Yessir, Tractuff base water plate that I modified. It actually seals with an Oring, not RTV!
My rear water neck that had to be remade for the RBB head is also based off the Tractuff piece, just with... a lot added on. I actually bought good aluminum tubing for these parts, and man, it was sooo much easier to weld together then the plated, out of the scrap bin stuff I had used before.




Fireup and break in of the new built, sleeved motor went without issue. Few dozen miles of high vacuum, 2-3 psi boost, easy driving, then drained out the break in oil and in with the good stuff, hit it with the real boost, no problems. I was actually starting to think things were going to be different this time...

And then suddenly, EVERYTHING HAD PROBLEMS

First, the exhaust got a little noisy and had a rattling sound. Upon examination, I found that 3 of the 4 CHRA to turbine housing bolts had backed out and gone AWOL. The only remaining one was jammed against the CHRA, 99% unthreaded, and the compressor/CHRA could be grabbed and shifted a quarter inch in any direction.


Initially i didn't even think of the ramifications of this, and then someone told me to check the turbine wheel for damage. No... It couldn't have... right...?




Yup, it could have, and absolutely did. **** man, a BRAND NEW EFR.
I knocked down any ridges on the turbine housing with a file, but I wasn't going to touch the wheel... since it was rotationally trimmed, it took off an even amount of material from each blade, right? That's what I'm going to tell myself.
I cross drilled the replacement bolts and safety wired them so they couldn't back out in the future.

And then a day or two later as I was out tuning boost control, the motor cut out on me. No idea why. Fired it back up, it ran for 2 seconds, then died again. Rinse and repeat once more before I grabbed the laptop to see what was going on and saw a safety had triggered. "OIL PRESSURE CUT ACTIVE".
Don't tell me that man, I can't take much more of this...
I limped it home and put an analog gauge on it to verity hoping it was a sensor error. Nope, sensor was dead on. 5psi or less at idle when hot, barely 30psi at redline. The motor that made over 80PSI on a cold start was barely making 25psi suddenly.



I didn't have it in me to pull the entire motor and transmission so soon after putting it back in. So I tried out the alternate method and went in the back door.


Honestly wasn't too bad a job if it wasn't for THIS ONE OIL PAN BOLT
K24 guys, you know this bolt... the one you have to use an open end on even when the motor is on a stand as there isn't room for a socket, and you can only do about 1/2 a turn at a time? Yeah, try doing it with the flywheel and oil pan installed, after the bolt has been torqued. It took me 2.5hrs, a handful of custom tools/cut up 10mm wrenches, some cuss'in, and maaaaybe a little bending of the oil pan flange, but I got it. Did I re-install it later? Hell no, **** that bolt.



Anywhoo I dropped the oil pan expecting to see a classic case of broken pickup, already winding up to lambast Kpower over their mediocre designs, already hearing in my head "huh that's never happened to our shop car", wondering if I had enough argon left to weld a pickup back together when I found... absolutely nothing wrong in the pan.

Ok not absolutely nothing, there was some hylomar stuck in the pickup(????) and some chunks of it in the pan, but not enough to cause the lack of flow I was seeing. [Sidenote on the hylomar, I only used it on the headgasket, so I guess some got squished into the oil returns from the head and found its way into the pan from there? Anyone else use this blue delight and found the need to tape off oil passages in the headgasket before applying?]



I then figured something had to be wrong/stuck in the oil pump, perhaps a jammed bypass? So I pulled the timing cover to remove the pump. Which required me to remove the intercooler, radiator, alternator, and a bunch of coolant lines... something I had been trying to avoid by pulling just the pan. Gahhhh should have just pulled the motor at this point and would have had waaaay better access. Upon inspecting the pump couldn't find anything wrong but did realize... the bolts for the timing tensioner were loose and the tensioner was no longer tight to the block. And whats right behind the tensioner? The oil galley that feeds the tensioner pressure. I had a hole the size of an oil squirter just dumping oil pressure.


