Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona
It has been a little over a month since this year’s Rolex 24 hour race at Daytona. Rather than recap the racing action, I thought I’d reflect on the event. It was my first time at a 24 hour race and my first time at the Daytona International Speedway. Neither was what I expected.
The speedway is both larger and smaller than you expect. Imagine a super-sized baseball stadium, with all of the modern amenities you’ve come to expect over the last 20 years. Cut that stadium in the middle of center field and unwind it so it’s just one long straight, and bend it slightly around the start-finish line. I guess you would describe it as a flat C or “(“. Add seating for 100,000+ people, but only fill it with 5,000. Take another 40-50,000 people and scatter them throughout the infield. That’s the Rolex 24 crowd.
You can move freely from Grandstands to Infield, but allow 20-30 minutes for the trip as you have to exit the Grandstands and take a trolly (or walk) through the tunnel to get there. Consider driving and parking in your favorite care corral (BMW, Porsche, or Corvette) or signing up for a luxury package from Audi to enhance your experience. Grassroots Motorsports offers some excellent packages (we had the Stadium Ticket Package), and their Sunday morning breakfast may be the best bargain going.
The hardest thing is figuring out where you want to be. From high in the Grandstands you can see the entire track above turn 1. With an optional garage pass you can walk among the cars and mechanics in the garages. Your best close up views are in the infield (turns 3, 4, 5). RVs and campfires fill the infield. Most of the car clubs have tents with refreshments in the infield that provide a respite from the weather. You can’t really escape the noise, but you don’t want to either.
You do want to think about your strategy for the 24 hour period. The race starts in the afternoon and runs about 4 hours before it starts to get dark. The transition into sunset provides some of the best action. We stayed into the early evening and then came back early morning. We were staying over an hour away from the track and would stay closer next time. This year was interesting for the lack of extended caution periods or weather delays, but because IMSA got the balance of performance wrong, also didn’t have very exciting racing. It did set a record for most laps and longest distance run.
It is interesting to note that the previous track record from 1970 of 724 laps (2,758 miles) on the old road course (without the bus-stop) by a Porsche 917 in the top class was beaten by the Ford GTs in the GTLM class (2,787 miles). The 6th place Porsche RSRs, missed that record by only 3 miles. This is truly the golden age of sports car racing.
(See this link on Flickr for my photo gallery.)
Scratch and Dent Removal
This is turning out to be a much colder winter in the Mid-Atlantic region than originally planned. As a result, I’m falling behind in sorting the X5. This past weekend was the first since early November where I could get out and work on it. The previous owner (Mr. Magoo) managed to scrape paint off of all four corners and dent the lower valance. It’s been too cold to try to repaint the big scrapes, but this past weekend I tackled some of the deeper scratches and the valance dent.
First off, it takes a certain talent to perfectly dent plastic without breaking it. Because the PDC sensor is also damaged, perhaps Mr. Mr Magoo hit something larger, but this dent was about the size of a baseball. (It was actually much larger than it looks in the photo.) I wanted to see if I could get it out with just heat and some simple pry tools while I had the weather on my side.
Once I gained access behind the dent, I slowly heated the plastic until it was warm to the touch. Then using the flexible pry tool, I slowly pushed it back into shape from behind. It isn’t perfect, but it looks better than before.
While waiting for the valance to cool down so I could put everything back together, I grabbed the random orbital polisher and a microfiber cutting pad. The clear-coat on BMW bumpers is pretty robust, so I thought I’d see how well Maguiar’s M105 polishing compound levels the paint and helps to reduce the scratches.
These scratches are pretty deep, but not down to the color coat. I took two passes with the M105 before switching to Griot’s Machine Polish #3, and sealed it with a layer of AmmoNYC Skin. The result being that the scratches are not really visible after you get about a foot away from the surface. I probably could have gone a little further, but didn’t want to risk burning through the clear-coat.
MINI Electric Concept Car at LA Auto Show
I recently spent some time contemplating the Electric MINI concept car at the LA auto show. In many ways it was very old-school: The future was supposed to look different than it’s turned out. This reminds me of those concepts from the 60’s where you didn’t really believe that’s what the future would hold, but you understood some of the styling cues and how current models might evolve. There are a couple of interesting nuggets to behold.
Starting at the rear, you’ll notice a variation of the Union Jack tail lights seen on the JCW GP concept car, but done in white. But more importantly, there’s the new MINI logo in the center. Continuing the trend of recent models, it’s still huge, and now more unappealing. MINI quietly rolled out this logo over the past year, first on the website and now actually going on cars. This version is done in relief, but the actual production logo is “a visual expression known as ‘flat design'”. (You can read more about it here).
