video - enduro start

[FE3tMX5]

My first few laps from the ARRC enduro below. Car is originally a showroom stock 92 Miata that I raced thirteen years ago. Owner slapped on the SM required parts and spent just over $1k on the engine work/parts (we assembled it two weeks prior to the race). So the car was very green for the test day. Owner qualified last in class and 3rd to the last overall Saturday morning because we were still getting it sorted. After qualifying we spent some time on corner corner weights and then an alignment (trusty jackstands, thread, ruler and bubble gauge baby!). Even though we couldn't get over -1.25 in the LF and -1.5 in RF w/o destroying Cweights or ride height, the car was still nearly 2 seconds a lap quicker. There's a lot to be said for a proper corner weight job. I managed to hustle the car to the front after two laps, but had to give up the lead to keep the car on track. The over-driving was cooking the front tires due the heavy lack of camber. We ended up finishing third- admirable for the first time out. :D

mLK6uc-MfRw

[jzilla]

damn rob! good job. Who's car were you driving?

[FE3tMX5]

Andy- my x pro racing partner. There's actually a photo of the smurf blue SSC car on the wall at Rspeed. He decided to go back racing after a ten year break and invited me to drive if I helped out. :eek:

[VitaminD]

Very nice, making me fiend.

[friday]

Sounds like you had a little love tap at 3:18.

Looks awesome, I really hope I can get into wheel to wheel racing in 3 or 4 years. How long was the race?

[jzilla]

3:50 wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[FE3tMX5]

3:18 - If given the opportunity to let someone know you're there, you should insert here ;)
3:50 - That had to be a missed shift. Lucky it wasn't .1 second later.

I highly recommend wheel to wheel racing for any enthusiast if the opportunity ever presents itself. It's just one more "dimension" added to the thrill of driving fast on track.

It was a 3 hour race with two pitstops- I drove the start and finish. It's a good thing it wasn't longer. At some point we lost an exhaust hanger bushing, which only left one. When that one came off the exhaust broke off just before the collector. My guess is another 30 minutes and the car would have been on fire with the exhaust dumping into the engine bay. I've got aeronautical fitted ear pieces and even then the exhaust was insanely loud. In a bizarre coincidence, the same thing happened to the 2nd place car.

I'll run through the video and compile anything interesting. I know there's one part where I got nailed by the 3rd place car in T5 when I had to lift. Front tires were cooked, no traction and he pegged the rear which actually straightened the car out and got me up the hill instead off the track. :lol: He apologized after the race and then I thanked him explaining I was headed off and he saved me. :D

[friday]

lol, nice picture.

My dad raced SRF for more than half of the 90's, and he always talked about how good that car was for seat time, but with the spec miata you have SM, ITA (?), and enduro racing. It's hard to beat that amount of seat time.

I know its going to be a while before I get to the track, but I feel I should get involved somehow.

[VitaminD]

If you want to get involved, volunteer for NASA, free weekend of seat time for every two weekends you work. Plus you get a nice behind the scenes look and listen to what is going on.