Bloody hell this K is shaking apart faster than my mental health. I doused the tensioner bolts in loctite, hoped this was the issue and not something else I had missed, and started stuffing everything back in the car.

Oh I did get my hands on this fancy valve cover. Its a stock valve cover because I got tired of my trimmed Kpower one leaking from their welds. Also the R40 valve cover I had doesn't fit the RBB head, but the RBB valve cover doesn't fit the R40 timing cover. You can try using the A4 timing cover, but it doesn't fit the R40 block like, AT ALL, plus you'd have to block off the crank sensor hole that your not using,(because R40 block has the 60-2 wheel built into the crank and sensor access in the crank girdle) but the R40 timing cover fits all of the R40 block holes(duh) and enough of the RBB bolt holes to work so the easiest thing to do is use an RBB valve cover and add a bunch of weld material to the R40 timing cover to give the valve cover seal something to seal against. Confused yet? Don't worry, just Honda things, and the only important part of that is the Kpower trimmed valve cover leaked, I was tired of it, and my hood is so cut up anyway a stock valve cover fits "good enough".

No its not real carbon(you'd be depressed how many people have asked me that), its hydrodipped and this might be my inner ricer coming out but dawg it looks siiiiick



Oh and while the subframe was out I tossed these Xida triples I teased a while back in. Yes I already had Xidas, but they were used, probably need a rebuild, and were waaay undersprung for the tire/aero this car plays in(I think 1000/600?). These I ordered in 1400/600 which are the stiffest springs they offer. Hopefully they help keep the splitter off the ground at more than 130mph. I had a bitch of a time finding somewhere to secure the front reservoirs, I'm not thrilled with this location on the swaybar but it will have to do for now. There's zero room to feed/put them in the bay itself. Doing anything in the engine bay is an exercise in fitting 26lbs of **** in a 14oz hat. Piping! Hoses! Tubes! Belt! Hot things! Lions, Tigres, and Oil Lines oh my!


Oh right, engine things! Was talking about an engine! Yeah it was fixed, loose tensioner was the culprit all along. Had I guessed that(I would have never guessed that) I could have just pulled the timing cover and spared myself all the headache of fighting that single pan bolt.


Did I mention all the above happened in five days time? The day after I confirmed the Mystery of the Missing Oil Pressure was solved, I took this thing down to Roebling Road Raceway for its first track test since cracking a cylinder head and two cylinders at Road Atlanta in December.

 

Honestly on the tow down to RRR, I had an extreme sense of dread. The last three times this car had been on a track it had been... less than enjoyable.
September of 2023 at NCM I spent 3 days mopping oil up from an overflowing catch can wondering why I was so damn slow, only to find 5 seconds swapping from my worn R7's to someone else's "shot" A7's and realizing I had wasted a weekend on **** tires that could have doubled as rocks.
November of 2023 at Road Atlanta I stripped 4th gear in a Miata 6speed, and after thrashing on it all night to install a replacement 5spd, I had tagged the wall exiting T7, crushing drivers rear.
December of 2024 at Road Atlanta, I ignored screaming dash alarms to try and get at least one not **** lap in and ended up burning the motor down from the inside out with EGT's so hot it melted a turbine wheel.
And now here I was doing it all again.


I signed up for a single day of DE so there wouldn't be the additional stress of competition, something, in hindsight, I should have done last time out too. First session out I just... chilled. Watched the gauges like a hawk. Left the boost on wastegate. Turned a half dozen laps and... got black flagged???
Black Flag Man: "Hey workers are saying your splitter is dragging. It looks secure here, are you worried?"
Me: "Nope"
BFM: "Ok you're good head back out!"
Turn another half dozen laps, get into kind of a rhythm, hey car's actually feeling kinda good, everything is stable, I haven't seen the coolant or catchcan overflow yet, car's kinda vibrating and hopping over 120mph wonder whats- ANOTHER BLACK FLAG???
Black Flag Man: "Hey corners are saying your throwing sparks, I don't see anything dragging though"
Me, mildly annoyed: "Yeah its just the skid plates on the splitter"
BFM: "They said it's on the entire course and track is worried about fire risk"
Me: Uhh.....
BFM: "Head back out, only a few minutes left, but you should address that"

So... Initially I thought it was just the track being super sensitive about my titanium skidplates, but upon reviewing footage from various places around the track, it seems my splitter was indeed dragging EVERYWHERE


That second photo, all that light under the car are sparks... that's well before the brake zone where the sparkage doubles.

