Ed aka the Sloth

FA: So, what’s your name? And if you had to have a racing nickname what would it be?

EC: My name’s Evan Daniel Clark. And about the nickname, well, my aunt always used to call me Ed since I was little, since my first name is Evan and my second name is Daniel and no one else calls me Ed. I always thought that was cool for some reason, so yeah, Ed.

FA: Just Ed?

EC: Yeah *laughs* it’s like the least dramatic answer but…

FA: Yeah I was expecting something a little more fierce!

FA: Do you have any other cars?

EC: Yeah, I have anothеr E36 M3, four-door, with an S54 motor in it, the engine from thе E46 M3, and I just sold my 1974 BMW 2002.

FA: When did you realize you were a car guy? When did you feel that it wasn’t just something you kinda cared about?

EC: Let me give you an example, I found this piece of paper, during a school exercise in second grade, about what you wanted your family to be and what you wanted to be when you grew up, and I wrote that I wanted to be a car designer, which was funny because after I studied car design I found this piece of paper again and I was like “Oh my god! This is crazy.” I would’ve never thought I was interested in cars for so long.

FA: If money was no object, what car would you pick? You can pick one-offs.

EC: *Long silence* I’d have to pick—and currently it might sound kinda like a cliché—but I swear it’s been my pick for a long time, the Ferrari 250 GTO.

FA: What do you think about modern cars in general, do you think cars are losing their ‘soul’?

EC: Well, you know, on one hand I feel like, it may be hard to say because we’re living in the period where it’s hard to say what lived on from [the old classics] but, on the other hand, they’re constantly turning in cars that the consumer wants, so you’re constantly adjusting the car for the various world markets. I like the fact that brands now are to starting to recognize that ‘Soul’ people that want. I feel BMW is going back to that a little bit, you know, trying to ‘Purify’ their sports cars, because they’ve had fast cars, but it’s been a while since they had a proper sports car.

FA: What did you do to your E36? Was it 100 percent stock when you got it?

EC: The car was relatively stock, it had ugly wheels on it and other little aftermarket interior pieces, but I liked it because it wasn’t really beat up. First thing I did was to take a lot of weight out of it, I did suspension, tyres, better cooling so it could survive on the track, I tracked it here and there but it was still my daily driver... sometimes I would just have one seat in it and my friends would give me shit because I couldn’t carry anyone at all.

FA: Did you work on your car by yourself? Or maybe your dad helped you from time to time?

EC: Yeah, my dad helped me getting most of the work done.

FA: Frank told me you did some interesting stuff to make it lighter, what did you do?

EC: You can get pretty creative you know, you can cut out a lot of things and whatever structural rigidity you compromise by losing weight, you want to reinforce with the structure of the roll cage, which I feel like it was done really well in my car. I was able to cut out a lot of the inside of the car in addition to the interior stock parts and everything. I was able to save a whole lot of weight. I got the car down to almost 2500lbs and as far as changes that are gonna happen soon, I’m gonna change the entire suspension geometry so I’ll be able to cut off the fenders and put on bigger tyres.

FA: You’re running stock size wheels?

EC: No, no, I’m running 255, stock is like 235, so this would allow me to run something like a 275 with slicks, which would be pretty sweet.

FA: And also widebody always looks better.

EC: Yeah, that’s my inspiration there *points at E36 GT3 poster*

FA: Favorite race track in the world?

EC: It’s funny I’ve never been to either of them, and I don’t know which one I prefer, but I’ll have to go with Spa and the Nürburgring. Can I leave those at a tie?

FA: I know you watch racing, what’s your favorite category?

EC: I love endurance racing, I like V8 Supercars a lot and DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) too, even though I didn’t really enjoy the last 2 seasons. I’ve never missed a single Formula 1 practice, qualifying or race, so I guess you can say Formula 1 is my favorite. But in terms of excitement, nothing can beat old-school races. I watch a lot of ‘90s DTM because it’s kinda like going back in time and reliving ‘90s racing.

FA: Favorite racing driver of all time?

EC: Oh man, I wasn’t expecting this question. I’ve never been asked this question before. Nelson Piquet, I’ve always been a big fan of him. Obviously, I’m a big Senna fan too but… I’ll have to go back to this question. *laughs*

FA: How many times did you race at Willow Springs? Do you go there often or do you just go for big events?

EC: I don’t do much testing there because it’s not much of a technical track, but I’ll probably go there about 10 times a year on average.

FA: Do you only ever use your E36 there?

EC: Yeah, only the E36, it’s only an hour and a half away so it’s no big deal.

FA: Okay, Frank said that sometimes you race without a racing suit and you just wear a Hawaiian shirt or something like that.

EC: I’ve only done that once! *laughs* It was really hot that day and it wasn’t like, wheel-to-wheel racing so there’s less of a chance of ending up in a deadly firey wreck so it’s one of those days where teams go and test their cars and… yeah… I’ve only done that a couple times but I won’t do it anymore!

FA: About the 2002, tell me about it.

EC: The car was stock when I got it, stock wheels, the wiring was updated as well as the alternator and the cooling system, just for reliability purposes. I trimmed the bumpers down because of course it had the big ugly US-Spec bumpers so I shortened them a little bit. I didn’t do anything else before selling it.

FA: Is there any new car that you like? I don’t necessarily mean a car that you would like to own, just a car that you really like that came out recently.

EC: I’m glad you asked me and I really wanna know what you wanna say about it. The new [BMW] M3 looks better than the new M4, to you have agree with this?

