Shiny
(c) 2005 J. Sage Schreiner
www.unsage.com
I
had been racing my BMW 318i for two years with its original gold-ish paint and
numbers in white racing tape. People knew me as the guy with the fugly (and slow)
318i, but it was time to move on and stop bringing down the neighborhood, so to
speak. I settled on Inka Orange, one of the factory 2002 colors and
Jagermeister’s racing color. With a bright orange car, if I was punted the
driver couldn't claim they didn't see me! I knew there would be plenty of jokes
about highway cones and orange novice stickers, but I could live with that.
Painting
a car is all about prep – actually applying the paint is the easy part. Since
this was a race car and only needed to look good at 50 feet and 50 miles per
hour, it didn’t have to be too thorough of a job. There was still plenty of
work necessary to get the car ready, however.
The
first step was removing all the trim. Off came bumpers, headlights, front
grill, tail lights, door trim, bumper covers and just about everything else.
Next came the easy part (for me): Ken and Wes Hill picked up the car for prep.
They filled the biggest dents with bondo (using a full gallon tub’s worth).
They further pushed the trunk out from where it had been smooshed by an
inattentive driver back when it was a street car. Numerous deep scratches had
to be laboriously polished out. I told Wes that I wasn’t too worried about
them, but he pointed out that with fresh, shiny paint on the car, scratches and
dings would be twice as visible.
The Hill
brothers did great work. With the car covered in primer and bondo dust, it
actually looked better than it had previously. But since this wasn't a Camaro,
they took the next step and had it sprayed at Maaco.
When
Wes delivered it late in February, it looked great! Sure it need door-trim,
numbers, bumpers, headlights, taillights, and so forth – but it was hugely
improved. It was shiny.
I began
working on getting the trim back on the car. My awesome girlfriend and
crewchief, aka Girlchief, was put to work polishing the trim. With a cleaning
and polishing, the bumpers, grills and door trim looked a lot better. They were
shiny enough to be reinstalled on such a pretty car.
With
a nice looking car, taped numbers just didn't see appropriate – especially as I
had acquired two local businesses as partners. I went to Kim Hiskey of Fordahl
Motorsports for vinyl numbers. Kim does vinyl for a lot of racecars in the
With
the vastly improved car appearance I had been able to partner with two local
businesses. Jeff Butler was a fellow BMW CCA instructor and long-time friend.
His auto repair business, Haury's Lakecity Autobody (www.hauryscollision.com), was a natural
choice. Haury's had a high-tech paintbooth and did fantastic work – they've
serviced many BMW club member cars in the last few years, and get a big thumbs
up from everyone they've helped. My second sponsor was Jeff Hammer's Carpenter
Creek Winery (www.carpentercreek.com).
Jeff was a long-time gearhead who had moved on to the noble art of letting
perfectly good grapes "go bad", resulting in very nice
Washington-grown wines that don't cost a fortune. My goal was to provide
recognition and cross-pollination between local, independent businesses that I
believe in.
But
since all work and no play makes Sage a dull boy, it was time to go racing. A
chilly Thursday evening in April, before the first race weekend of 2004, I
loaded up the truck, put the car on the trailer and went to bed early. Two
years previously, I had loaded my tools and safety equipment into the fugly
gold car, and driven it to my first race. Now, I was towing a more attractive
orange car with my fancy (FM Radio! John Deere mudflaps!) '88 F250 and flatbed
trailer. A lot had changed – but the crucial bit had not. I was still anxious
about how the first race weekend would go. Sadly, Girlchief wasn't going to be
able to make it to the first race – she was busy taking care of Martha, aka
Racerdog, our newest household member. They would both be missed!
Friday
at the Mission Raceway track was a test-and-tune day. I arrived bright and
early after an early-morning drive. I hadn’t been in my race car since August,
so I used the to re-familiarize myself with the track and car both.
Many
times throughout the day, I had people come by who remembered the gold car and
complement me on how nice the car looked. One of the common, perfectly serious
questions was, "Is that even the same car?!"
The
weather was threatening showers all day. Mid-afternoon it began to drizzle,
then rain. I continued to run through my session with my treadless tires.
Until, that is, I barely brushed the apex curbing in the fast left-hand kink of
Turn 4. I was backwards instantly. The curbs! Stay away from the curbs! I spun
once before the car stopped, backed it off of the line until the turn worker
gave me a wave, and then zipped right back out again. No harm done, other than
a bit of gravel in my teeth and wounded pride. I did two more sessions with
treaded rain tires on the car and called it a day, just before thunder crashed
and the steady rain graduated to freakin' downpour.
I
hit the hay early and tried not to think of what could go wrong over the
weekend.
The Fugly Gold car gets masked and sanded.
Racerdog offers her professional opinion as Ken and Wes apply vinyl.
Additional photos of the 318i undergoing prep and painting can be found
at my website.