Let's go Racing
It's amazing how something as simple as buying a car can open up so many opportunities. After meeting some fellow enthusiasts at a BMW specialty shop when I showed them my car I was invited to a spec M4 racing series. It's multiple races, and it's put on by CJ which is an entertainment conglomerate here in Korea. The CJ SuperRace is comprised of 4 classes that each race separately during the day - Cadillac 6000, which is basically a stock car with a CTS-V body, Hyundai Avante Cup, Genesis Cup, and BMW M class (which is all spec M4's).
Here's some more information in English.
There are I believe 8 races in the season, so this was the 7th one. They rotate tracks, so this one was held in Inje, which is far east of Seoul.
Except, I was coming from even further... LOL
So as you can see it's about 3 hours to get there even though it's only 214 km, which goes to show how slow people drive....
Anywho, we had to arrive by 8 to get let in by our hosts because they had qualifying at 9. So I set out on the drive. Going to Seoul is the easy part, it's going East that starts taking a lot of time because it's only two lanes each direction so slowpokes get in the left lane and camp.
We arrived to the foggy, damp track.
Since everyone was in a rush we were quickly escorted to the staging area and I found a prime parking spot.
And watched everyone start to get prepared.
Lining up...
And warmup, then qualifying!
The setup is pretty cool, there's even a tire sponsor that changes tires on the fly for you.
There's also a hotel which overlooks the track that most of the folks stay in the night before the race.
The majority of these GT86's were shipped over from Japan to take part in the race just for today. Lotta coin!
This particular day these open air 4cyl racers were running too.
Before the races start for the day, everyone lines up on the grid, take pictures, get the team together, etc. This particular day even had a guest singer who sang a few songs.
Cadillac 6000.
The team. Remember, this is entirely self-funded, so they're racing their personal M4's. One guy is the head for BMW M sales, as in he sells the most M cars every year, another is the test driver for McLaren, etc etc.
For the race, it was either hanging out in the McLaren bay (they own one of the pit bays since they do testing here; no pics of inside though) or hanging out on the roof so I decided to hang out on the roof.
As you can see, motorsport isn't extremely popular here, especially in a more remote location, so not very many people came. LOL
The results were pretty staggering - the team leader, in the #17 car, went from 16th to 1st in 11 laps. I'll have to see if I can find in car video, it was really impressive!!! The winner gets the $8,000 cash prize and gets time penalized for the next races' qualifying. 2nd and 3rd also get a slight time penalty and they also get cash, although it's less than 1st place.
The downside to winning is you have to stay for the entire rest of the races for the day for an interview at the very end...
So everyone spent the time watching in car footage.
I ended up leaving a bit early because I knew it was going to be a long drive, especially with traffic, home and I had to feed my dog so she wouldn't die.
All in all loads of fun!