Mad Minion Racing Team History

July 2011

Backmarkers are Born

After watching the TopGear episode where they ran a 24hr race, we began planning an epic adventure of our own. We found a race series called "ChumpCar" where all of the cars were $500 and the bar to enter was incredibly low - money, a pulse and a wanton disregard for one's own well being... perfect for us!

We assembled a team of like minded souls, some of whom had never been on a track before, much less in a wheel to wheel race and found a car we could rent. That rental was a 1992 BMW 325i, or had once been. We paid too much, got too little and prepared to go racing in the car we called...

The Jackwagon.

And because we didn't know better, we bought that beater and brought it home. We were so smart... no way could we build a race car as cheap as buying this one.
If you believe stupid should hurt, then you are going to love this story.

September 2011

A Team's Gotta Glamp

We'd been doing track days for a few years now, driving our street cars to a track and lapping for a day, sometimes two. It was tons of fun but there had been a few drawbacks, especially because two of our favorite tracks were far enough away to require an overnight stay. We also were briging along quite a bit of gear to keep the cars on track and us somewhat comfortable in the paddock. Trying to fit more and more stuff into sports cars was becoming a challenge too. Another couple we knew from track days had just bought a big motor home - a 40ft long Class A diesel pusher. It was awesome. We need one of those too. And a trailer that can fit The Jackwagon plus a street car...

So, that's what we did. We actually bought a matching model to theirs along with a 26ft Stacker trailer. We've had a knack for overdoing things for a while now, but this was the ultimate overdo. Why get a starter version when you can go right to the top?

Enter, Gladys and her double-wide trailer - the trackside home for The Backmarkers.

November 2011

The MisAdventures of Team Backmarkers - Part 1

Our motley crew has formed up into a pretty solid team with talented drivers, experienced team management and coaching, master fabricators, skilled mechanics and engineers. Too bad none of those people owned the team. Still, we were having a blast, at least until we ran into whatever mishap the universe had dialed up for us.

For Laguna Seca, where this picture was taken, the universe decided we should blow up the motor. And it should happen early, while we're up front and with the fastest lap of the race. Most of the team never even turned a lap but we weren't discouraged, pissed but not discouraged. We knew we'd be back soon to give it another go. Still waiting for that return trip to Laguna.

If you're keeping score at home, that was the demise of Jackwagon v1

March 2012

It's new year and we're starting fresh with a new car. Our friend and and driving coach, Scott, has become a critical part of the team and we're leaning on him and his experience quite a bit. After blowing the motor in the last race, he offers to donate a chassis he had as the next...

The Jackwagon Mk2

It's new year and we're starting fresh with a new car. Our friend and driving coach, Scott, has become a critical part of the team and we're leaning on him and his experience quite a bit. After blowing the motor in the last race, he offers to donate a chassis he had as the next car for the team. Not just any chassis but his own 1995 BMW M3 LTW - a car he'd bought new and had been waiting for the right opportunity to build out as a racecar. It's also rare, only 120 in the U.S. and it was an awesome race car.

It lasted exactly 2 hours and 17 minutes.

The rain in Portland claimed it's first victim from the Backmarkers at the exit of turn 8. No other cars involved, just a simple mistake in the wet turns driver into passenger. Impacted the concrete wall hard enough to bend the car and make it unrepairable.
We'll reuse what we can and start to build another car. Third time's the charm, right...?

July 2012

We found this lovely Calypso Red 325i and swapped in everything that wasn't bent from Jackwagon Mk2. Gave it a fitting look for Chump Car, but anyone who thought it was another beater would quickly find out how wrong...

Trinity

We found this lovely Calypso Red 325i and swapped in everything that wasn't bent from Jackwagon Mk2 and named her Trinity. She looked like Frankencar but anyone who thought she was junk would quickly find out how wrong they were. Trinity was fast.

We finished building just in time for the 24hour race in Spokane. We had three of the fastest drivers on that track and felt good about our chances. Still, we started off rough by not latching the hood and needed a short stop to repair, which dropped us to last. But, from there, we drove a clean race and worked our way through the field. With just two laps left, we were solidly in 2nd place so we made the call to ease up and bring the car home. Turned out we were actually only seconds behind the leader but we were just happy to finish. We were still celebrating in the impound area when our ECU was pulled for inspection. In there was a little computer chip with a shiny label we'd neglected to remove. That's an illegal part and we were given a penalty dropping us down to 5th - no trophy and no more celebrating. Time to own up and shift focus to the next race at a new track, The Ridge Motorsports Park.

September 2012

Trinity at The Ridge

The Ridge was a brand new track and this race would be the first event. Except for a couple of track days in the month prior, all of which we had attended. We had more time on this track than most of the other teams and even without the cheaty chip in our ECU, we still had the best car. We were ready to go and ready for our first win.

From the drop of the green flag we were moving through the field and by the end of the first stint, we were in 1st - first time ever for us in any race or any car. Pitstop for fuel and a driver change, then back on track in 3rd place looking strong. Only a mechanical failure would keep us from a podium finish and if we stayed clean, the race win was ours for sure.

