BMW E30 318is in Mexico WRC Event!

[woodym3]

This is really cool! A fellow from Illinois, Bill Caswell, ran this major event, with drivers paid in the millions, in an old car he bought on Craigslist.

http://jalopnik.com/5497042/how-a-50...k-rally-racers

(At the 2004 One Lap of America this guy Caswell and his sister showed up with an E30 M3 just before registration/tech closed. Neil and I helped them get through it and put stickers on their car. He seemed totally clueless. At the first event the next morning at Heartland Park in Kansas, he ask me if he could run in front of me despite a much lower seeding. He told me he would be real fast. Well he WAS. It turned out he had done some racing and the car had an S50 engine. Recently I've seen the Roundel writer Sam Smith mention some wild things he's done with Caswell)

[flohtingPoint]

This is a nice story but a lot is left out and/or embellished (but what does one expect, jalopnik is hardly Autosport). After reading it and seeing a glaring lack of splits, stage times or any stats what so ever (other than he came in 3rd in his group), I did some digging.

He came in 3rd in a group of 9, four of which didn't finish and one of which didn't count, so 3rd out of 4. Bill Caswell's final time was 5:25:48.5. To put this in perspective, Loeb's time was 3:42:41.7 and the slowest of the professionals was 4:38:31.7. Basically the guy didn't kill his car so he was able to finish with the four other folks in his class. The one person he beat that finished everything, clocked in at a pedestrian 5:51:58.2. Overall (pro's and non-pros), he was the second slowest person of everyone that finished.

This being said, I think anyone would love the experience of driving those stages. It was a drive of a lifetime for him and an experience I'm sure he'll never forget.

Taking a car out there and running a beater is not unheard of, I have photos I took from the WRC event in Trier back in '06 where there was a old Civic hatchback, a Skoda and a MKIII Golf running the stages. The Skoda was slow to the point of holding up traffic on the stage.

[mdepena]

Regardless of what Mr. FP, above says, it's a great story. There is always more to a story than meets the eye, but you can't take away what he did under the circumstances. More people should have the cojones Mr. Caswell has. Give him his due and stop raining on the parade.

[flohtingPoint]

Regardless of what Mr. FP, above says, it's a great story. There is always more to a story than meets the eye, but you can't take away what he did under the circumstances. More people should have the cojones Mr. Caswell has. Give him his due and stop raining on the parade.

You got me all wrong, I'm not raining on the drivers parade at all. I even put the following in my post: "... I think anyone would love the experience of driving those stages. It was a drive of a lifetime for him and an experience I'm sure he'll never forget." I thought it was awesome that an American not using DC Shoes' money went out there and ran the stages.

My qualms was with the story posted on jalop, which was very one dimensional, contained little to no facts and had a glaring lack of information. It's more embellishment than a recollection of an event.

[woodym3]

Here is the co-driver's (navigator's) version of the adventure.

http://jalopnik.com/5500013/i-co+dro...yline=true&s=i

[flohtingPoint]

Here is the co-driver's (navigator's) version of the adventure.

http://jalopnik.com/5500013/i-co+dro...yline=true&s=i

Much better write up than the first!