I had the suspension set to full soft everything to get a feel for it, but seems that even with the 1600lb springs, that was a bad move! We raised the car a quarter inch, as well as threw a TON of compression into it, going from none to nearly max. Testing!

Second session out the high speed buffeting(porpoising?) lessened greatly and the splitter didn't seem to be dragging as much. I felt a little more comfortable leaning on the car, carrying some speed into RRR's sweepers, and actually flipped it to the higher boost mode after a lap. Holy macaroni, the OSG came alive and I LOVE IT.
First time I felt it I... didn't even realize what had happened. The car stepped out, but so controllable and predictably, not the sudden "byeeee bitch!" that I was used to. Lift slightly and the rear comes back inline, stay in it and let the yaw rotate you through the corner, smoothly, predictably, I'VE BEEN MISSING OUT ON THIS ALL THIS TIME??

For the first time in nearly two years I... had FUN in the car. It became an enjoyable dance, letting the ABS control the yaw into a bent brake zone, turn and load, add some throttle, OSG controls the yaw on the way out, leeeeaaaan into the power, turbo go WSSSSHHHHHH and the torque comes online ROCKETING you into the next sweeper, tap the brakes to set the nose, lean the car in, pedal it to keep the tail calm, POWWWERRRR AND.... BRAKEBRAKEBRAKE feel the pedal sink and kick as the car crabwalks oh so slightly as the ABS scrambles to find grip on 4 year old VR1's turn the wheel add the power turbo go WSSSSSHHHHHHH-

I. Had. *******. Fun.



I ran every session I wanted to that day with ZERO, I repeat ZERO motor issues. At the end of the day I had the same oil level on the dipstick, same amount of coolant in the overflow, less than half a(small) redbull's can worth of blowby in the catch can, no ECU safeties had tripped, nothing was critically broken and I didn't have a laundy's list of items that needed addressing on the car. It was honestly the best day I've had at the track in years. I remembered why I do this, the fun it is to dance the car on the edge, to just drive and drive and not worry. Honestly I could have cried at the end of the day.

Were the times I turned overly impressive? Probably not, but I didn't care, it was a shakedown on 4 year old VR1's. The car held together without issues and I gained some much needed confidence back. Honestly... I got my mojo back. Hell yeah.





Alright I'd be lying if I said there were absolutely zero issues.

My splitter skid plates put in WORK. But didn't quite do enough. Splitter still took some damage and contacted the ground even after jacking up the compression. Not a huge deal, I have some carbon weave and epoxy left over and can patch this without too much trouble. But honestly this splitter is... how do you say? Sub-optimal to start with. I'd do a lot differently with it after building it. I can build a far better version of this in the future... perhaps a good off season project to add to the list.


Last time I ignored an EGT reading I sent a motor into meltdown. But considering this one is reading hotter then an actual meltdown... I think its safe to say that this is a sensor failure. The sheathing next to the downpipe looks like it got very hot and the internal potting melted though.


And... um... that's it. That's my entire list of critical todo items. Fix a splitter and replace an EGT sensor. Man, this almost feels too easy. Well good I guess, Thursday I head over to CMP for Gridlife... apparently I'm a featured competitor? Does that mean anything? Am I famous now? Do I need to hire a secretary?

 

Congrats on an enjoyable, redemptive day at the track!

This is the way.

 

Really cool update, glad to see that you were able to enjoy the car again finally. Sometimes we just dump work and work into our cars in hopes for that payoff, and when the payoff never comes that's when most burn out. You pushed past that several times and I applaud you.

