Who are the NW guys!
 

Who's here from the Northwest? Oregon and Washington. Be fun to get together for a track day at PIR or Pacific.

There's a Porsche club day July 29th. $135 all day at PIR with instructors available. Good club, good guys. We can show those germans what our little girly cars can do!

Open to other track days, auto x's, etc. that anyone might be going to. Like to know what's up here in the NW!

Knock Knock?

Any NW guys home? I know there are few Portland/ Seattle guys here! Me, Curly, who else? Any good track days up at Pacific coming up? They have an awful website, no schedule for HPDE to be found there.

Several track days coming at PIR. Hope I and some others can make it.

Who's there?

Corvette club hpde $150 on the 1st Monday in August. Still has openings when I called on Friday. Any NW guys going?

I'm in Portland. Won't be able to make the Aug 1st day.

What the hay? Are all the NW people so independent we don't want people to know who we are?

It'd be great to know about track days and autox's people are going to!

Come on people. Sound off!

If you ever decide to do an event up here in WA and need a place to crash for the weekend, let me know. It would do my wife some good to meet someone that has dumped some money into a miata. I really think she believes that I'm the only one. We're about 15 minutes from Pacific Raceways.

Drag racing at Pacific Raceways this Saturday the 18th of October. I plan on going, if anyone else is interested let me know.

I've decided to bump this thread, in hopes that we'll get some dates down for HPDE's. I'm no good for drags, but I'm all for track days. Never done Pacific raceway, but I love PIR.

Now that I fixed my overheating problems and god hoping my intercooler-pipes-blowing-off problem, I should be good to go for a while, I wanna invest the $40 in tow hooks from saferacer.com cause I'm sorta kinda on borrowed time with the tranny and diff.

If something were to happen at pacific or bremerton i'd be down. PIR is a long way from me tho.

Here's the 2009 schedule of the club I most enjoy, Oregon PCA. They run a nice event. Well organized and good guys.

At PIR
2-22 1pm to 5pm open lapping $90 early
2-27 to 3-1 Saturday and sunday have HPDE and Auto X happening. Sat eve is a Time trial! Price varies depending on events entered.
5-17 HPDE. $165 early buy.
5-26 Lapping day $ 200 early buy
7-21 HPDE $165 early
9-20 lapping day $200
10-4 HPDE $165 early

2 events at the new Oregon Raceway Park.
4-18 lapping day $200
6-20 HPDE $165

There's lot's of other clubs. I'll work on a more complete schedule. Check out the new Oregon Raceway Park. Pretty cool track it looks like. Lot's of elevation change. They even have a section of track officially named "pucker factor".

Oregon Raceway Park

Here's a link to a pretty good schedule of NW HPDE and lapping days! It has links to the various clubs involved. Great site to bookmark!

If anyone finds a good autox, rally, hill climb, rallyX, etc schedule for the NW post them up!

Kim's Unofficial Pacific Northwest Open Lapping Track Day Schedule (KUPNWOLTDS)

For the events that you have run with them in the past, what have they required as far as safety equipment is concerned for the miata? I'm thinking about doing a lapping day or something this year.

Yup, I want safety requirements, or is there a site I can check out? I know the Porsche and BMW guys won't like my five point harness that I'm running with a stock seat and without the 5th point actually attached, valid argument though.

Oregon Porsche Club of America - Hpde Advice Guidelines Rules

Oregon Porsche Club of America - Hpde Safety Restraint Rules

Curly, they might give you trouble with the stock seat and 5pt. They are pretty reasonable people though. You might chat with them about it.

JayL, Roll bar above your noggin is a pretty basic requirement. Stock belts or 5pt harness or above. No 4pt harnesses. Basically everything needs to be in good shape and ready for the track. No significant leaks, good amount of brake pads, etc.

My roll bar is questionable. It's a little too low. Haven't been kicked out of an event for it yet though. Most clubs would rather have you run than send you home if something isn't obviously bad.

