Project Trackday

Just some pictures of the amazing machinery present at the 2009 Pumpkin Run, enjoy!

Note: I don't have any pictures from Sunday on track so all the pictures in the post are ones that were taken Saturday...

Back early on day 2 to prepare for another day I arrived around 7:20am just as the sun was coming up.  It was still pretty cold but the forecast was a dry and sunny day for the entire day.  First thing I did was to check the brake pad wear, especially in the fronts.  Being this was the first time I had asked so much of them I wanted to make sure that there was still plenty of pad material on there because I knew I was going to ask more of them on the second day.  Surprisingly there wasn’t much brake wear at all, so all I can say is that I am extremely pleased with the performance and durability of the Yellowstuff pads.  (This was again verified at the end of Sunday, and I’m confident these pads have plenty more track time left in them)

The morning started as usual with a class session, and then back on track where for the first time we tried yet less braking between turns 3-4 and holding 4th gear all the way through from the exit of 2 through hard braking for turn 7.  This was a vast improvement from staying in 3rd all the way through 4, upshifting on the exit and then back down to 3rd on the entry to turn 5 as I was forced to keep the momentum in the car to prevent it falling out of the power band.

Something clicked in this first session early on going into turn 7 and it made a world of difference.  I experimented with braking late and turning in just the same time I was starting to release the brake (before the front could decompress) and the turn in was so sharp that I had to turn the wheel back a bit.  The following lap Mike told me  to treat turn 1 like “an autocross sweeper” and I did the same late brake and turn in before the front decompressed, and ended up coming in to turn 2 so fast that I had to really adjust my braking into the corner.  Finally I was starting to use the load transfer characteristics of the car instead of trying to fight it…  The remainder of the lap I focused on hitting the points at the higher speeds I was now achieving and using the load transfer to my advantage.  Mike was very happy with the progress and mentioned that I had now “opened a whole other door” and was “on another level now”.  He mentioned that he had wanted me to get to that point at the end of day 2, and was happy that I was already there so we could keep on moving the yardstick further.

We discussed staying in 4th gear all the way from midway down the main straight until turn 7 and then I took a ride with him to see how it was done.  The goal was ‘Momentum Driving’, and it was extremely important since the Miata was so down on power compared to the rest of the field.  I noticed that exiting turn 2 Mike was able to keep his car at 4300+rpm and therefore had good power out of the corner.  My goal was to exit the same corner at enough speed not to get bogged down in 4th coming out of the corner.

Session 2 we worked on momentum driving and I focused on looking for a visual cue for turn 8 (which had been the corner I was still early apexing a bit because I couldn’t see the apex or exit until 3/4 ways through the turn due to the rise.  Finally I found a good reference point and was able to start consistently hitting the apex.

Coming into turn 1 I was braking late, using the load transfer to turn in and then just a light push on the brake to get more front bite into turn 2.  Going through 3 I lined up for 4 and then braked not to slow down but to settle the front end before turning into 4.  Braking into 5 to get front turn in and then flooring it to hard braking for turn 7, turning in early to clip the apex and flooring it to the entry of 8, taken in the outside middle of the seam on the track, turning in and waiting for my visual cue before getting on the gas.  On the brakes into 9 towards the outside middle of the seam, crossing over to the inside of the seam through 9 (not using the inside curbing) to look for the curb to the right of the pit entry, getting my rear left on that and then the front right over the apex of 10 to do it all over again.

In session 3 I was held up late in the session in the turns for a few laps by a 996 Turbo and Mike told me to stay behind it, testing my ability to follow and on my lines (not watching the car in front’s lines).  I had hit all of the cues and was not letting another car in front get me distracted or off my line even though I was having to brake 150ft earlier into 1 due to the car ahead.  Once we ended the session we stopped in the pit to discuss the session and Mike gave me the go-ahead to do the final session solo.

Cleared for solo in session 4

The final session of the weekend was a combined session with both Green and Yellow groups running together, and was 35 minutes instead of the usual 25 minutes.  Having watched a Yellow only session I was a bit concerned about the number of cars on track synchronously (28 cars on track for the yellow group alone), but as they pulled into the paddock several cars packed it in and called it a day.  Start of the 4th session I was just going to go out and do my own pace but making sure I kept an eye on faster cars coming up, and I felt once I got into a rhythm it really wasn’t a problem at all.