 

Oh man, when I saw that turbine wheel my heart sank a little bit. Glad it held up for you. I'm not sure if you're a stronger or more psychotic man than I am, but I do admire your tenacity. Glad you finally got to enjoy the car.

Did the digital dash not show a warning for the low oil pressure? Seems like that would be one of the major benefits of having one.

 

Hell yeah man! Glad to see if coming together, again again.

I'll catch up with ya at CMP this weekend!

 

Happy to see all is going well! Have fun chasing lap times!

 

Ummm... you're right, now that you mention it, I thought I did have a big flashing warning programmed to pop up for low oil pressure. I didn't even register it not populating. Need to dig into this and see if something is misconfigured. Good catch.

 

I actually got a little bit of fight or flight response reading all of these ups and downs. What an insane rollercoaster, but I'm glad to see the car up and kicking *** again! Good luck at Gridlife this weekend. Think of all the cats that next post is going to get!

 

looking at this


hard solution to make it easy. Weld in a tube through to the bottom of the oil pan. that way you can use a socket and extension to reach through the pan and access the bolt easier.

 

Only way this pan is getting further modified is if it gets cut up for some sort of drysump project(none currently planned). In the future I'll just pull the motor, since to remove the timing cover the sway bar, intercooler, radiator, and all their piping has to be removed anyway. 2/10, do not recommend pulling the pan in such a manner.


Now's a good time to break out the popcorn and get comfy, this one's a doozy


I patched up the splitter with a super ugly carbon patch, replaced the now completely obliterated titanium wear plates, and installed my spare EGT sensor for the one that had died. Unfortunately my spare sensor seemed to be bad right out of the box, as it read for about 5 seconds, then dropped to 32° and remained there. No biggie, I still had functional sensors on 3 cylinders.
Rolling off that extraordinary successful test day at RRR, spirits were high. Dampening them only slightly was the fact I got delayed leaving for CMP by two hours fighting with the Haltech dash. I need to make a dedicated rant/pros and cons post about this dang thing, I love it and it drives me absolutely crazy at the same time.
The TL,DR is that while trying to setup/reconfigure the low oil pressure alarm I thought I already had, the Haltech ran in to an "index out of bounds" error that completely bricked my main dash page and locked me out of editing it. And then overwrote the bricked configuration on my main and backup config saves. I called Haltech support but I guess it was their lunch hour as all three calls went unanswered(Would have tried the Australian line but it was like 3am their time...). Two hours of restraining myself from punching the laptop/dash/steel bars of my rollcage later, I managed to regain control by uploading stock config to the dash, and WHILE that was flashing to the dash opening my bricked config, unbrick it, and reflashed it to the dash before it had time to error out. Definitely just as hacky as it sounds. And I still don't have a functional oil pressure warning.

ANYWAY arrived late to CMP, but just in time to roll the car though tech and registration before they closed on Thursday night. The tech guys were appreciative of the front end, hood and trunk being fully removable to make their inspection jobs easy, and the nice registration lady triple checked with me that yes, I had intended to register my Miata for Unlimited.

(Looking mean with the MEATS installed, 275 A7's on an 11" Jongbloed, yooo SuperMiata/949 when those 12" wheel dropping? Need some 295's in my life)

Got the car put together and ready for the weekend. Man I felt professional as **** in a trackside garage, even one as bare bones as CMP's. Definitely worth the added cost, when sudden wind and rain rolled though I was able to chill while others scrambled to tie down canopy's and secure loose items.
First session out Friday morning was just a feeler. Track was a little damp from rain the night before so I rolled out on my "rain" tires, the same VR1's I had shaken the car down at RRR. I'd never driven CMP before so it was mostly just a "learn the track" session for me. The overall lack of grip and a damp track, combined with an older skinnier tire and a high torque car made things spicy, but was enough to get a good feel for the track and start getting comfortable with it. Only mowed the grass once!

