B58 Stock Turbo 1/4 mile record is ours!

On Sunday the 27th February 2022 at Santa Pod Raceway on our first run of the season, WE BROKE THE RECORD.

Last season we ended on a disappointing note, we ended the season with a personal best of 11.05 @ 125mph at Santa Pod, on that day there was quite a bad head wind and we were battling with tyre monitor errors, these prevented us from running at 100% power and sadly the year ended without us achieving our goal for the season which was to run 10.99 or quicker. Yes, I know it's only 0.06 off target but thanks to "that" movie, a 10 second car the minimum yard stick for racers of my generation, I feel it validates a company to some extent when they achieve the goals they set for their platform, whether it be a horse power figure or lap time, or in our case, a 1/4 mile time, I feel it is important to participate in whatever motorsport disciplines you favour with your shop car so you can test your products and inspire confidence in your customers so they know your products are good enough to meet the goals you set out to achieve.

In my case, I don't have the talent to go around corners fast and we dont sell any handling modifications, so circuit racing is out. Drag racing on the other hand, well I know a thing or two about that, for over a decade I have drag raced in competition and competed in many events and various classes, this time though, I wanted to achieve something different, I wanted to show customers what their cars are capable of with our parts installed. To such and extent, that we would be the fastest over a 1/4 mile, the industry standard for the measurement of all cars that are truly quick.

As you know, our 2017 BMW M140i sports all our hardware upgrades and some others that are freely available off the shelf, and my goal was to beat the previous (unconfirmed) record of 10.94 set by an unknown spec M140i at Santa Pod during 2019.

Our 11.05 run last year was widely accepted as the quickest stock turbo around but I wanted to settle it properly, so that meant I would need to catch the run on video, for reference, and on a timeslip and most definitely on a Dragy report, that way, it would not be disputed in the future.

So after a long drive to Pod, we dropped in some E40 fuel, loaded the MHD E40 tune, slapped on some Hoosiers and got into the queue. Roughly an hour later it was our turn to burn some rubber. As I approached the burnout box, I remember telling my spotter that I would take this first run easy so we could gauge the track conditions and adjust the setup accordingly, my exact reply to him in fact was,

"I'll take it easy this run, so anything around 11.5 to start with is ok and then we can try with the meth and set the tyres if she doesn't hold"

I entered the burnout box and proceeded to warm up the tyres, she wouldn't do a perfect burnout but it was good enough for a test hit, so I staged the car deep and engaged launch control, the little M140 squatted flat and in that split second, just as the tree went yellow, I remember thinking - "Shit, she's locked in good"

Instinctively when I saw the yellows I released the brake and she came out the hole like her ass was on fire, at the 60ft I know we're on for a good time if she stays in the groove, half way down the track now the wind creeps around the grandstand on the left and crosses the track, this pushes me out of the groove and I feel the back get slightly loose, I decide to stay in it as the car recovers almost instantly and we break the beams at the 1320ft marker at a time of 10.76...

I remember looking down at the Dragy report and I caught a glimpse of the 10.76 1/4 mile time stamp.... I just started chuckling, because I had just told the spotter I was not going to push it and I could only imagine what the hell must he be thinking looking at the time boards at the end.

It was a great day, I went for a second run a bit later against a McLaren for a grudge race, he decided to back out of staging and I ended up getting a red light as I was already engaged in launch control so the car pushed through the beams.

I look forward to our next outing on the 12th of March where I will try take some more weight out of the car and run it at it's full potential. I really dont want the time to stand as a "one and done" before we move to a large frame aftermarket turbo and start competing for overall fastest M140. And it has to be said again, these 10 sec passes are easily replicated by customers cars who use all the same products from us.