First sprint distance race

William and I were both too busy running our respective businesses last week to really get his car prepped for the NASA event at Buttonwillow 4/17-18/10. The plan was to do the Spec Miata race and then the enduro in E3 (PTE). Worked through until about 12:30am Saturday getting ready, when home for a shower then loaded up and headed to the track. I was able to lay down for about an hour but didn't actually sleep. Too much buzzing around in my head. What I may have forgotten to do, what I remembered to do and the things I forgot that I had remembered to do. William went home and got maybe 2hrs sleep. Lucky!


So race morning we roll to tech and they ask if we want to get our annual. You bet, let's get it out of the way. Of course that meant missing practice for the SM race. My first time ever in the car was SM qualifying. 7/21, not bad. Fell off at Phil Hill and knocked the alignment way out on the left front. Reset the toe and got ready for the race. Chatting with Burgoon he asks if  I'm doing the PTE race too. Three races in one day? You bet! So I sign up at the last minute, too late to quailfy. So about an hour before the SM race, I'm gridding for the PTE race. At the very back of the field. :(


PTE race
Managed to get by 8 cars on the first lap, about that many more during the race and a few dropped out I think. Finished 3rd of 21, 2nd fastest race lap. Cool!


Spec Miata race
Was actually pretty uneventful. Left the door open at the start and a slower car got by me going into T1. Took about two laps to get around and break free. Lead 5 were gone by then so I soloed in behind them. Finished 6th of 21. It was clear that William's car had the same grip everywhere but was just down about 10-15hp to the front cars. We'll work on that and hope to be closer next time.

Enduro
Last year I did two enduro's, always with someone else coordinating as crew chief. This year it was William and  I, both not having a full understanding of the enduro rules. Lameness #1. To make things more interesting, this driver missed every driver's meeting during the day. Lameness #2. So I roll up to pre-grid for the enduro about ten minutes late. Lameness #3. Since I didn't qualify, I'm at the very back again. Lameness #4. My window net is down so I'm held for a moment while a steward helps me get the net in. Lameness #5. Meanwhile, the field rolls out. In the vein of being lame and unprepared, I blast out of the pits to catch up with the back of the field on the formation lap, obliterating the 25mph pit speed limit in the process. Lameness #6.
Of course I get black flagged. So while the green flies, I'm having a cordial chat with Ryan, who is doing his best not to yell at me for being a complete idiot, which we both know I was. He grills me for a bit then decides I'm merely temporarily lame, not endemically so.


So now I'm out, immediately chasing down the E3 backmarkers and making short work of them. I think I was either one or possibly two laps down when I joined the race. About an hour in I've caught the leader and unlapped myself. I wondered why the guy in the 944 fought for the position so hard. I only learned later that he though he was losing the lead. Which he would have been if I had been experience my typical lameness factor of only about 2.2, instead of the pegged 9.8 I was running that day. Yeah, starting near the front on the same lap is a good thing. argh.


Sun sets, 1:45 in and I'm actually finding a good groove, steadily making up ground and still a 1/4 tank indicated. Set fastest race lap in our class. Then my old buddy the black flies. For me? Aww, you shouldn't have. Turns out it's a good idea to have functioning running lights in a race car at night. Who knew? At this point, I fear I still have some unused lameness lurking, nurtured no doubt by an utter lack of REM sleep. So I throw in the towel, pull the car back into the pits. William is disapointed but also relieved. We raced hard on an unproven car, went fast and didn't bend it. He exhibited enough speed, situational awareness and consistency in HPDE4 to earn his provisional competition license. A very good day.


On the way back to LA, we each have to take about 60 minute stints driving. Both of us are just worked. Looking forward to doing more enduros and seeing William beat up on the regulars in SM.

Buttonwillow 9-27/28

Saturday

After doing some one lap datalogging runs I finally took it out for some hot laps without a laptop in the pasenger seat. First time through Sunset on my flying lap and the FM throttle cable bracket snapped in two. Not enough tiime to ge it fixed by 7's Only before the day was through so I was done for the day. I left the .060" thick 304 FM bracket with Dallas at 7's Only and he fabbed a copy out of .125" mild steel for me to pick up the next morning.

