IndySCCA points event 5 today, my fourth run in CS for the season in Tom’s ’99 Miata Sport. Unfortunately Tom was feeling a bit under the weather today so I had to lead the charge against 3 other drivers in the class. Was able to best both drivers in the NC Miata, but lost out to the Pontiac Solstice by a considerable margin. The 2nd place result now puts me in 1pt behind 2nd place in the Indy region C-Stock season standings, though 12 points behind 1st place.
Not a class win, but a decent drive for 2nd place today
I’m starting to find my rhythm running on the Hoosier A6s, setting the car up with significantly stiffer settings on the rear shocks and the fronts on full soft. At least I am starting to extract some of the potential that the tires have to offer, even though there is still a lot to learn about them.
Another $20 to the season entry costs, putting the total up to $755. Will be heading up to run another Test’n'tune Tuesday evening in my own car, can’t wait…
Quick update on the progress for the 2010 season. Ran another auto-x in Tom’s CS ’99 Miata and came in 3rd place, losing out to the RX-8 in 2nd by 0.022 seconds. Still not happy with my driving on the Hoosier A6 tires but I’ve at least picked up on a few things to work on in the next events. Season entry costs now up to $675.
As for the ProjectTrackday Miata, the cost of an oil change ($30) plus some other various bits (power steering depower plug, $20) was offset by the sale of the power steering pump and belt, so the season total still stands at $685.
Gingerman Raceway Track Map
Up next is a test’n'tune at Gingerman Raceway (South Haven, MI) tomorrow evening. Its another new track for me so I’ll be reviewing youtube videos to try and learn the track in the meantime. Video + writeup to come after the test’n'tune…
Just playing a bit of catch up on the posts for the blog. A couple of weeks ago I ran in Tom’s ’99 Miata Sport for the IndySCCA points event #2 and came in 3rd again, though I am struggling to come to grips (no pun intended!) with the way the slicks behave in the dry. The car feels less responsive than my NA partly due to the suspension setup and additional weight, but mostly the width of the tires that Tom runs on the car (225 tread width). I will have to adjust my driving style to compensate for that in following rounds. I may have to try and force myself to turn earlier than I think I need to in order for the car to transition correctly when I actually want it to. For those keeping track of season entry fee costs, the auto-x adds another $20 to the tally. Adding in the cost of running the trackday at Putnam Park ($245), the season cost so far is already at $355.
IndySCCA Points Event #2 in Tom's '99 Sport
I also found someone to trade turn signals with on my car, opting to go back to a stock look. The turn signal inlets are gone, replaced with some stock indicators from a 94M Miata, with the daytime running lights modification.
New turn signal indicators replacing the turn signal inlets
As for upcoming events: The next one will be a trackday at Autobahn Country Club (Joliet, IL) with 10/10ths Motorsports on 6/19/10. The daytime will be run on the North course (1.50mi), with evening running on the full 3.51mi track. I will need to finish up some work on the brakes and remove the A/C system before then.
A busy test’n'tune at Grissom Aeroplex yesterday. Got the car set up nicely for next weekend’s trackday with the rear sway bar set to soft, rear shocks to full stiff and front shocks 1/2 turn from full stiff. The car is very neutral and the new sway bars definitely helps significantly with transitions. I could attack the slaloms at a higher speed as the steering responsiveness was much better. The de-powered steering felt great and provided a good amount of feedback, and was definitely a benefit to have early on in the day when the course was wet.
Started out the morning with a couple of runs (which I realized after reviewing video footage thatI was DNFing as I was going around a gate instead of between it, losing some time in the process). After getting about 17 runs in for the day I switched over to Tom’s car to take a swing at the course in his NB running the Hoosier A6s. Definitely much more grip than street tires, however the increased tire width and smaller rear bar meant the car needed to be wrestled into the slaloms. After that we switched out the Hoosiers for a set of old (2 years old!) Kuhmo V710s to test them out. Surprisingly high grip in the tires that felt as hard as hockey pucks! Finished the day off with 3 more back-to-back runs in my car. After getting in 20 runs in my car + 3 runs in Tom’s car I was pretty damn tired, so decided to call it a day.