Mike suggested I get a feel for how the car feels different through the turns without the extra weight of an instructor in the car, especially on the left handed turns where there was no long that extra mass on the inside of the corner.  It was definitely different not having the extra weight, the car was accelerating faster (no surprise), and was quicker through the left turns (4 and 8 ) but it felt more on edge on the right turns (as I was going quicker and also because the CG of the car had been shifted).  At one point I peeked down and saw I was hitting 100mph into braking for turn 1…

Late into session 4 (maybe 5-10 minutes until the end) my fuel gauge was starting to creep towards empty and I was following a 944 around the track.  I wasn’t much slower or faster, and over an entire lap I felt I was maybe about on parity with it even though it had the go in the straights to pull away.  I contemplated on pulling into the pits and calling it a day but I was confident that there was enough gas to run out the session.  A lap or two later as I was exiting 10 the 944 spun in front of me, and in hesitation I lifted off the throttle too quickly, inducing a big oversteer moment.  In my lack of experience I instinctively tried to countersteer to catch the slide and got into a huge tankslapper.  Once that happened I knew I was in for the ride, put both feet in (brake + clutch) and hoped for the best…

I hit the exit hay bails on 10 hard going backwards, but I already knew what I had done wrong..  Getting off the gas in panic was the first mistake, but secondly I should have been more conscious of the track layout and known that 10 was the only corner with a guardrail to hit, so I shouldn’t have even tried to save the slide.  Shortly after the track crew, ambulance and Mike were alongside, and I was asked if I was hurt in any way (no.).  Mike mentioned the damage was minimal but I really didn’t want to see what damage I had done..  I drove the car back to the pitlane, sat for a minute and then came out to see the damage.  The rear finish panel and the passenger tail light was cracked, but other than that no other parts would need replacing.  Mike mentioned that if that damage had happened early on Saturday we would have just duct taped the broken plastic parts and kept on going all weekend.  No mechanical damage whatsoever.  How lucky was that!?

Assessing the damage once I got home...

Headed up to the tower for a debrief/report of the accident and then I headed back down to pack my things for the long trip home.  Plenty of time to think over what had happened.  I came to the conclusion that it was a rookie mistake to get spooked at an incident happening right in front of me, but other than that I had made huge strides over the weekend.  I can’t wait until summer ’10 rolls around so I can do it all over again!  This will be the last event for the 2009 season for Project Trackday and all I can say is this has been such a blast so I would highly recommend to anyone who has the interest and means to get into this sport to not be scared away by how much it can cost.  I pulled it off for under $4000 even though at times it seemed like it was improbable, and I had the best summer/autumn ever getting to drive this car around.  I competed in 5 autocrosses and completed 1 weekend trackday (with over 200 minutes of track time).

During the offseason I will be doing some repairs to the car, and depending on the budget I may be upgrading the suspension (shocks and springs) or wheels/tires (going to a 15″ rim to open up my tire compound options).  As for Project Trackday 1.0, I completed my goal so this portion of the project is complete.  Next season I will be keeping track of how much running a season (entry fees, repairs, etc) costs to give people an idea of how much it costs to run a car through these events…

’09 has been a blast, see you in ’10…

What a weekend!

I set out earlier this year to attempt to buy and prepare a car to take to the track for under $4,000 and now I can finally say that I have completed the goal that I set.  Spent all weekend at Putnam Park Road Course in Mount Meridian, IN learning the track and the behavior of the car and it really has put a lot of things in perspective for me personally.  I’ll try to sum up the weekend over this and the following post…

Left to head out to Putnam early Saturday morning, arriving about 7:20am and got the car in queue for on-track tech inspection.  Everything went fine and I was back in grid awaiting registration by 7:50.  The event was broken down to 5 run groups; Instructors, Blue, Red, Yellow and Green (in order of experience).  Met my instructor for the weekend (Mike, who by my luck happened to be the most knowledgeable person in the Miata community I have ever come across) at the drivers meeting  and then headed up to take the first session of class for the Green group.

After the class session I met up with Mike and prepared to head out for our first session on track.  It was cold and damp conditions so we decided to try out a wet line so I could get a feel for it.

Car #17 in the cold pits awaiting the session start...

The amount of grip in those conditions on the wet line was amazing and judging by the rest of the cars on track for that session it was apparent that they were trying to learn the course on the dry line, so it was relatively straightforward to pass several cars in that session.  The session lasted 25 minutes but they were extremely useful as I had never experienced the difference in grip levels in the wet between a dry and wet line.

Setting up for turn 9 on the wet line

By then the misting rain had stopped and the track began to start drying slowly.  I took a ride with Mike during the instructor group in his car and he planned on showing me the race (dry) line and talking me through the points on the track (turn in, apex, exit) that I should be going for in the next session.  Another Miata came up and then the two instructors decided to have a little fun while I watched from on board.  First thing that struck me as impressive was how these guys were able to go into the braking zone less than half a car length apart and trust that they would brake at the same time…

Mike's car in the paddock

During the second run we worked on a dry race line and my goal was to hit all of the turn ins, apexes and exits.  We also adjusted some shifting points on the track to increase the speeds through the corners.

