Taking it out today for a backroads trip to Louisville. On the boring interstate it is a 50 mile trip. But, on fun backroads it is usually somewhere between 80 to 150 miles! We do have some decent twisties here in central Kentucky, but you have to work to find them. I found them using a Kentucky road atlas that the Department of Highways published years ago, but for the most part it is still a valid twisting hunting atlas. Some of the roads are no longer the same roads with the suburban sprawl, but we still go exploring and find some gems. Eastern Kentucky has myriad twisty roads and some of them are technically challenging and beautiful to boot. As coal mining has diminished there are fewer hazards as the big trucks are not as prevalent and the roads are in better shape. On our sojourns to mini heaven in Tennessee and North Carolina we try new routes each trip. I had the JCW PRO exhaust installed on the GP and it has made a huge difference in the exhaust note. Not too many pops and bangs yet, but it has a deep resonant, throaty sound that is music to my ears. We really like the well in the back of the GP as well, it makes a great place to put trip stuff and other essentials. Motor on fellow miniphiles!

 

Lucky You!

Enjoy your rides...

We are at “stick season”, with rain season coming up shortly.
The JCW is coming out today, none the less. Time to clear out the cobwebs, mice and whatnot...

 

With the 301 HP JCW Clubbie ... All4 on a very similar platform ...

I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why MINI can’t offer that in say a 2022 GP3-R with ‘less bling ... and more sting’ ....Ditch the spats and the wing for more ‘pragmatic’ aero while you’re at it!!

or a MINI GP-2.0 CSL With some of the M-Sport drivetrain tech 😯

$55,000 factory club spec limited to 200 units globally . Have Sébastien Loeb campaign it !



.

 

BMW doesn’t want their poorer cousins competing with them....

 

There is no much they can do about it, or maybe they do something ?

 

It is unfortunate that the GP does not meet the requirements for the TCR class of racing. It is only a 3 door, whereas the TCR class requires 4 or 5 doors, which the Clubman meets but no one is doing anything with it. We also don’t have MINI “Challenge” racing here in the States, which is a shame. GT World, TC America does have some MINIs entered by LAP Motors, a private entity, and they do quite well. But that is it and that is not promoted by MINI. BMW does a lot to promote its brand in racing, but not the MINI brand. Clearly, if they wanted to, they could, but appears they choose not to. And the best MINI can come up with is a year+ old observation that individuals will take their GP to the track on their own My feeling is MINI is loosing out here in so many ways and that is disappointing.

In the mean time, those of us who know what a great car we have in the MINI will motor on...

 

JCW's took three podiums (2, 2 and 3) during the first race weekend of SRO in TCA class. Just watched the broadcast yesterday.

 

Nice!
Is that up on YouTube?

 

They are:

https://www.reddit.com/r/miniracing/..._this_weekend/

Yeah, not a direct link, but has a bit more detail on the classes and what not.

 

Fun!

I wish they were doing the IMSA thing like they used to. Those announcers are the best as is the camera work...

 

I never had doubts that the MINI GP3 is fast, Unfortunately MINI stopped after 7,56 as their main goal was unachievable with stock parts. We have changed that

 

A promising start into race season 21
Pole-Position for Niklas Koch / Schirra Cooper - We have no doubt that he will do also well with the GP3 to come.

This car is capable of beating the Renault record, but the GP3 equals, the engine & Automatic is just fantastic ! the 40 kgs of the manual are uninteresting.

 

Not much holding the door on...

I believe it was a Chris Harris review and test drive of the new M3 that he mentioned that BMW is outfitting the car with an automatic instead of the DCT. I know there has been a lot of discussion in this thread about the GP3 not have a DTC... Seems BMW believes the auto is just about as good. I wonder if they are seeing issues with the DCT?

 

The GP Transmission is tweak able, a programming and hardware tune. For the coding you would need God`s own help :-(
The transmission however is sturdy (450Nm) Japanese and keeps 24 hour alive, the massive oil cooler is part of the kicker.

 

The need for oil coolers tends to be overlooked, but will help keep most things alive for a long time.... Heat kills...

 

I wonder if we'll see any race prepped GP3's at Pikes??




.

 

Thats old MINI Tec 1,6 Litre R56 told you, GP3 we talk adults

 

This is a great video, very professional and well done. I wonder what it cost to make it?

 

Driver at end:
“I didn’t crash! Woo Hoo! Or, kill any dumber-than-the-dirt-they-are-standing-on people”

GP3s at Pike’s Peak? I would guess not. At least not with a factory team like that. BMW isn’t into that sort of thing. And sponsor a MINI? God forbid!

 

Yes, we are stepchildren at best. When our Mini dealership in Louisville folded an independent shop that specializes in BMW's, Porsches, and Minis hired a number of the Mini dealership's employees, and they have fantastic service. It is only forty miles from where we live and their service is better than the closest dealership and less costly.

 

I did get an email from MINI that highlighted MINI’s 2 year in a row manufacture’s win in the TCA class of GT World racing, along with a link to the their upcoming schedule: http://www.minijcwteam.com/schedule. So all is not lost for MINI racing in the states. They did take 2nd in the first race at .

As for the GP, Car and Driver published this year’s lightening lap car test that takes place on VIR’s Grand Course. This year include the MINI GP 3 and it took top honors as the fastest FWD car that they have tested to date. Their beef was with the transmission, which it appears they let it to shift for itself. What? They said that they tried manually shifting it and achieve no better results... Again, What? Well, FWIW -https://www.caranddriver.com/feature...lightning-lap/

 

I wonder what the GP would be like on the track if it had All4 like the JCW Clubman/Countryman? Sure it would weigh a little more but there would be less understeer and wheelspin that they complain about.

 

Yeah, I don't understand the whole "Shifting for ourselves isn't much better and doesn't improve times. " bit. It most certainly does improve times and is much better. Just a bizarre take, really.

Also, it looks like the Mini JCW Racing team has some trickery going on...

 

The other thing I noticed is that the C and D drivers don’t trail brake much into the corners if at all, which would help FWD cars. That might not help with making more of a difference to the the Type R, as they would have done the same there. But it would help in the general lap time. They also said that the GP was slower through the corners than the Type R, but I didn’t see much if any difference in the cornering speeds in the graph they published. So, not sure how it lost out there. If it did, it wasn’t by much.

DavePinAZ - not sure about “trickery”. If it is the exhaust tone change in the clip that you are refer to, that is the same as what my JCW does upon initial startup from cold. Not sure why it does that. Sorry if I missed something else in your post.

TheBigNewt - I believe the GP is something like The weight is 2700ish lbs vs 3400ish lbs for the Clubman. Between these 2 cars, acceleration is simply power to weight once traction is no longer a factor. The GP will be faster overall coming out of the corners. Also, weight kills handling. In IMSA race cars one of the things they do for BOP (balance of performance) is to add or subtract weight. Adding 20 kg will make a significant difference in slowing down a car’s lap times. The 700-ish lbs more that the Clubman carries will surely slow it compared to the GP, even if the Clubman were to have the same sticky tires the GP has.

 

RE trail braking: I've read both for FWD cars. Do it and don't do it. Dunno

Also, it wouldn't surprise me if the GP3 was a bit slower out of the corners. When you let the car shift for you, it doesn't always do the best job.

RE trickery: I was referring to the fact that it looks like a GP3 getting prepped for some TCamerica racing. I'm curious what they're doing and why they have a single exhaust instead of the dual that the GP3 comes with.