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| From Driver to Designer
Enthusiasm for something can take you a lot of places, but how far you go depends on how much you are willing to invest in that interest. With any hobby, your skill level and knowledge are directly related to how much time you spend refining your practice. For racing, that means seat time and an intimate understanding of your car. Sean, one of the co-owners of SPL Parts, is an enthusiast who has dedicated himself to building cars and racing them. Through his hobby, his life has become focused exclusively on motorsports, which gives Sean the opportunity to live what is possibly every enthusiast’s goal.
Racing is something that can only be refined by spending time in the seat. For Sean, that began in his late teens. As someone who was interested in cars, his ownership history mirrors that of nearly every gearhead in the late 20th and early part of the 21st century. He began his journey in an ’85 Nissan 200sx (that’s a 240sx here in America) which prompted his love affair with Nissan. Between that and his current cars, an ’87 Merkur, an ’84 Porsche 944, and a race-prepped ’88 Honda CR-X satisfied his early need for performance.
It was with that CR-X Sean became fixated on improving his abilities behind the wheel. The previous owner of the car who had outfitted it for racing helped Sean wet his feet with Auto-X, and his love for racing was cemented. The CR-X that would take him around his native country of Canada to his first few events also helped him grow out of Auto-X and into real track time.
A weekend in Toronto took Sean from his first time on the track for lessons all the way into door-to-door racing, for which he admitted he was woefully ill-equipped. |
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| “I didn’t have any of the equipment I needed. I had to get a fire suit, gloves, shoes, and a bunch of gear last-minute.” |
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From there, Sean decided it was time to become more involved. In his career, he was working in Telecom and IT, which spurred a move to Texas for a position that would indirectly lead to his shift in employment to motorsports.
After moving to Texas, Sean reconnected with his favorite marque and purchased a Nissan Z32 300zx Twin Turbo. The Z community is a strong and tight-knit one. Through the local Z club in which he found, he was motivated to build his car and continue improving on the track. Friendly competition, it seems, always plays a part in car builds. After spending time in a friend’s Z with highly tuned suspension and comparing it to his own, Sean knew where he needed to devote his time.
A new company then, before it was known as SPL Parts, had been developing suspension components for a number of competitive vehicles, including some of Sean’s friends. When he contacted SPL and had them make suspension parts for his own car, he could not have foreseen what would eventually happen.
The first parts snowballed into Sean becoming an investor with SPL Parts, a move that would inevitably lead to his full transition from a regular day job to a car guy’s dream job. The investment included a new 350z that Sean would spend the majority of his time with on the track. |
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| “I was on the track pretty much nonstop. I didn’t lose a time trial in that car during the first year of competition.” |
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Sean devoted his time to polishing his craft that year and he was immensely successful. As he progressed in the following seasons and his racing wins stacked up, his involvement with SPL Parts grew in tandem. After some time with the Z, he decided to ‘foolishly,’ as he put it, supercharge it. Naturally, the well-abused Z from a hard few seasons on the track decided to scramble the contents of its engine. This prompted a full rebuild of the power plant, but that project is still one that is slowly ongoing.
With the Z out of commission and Sean’s place as a co-owner of SPL Parts secured, he purchased a BRZ that he used for both racing and parts development. Part of the development process for their suspension components involves extreme testing under actual conditions, so Sean has transitioned from exclusively a driver to someone now concerned with the parts’ production, not just pulling them out of the box and using them.
Sean’s time on the track with all these cars helped him establish relationships with fellow drivers who became directly familiar with the beefy suspension components offered by SPL. Almost overnight, their focus went from relatively exclusive Nissan chassis support to BMW, Porsche, Subaru, and other popular manufacturers. Namely, Porsche and BMW enthusiasts have converted Sean from a JDM fan to something of a Euro-enthusiast.
Recently, Sean has been enjoying a 3.8L-swapped Boxster S that provides a nearly endless amount of entertainment. He is looking forward to spending more time on the track at events with the car, but it apparently hasn’t been enough to satisfy the full extent of his attention. He is, as this article is being read, purchasing an E46 M3.
The M3 already has a mental list of modifications Sean has planned. These, of course, include the SPL Parts rear suspension components to add strength and adjustability, but perhaps more interestingly, will lead to the development of more parts for the chassis. Thanks to his newfound interest in BMW, he is already planning front suspension components for the E46 M3 and is determined to expand their coverage of track-focused, racing-oriented, upgraded suspension parts for the marque.
It took more than a few years, but, in a round-about way, Sean’s history of searching for the perfect performance car platform has brought him to the same conclusion many of us share: a love for BMWs and the desire to find their maximum potential. Sean, as a producer, takes that involvement a step further. He is dedicated to producing the best suspension parts for his needs on the track, as well as those needs of the greater BMW community, which has grown substantially as the performance to cost ratio falls on some of the most highly regarded cars ever to see competition.
With his focus on improving his own abilities on the track and insatiable draw to producing the parts that allow him to find his potential, Sean is the enthusiast so many of us want to be. Based on his advice, spending as much time on the track as possible sounds like an easy process. However, we know from experience the kind of sacrifices that need to be made in order to do that. As such, Sean spends almost all his time either in a car or at a track with a new focus of research rather than enjoyment. That said, he still firmly believes in the old adage that ‘doing what you love means you never really work a day in your life.’
Sean has been fortunate to arrive at his current position through his hard work and unwavering focus on finding the extent to which he can enjoy his hobby. At a certain point, that hobby has to take over as something more in order to justify the interest. Luckily for those of us who are somewhere along that road, traveling at our own paces, people like Sean have reached that point where their experience and knowledge can make it into our cars with parts that have been developed by people who share our goals. We look forward to seeing what SPL Parts can do with the new M3 headed their way, so be sure to stay tuned in as you’ll certainly see that right here at Turner Motorsport. |
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| Locking Up
Once again, we are extremely thankful for the participation and support from friends like Sean. Sharing our passion for BMWs with each other is as critical a part of the community as driving the cars themselves. If you have a BMW, then you assuredly have many happy, sad, frustrating, or confusing memories with it. As a community, when we hear these stories, it adds value and depth to our own enthusiasm to know what other hobbyists love and hate. We want to hear your stories, so we would like to invite you to submit your own for the Turner Motorsport family to enjoy.
-Turner Motorsport |
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