That link to the schedule has links to various clubs in both oregon and washington running events. That's a good jumping off point. If you aren't sure, stop by an event local too you sometime. Walk around and chat. See what other people think, what clubs they like, etc. Talk to whoever is doing tech for the day. Have them take a quick look at your car. If you are deficient somewhere it's better to learn ahead than on the day of an event.

Our cars are perfect for the track. It'd be great to have several guys here show up for an event together.

Around here I've run with the PCA, BMW club, Shelby club, Alfa club and Audi club. The PCA events are consistently the most friendly and well run. Cascade is a good racing group too that has HPDE events the day before most of their race weekends. Curly has run with them several times.

I really want to get up to Pacific this year. Pretty excited about the 2 new tracks in Central Oregon. The Oregon raceway park is open this year and looks to be great. The other one going in at Boardman should be interesting too.

Wonder if there are any camping sites out in central Oregon....its a 2.5 hour drive from where I live to the new track, I'd love to go. I'm a little nervous that its a lot to commit before I test my car out on a known track, so I need a PIR day before that.

I know my stock seat is killing me, I was thinking a kirkly ultra or momo start is a good next upgrade, and my 5th point will be bolt on with the seat, I just have no hole for it now.

Sounds like I need to arrive with you to an event casey, you've got some good connections, HPDE mafia.

No connections really. Just been to maybe 10 events in the last few years. My one "connection" has been Eddy at Adrenaline Racing. Good guy to know. He's done a couple minor things for me and have bought a couple of parts from him. He's pretty involved out there. Good guy to get to know a little. Buy a minor/cheap part or two from him. Be sure to do it in person so you become a familiar face. Goes a long way when you see someone like him at the track. If you are a "customer" of his, his tech inspections might be a little more liberal about stuff that isn't likely to get you killed.

I bought my RB hollow bar and a pair of tein spings from him. He was competetive price wise and it racked up points with a guy that has some influence at the track. Money well spent if you needed the part in the 1st place. Not trying to save $12 on a $150 purchase pays off much bigger dividends down the road sometimes.

Curly,

There's $7 a night camp spots in Grass Valley. Looks like the closest Hotels are in Biggs and The Dalles 1/2 hour away. Likely a couple of cheap hotels around that cater to the hunting, fishing, miata turbo Hpde crowd.

you make it sound like all the same crowd, around here we do it all.

my next purchase for the miata should be a seat. Although right now I'm trying not to spend a whole lot of money, this includes both parts for the car and track days to race it, not because I can't afford it but I always come up with something to improve the car after a track day, and I can't afford my ideas.

Any one have a cheap race seat they wanna get rid of? I figure this is a good place to ask seeing as though a seat would probably be expensive to ship.

Bang away at craigslist. I bought a used black Sprint in perfect shape for $100.

The hunting/fishing/logging/miata crowd comment was supposed to be funny. Gotta remember we don't do irony around here. Doesn't work as well on forums as in person. "I want to be a lumberjack! I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I go to the lavatory"

$100? I used to like you.

That's why you have to keep at it and jump when the deals pop up. Deals are out there its just hard to be the 1st one there. I know that if I valued my time at all I'd be WAY in the hole with my extreme bargain shopping vs. just buying at a reasonable price and calling it good.

I'm still kicking myself for passing up a $225 HD HC DD when the guy jacked the price from $175 because the phone was ringing off the hook. Guy pissed me off raising his price and I walked. I still need a better bar and I'm going to end up paying more. Damn ego...

well way down the line when I finally get rid of my roll bar and go roll cage, I'll sell you mine to help pay for the cage. I want one of the miatacage.com cages, I've sat in a few spec miatas with them and they're great. $900-$350 (harness bar bucko) would really help me towards paying for a cage, and you're local. I gave my old standard HD bar up for $100 to the guy living in the apartment above me when I bought my current one, felt good to not rip someone off for safety.