I think it’s another sign that MINI design is lost in the wilderness. Let’s review the recipe for a MINI: 1. Take an engine and put a box around it as tightly as possible. 2. Take seating for 4 adults and put a box around it as tightly as possible. 3. Take two pieces of luggage (the other two adults are SOL) and put a box around it. 4. Connect the three boxes in the right order and put a body around it. 5. Put a wheel in each corner. Motoring on with the tour now…
The sculpting of the rear is interesting. Your eye always looks for the exhaust outlet so if the lower trim were flat it wouldn’t look right. It’s hard to tell if they intend the wing to function as a diffuser or not. If there isn’t much more of an upper spoiler or wing than what’s seen here, it would be hard to get a diffuser to work anyway given the turbulence with such a small roof spoiler.
The side splitters could be interesting if they feed an air duct to the rear brake calipers. Not clear if that’s the intent here. If the duct does not feed anywhere, it would just create an air bubble ahead of the turbulence of the rear wheel. It might help reduce some of the drag, but if it doesn’t draw air through the wheel, it would actually reduce cooling to the rear brakes as well as catch debris.
The first thing I noticed from this angle was the sculpting of the fenders. Reminds me of Subarus from the last decade — not a fan. The headlight design over powers the rest of the design.
The front splitter reminds me of Toyota concept cars of recent years as well. The angle is too steep to be effective as a splitter so it just creates drag. The opening at the end is too far off center to be effective at channeling air to the brakes so perhaps they’re to be fed from the center. The headlight design works a little better from this angle, but the inner sculpting is too wide. It reminds me of a Pac-Man face-off.
So what did I like about the car? That paint is gorgeous. It would be impossible to keep clean and not show fingerprints, but it looks great. I like that it’s a small car and not a Countryman or Clubman. Maybe the future for a small MINI will be reborn as electric.
The Blob
I’m sure you’ve seen the blob before: bad touch-up paint that looks almost as bad as the scratch it is attempting to cover up. Our new BMW X5 shop truck came with some seriously bad blobs on the hood. In the photo below you can see the blobs on the left before application and the progress on the right after one pass.
While looking for touch-up paint for the Porsche, I came across a product from Langka called “the blob eliminator“. With a name like that, I had to check it out, hoping at least it might help me safely remove some of the excess touch-up paint on the X5.
The instructions say it works with most automotive touch-up paints you can get from the dealer, and that it will work on old touch-up paint as well as new. For this test case, I thought I’d dry it on the large hood scratches on the X5. I’m not sure how old the touch-up paint is, but it’s at lease six weeks old as that’s how long we’ve had the vehicle.
The instructions are simple: clean the area to be worked on; put some of the blob eliminator liquid on a clean cloth; wrap the cloth around a flat surface (I used a small squeegee); and then rub with light pressure. Wipe away the residue with a different cloth. Repeat if necessary and seal when finished. I used some polish and wax.
When finished, you have to be right up on the paint to even tell where the scratches are. I love it when a plan comes together.
Polishing the iDrive Screen
GeorgeCo recently acquired a 2013 BMW X5 to use as a daily driver and tow vehicle. We’ve been spending the last couple of weeks fixing the little things that were wrong with it when we bought it. The previous owner — “Mr. Magoo” — had curbed all four wheels, one of which we decided to replace. Thankfully a remanufactured X5 wheel will only set you back about $165 which is competitive with most refinishing services.
One thing we did notice, however, was that the no-glare coating on the video screen was badly scratched. This is a common issue with used BMWs with the iDrive system. This coating isn’t very robust and vigorous cleaning/rubbing will start to scratch it off. It’s not something you notice until the sun shines directly on the screen, and then it’s just annoying. Thankfully, it’s a pretty easy fix that will only take about 30 minutes.
You’ll need a plastic pry tool, a crosshead screw driver, some painters tape, a Torx T-9 socket, and some plastic polish. We used The Novus Plastic Polish kit with a clean power-ball polisher we had from a headlight polishing kit, and an electric drill. You can also get a protective screen cover — just like your mobile phone. More on that later.
Using the plastic pry tool, carefully pry up on the vent panel below the video screen and pull the panel toward you to release. You don’t need to disconnect the electrical connections, just carefully lay it back down against the console.
Remove the two screws holding the video frame to the dash. Be careful not to drop the screws or you’ll spend the rest of your day fishing for them in the HVAC ducts.
Pull the screen frame up and toward you. Turn it over to access the cables on the back.
Note how the antenna wire runs across the top of the frame. Remove the antenna and electrical connection.
Set the screen face-down on a clean towel. Remove the four Torx screws and carefully remove the video screen from the trim panel by releasing the four tabs. Clean the trim panel while it is out, but be careful not to scratch the coating on the plastic.
Turn the screen over and clean it with the cleaner in the polish kit. Examine for any scratches that go beyond the anti-glare coating.
Tape around the edges to make clean-up easier.
Place on a towel and put a small amount of polish on the powerball.
Spread the polish on the screen before spinning the ball, then slowly bring the powerball up to speed. Keep the ball moving without applying much pressure. Just let the polish work.
Clean the screen and examine. Repeat polishing as necessary. You may need to hand polish to get the corners.
Once we were satisfied that the screen was polished, we tried applying a protective screen, but just like your mobile phone, even a couple of air-bubbles will spoil the look, so we decided to reinstall without it.
Installation is the reverse of removal.
