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I could just copy and pasted my Facebook status in here, but I want to write something special tomorrow for MT.net. This forum section and the "Adventures in TTE/PTE" thread were huge sources of insiration and information the last few years. I might technically be a w2w rookie, but I'm far from a TT/PT-rookie or fast-Miatas-rookie because of all of you. Thanks.
Mid race on Sunday, losing my hardtop by lap 4 or 5. Drivers side B pillar bracket simply snapped due to extra load from the ~20mph side winds. Surely had NOTHING to do with my many curb hops or off track excursions...
Friday, learning the new brake marker for "Grapevine" after the switch from #25CCW to #1CCW layout:
#TeamMiata in grid sometime Friday or Saturday before Austin broke:
Congrats Dan on the win! That is sketchy that the hardtop broke away like that, was it fluttering the rest of the race?
Thanks man!
Yea, I was pretty worried it would earn me a black flag, but down the back straight and front straight it was pushed down on the car by the wind. Only in the corners did it act up, but the corner workers are primarily in the corners...
Thanks man!
Yea, I was pretty worried it would earn me a black flag, but down the back straight and front straight it was pushed down on the car by the wind. Only in the corners did it act up, but the corner workers are primarily in the corners...
Lucky.
Real lucky. That must've been a real clencher through every corner haha
I've been living my "PTE/TTE life" vicariously through you most of this season and especially once I ran my Z into the wall at Road Atlanta, putting my track-days on hold. It's been really cool watching you go from a bare-bones regional contender to PTE national champ.
Thursday: NASA hosted test day on #25CCW. I do one session on RRs, then the rest of the day on 3yr old SM6s. I spend most of the day in the 2:06-2:08 range. I end up running a single 2:05.8 on the high power map and light fuel load. Justin hints that it will probably take consistent 2:04s to win on Sunday. I feel anxious and excited about the battle we are going to have this weekend.
Self check on dyno, make 148.8. Cap at 2410lb base weight is 146.
Immediately, we go down a map, should be good for 3-4whp less than max AND install 32lbs more ballast for a total ballast of ~205lbs. Running @ 2450 allows me to make 148. Extra headroom for minimal risk.
Friday: First day of competition on #1CCW, adding in Bus Stop instead of the long back straight. This is definitely a grip/momentum favorable layout. Swap to my set of scrub R7s that Sonny and I both raced and TT'd on at Mid Ohio. They have ~8-10 heatcycles by now.
Warm up: Layout change ***** with me. I struggle to find rhythm in the busstop complex. During this session I scrub my sticker R7s to prepare them for Sunday. Plan is to run one TT session on them and then race them in the Championship.
During drivers meeting, they talk about sealing our ECU ports with tamper tape. I drop another map down for more headroom and go to impound to get taped before qualifying.
Qualifying: Justin P1, me P2. I had a major wheel drop off the outside of busstop, destroy a wheel, lose 10psi out of the LF tire, mess the alignment, bad. Only do three total laps, came in way early. Justin raw times me, but not as badly as I expected.
Sonny fixes the toe and while we're in there we add another -.5* on the right side.
Heat Race #1: Justin ends up DQ'd for being under weight in qualifying, so he starts from the back of E (only 3 rows back) and gets a mega jump at the start. He passes all of E plus a row or two of D cars before T1. I run in P4 for a while after missing the 2-3 upshift, earning me one of the worst starts of my illustrious 6 month racing career. At some point I somehow make it all the way up to P1 after Gian gets wrecked out in the esses. I was drafting him down the front straight and we were catching a lapped E car. They go through the first Ess side by side, but in the second Ess the lapped car door bumps Gian off the track to the right. He catches a spin out in the dirt, but comes back and completely crosses across the track from right to left, right in front of me. Later in the same race I get stuck behind a PTD BMW with Justin in tow right behind me for 3 or 4 laps. Eventually, the three of us catch another lapped E car in busstop. I go for a gap between the D car and the lapped car which starts to close. I back out of the throttle, abort the pass and watch Justin go around the outside on my left. He ends up with his two left tires in the dirt as the BMW comes down on him at the apex. BMW's LR met Justin's RF wheel-wheel and sent Justin spinning into the lapped E Miata. Justin goes across my path from left to right, the lapped car goes from right to left, the BMW goes off to the right. The seas part in front of me and I drive through the biggest dust cloud of the weekend... with no video. :(
Finish P1 with an easy second half of the race.
Saturday: TT session #1: On scrub R7s I run a mid-high 2:04. Good for 1st place, so I relax the rest of the day and skip the other TT sessions.
Post TT impound inspection and dyno compliance check. Car makes 141whp with a super spikey curve. We find that all 4 bolts that hold the two stock coilpacks in their mounting bracket have disappeared. We fix that and go back to the dyno for another self-check for compliance: 146.96whp. Basically .5whp from DQing myself. Correction factors are identical to yesterday's runs, weather is nearly identical. All variance chalked up to the brand new motor breaking in.
At this point we've gone down two maps and are making within 1.5whp of what we made on the max power map on Thursday. Each map dropped 3-4whp on our home dyno. 2+2= my motor potentially making ~154 on max power map. That's through a stock cast iron header... Wow.
Heat race #2: Still on those scrub R7s, cycle #10-12. Back on #25CCW. Thankfully. Justin was signifigantly faster on #1 than me. #25 suits my car build better AND is much simpler to drive as you're basically throttle down from Star Mazda to Grapevine, like 33% of the track length.
Grid set by fastest race lap in Heat Race #1. Justin set fastest lap, but was DQ'd for the out of class contact with that PTD BMW. He started from the back again, giving me Pole. I got a great start and several great tows by D cars in the first few laps. I never saw anybody, but afterwards learned that Justin was catching me before he got black flagged for no brake lights.
Scrub R7s up to cycle #18-20. My times are still improving from track knowledge faster than the tires are falling off. Unable to discern when or where they nosed over on grip, but they were noticeably less grippy in that race than yesterday.
Sunday: Swap to sticker R7s.
TT Session #4(Attempt #2): Holy Moly these tires are fast. Run a 2:03.29 on lap #2 with nary a tire squeak. AIM Solo shows a 2:02 predicted on lap 3, but I come in hot so Sonny can grab temps/pressures to set these tires up for the race this afternoon.
Here's Sunday morning's compliance check, down 2 maps, also spiky due to the broken coilpack mount: This map made 141 on our home dyno. Call it 145 on MCE. Did that extra 4whp come from loosening up, or just MCE being MCE? It sounded like everyone saw bigger % swings than we did.
I think you meant to say call it 147. So 6WHP, not that far off but my money is on the dyno, especially since that was your loose coil pack run no? By the time you are done tuning and doing power pulls the first time around usually that's as good as it gets.
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