GTA Finals 2019 @ Buttonwillow (Formerly Superlap Battle)
 

GTA Finals 2019 @ Buttonwillow (Formerly Superlap Battle) is less than a week away! Nov 16-17

Currently buttoning up the car and thrashing on those spreadsheets to make sure nothing is forgotten. There's several Miata/MX5 entries on the sheets this year:

Pro/Comp
Ryan Raduechel Raduechel Performance Motorsports Mazda Miata #89

Unlimited
Ryan Helmuth Sancon Racing Mazda Miata #126
Gary Drew Sancon Racing Mazda Miata #510

Limited
Tarek Latouf All Automotive | GG Racing Mazda Miata SC #241
Ryan Passey Goodwin Racing Mazda Miata LFX #13
Daniel Tran All Automotive Mazda Miata #45
Ulrik Szirka UMS Racing Mazda Miata #29

Street
Milo Eurocompulsion Fiat Abarth 124 Spider #32

Enthusiast
Bret Nicoletti Rooney Speed Mazda Miata MX5 (NC) #10

This year will be the most difficult yet. Classes are no longer separated by drivetrains, so just as at Superlap Battle USA at COTA earlier this year we are up against everything, not just RWD. Limited class has 28 entries as of today.

https://photos.smugmug.com/2019-Even...ls_Field-L.jpg

On a personal note, I've put a lot of work into the car this year to hopefully make another step forward. Feeling a lot of pressure and nervous excitement to lay it down and see that work deliver in the lap times. Everyone knows by now that the HyperMiata is now supercharged via a custom Rotrex setup. More power is good but doesn't guarantee anything. With it comes more hurdles to overcome, a bit more weight, longer braking zones, lower min speeds, etc. so it's hopefully a matter of 1 step back and 2 steps forward. Moti (Blackbird Fabworx) has been closely involved as we refine the aero and keep making adjustments and improvements.

We've been testing and refining:

https://photos.smugmug.com/2019-Even...aliPhoto-L.jpg

Coming off just setting a new Miata lap record at Laguna Seca but losing the clutch a couple laps in, a new clutch is in and if it holds together we should be running fast. In depth build thread for the HyperMiata is over here: Miata LFX Swap (Singular Motorsports & Good-Win Racing)

The big looming goal for us going into this event is the one I set back when the car was reborn with the LFX; to set a new Limited Rear Wheel Drive record at Buttonwillow 13CW. The current record stands at 1:44.456 by the very dialed and fast C6 shown below, and it's a bit of an anomaly; it was set in the final year that the Limited class rules were more open (stickier tires and flat bottoms were allowed back then), and back when it was set it was over 3 seconds faster than anyone had ever gone before, and and nobody has ran anywhere close to it since then. After the rule change to slow the Limited class down, we've been sort of leading the pack at drilling the times back down towards that record, and we're now the second fastest Limited class car to ever lap Buttonwillow 13CW behind just this Corvette, but as of last year with a PB of 1:46.8 we're still a ways off.

https://photos.smugmug.com/2014-Even...210491_n-L.jpg

To put that lap time into some perspective, the Miata lap record is 1:44.8, held by Supermiata / 949 Racing with Vegas (pictured below) with Emilio behind the wheel in the Unlimited class on Hoosiers. So we need to be on pace to beat the fastest Unlimited Miata that's ever run there... but do it with street tires from a class down.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Miata-Lap...egasBaby-L.jpg

Can we do it? There's just one way to find out.

To go 44s or lower on 245 BFG Rival S will be an amazing accomplishment. I've seen the data from and am intimately familiar with Bullet and Vegas, and I feel like I have a good understanding of how much quicker those cars(on Hoosiers) could go with relatively small changes.
I know those two cars had time on the table but I am having trouble wrapping my mind around a street tire going that quick. However I've also seen Hyper drive around the outside of me at full chat at Chuckwalla, soooooo this will be a fun one to watch!


Also, and Imma let you finish, but Bullet ran a 44.7 a couple weeks after SLB 2017 on the then-toasted set of tires at a RoadsterCup event after we changed some setup stuff.
(I remember the AIM showing a 44.6xx)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18A2...o8mjfY69z/view



*EDIT: to not read so harshly while keeping the Kanye quote.

What is Hyper's power and comp weight(with driver) nowadays?

Best of luck to you Ryan. Awesome stuff happening here. Gave you your 10th :likecat:

I believe the precise numbers are... you betcha

Limited class is going to be a battlefield.
Ryan has done a massive amount of work on the mechanical side of the car.
New Miata lap record at Laguna in the first hot lap? Yep, it's moving.
We've updated the aero and it should make a bit more downforce, though the big update I've been looking to do will have to wait for COTA.

Can the Miata record be reset?
It's certainly a good goal to shoot for.

Cool to see so many Miatas in the field!

Just wanted to say watching with interst and wishing you a happy, mechanically sound meeting!! (no jinxes).

Also, to say that corvette is "quite" tasty.....not really a corvette kinda guy but i'd take it.

Hopefully you can beat it and it fades in to obscurity.

Looking forward to racing this weekend and will definitely be rooting for you! Seeing a couple of the cars that will be competing while we were there last Friday for a test day, the competition will be intense in Limited. You have always found a way to make that Miata perform consistently at an insane level. Good luck this weekend!! See you there

Aww yiss.

I originally was going to try to fly out just to spectate but couldn't make it happen.