Naturally, we had a fuel pump failure two laps into the 2nd stint and coasted to a stop on track. Towed back to the paddock, if we could fix it there was plenty of time for a recovery. No spare in the trailer, no spare to borrow. We even looked around at street cars in the parking lot but no luck there either. Another DNF for the Backmarkers and another early drive home. Made a video about this one that's on our Video page, worth checking out.

A return to Portland was next on the calendar, a chance for redemption...

November 2012

PIR Strikes Again

Despite the disappointment from our previous races, we still felt good about our car and knew if we could just put all the pieces together we'd be running up front. Coming into the race in Portland, we wanted to make amends for the disaster the previous year by driving smart and racing clean.

We got so close but once again a small mistake was amplified by the wet conditions. This time on the opposite side of the track, coming out of the chicane, a bit too much over the kerb and the car was into the wall. Just hard enough to bend the frame and bring Trinity to an end.

Yet another off season with a totaled car and trying to decide if we want to try and build one more.

July 5th 2013

We decided to give it one more try and set a budget, found a car with a bad motor that was otherwise good to go and set about turning it into the Backmarker's 4th car, which we called Ivy. We made the upcoming ChumpCar race in Spokane as the target date, July 4th weekend and the longest endurance race ever - 36 hours...

Ivy

We decided in the off season that we would give it one more try. So we set a budget, found a car with a bad motor that was otherwise good to go and set about turning it into the Backmarker's 4th car, which we called Ivy. We made the upcoming ChumpCar race in Spokane as the target, the longest endurance race ever - 36 hours.

It was down to the wire, lots of last minute work including repairs from an incident in practice a few months before that did some damage to the front end. We managed to get everything done and just did get Ivy to the track in time for tech inspection. It felt a little different, like we were going through the motions and didn't really have our heads in the game.

As we got closer to the start of the race, things started to feel a bit more normal as we all got busy with final prep and once the race started, things seemed to calm down and we settled in for the first night of the race.

July 6th 2013

5 hours, 15 minutes

The first two stints were uneventful, clean drives and no issues. The car was great, maybe the best of them all, fun was had and everything was running smoothly. And then, it wasn't. In an instant, it was over - our race and our car. Most importantly, the driver was ok and only a bruised knee to show for what must have been one of the more spectaular incidents that this track or the series had seen. It happened 5 hours and 15 minutes into the race and the result was a complete loss - nothing meaningful could be salvaged from Ivy and it was looking pretty unlikely there would be a Quentin, which was the name we'd already decided on if we had to build a 5th car.

There wasn't a lot of discussion, we knew pretty much immediately that we were done.

August 2013

Rage Quitting The Backmarkers

The end of the Backmarkers was kind of a quiet one. There were no goodbye posts to the team Facebook page, no fire sale forum post or any kind of announcement. We just started getting rid of everything that we associated with the team. The car was the easiest since it was scrap and anything of value in the car we just gave away.

In gaming, they refer to this as Rage Quitting - getting so mad at a series of bad breaks or dumb mistakes that you don't just quit the game, you unplug the machine and hurl it into a dumpster. That is essentially what we did. We were just devestated to be facing starting over again and couldn't stomach having to eat the costs to do it. So we made the logical business decision to cut out losses and move on, maybe for ever, definitely for now.

Gone were Gladys the RV, the stacker trailer, and most everything that went with racing.

March 2014

Totally Radical

Took 7 or 8 months before we started hinting that we might want to return to the track. It's hard to replicate the racing experience and there's nothing to replace it. Once we'd had some time pass it was the memories of being in the car, any car, that were the strongest. Driving flat out and battling lap after lap - that was what we missed.

But, we were beyond just taking our street cars out for a lapping day, we still wanted to be in a purpose built racecar. We looked around at a few different weekend racing schools where they would put you in a single seat, open wheel, Formula style car and they were pretty spendy. We'd been adamant that we weren't going to just blindly throw money at any new racing effort; we needed to be smarter.

So we found a school at Spring Mountain in Nevada that used Radical SR3's - purpose built, prototype style racers. Just like that, we reconfirmed our love of racing. Now we had to decide what path we were going to take.

November 2014

Get a Miata

We looked a number of different options after driving the Radical - including buying one and sharing it in an arrive and drive racing series. We just couldn't make the numbers work - because of how expensive that whole program would've been. We talked with all the people we trust and the feedback was consistent - go get a Miata.

At first, we had the same response you probably just had - ewww Miata. Slow, under-powered, etc... and worse. I think what turned the tide for us was when someone said, "if you can drive a Miata fast, you can drive anything". That and the cost was right where we wanted to budget. Once we decided this was the plan, literally the first look at Craigslist we saw this little yellow Spec Miata for sale. A few days later, it was in our garage and we were back in racing.

Along with our friend Gunter we entered our first race the following year as Mad Minion Racing - mad because we're probably all crazy for doing this again and minion from the color of our car and a shared love of the little cartoon guys.