Sunday,

Alternator pivot bolt backed out. Went over to 7's Only to scavenge one off a Miata in their boneyard only to misplace it about 30 minutes later. Went back for yet another one, installed and the car was all set. Sent Rob Burgoon out for a few hot laps. On his way down pitlane and about the enter the track, the throttle shaft broke (where they always break), sticking the throttle open. Rob immediately shut down. Haven't taken the manifold off and explored for broken bits of throttle/screw in there yet. Fingers crossed he shut it down in time to save the engine from ingesting anything harmful. You can see the burly cable bracket Dallas whipped up in pic of the broken throttle.

Manly Kao just barely missed going under 2:00 on street tires, 2:00.147 IIRC. So close! Anyway, that's a reprieve as I'd really like to be the first non-supercar under 2:00 on street tires.

Steve Happel vanhap.com, the resident photographer at Buttonwillow got some killer hi-res shots of the project car catching air over the peak at Cotton Corners. I'll post those when he gets the disc to me. The SV crew has begun a new tradition of hanging around the pool after the event. Drinking, munching AM/PM snacks and bench racing until we run out of beer. Then we cruise across the sreet to the Willow Ranch Restaurant, hit on the hot waitresses, order truck stop food and drink some more beer. So overall, a good weekend at the track and a solid performance from the project car. Three weeks until the next event for me to properly sort it out, get the wings on and whatnot. Oh yeah, I think I'm going to take my good friend Oli's suggestion not to paint it but do a body wrap instead. allprostickers.com in San Diego come highly recommended. Lotus chrome orange!

First track event for project car

Worked straight through Thursday night getting it ready. Well, as ready as I could. I was concerned about the aero lift and cooling issues I would have with no body work so I put the marker lights and factory r package lip spoiler on. Didn't have time to make brackets for the huge ISC Racing air dam/splitter or APR dual element wing. No rear bodywork or race seats. I need harnesses so I cut holes in the stock seats for my 6 pt Team Tech's sub belts to pass through.
Ghetto but it's better than the 4pts Willans I had. Anyway, got it done about 5:30 am, went home for a much needed shower, loaded up and left for Buttonwillow.

As expected, I was falling asleep at the wheel so I pulled over for a half hour for some mini-nappage. Got to the track around noon. Running 13CW on Friday. Unloaded and rolled out for a recon lap at about 60% pace. Back in a lap later, few little tweaks here and there, then out again. Brought it up top about 90% and the car felt really good. Power from the mix and match engine was sensational, better than expected. A little too much starting pressure had me up to about 37 hot, too much for a sub 2000# Miata. Gordon's 2100# intercooled, water injected, Megasquirted, MP62 hotside was just barely pulling me. William's 99 with stock engine, race exhaust and coldside air intake making probably 125whp was not even close.

All in all a great day at the track. Afterwards, Aaron and a few of us instructors retired to the pool at the Red Roof for some liquid nutritional supplements. 24oz Fosters in my case. Well the sleep deprivation and 100* heat finally got to me. I started slurring my speech, and speaking incoherently. More than usual that is. Stumbled (literally) back to the room and slept for 12 hrs.

Today we're running a variation on 18CW. Aaron decided he hates brake pads and has us running the drag strip into StarMazda. You read that right. Riding with a first timer in a C6 Z06 touching 150mph in that pup was, ah, invigorating.

I have XP10 Carbotech's on the front but didn't have time to get the brake ducts made. Hopefully, I've got enough. I think I'll run XP12's in front for the next event. XP10's are fine a Spec Miata on 205's but the project beastie is much faster.

I'm also going to log my laps with William's Traqmate. Curious to see the lateral in Riverside. It feel like the slight baking there overcomes any aero lift I may be getting so it turns harder there that anywhere else on the track.

Forgot one of the adapters for my laptop so I'm borrowing William's for the blog and to do some datalogging. Hoping to lean out the top end of the map a bit, free up maybe 5-10hp.

We're running 13CW again tomorrow. The plan is to go out when it's relatively cool and aim for a 2:02. With the 2:04.3 yesterday, I'm guessing I have the normally aspirated Miata lap record on 13CW. I'm sure an EP car would be faster but I've never seen on on 13 CW, the Cal Club uses different configs.

OK, time to drive...