Good luck man.

this should be fun
 

Crazy road to SLB finals this year for me.

technically lost 2 motors in a row, (Dyno tomorrow) added some aero and a few other changes.

im not looking to podium at all but, im looking to have a great time and get a little competitive. i doubt ill be racing this event next year as the rules aren't favorable to this platform. if i came back it would be in an NC.

Go get them Ryan!

Good luck!!!

Ouch!
I might confusing your car with someone else, are you running a J swap? What happened?

He's got a Rotrex'd NA.

I don't doubt it. There are a couple guys/cars I know of in Limited that are bringing some serious pace. Steven Chan in the GTR has been making some massive improvements, he'll be near the top. But we aren't going to worry about all that, just going to put our heads down and do what we do, focus on getting everything we can from what we've got.

Somebody take lots of close-ups in the pits please, LOL.

Good luck, Ryan!

I’m out
 

I’m tapping out at this point for this years slb. Lost oil pressure on this motor and don’t have it in me to press on.

Oww man, what a bummer :sadwavey:

If it's a BP, I have a freshly built ultra whammy motor for sale. https://www.miataturbo.net/miata-par...4/#post1554581

F...


That sucks dude...

Ah man, sorry to hear it Tarek.

Ryan's entrant hype vid shows some aluminum front wheel tubs. Are they big enough for 25" tall tires?!

We'll be on 15x10 with 245 Rivals this weekend. Converting to spec tire for 2020 is going to be a TON of work, testing, etc. etc.

The hype vid is real tho!

I love that stars and stripes vinyl.

Please delete.

I will be following Ryan’s progress like I do every year, along with my boss in the #73 evo. I did some of the aero and installed all the suspension components under it’s previous ownership, then Eddie bought it to campaign in GTA, but has had about 1/10th the time we’d hope to for prep. It did a test a few weeks ago at Buttonwillow and had some significant handling issues, hopefully fixed now. It was set up for a billiard table and not Buttonwillow. I doubt we’ll be a threat for podium, I just hope he has fun. Good luck everyone!

Sweet, I'll be there pitting for the other EVO in Limited. Tell Eddia to let us know if he needs anything!

Neat, he doesn't have many spares, but he's a wealth of knowledge and got started in Miatas, so he's always willing to talk about them when the Evo inevitably breaks down ;)

Tim (the EVO owner/driver) and the other 3 of us coming from NM all have NA's, he'll fit right in. :naughty:

I'm looking forward to this

It'll be nice to catch up with Eddie, I haven't seen him in years, since I took Blackbird to PIR...

Live Stream Link:https://globaltimeattack.com/live/

Should be up Saturday morning.

It's Saturday morning, did Passey win yet?! :rofl:

Anxious to see how this event goes.

Eddie had a 1:47 predicted in turn 13, but shut it off due to oil pressure warnings. He's going to wire the accusump to stay on constantly and put an extra quart in the engine. It's also pumping about a half quart of oil into the catch can every lap despite modifying the baffles to help aid drain back. Engine was built by ER, might be a bit loose?

What group is Ryan in and why hasn't he posted any times?

Ryan's group 1. Had throttle issues in the morning. I think saw him post a 1:49 in first session, so yet to beat last years PB of 1:46.

At a 48' atm from what I've seen. Either he has car trouble or the loud pedal is too much for 245 Street tyres on the current setup lol. Guess we'll know soon enough.

Or maybe different track conditions vs last year? Granted I can't find the live race monitor results....... I haven't seen many in the low-mid 1:40s and none in the 1:30s.

Post on FB this morning reveals they ECU issues from fuel pressure losses on high G corners. They think they have a temporary fix for it for this first session today.
Think the race monitor results are broken. Not working for me either. Track does look super dusty even with the cleaning.

Turns out it's on racehero.io and not racemonitor!

https://racehero.io/events/global-time-attack/results

4th place coasting around due to fuel starvation/limp mode issues is nothing to sneeze at. Looking forward to seeing what it'll do with a surge tank setup!

Not exactly coasting around, but definitely not jelled together either :)

Great weekend at BRP!
I'm sure Ryan is going to put together a post with the full recount, but as a quick summary this was the first real shakedown of the car at full power with all the downforce, which meant this was the first time we had a chance to see what are the new limitations of the setup.
On the surface it may seem like the car went backwards, but that's just a little step back before big leap forward and oh boy am I excited about everything we learned this weekend.
With everything we now know, I am confident we made lots of steps in the right direction and once we correct all the issues that showed up this weekend at the track Hyper is going to do well.

Best of all, despite running into all kinds of different problems, the car made it to the grid for every single session which meant that as a team we've managed to work through everything - that monstrous effort by everyone to make it work no matter what fills me with pride, we gave it all and left nothing on the table.
Ryan drove extremely well given the challenges and that's everything that Hyper had in it for this event.

We have 3 months before COTA to make lots of changes and updates.
Onward and upwards!

My buddy Vince was out there killing it in the EG civic ! no aero and putting down 56's

Full write up is in the build thread!

https://www.miataturbo.net/engine-pe...-85075/page62/

Moti couldn't have put it better. The team gave 101% start to finish. This was the first time we were able to run the car at full power and downforce since the updates, and despite testing all we could in the lead up to the event, we suddenly found ourselves starting the weekend with a car that wouldn't complete one lap. However, we worked together and overcame. We come home with 4th place out of a 26 car field.

https://photos.smugmug.com/2019-Even..._MG_5738-L.jpg

https://photos.smugmug.com/2019-Even...XL/Team-XL.jpg