Word.

What a pain it was to see the Tilton car getting destroyed.

Watched day 2 with Moti while we worked on stuff for Hyper. Not a bad way to watch WTAC!

Stoked to see both of the Miatas run well for the weekend. Dan was on 17" wheels, interested to hear impressions and findings regarding that since it's practically a necessity for this particular ruleset. Just interested to hear how the event went from both team's eyes!

Hard to watch Kosta's crash. We were cringing hard as he lost the front, then the rear, then almost had it but went wide and had just the worst bit of a two-off and hooked left. You see crashes often enough in racing but something about it really struck me with a lot of sadness as I watched. Then I realized why; we're watching this while we're literally rebuilding broken parts damaged in my incident with a tire barrier earlier this year. Professional race cars are rebuilt overnight. Time attack cars are one-offs, labors of passion and countless hours from small driven individuals or teams. Even at the Pro class level with big resources it's a very personal thing for the people involved. And what an iconic car for it to happen to. I really felt for Kosta and his guys. Happy that they have a win and a class record to take away from the weekend. Hopefully they rebuild the car - at least restore it to operational status.

RP finally got the cogs to mesh and threw down a landmark time. HKS didn't embarrass the cars that were actually in the competition. Fun to see Suzuki drive Ando's car which was great for the event, good for team Escort, and just fun the sport in general.

I wasn't driving, I just supplied the engine bolt on's/tuning and helped choose the right mods for the admittedly limited budget, we even had a carbon fastback and a crusher style airdam but both were denied by the WTAC scrutineers.

The car killed 2x LS coils due to me setting the dwell too high, intersting it chose this event to become an issue seeing as how it has a LOT of dyno time and a few other events on the same settings.

We were 5+ seconds off pace and unfortunately the wet and lack of practice and setup time meant we were never going to claw those seconds back. however it was a great event to go to and experience.

here are some more photos.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f9a155fae5.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f41903eaaf.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ca5f26fdb8.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1e87b4d06f.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e0007aad70.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...31aed38c43.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ee9df0f555.jpg


Also a partial lap including main straight on my page at www.facebook.com/nitrodann
Dann

Pretty good predictions :)

Well done to both Mark and Kendall on their driving, and Dann for his work on Kendall's car. Hopefully you have all the bugs sorted out by the time I need a similar engine and turbo package for my car ;)

Interested to hear why the scrutineers knocked back the CF hardtop and air dam Dann?

It wasnt street car enough. S2000s in class with factory hardtop were ok, even though they are almost a fastback, and Marks airdam which is the same as ours was let through.

is what it is.

Dann

I can understand the CF hardtop as being non factory, but hard to understand the air dam provided it fits into the rule set for the class. It's inconsistencies like this that make it difficult for competitors to know where they stand sometimes. Lucky you had an alternative to fit and hadn't just driven 1000ks interstate only to get knocked back.

Dann, given your experience with Kendall's car what do you think is the optimal time for a MX5 in Clubsprint once the car and driver are dialed in?

When I did the sums on it, I figured it would be somewhere in-between a 1:37 and a 1:40 which are the lap records for the old Group A Sierra RS500 and the IPRA lap times respectively. This is based on referencing my times at Barbagallo and what I think would be achievable with boost and running a less grippy tyre like the Ad08r instead of the A050.

That's exactly where I believe kens car could be with some setup time, the right conditions and a gun driver. It ran 1.45 as a daily driver with half the power, but all of the changes and no time to set it up or learn to drive it really killed us at this event. But it's just one weekend to put a show on for the crowd, unless you are in with a chance to win the laptimes arent important, just experiencing the event is.

Dann

I think that's exactly how you have to look at it, and where I'm with it all too. The time and money involved in putting together a competitive Clubsprint car is out of reach for most people these days, but I would still love to be part of it one day just for the experience.

Miatas at WTAC. Awesome. Thanks for the details Dan, wasn't sure what your affiliation with the car was at first, saw the decal on it and went "Nitro Dann! Yes!" with a beer raised in the air ;)

I hear you on just going and being a part of the party. If one wants to be competitive one of the biggest things is testing/practice prior to the event. Get the driver, team and car together out to the track as many times as necessary until everyone is familiar with every detail of the car, driver feels completely comfortable with the car and it's doing exactly what they want, etc.

I'm betting Mark's car got through because the bumper is painted body color. It just looks more a part of the car than a black plastic airdam.

Thanks man.

And yeah, I agree with every part of that post.

Dann

Cool to see Miatas representing at WTAC, this ^ gave me a good chuckle! :skid:

Interested in this too. What part of the ruleset made it a requirement, and how did it compare to 15s?

Control tyre in Clubsprint is the Yokohama AD08R. Widest section in 15" is a 205, so to get any decent width, you need to run a 17", 40 series tyre.

It also applies to the Advan A050 which is run by the Open classes. I currently run a 225/50R15 which sits the chassis up around 20mm more than I'd like. I think a 245/40R17 is only a slight increase in diameter but lets you run a much wider tyre.

There is also a rule in all WTAC classes that allows you to remove metal for wheel clearance. Running a R17 on a NA chassis pretty much means that entire inner tub can be cut out front and back. Ideally you'd run drop spindles to keep the chassis ride height optimal.