April 14, 2010

Excuses Are Not Always Bad

So it has been a solid two and a half weeks since the last post, and for that I am truly sorry to the regular readers. But, of course, there is a very good reason for this that I will not divulge just yet. Don't worry; you will find out in the coming months exactly why I have been a bit too busy to post. Let me just say that massive things are on the horizon for us here at Downshift.

Anyway, I went out with my bud Alex to a recent BMW Track day at Lakeside; a quite infamous track basically known for people wrecking their cars. Going out to the BMW club track days is always good fun because you can get passenger rides at certain points during the day. Also some of the older guys who race have been racing for decades and certainly know how to throw a hefty German around the track in brute force.

It is a pity that BMW now make their newer model cars sound like hoovers. The 335i, 135i and Z4 all sounded pretty much the exact same: just 'whooshing'. This was made up though by the fact that they were crazy quick, but still, their sound should match their performance. The old school bimmers like the M Coupe and the old E30 and E21s all sounded amazing, especially the supercharged black M Coupe. It looked like a wild ride around the track, that's for sure. There were a few M3's out including the new E92 M3 which looked fantastic on its massive BBS's, but was unfortunately still a bit uneventful out on the track.

I didn't get a tonne of shots, although at the same time we weren't there for very long. Watching BMW's getting thrashed around one of Queensland best tracks is definitely a good way to blow a couple of spare hours.

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Out of the 5 or so times I have been to the track in the past year, someone has crashed. Definitely not a walk in the park.

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By far the quickest car of the day. This thing was absolutely flying.

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Throw some semi's on your 130i and you have a track car, and a very competent one at that. It also helps if you normally pilot an insane BMW 2002 as your weekend track car.

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My god the E92 M3 is a fantastic looking car. Pity about the whooshing.

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Plates are a dead giveaway.

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Why on earth would you get a convertible over a coupe? Especially when the coupe is an E46 M3? Lame plates as well.

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Supercharged M Coupe. The noise it made and the violence it showed coming onto the main straight certainly made it fun to watch.

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E30 and E36 M3's. Love the Nurburgring sticker, so fitting.

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We were trying to figure out if this was a genuine JPS car (still 50/50). But the carbon door cards certainly lead onto to the fact that it probably is.

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One of my favorite cars of the day. It just looks so tough and purposeful.

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The field wasn't just BMW's. A few other makes showed up to have a go out on the track against some German excellence. I wonder about the plates on the Maloo (obviously his WMD's were non existent like Iraqs).


2 comments:

  1. good read,
    nice to see simon and peirce are still out there!

    ReplyDelete
  2. boooo M3 convert, why oh why.

    ReplyDelete