Second session out I threw on the Hoosiers and started to lean on the dry track. Unfortunately 3-4 laps in I noticed liquid starting to sprinkle on the windshield, and coolant pressure became erratically low. I pitted early and found that one of the turbo coolant feed lines had cracked in half.

(You can literally see coolant streaming from the hood vent in this photo. Aero!)

To be fair this AN hardline had been repurposed from elsewhere and been improperly bent a few times by yours truly, but completely cracking in half like that definitely wasn't on the 'ol bingo list.

All the turbo AN lines were 8AN, and while I had spare AN line and fittings with me, they were all 4 or 10AN spares for the oil feed/drain. I was able to source a bare 8AN 90* fitting from the paddock, hose clamped a rubber line to it, and made it work. Bled the system with the electric water pump(so nifty) and ran the engine briefly to make sure it held pressure, everything seemed good.
Oh and while revving the engine, found one of the alternator mounting bracket bolts had stripped "by itself" and backed out. With insufficient threads or tools to properly repair, it got JB welded in. That's gonna suuuuck to remove, but that's a future me problem. **** that guy.
Oh, and, don't remember when, but at some point I found 3, 14mm bolts in the timing cover had all backed out. Just the 14's, none of the 10mm were affected. K series vibrations are wild, man.

Third session out Friday the rain came back and the track was wet wet. Threw the "rains" back on and went out to have some fun, and hopefully get on the livestream as there were only 3-4 cars braving the conditions.


Unfortunately first lap my windshield was blasted by a stream of hot water that was certainly NOT rain, and coolant pressure again went to zero. Limped it back to the pits and found the AN fitting I had just installed had unthreaded itself fully off the turbo, which was insane as I KNOW that fitting was gudentight. K series vibrations are absolutely wild, man. I added red loctite to the threads, made it gudentight again, rebled the system, and as the track was now cold for the day, took it up and down the street a few times to ensure it didn't pop off again.

While brake boosting on the street I realized the car was really pulling to one side under brakes. Thats... Odd... Then I remembered my rear brake pads were super low after finishing at RRR, so I pulled both rears and... Umm... Yeah got my money's worth out of those pads. Whoops. Good thing I had panic ordered some rears after RRR to have on hand for just this scenario!


Saturday dawned and I felt some pressure. I really had only gotten half a good session at pace the day before with the rain and coolant line interruptions. On the bright side, my pace had still been enough to bump me up into the fastest run group with the rest of the unlimited and pointy end track mod cars. First flyer and the car just... Died on me 3/4 of the way though. Completely cut, had to do a full reboot and popstart it. This took long enough that I dropped back though the field and spent the next lap just getting out of the way to find clear track again. Second attempt the car cut momentarily on me but came back and and I realized my EGT protection was kicking in, even though EGT's didn't seem to be at dangerous levels? I drove a flyer at 70% throttle to stay out of EGT protection, and then in the brake zones after the kink had my oil pressure safeties triggered due to oil slosh under brakes, killing the car for another 3-4 seconds. Man, just work with me here car! I went for one more lap, made it to the back carousel, and saw fuel pressure drop and go red for a second from fuel starve(under 3gal). **** it, your FINISHING this damn lap!

(The eagled eyed will note half my rear flare is missing in this photo. Apparently it had enough and just... broke off sometime during the second session)

Anyway all that hassle to throw down one mediocre lap was worth it as it bumped me into the top 5 in class.
Once back in paddock and pulling the ECU data, I realized the #2 EGT sensor had also now failed, as it was now reading 11,000°. So I turned that one off too. Down to 2 functional EGT sensors, that's fiiiine! I also reduced the oil pressure safety aggression, allowing for slightly more time at low/no pressure before kicking in to try and avoid triggering it under heavy braking. On the bright side all the coolant had stayed in the motor this time. So that seemed to be sorted out at least.