This test’n'tune cost $50, bringing the entry cost total for the season to $90.
Forgot to post after last weekend’s auto-x. I co-drove Tom’s ’99 Miata Sport in CS to get a feel for where I stand in a competitive (at least locally) car. The car is running on 225-50R14 Hoosier A6 tires, my first attempt at driving a car on DOT-R tires. The class had 10 drivers in a whole array of NB Miatas, one NC and a Pontiac Solstice. It was also a bit wet…
...more than 'a bit' wet in certain places.
Having some competition to run against makes auto-x much more fun, though having to stand out in 50F weather with rain falling sideways during the work session was pretty miserable. In the end of the day I finished 3rd out of 10, losing out to the NC and one of the drivers of the Solstice. Not a bad start, though we’ll have to wait till some dry running to see how well I can stack up against the competition. Hopefully there are more glasses (trophies) to come this season…
Third place, not a terrible start...
Final results here. Thanks to Kyle Roland for taking some awesome pics of the event. A very special thanks to Tom for letting me co-drive his car!
The next few weeks will be quite busy… Test’n'tune at Grissom Aeroplex this Sunday, Putnam Park next Saturday and then back to Grissom the following Sunday for points event #2 of the IndySCCA Solo season.
Another $20 towards the entry fee. Season total so far: $40
A few more items off the checklist and a first chance to test out the new shocks this weekend. Changed the diff oil with some Mobil1 75W90 GL5 diff fluid ($7) and flushed the brake system. Fresh ATE Super Blue (extra inventory from 2009) in to get ready for the trackday in less than 1 month.
Sunday was IndySCCA’s first solo event of the year, starting out with a ‘fun event’ (i.e. no points awarded) at 16th Street/Bush Stadium in Indianapolis. Was extra cautious in the first run because I did not know what to expect, but the car felt quite well balanced right off the bat (35psi front, 36psi rear with all shocks set to full stiff), just some minor oversteer. Turned the rear shocks back a half turn and the car settled to be very nice to drive. For the first time today I also ran in the STS class although the car still needs a lot of work in order to be competitive in the class. Beats not having anyone to run against at least.
…and of course, here’s the video of the final run (now available in 720p HD!). Clocked in at 0:40.505, which put me in 2nd place for STS:
As I am keeping track of event entry costs, this one is the first of the season and costs $20.
A quick summary of the first season: The goal was to buy and prep a car for the track in under $4000, and I’m glad to say mission accomplished. The final total was $3,822! To top it off I received the 1st place trophy in E-Stock from the Indianapolis Region SCCA:
Now to look forward to 2010!
For this second season (2010) I’m setting myself a budget of $1,000 for upgrades/maintenance and repairs. The shocks will need to be replaced as the front right was starting to show signs of leakage. I am also going to need a new set of tires and brakes at some point during the season, and if there are sufficient funds remaining I would like to do something about the large body roll on the track (sway bar or stiffer springs). I will also be keeping track of entry fees, membership fees and registration fees to events this season to give an idea of how much it costs to run a car per season.
Just a recap of what has been going on since the last post of 2009… The broken rear finish panel was replaced and the broken taillight was replaced with a set of OEM taillights (never did like the Altezzas anyways). A generous friend (Tom) provided some garage space to stow the car away in winter and it has been sitting there since late November. Once the weather warms up a bit the car will be brought back out and the frantic work on it will begin. New parts to go on and fresh fluids (brakes, engine, etc) will be the first things on the menu. The condition of the tires will be determined at the first auto-x of the season, though the plan is to upgrade to the Dunlop Direzza Z1 Star Spec which is now offered in a 14″ size for the first time.
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.
