of a column by the previous owner. Needless to say, Ray, if you’re reading this, thanks again.
After a quick trip back to Low Road Racing’s high alpine command center, I jetted off and haven’t had a chance to get back to the car. But there you have it. A running spec racer has joined the fleet. It’s far from perfect, but it is ours to use and abuse and learn from. To grow with.
This particular column is meant less as a thought exercise (per the usual format), and more of a freak flag planted firmly into the lunar surface. We are going shitbox(ish) spec racing, and it’s going to be a blast. The E30 will be a vessel to improve the race craft of its drivers, to reward their patience with myriad Lemons failures, to be another flame for a group of friends to gather around. We might even win a trophy or two.
I hope you’ll ride along through the inevitable stages of triumph and regret. There’s tons of work to be done with the new car and only a loose schedule for the year, filled up by a few sprint races and a capstone enduro to finish off the season. Next week we’ll dive a bit into the car, figure out what it needs to work. There are a few events penciled on to the calendar, but we’ll need a thorough shakedown first.
If you’re interested in swinging by the track on race weekends to chat about my terrible columns or our excellent magazine, I’d love that too.
We’ll see what the next rung of the ladder looks like, at any rate. From what everyone tells me, it’s just same old story; We’ll dig into the car, find out we’ve bit off more than we can chew, go broke, and curse it all to hell. Then we’ll do it again.
Houston, we have more problems. And I couldn’t be more excited.
Keyword: The Shitbox Eagle Has Landed