Second and third sessions Saturday I filled the tank up to 90% to avoid fuel starve after a few fliers. I got in a few good laps each session and then the car would cut out on me again. When I say "cut out", I don't mean a misfire or little loss of power, but a full ignition cut, motor go from BRRRAAHHHH to brrrrrrrrr full decell. These incidents would last 2-3 seconds and then everything would come back online. The puzzling thing is the ECU logs didn't say anything was triggering, but I noted my two remaining EGT sensors had gone from steady, constant data streams to jagged, instant 300° spikes that seemed... Highly implausible. They also seemed to be internally melting and intermittently shorting out like the first two, and I think these spikes 200° above the max EGT allowed was somehow triggering the cuts. Annoyed, I was convinced to turn off ALL safeties. No oil pressure cuts, no EGT cuts, I would just be straight rawdogging those gauges. Any engine cuts would have to be hardware related, not ECU triggered.

Oh and I realized my steering wheel was pointed off by 20* when I was going straight. Jacked it up and found both the lower ball joint pinch bolts were loose. Like, not finger loose, but enough you could wiggle the wheel an alarming amount, ah la roasted wheel bearing or smoked tie rod. Or... loose lower ball joint.
Kseries vibrations are- well, you get the point. Every suspension bolt got a check that night.

Sunday morning dawned and as it stood, I was still 5th in class, but 6th, 7th and 8th were less then a second behind me and it was NOT a done deal.

(Pictured: 6th in class, who in paddock admitted he was shocked that a Miata was able to dust him in the straights)

 

For anyone unfamiliar with Gridlife's trackbattle system, everyone has 7 sessions to set their fastest time. After these sessions ONLY the top 5 in class move on to "Podium Sprint". So getting into the top 5 is a HUGE deal, and if you don't make it, your weekend is over. If you do make this top 5, they go on track at the same time, same conditions, and have three laps to set a fast time. Final podiums are determined off these three laps and these laps ONLY. The slate is essentially wiped clean. Fastest time of the weekend but fail to execute a good lap during the pressure of podium sprint? You get bumped off your top step. Go four off during podium sprint? You're DQ'ed and automatically get 5th. Suffer a mechanical and can't complete a lap during Podium Sprint? Demoted to 5th.

So Sunday morning, the final, 7th session comes around, and it's a cluster. Two cars off track before the outlap is even completed, one oils T1-T7 down, the other loses drive and pulls off track, but in the runoff hazard zone. The combo force a black flag all before anyone gets halfway through a lap and we sit on pit lane for 20min while cars are extracted and track is cleaned. When we go back out I know we aren't going to get more then 2 laps due to time, so play it a little conservative in the high risk areas. Which ends up being good because track is sliiiick from the combination of drifters, oildry, heat, and CMP being CMP. But it's enough. I set my fastest time of the weekend by 2 seconds, pull myself clear of 6th place by a full second, and secure my spot in Podium Sprint.

(Pictured: Full YEEEET BOIII over CMP's kink, sparks flying from the splitter)


I'm ecstatic but it's not over. I hadn't expected to make it this far so I had to lookup the format/rules for podium sprint(as explained above). And then I get more "good" news, the car that had lost drive was Briggs(******* wild 900whp turbo K20, quaife sequential, alltheaero tan Miata) who would have seeded 2nd into podium sprint, but now was unable to turn a lap due to a broken driveshaft. So I was guaranteed at least a 4th place finish.

First lap out in Podium Sprint I take it a little easy. I know the #1 seeded Corvette and #3 seeded Civic(Yup, top cars in Unlimited this weekend were Corvette, Miata, Civic, RCF, Miata. Diversity!) are far too fast to catch. But the #4 Lexus RCF was slower then me in heat #7. Was he sandbagging, already secure in his spot? Or did I have a shot at besting him, and taking that final step on the podium?

