I have been out of the Tarheel autocross scene for a while since I moved to Wilmington for school, but many of you still remember me and my car. It started off as a bone stock 325is with 68k miles and some cracking paint. Over the next few years, I slowly built the car into an DSP contender with much help from Sean and many parts from his old car.
I ran a few HPDE's with the car, resulting in an addiction that I can't afford yet. The car was great on track (Sean would still consider it slow), and much more capable than I am.
Over the past summer, I decided to tackle the cracking paint problem and learn how to do bodywork.
There was a lot of sanding to get through all of the cracking clear coat/paint.
I chose to stay with black, going with BMW's Sapphire Black. It ended up having more silver flake in it than I was expecting, appearing almost as a bronze flake in the sun.
I drove it for the rest of the year, only performing routine maintenance on it as I was pretty happy with the car. I didn't really do any autocrosses or track days as I have been pretty busy with school this year. Unfortunately, last month I was using the car for Daily duty, and a small electrical fire broke out. I noticed a tiny bit of white smoke coming from under the hood while stopped at a light, so I pulled over into a condo complex. Stopped the car on the street, turned it off and left it in second gear while I was investigating the cause of the smoke. At this point, it was coming out stronger, and from the air vents as well. After poking around for a few seconds with no luck, I called the fire department for some back up. Here are the results:
As I was on the phone with the fire department, watching the fire in disbelief, the car started and took off (quite a sight to see). It ended up jumping the curb and coming to rest against a sign. Luckily, I am often followed by the paparazzi, capturing the entire event unfold on film.
Luckily nobody was hurt during the whole ordeal. As far as we can tell, the fire began from the blower motor, located in the heart of the dash. I always wondered how car fires start when I would see them on the side of the highway, assuming it was tied to some sort of neglect. My car wasn't perfect, but it was a very well maintained and cared for car. I may have to co-drive the miata now so the O'Connell's can dominate CSP.
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Glad no one was hurt.
RIP e36 and glad you're OK Kevin....
. Just pull them out and re-upholster them 