FA: Yeah, you’re right, I don’t get this whole renaming thing with the M3 and the M4 but whatever, it does look better, I would totally own a white M3.

EC: But if I could get a recent car now, it’ll be a [Porsche] 991 GT3 RS.

FA: What do you think about the fact that it doesn’t come with a manual?

EC: I wasn’t surprised. I was sad, but I wasn’t surprised. It was predictable.

FA: True, it’s not like Porsche is doing it on purpose just to annoy purists, it’s just that the engines and everything else are starting to be unsuitable for cars like that.

EC: Yeah, look at the Ferrari F430 with the 6-speed, there’s videos on YouTube of people trying to drive them and it’s just too much of a hassle, changing gears takes 2 seconds or more and you can see they’re not enjoying the car at its full potential.

FA: What about floppy paddles vs stick shift, what do you think about that? Do you still prefer cars with an old-school transmission? Or it doesn’t really matter to you?

EC: Not necessarily, I mean I would obviously still prefer a standard 6-speed over floppy paddles, to be honest, I don’t think that even in high-end supercars the double-clutch system is even there yet, I think people mistake them for the sequential boxes on race cars. For example, they see a Porsche GT3 Cup Car and they think that their Audi AS has the same type of transmission like, “Hey, I’m a race driver,” so they take it to the track just to find out that you don’t have the same freedom that you would have with a standard 6-speed as far as doing things like shifting from 5th to 2nd, and it would also overheat faster than a 6-speed. So yeah, I don’t care if the upshifts are 0.2 seconds faster than a 6-speed, I would still prefer the old-school way. I mean, you can still have a pure driving experience with floppy paddles but you would miss that type of engagement that you have with a manual.

FA: What is your favorite era of racing?

EC: Definitely the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, with the DTM and the BTCC (British Touring Car Championship), and also the rally scene being more restrictive after they banned Group B cars.

FA: If BMW didn’t exist, what would you go for?

EC: Well, Porsche? *laughs*

FA: I was actually about to say, what if BMW and Porsche didn’t exist?

EC: Oh man, I’d say Mercedes then. I like their engines, especially their 6.2L V8. Brutal, reminds me of American muscles.

FA: What is, in your opinion, the best all-round car, for either driving around, having fun, going shopping, whatever?

EC: I’d say a Volvo station wagon. I’ve always liked them as a company and they’re very safe, which is always good, and I think they’re cool.

FA: Well, wow, I was expecting something like a CTS-V wagon or an MS wagon, that’s a strange pick.

EC: Maybe I was factoring too many things like MPG and stuff like that, so yeah.

FA: Best engine ever made, in your opinion?

EC: Umm, Cosworth has built some nice engines. I would obviously still prefer a standard 6-speed over floppy paddles, to be honest, I don’t think that even in high-end supercars the double clutch system is even there yet...

FA: Okay, I know it’s not easy, so let’s just do best engine for road cars.

EC: Road cars, well, okay… probably the S42, which was BMW’s race version of the M42 that they used in their 318i in the BTCC, they were pretty rad. I think they used the same block in Formula 1, but I also like the Mercedes 16V Cosworth motor.

FA: I thought you were gonna say the M120, because to me, that’s one of the greatest engines ever made.

EC: Yeah, I guess I’m just being a little too BMW-wise *laughs*, but it’s definitely a hard question. I don’t know how to answer. Either the S42 or the S14.

FA: What do you think about rotary engines?

EC: I don’t know, they’re interesting, light and compact, but they just wouldn’t work. Nowadays, they’re not very reliable, and they lack torque, and they also get pretty bad MPG.

FA: Oh, right, what is your favorite special edition BMW?

EC: Probably the E9 CSL. It was basically the road-legal version of the race car for the public.

FA: Yeah, the “Batmobile.” It was also super-expensive at the time, that’s why it’s so rare.

FA: What is your favorite car at the (2015) Geneva Motor Show?

EC: I don’t know, the Koenigsegg was cool. It’s just so cool, I love the wrap around the windshield, it reminds me of the old Group C cars.

FA: What’s your favorite muscle cars? I mean you’re American, you need to have a favorite muscle car.

EC: Umm, I can talk about muscle cars. I like Chevelles, old Nova’s like, ‘65 Nova’s, probably a good old ‘55 Chevy like the one my uncle used to race. But I can’t really pick a favorite amongst these.

I was going to ask Evan a bunch of other questions but I’ve been up all night in Italy and I haven’t slept a single minute on my flight to LA, so we just chatted for a bit… mostly about cars as you can imagine, but I was also curious about LA, so we chatted about the differences between it and from where I’m from.

I was stressing that, where I’m from, things are way different than in Los Angeles, to start off, we don’t actually drive, nice cars, and by nice, I mean fast, and nobody is really interested in them, so it was pretty much the first time where I could exchange opinions with an actual car guy in real life. Before this interview, my only way to communicate with car aficionados was via Tumblr or Facebook.

I also met his father prior of the interview and he was as cool as his son, and he was also very much into motorsport, and speaking about motorsport. The 24 Hours Nürburgring race was being held when I was in LA, which was kind of a reality check to me since Evan turned on the TV to check out the race and it was daytime in Germany while it was about 11pm in LA. My first thought was that it was being rebroadcast, but then I realized that I was in the other side of the world and for some reason that really struck me because I was just realizing how far I was from my time zone, precisely 9 hours, and it had never happened up until now where I was watching a major endurance race from the other side of the world.

I’m still a bit sad that I couldn’t make it in time to see him race the E36, but it was my first time in Los Angeles and, to be honest, I was simply overwhelmed with the car scene here.