First Track Day Tech Inspection
As my first weekend at the track was fast approaching I had to bite the bullet and dedicate some weekend time to doing the required tech inspection on my car. I also planned on upgrading to stainless steel brake lines and Castrol SPF brake fluid since bleeding the brakes was part of the required tech for track prep. Other than this upgrade, I wanted to run the car as stock as possible.
Most of the inspection is pretty straight forward as you can see on this sample tech sheet from Just Track It.
Topping off fluids and checking belts under the hood should be simple, but in a modern car they can be hard to get to or done virtually. For example, the brake fluid master cylinder in the M2 is under a plastic trim piece that is easier to take out then it is to put back in place. Not sure what happened to a good old fashion dip stick but to check the oil in the M2 you have to use the iDrive system.
Since I was pulling all the wheels off to swap the brake lines I took the opportunity to clean the inside and back of the rims. One trick I learned after the first time I took a wheel off was to break the lug nuts loose before you jack the car up as the wheels may spin freely once the car is off the ground.
After spending the better part of the day working on the car I was rolling the last tire back in the garage to finish up and I noticed a screw in the sidewall.
Time to go find a new right front tire before the track weekend. This is why it is important to do a thorough tech inspection. You don’t want to find out there is a screw in your tire at 100mph going into turn 1. It is much better to find it when the car is standing still!
My first club event was a Coffee and Cars, which ended up having a big turn out. There must have been 50+ cars in the parking lot. I brought my nephew who, like most teenagers, never looks up from his phone. During the event the only time he took his phone out was to take pictures of the cars.
While Rich geeked out about seeing the latest Z car up close and personal, I was excited to see an M2 CS that had just been picked up at the BMW facility in South Carolina. It was parked next to a 2019 M2 Competition in my favorite color, Long Beach Blue. There were a ton of M3s and M4s, a few M5s and a bunch of other models in various degrees of tune.
