I think it is safe to say that the last few months have been pretty crazy for me. As those of you who follow my career may already know, I have been working tirelessly to get behind the wheel of a race car again. Auto racing is a funny sport; although you do need the skill, having the money to race is really the major limiting factor for me right now.

    Since the IMSA WeatherTech Championship has already long been going at this point, I have been working on other avenues to reestablish myself in the sports-car scene. A couple of weeks ago I was invited to test a Lamborghini Super Trofeo car with DAC Motorsports, and it went extremely well. I ended up being the quickest overall at the test, and since then we have been pedal-to-the-metal trying to put the sponsorship together to race. The first races of the season are this coming weekend already at Circuit Of The Americas, so I hope that by the time this column ruins, I will have the ride confirmed! Fingers crossed!

    In the meantime, another team which I am so grateful for is Team ZIMA. While I was so busy and distracted by the sponsorship-hunting, I received an e-mail from them asking if I would come race with them at Watkins Glen last weekend for the American Endurance Racing event in their very own BMW E30 that they basically rebuilt from scratch. How could I decline?!

    First of all, the story of the car and the team itself is inspiring to me, and was something I knew I wanted to be a part of. They had been going to the Daytona 24 Hours as a group of friends for a few years, and racing was something that they grew a passion for very quickly. One day they thought, hey, we want to race at Daytona one day! So they bought an E30 from a junk ard to race in LeMons (all cars that race LeMons must be from a junk yard!). Ever since then the car has been like a baby to them, with each of them working on it, upgrading pretty much every part, to the point to where they are now getting into more serious forms of amateur racing—like the AER Series.

    As a professional driver who posts photos of fancy GT3 race cars on Instagram, I think it was easy for them to think that I would think I was “too good” for a car like theirs, but despite them warning me that I would probably regret the decision of racing with them, I honestly was quite excited to be in a car with a team that had so much passion about racing. Plus, I thought they had done a fantastic job with the car! You can tell they love it and take care of it just by looking at it.

    The race weekend itself was definitely a change of pace for me, but in a great way. It almost reminded me of cyclocross racing; everyone on the team really wanted to get better and were focused on doing the best job they could. They all had so much passion for the sport, and at the same time they were just having a great time and had realistic expectations about everything. There were no egos or over-the-top serious attitudes, just having a great time racing the car they had invested so much in around one of the greatest tracks in the country.

    For me especially, it was really great working with a group that wanted to learn and get better, as I approach everything in my life the same way. It sort of went from me just racing with them to me coaching and racing with them, acting as a mentor with my experiences in professional racing. After every session, I went through video and data analysis with them, as well as other bits of advice on car setup and general team-organization skills. Even after the first nine-hour race day, when we all didn’t get back to our hotel until 10:30 at night, I stayed up until 1:00 a.m. going through everyone’s data and writing out personal track maps for each driver on things to improve and things they did well. I loved that they showed enthusiasm and the willingness to learn, and because of that, I think as a team we meshed really well together from the start!

    Everyone really did a great job, too. By the end of the weekend, everyone had been showing their fastest laps on super-old tires and on a much slower/hotter race track, and results-wise, I think all of our hard work showed.

    On Day One, we finished second in class—Team ZIMA’s best result to date! Day Two was filled with obstacles: In the beginning hours of the race, I had a tire blow up (which was from debris) going into the Bus Stop at over 100 mph (yikes!). Luckily, I made it through unscathed and limped the car back to the garage.

    I was impressed by the way the team reacted to this as well; it can be easy in a situation where we did so well the day before to really start to panic and make mistakes. Instead they focused forward on the job and got the tire changed quickly, and after we used that stop as one of our official fuel stops, we only lost two laps! It was impressive!

    After fighting to get our laps back all day, with 30 minutes to go I was in the car again when debris cut the brake line and the water hose. Luckily, the brake pedal went straight to the floor under a caution (that would’ve been, um, exciting!), but it was still sad to think about the fight we put up all day only to have it end so early.

    But because there were so many caution laps at the end, we managed to hold on to sixth place on Day Two, which put us third overall for the full eighteen-hour event! I was truly proud of everyone; it was a constant learning process, and everyone pushed themselves as hard as they could, while having fun doing it!

    The next race for them is a 24-hour race at Daytona with the World Racing League—yes, their dream track! I can only hope the very best for them; they deserve things to go as well as possible!

    As for me, although I do a lot of coaching work, after the Glen I’ve become more inspired to continue to work on the coaching side of my career even further. I’ve been very busy with the driving side looking for sponsors, but I absolutely love being able to help people learn, and it is satisfying to me to watch others feel good about the progress they’ve made. So if any of you are heading to a track day somewhere and want some coaching, I am available, and can be reached through any of my social media sites and my website.

    As for Team ZIMA, here’s to all the little teams out there with so much heart. I hope to meet more like them!—Ashley Freiberg

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