Getting ready to head back out for session 2

Late in the session I was starting to feel that the car was really down on power in the straights, and then one lap later going down the straight I could barely get the car into 4th before going into the braking zone for turn 1.  One turn later I saw the black flag and steam started pouring out of the hood…  We immediately pulled off track and the session was red flagged with only a few minutes remaining in the session.  A hose somewhere had clearly blown and all that steam was coolant spraying onto the hot exhaust pipes.  After a quick inspection, I got a tow back to the pitlane to assess the damage.

Getting towed back

After checking carefully it was evident the coolant loss was coming from near the back of the engine, and after a bit more probing I found the bad heater hose that had cracked.  Luckily Mike just so happened to have a spare on hand (not to mention a trailer of Miata parts!) so I was able to replace the faulty hose during lunch and not miss any track time.  Topped off all the fluids and the car was ready to hit the track again.

Busy at work during lunch to get the car ready for session 3

After lunch I headed back up to the classroom for the second classroom session, and then just as soon we were back on track for session 3.  Finally the sun had decided to peek through a bit and the track was completely dry and finally warming up.  The lunchtime repairs worked perfectly and the car ran well for the remainder of the weekend.  In session 3 we focused on consistency in hitting the key track points and tweaking the line as to suit my car in particular.  By this point it was clear that all of the times I had been complaining in the past about the car understeering/etc was not really that important.  What was much more important was how to set up turns to avoid getting those problems in the first place!  If the car was understeering in a particular corner and I had been doing exactly the same thing as the previous lap when it was just fine, it wasn’t because the tires were getting greasy or the pressures were changing.  I was simply coming into the corner faster because I had gotten a better line through the previous corner, and needed to realize and adjust my inputs accordingly.

Here we go again... Session 3 is about to start

Back to the paddock I was left with a lot of things to think about.  The first session I may have hit 80mph into braking for turn 1, but now I was easily hitting 90 and braking later and harder for the turn, focusing on setting for turn 2 that came immediately afterwards.  I was able to hang if not pass most of the cars in the group between turns 1 and 10, but as soon as I got on the main straight they were gone, right until the braking into turn 1 where I was back on the tail end of the cars.  The main point was still consistency lap after lap, especially through turns 5 and turn 8.  I could hit all the points at a bit lower speeds when I was stuck behind following, but when I was in the open road I was still early apexing and missing apexes on occasion.  Mike said I had hit every single track in, apex and out on the track quite a few times, but I had not done every single one on a complete lap yet…  The only corner I was consistent and hitting the cues every time was turn 9 and 10 because the course is very flat around that section and it is very easy to see where the car needs to be well before getting there.  During the break the course was closed temporarily due to a large shunt by a Porsche GT2 coming out of turn 10, causing significant damage to the rear end.

GT2 at turn 10 into the hay bails and guard rail at high speed

Quite a bit of damage

It was a stern reminder of what can happen at the only corner on track without significant runoff.  I had been very comfortable at turn 9 and 10 since session 2 and was very consistent through it so I made sure a crash there didn’t phase me and affect my driving through the corner.  The final session of the day I was finally able to string together a handful of laps where I hit every cue on the track.  Some real progress and I was able to leave day 1 of the 2009 Pumpkin Run with some good things to build upon for day 2.  Already 100 minutes of track time and I was ready to get some R&R before doing it all over again.

Turned out to be a beautiful day to be on a track

Down the main straight

Just a quick progress report since the last post.  At the Grissom AFB auto-x the ambient temps were down in the low-mid 50s and although the car felt fine I did notice that there was an overall lack of grip.  Also the previous 33/34psi setup did not work very well (possibly due to the high grip on the surface), causing some rolling beyond the wear bars on the tires.  I upped the pressure to 35/36psi and it prevented roll on the sidewalls.  There may be some issues with running these tires in such cold conditions without any chance to warm them up, hopefully at a trackday this won’t be as much of a problem.

Had some nice weather this weekend so I took the opportunity to finish off some of the work I had planned on doing to the car.  This included a valve cover gasket change and an oil change.  Used some Mobil1 5W-30 as it has worked well up till now, and went with a longer M1-110 oil filter (stock is M1-108) as per recommendations from a lot of the Miata forums community.  Unfortunately I spaced out a bit and completely forgot to take a camera for pics.  The only thing left to do is schedule an alignment job and get the pre-inspection sheet filled out before the trackday.  Can’t wait, but hope that it’s a bit warmer than 50F out there…

I think I’ve finally found a good setup on the tire pressures for the Azenis.  Started out running 32psi all around on a damp track but was getting a LOT of understeer + some excessive tire rolling onto the sidewalls.  For the remaining runs I bumped the pressures up a bit, and ran the staggered pressure setup of +1psi in the rears to counteract the understeer, and settled on 33psi front, 34psi rear.  This resulted in very neutral handling and exactly what I was looking for.