Have you checked out DGEmotorsports? They are a local miata cage company. I'm thinking of having them do something custom welded in with door bars you can still get in and out with. Just not sure I want to spend the Kaish.

Hey local guy just checking in. I roll in a camry though One day when I'm all squared away I'll find a good deal on a miata and start playing. :D

~Mitch

Cue you know you should replace that bar you've got with something stronger that attaches in a more structure-enhancing manner. Sell the one you've got when you take it off.

Need some local-guy recommendations on shops:

a) the hunter roadforce website lists most of the Les Schwab's in the area as having the 9000 - anybody trust them with 6UL's ? I suppose I should give the tech a 20 directly and ask him to turn the sensitivity up

b) machine shop - any recommendations on one for getting my flywheel resurfaced? I'm going to get that done when I replace the clutch.

any NW guys need a car delivered from the SF area? girl and I are planning a road trip but dont want to spend $1000 on car rental. :)

pretty much any shop can resurface a flywheel. we've got the "worst" pinned at stepped, but they'll machine it, they're just more expensive than most.

I've had all my engine work done at Dan Halls automotive in portland, hole in the wall that does amazing work.

Cueball-I had a great idea today: take my '08 lancer to Oregon Raceway Park this summer. It'll be great for the ride, no question about the reliability, abs for corners I don't know well, and brand new stickyish street tires. We could meet up the morning of and I could help carry some of your tools or tires, I'll have plenty of room, won't really be needing to bring many tools or parts like I usually do, just food and drink. Cut off exhaust and no cruise sound horrible for a 2.5 hour drive, thankfully you have neither in your miata. Whatcha think?

Mobius,

I had clutch doctors install a clutch for me, using my parts and including the resurface it was about $250.

Curly,

You really want to track the new DD car? It would sure make for a more comfortable trip just like you thought though. Those new tires won't seem so new after I would imagine.

Y8's - a 2 week rental with 2000 miles free should run about $500 bucks for a smallish car. Just did a quick look at enterprise. Likely better deals to be had with a little more work.

sadly, the one-way thing adds almost $300 to the rate. I did find some for around 650 though. I swear to god I wont drive an Aveo!

One way sucks. Didn't figure that in. You might try running ads in craigslist for car moves both in SF and Seattle if that's your destination. Seems like that's becoming more common and accepted.

Aveo :giggle: Why can't we get some cool small cars like the Euro's get?!? Even our Mexi brothers to the south get a better selection of little cars than we do. Damn safety regulations! We have all these regulations that bloat our cars and keep a lot of manufacturers and models out yet we still allow sales of motorcycles to travel on the same roads. Makes no sense. :vash: Stinking Gov't Nannies!

I don't think my tires would suffer too much, I won't be pushing it incredibly hard cause I won't know the track for a while, certainly not as good as PIR. I do it to the miata's tires, I'll do it to these.

you in? that track looks awesome

I'll definetely plan on a trip there. Just have to look at what clubs and what days. PIR is so flat I'm aching to drive something with elevation changes like that. New pavement's gotta be sweet too. I'm hoping to do a day there and another one up to pacific.

Maybe next year I'd like to take a trip into CA where I could hit several tracks in one trip! Try and coordinate events at several locations.

Hey guys. I'm not a new Mazda owner, just new to these forums. I'm in a 99 Protege 1.6L getting boost soon. I'm around looking for info on eManage and maybe looking for a light flywheel from a 1.6Lmiata. Have fun driving... I like Germantown Rd and where I live, Bald Peak.

Hey guys, I am looking to have a turbo manifold made for my engine (my engine is touch to find stuff for: Mazda Protege 1.6L ZM-DE). Are there any shops in town that you recommend for custom turbo exhaust manifolds? I'm thinking stainless and tubular. I already have an exhaust flange for the engine. You help would be much appreciated.