Author: Tony Tellier tellier@mindspring.com 4/30/08 @ 6:13 PM
“ALL GERMAN” DOES GERMANY
photos by Andreas Beil
Baja racing does not lend itself well to proselytizing; no knocking on doors, no buggin’ people: “Have you tried the new, improved ‘San Felipe 250’?” ‘. No handing out so-called “literature”. Desert racers do not pimp their rides. But the “All German Motorsports” guys – the Germany-Escondido connection -- did just that in early April. In Germany, of all places. Martin Christensen and Armin Schwarz invited a host of European journalists and industry people to play in the dirt. They had this all set up before they won in ‘Flip: Class 1, 4th OA in the recent SCORE International San Felipe 250. Talk about serendipitous braggin’ rights right there.
All German had had, for many months, the ex-Mike Peterson LS2-Jimco on the continent, the European continent, for auto shows. In fact, after the recent Essen (DE) show they had a drawing from their on-line Virtual Car Club to select seven peeps selected to drive the car with Armin guiding them: “Motorsports pros like me are never good co-drivers.” Some came with their buds, with their moms, some with high-maint tarlets-in-training.
The night before team was introduced – “Project Baja” -- along with the latest addition, Armin Kremer, a many-times German rally champ and ’01 European champ. AK will partner with beam car expert Adam Pfankuch in the Jimco.
The team is drawn from the existing All German crew: Martin/ Chris “Chaparro” Ames, Armin S./Brian Lyttle, und Armin K. /Sam Osman, plus the newly-signed Pfankuch/Tom Erwine duo (Q: Did they reckon on Mike Pf!).
Martin has kept the core group, just moved the pieces: “It might seem that taking the tested, proven pit guys and taking them out that loop and into a car might be ‘iffy’ but we thought, well, where else should the guy be? With the car!”
At the fete Norman Alderhutte, the producer-director-cameraman of the RTL (a major German sports network) WRC shows played his San Felipe 250 video that had aired just before the Bahrain F1 telecast, getting loads of Baja silt served to die Deutschers. The video even had the ubiquitous Pete Sohren … go figure that.
After the festive evening’s presentation at the ultra-swank Steinenberger hotel in Dresden suburb of Radebeul they all trooped out towards the Czech-Polish border to the defunct strip mining area of Lausitz (You may recall that name from the EuroSpeedway where Alex Zanardi lost his legs in a 2001 Champ Car accident.) The demise of the Eastern bloc brought the use of the nasty-burning brown lignite coal to a screeching halt, leaving the hummocky terrain ideal for off-roading with pits and ponds, berms to blast, roads to rail. And no Sierra Club. Yet.
They – whoever - had large-dia piping to dewater the aquifer. Otherwise the existing holes – and the ungodly huge steel pieces (“The Eiffel Tower Laying on Its Side”, as it was described) … would become flooded. 51-square miles might be expected to be flooded, on purpose, as a nature park. There goes that German round of a “Baja” event?
The show-and-tell test track was tight with a large number of drop-aways and scour holes – perfect to show the dump-sucking ability of the Class one car. Everyone was suited up in Stand 21 suits and helmets … plus garbage bags, as the Spring rains left a lot of water that would soon become mud.
They all loved it.
The responses were all uniform: “Unbelievable!” “It took all of the bumps away.” “It was like a never-ending accident. Fredi Billet, a Parisian motorsports journalist, said that he wished that there had been longer straights so he “could hear more of the music” from the exhaust’s “full song.” All remarked on how the noise was “invigorating”. Schwarz even gave the gang a thrill when he did not get out of a deep off-camber turn cleanly and laid it over. On the passenger’s side, of course, who laughed that he must have gotten too heavy over the winter? “Two men cannot turn this over,” he quickly caught on. “It took eight”, as the hangers-on ran to the rescue, making for a perfect Mexican-like day in the dirt.
Although the crowd ducked for cover whenever one of the two Armin’s roosted them. They were suitably impressed while Kremer’s staff continued to grill chicken and turkey – sorry, no burgers, Kremer is a world-wide poultry magnate -- and made sure that the coffee pot was never low; after all, it was a typical German April “Spring” day: cold, damp, blustery.
The afternoon was dedicated to a “1” Vs. “WRC” shoot-out on the margins of an awesomely-huge mine pit. Formal Tag Heuer timing was used as each car took three hot laps and the damp sands provided outstanding traction and rooster tails but not one hint of dust. Jeez … how unrealistic!
The terrain was more suited to good corner handling, rather than brute power of a Chevy: think “The Road To Mike’s” without the drop-aways.
The overnight success for Schwarz’ Baja career is not from some Johan-Come lately … rally driver started in 1983 and by 1987 was the German champ. And in ’88.
He now travels to all of the WRC races as the color man and experienced racer. Name dropper: his web site lists racing and associates links … and including 7-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher.
Getting the head of BFG into the Projects-shod Jimco was ultra-bad; also on hand was Swantje Eibach, yes, that Eibach ... their goodie bags included “Dust to Glory” DVDs. Eibach has a plant in Corona (CA) and Armin got a tour while on a US holiday, then they intro-ed him to Martin, who was using their springs on his de-stroked 318i Class Ten champ Jimco. They hit it off, Armin got intro-ed to the mystique of Baja and, as they say, the rest is history. Kremer and Schwarz go way back so Armin #1 convinced #2 that he should get with it. And … etc., etc.
You may think of this as just nothing more than a pretty typical day at Plaster City or Barstow, where teams are always testing … but this was, for the Germans, like the first SuperCross you saw: “Wow! They can do THAT!?”
European invasion? Well, maybe not like the Beatles but now two WRC drivers will be at the “500” plus the VW Touaregs. WTF, O!
Schwarz spoke of the tight-ass rigors of FIA/WRC racing: “Everything is on a timetable. San Felipe Contingency? Show up when you want. The WRC? A minute late to scrutiniering (“Tech”, to the “909ers”) costs you a time penalty even before the start.”
Add to that flexibility the joys of prerunning, of course. AGM does this in spades, too. They GPS at the maximum 9,999 rate, which in these clunky Lowrance units requires on-the-fly save-deletes from the memory card. (Memory IS cheap, correct?) The Right Seat best have their key pad sequences down pat.
He said a thing he had to change was getting really well-fitted ear pieces as wearing ill-fitting ones for nine hours became irritating: “A rally, we might wear them for only forty-five minutes.” Oh, and no catheter.
So, out of the blue, Armin has become the Baja-promoting “Cameron Steele of Yrrup”!
But the question was WHY “From Bavaria to Baja”? It came down to two words and one idea: “NO LIMITS!”
Armin laughed.
Author: Tony Tellier tellier@mindspring.com 4/30/08 @ 6:13 PM