As for results for the day..  Finally had another car in the E-Stock class to go up against (a 2007 Honda Civic Si, which I now know was misclassed and should have been running in GS).  With a damp and drying track it was definitely difficult to account for the level of grip changing for each run, however I managed to win the ES class again, and on the way also set the fastest novice PAX time of the day.  Of course the weather had a lot to do with it (earlier run groups ran in wetter conditions), but I’m happy with setting a 43.xxx second time as my goal was to break 45s.

Double trophy day, and a good baseline for setup.  I’ll need to work on some maintenance before the next event (valve cover gasket replacement), and then next time out I need to focus more on improving my driving.

It’s been almost a month of downtime between events, but things will be picking up again this weekend starting with another IndySCCA points event auto-x in Indianapolis, followed by another one at Grissom AFB during the first week of October.  I am also now registered for my first trackday, the KYPCA Pumpkin Run DE at Putnam Park, which is to take place on 10/24-10/25.

Putnam park track map

The goal this weekend is to get a good baseline on tire pressures and to work on driving technique.  During the break I rotated the tires (RL -> FL, RR -> FR and vice versa), checked the brake pads and also lubed up the brake caliper pins with some high temp grease.

Updates to come after the event…

Early runs were hampered by overinflated tires

Got to test out the new tires today at the IndySCCA Auto-X in Indianapolis, however the day did not go without its problems.  With a strict time constraint on the location we were only given 4 runs each, and I wasted 3 runs because it turns out the tire pressure gauge I was using was reading pressures 8psi too low (i.e. 44psi showed as 36psi on the gauge!).  So for 3 runs I was running pressures in the low/mid 40s (psi) front and rear, resulting in quite a significant loss of grip.  Even with the tire pressures way off the summer tires offer a significant improvement on grip levels and response.

Final run, tire pressures set to at least the right ballpark

On the final run I borrowed an accurate pressure gauge, set the pressures to 35psi front, 36psi rear and went for it, basically not really having any baseline setting except previous auto-x where I have had more luck running slightly lower front pressures (albeit on different tires).  The car suffered from some oversteer on the final run, however I was still able to shave over a full second off the time from run #3.  Looks like I need to invest in a better tire gauge…  Best run today:  32.871.  With a few more runs and some tweaking of the tire pressures I believe I could have cracked into the 31 second range.

Once again there were no other E-Stock cars running, so I ended up on the day with the trophy for the ES class.  Hopefully more to come with some competition next time.

My first trophy (considering I didn't claim the trophy at the last event)

Thanks to Justin for grabbing pics of the car in motion.  Hopefully you’ll run your WRX next time around!

Edit:  Instead of posting a track map I found a video posted from a E46 M3 driver on his run:  http://vimeo.com/6143126

Got around to cleaning the car today and took some pictures, now the Current Specifications page has up-to-date pictures of the car in its current spec.  Now with the rollbar + summer tires on the car:

Click here to see the rest of the set.

Look what UPS delivered today…

Out with the old and in with the new.  The all seasons have been removed and replaced with a set of Falken Azenis RT-615 195/60R14.

Here’s a photo comparison of the tread pattern.  Can you guess which is the all season tire?

Thanks to Rick Neuenschwander for the pic!

Another weekend, another event…  I was the only E Stock class car entered in the event, so there wasn’t anything to directly compare times against.  I ran out of time to tweak the tire pressures exactly as I wanted, but the balance felt pretty good after the first 2 runs so I decided to just stick with the settings for the rest of the day:  32psi in the fronts, and 34psi in the rears.

DNF’d the first run because I missed a cone (should have walked the course one more time!).  Best run of the day was a 57.7, though I did make mistakes.  With a few more runs I think I could have broken into the low 56s, unfortunately with over 100 cars entered in the event we were limited to only 5 runs each.

This was also the first opportunity to test out the CG-Lock seat belt locks that I had installed last week.  Basically it locks the lap portion of the seat belt, preventing the torso from moving around as much in the seat during cornering.  Overall I’d say the product works as advertised and definitely helps keep me in place so I don’t have to hold on in the corners.  Nowhere near as good as a proper racing harness, but much better than stock.

Next event is in Indianapolis on the 16th, and I’ll see if I can get summer tires on the car before then.  With the tire availability severely limited for the 14″ rim sizes I’ll probably go with the Falken Azenis RT-615 195/60R14, though ideally (if the budget wasn’t a concern) I’d like to get some 15×7 rims and run a Bridgestone RE-11 on 205/50R15.

Forgot to bring a camera so I’ll edit the post with pictures when I find them…

Event times have been posted.

Edit:  Here’s a video posted from a E46 M3 driver on his run:  http://vimeo.com/5912368