I throw down a banker to feel out the track conditions that puts me in third place. Unbeknown to me, the Vette and Civic are busy trading laps 4 seconds faster than me and the Lexus. Second lap the Lexus comes across the line ahead of me and jumps up by 2 tenths.The ball is in my court to respond for the podium.
My second lap was a lap driven in full anger, leaving nothing. To the edge of every curb, squirmy at 140mph over the kink, throwing sparks from the aero load, ABS wiggling the car straight in every brake zone. By the time I reach the final corner I'm 2 tenth up on my best lap of the weekend. I lay 11's on the exit of T14 into the front straight, car kicking sideways all the way out on the rumble strips, a kiss of dust, bang the 3-4 shift and-

Shifter breaks off limp in my hand.

(These are my welds that failed on this highly modified shifter, no fault can be thrown at the manufacture)

I franticly stab at it and after an agonizing few seconds find 5th gear, but the lap is gone, engine barely in boost across the finish line. I watch the two green lights on the AIM disappear and become five red lights. The flag stand gives me the green flag for another flyer but I'm done. I don't dare pull the shifter out of 5th for fear of losing drive completely. Entire cool down lap I'm staring and screaming at the broken shifter in crushing disappointment of what might have been. Was it enough? Did the shifter cost me a podium? Had I even been close to start with? In the car, without comms I had no idea what was going on or where I stood.

Unbeknown to me, that lap had just been enough to edge out the Lexus by 2 tenths, but ahead he is still going on his third and final lap. He has one last shot to reclaim bottom step of the podium.

I roll back into paddock, lugging the engine along at a few RPM above stall speed. Roll into my garage spot, shut everything down, flop my way out of the car and yank off my helmet

The Lexus does not improve his time. I have secured third place.


(The face of "man, I'm just happy to be here. How did I get here? Hi guys!")

Hot DAMN that felt good. Two years of blowing up transmissions, blowing up motors, pouring money into it, having this damn car fight me every single inch of the way, to finally go up against some of the fast(er) cars currently on the East Coast and pull a podium out. Granted it took one of them suffering a mechanical, many of them being at SLB COTA, and some luck to pull that off but... Last man standing wins. Hell. Yes. Redemption, validation, vindication, all at once.

(Couldn't have done it without my two pit crew, pictured next to the car, and Mr Shades in that blue jacket staring the camera down)


(Gridlife has their trophy game on point. SCCA, NASA, take notes please)



For anyone that didn't see it live, the Gridlife stream of Trackbattle Podium Sprint sessions for CMP was phenomenal this year. Pretty much all the classes had well driven, tight fights for podium(except for the two guys in club TR that missed checkered/black flags, secondhand embarrassment was real for that), and the Unlimited class was a nail biter down to the last lap. Hands down the most entertaining session of time attack I've seen in years, and I'm not just saying that because I was in it. 10/10 intelligent, engaging commentary, 10/10 camera work, 10/10 grassroots time attack.
https://www.youtube.com/live/6aDdj95...7zBLLc&t=21646

 

Oh, lawdy! You fought for that one tooth and nail!

Having multiple things fight you and fail you all weekend brings back memories, although I was never at your level or chasing a podium.

I was reminded by someone that everything on these little Miatas is custom by the time you get going really fast. And that doesn't necessarily equate to reliable. And the parts that remain stock are often significantly overstressed.

Good for you for fighting for it every step and playing it as smart as you could. That sounds exhilarating!

Congratulations!

 

Yeah, I saw it on youtube, well done.

 

Great write up. Congrats man, well deserved.

 

The vibrations on the kseries details on how your weekend went are insane.

Glad you stuck through it and congrats on the podium! Was fun watching!

 

Good work!

Great write up, results are sweeter when you struggle for them, and the anxiety of waiting knowing that the result is out of your hands and in someone else's

 

Having seen some of the highlights on your IG over the weekend, I thought this was going to be a good read. I didn’t realize it was going to be THAT good of a read. Holy sh*t dude! Congrats on the result. If that’s not grit, I don’t know what is.

 

So are we all pitching in to buy a gallon of blue Loctite for Wingman or what?

 

I think we're past blue loctite and onto red. And a gallon might not be enough