Parsimonious Racing (potential) mega-thread. So many Miatas!

The weekend's adventure was something called "Motorsports 4 The Masses" which is a blend of autocross and track day. It's an autocross course that you just keep lapping on while sharing it with other cars that can point you by on a couple of straights. Interesting concept, works pretty well in practice, but too much autocross and not enough track day for me.

This is geared more towards novices and people who haven't done track days to get them thinking of expanding their horizon beyond autocross. There's a ton of seat time, and no work assignments. But when you've been autocrossing for 13 years and like to think you're at the point where you can get just about everything out of an autocross course after three or four runs, lapping the same course for an hour or so total just turns into burning tires and gas and not really accomplishing anything. Supposedly times were noted and kept but I haven't seen them yet; not that it matters as this is not being sold as a competition.

Captain Slow was the right tool for the job. Some of the course elements almost dared you to get reeeeeeeeeal close to them, as they were part of some thread-the-needle elements. If they were single cones they'd have been obliterated, but M4TM uses dirt track stock car tires with some sort of board attached to the side so they'd probably do damage if hit. I didn't hit any and I don't think anyone else did, but the risk is very real there.

My day there got cut short as I heard a new noise while on course. Pulled off and found that the PPF bolt that I stole from the Duckling had worked its way loose and fell out. But the car's low enough that the bolt didn't fall completely out, but it did hit the pavement and that bent it pretty good. So now I have to get two of these bolts, one to replace this one and one to put in the other car.

All in all, a good time was had by all. I don't think I'll go back to M4TM at Washington Circuit, but they're thinking of branching out into real track days at Shenandoah or Jefferson. I still haven't run at either of those yet.

Track Night is back at Dominion Raceway on Thursday, which means getting two cars ready as the wife is participating as well. Today was devoted to Bruce, which I figured was due for an oil change while it was up in the air getting the brakes changed and bled.

Today we learn that me plus idle time equals questionable ideas. I was staring at the nose of the car and thinking, as an amateur aerodynamicist (assuming that's a word), there seems to be a couple pockets designed into the fog light housings that appear to be places to trap air going by and causing drag. After sticking a couple of bucks worth of blue tape to the front of the car, we'll see if this gets me past 111 MPH on Dominion's front straight.

Have fun at Dominion! I opted for VIR this month so I'll be there next Wednesday. I'm hoping this fuel foolery is over by then. I'm already registered for Dominion again in June. I'll be running in Novice for what is hopefully the last time. I was planning on moving to intermediate in June but I made one boneheaded mistake back in April so I figured I probably wasn't quite ready yet. Based on our lap times I definitely think I'd benefit from being pushed in intermediate. I'm ~5 sec slower per lap than you are but capable of ~10 mph more on the straight so there's definitely room for improvement!

I decided to have a stupid stretch of track stuff coming up, not sure what I was thinking but assuming me and the car both survive, we'll have some fun stories to tell:

Dominion May 12

VIR May 19

WDCR autocross school (instructing) May 22

Lime Rock May 26

Time Trial Nationals June 10-13

Road Atlanta June 22

Pittrace July 6

In light of all this, I'm probably skipping Dominion June 17 unless I'm burning to get back in the car after four days on NCM. The wife might want to go to Dominion, so I'll have to decide whether I want to go and just be her pit crew or bring my own car.

When I started doing TNIA a couple years ago, I thought I was ready for intermediate after my first day. The only reason I did a second one in Novice was because I never got the chance to point anyone by in that first time, and I figured I should do that at least once before moving up.

Speaking of Dominion, I finished prep on the two cars today. Bruce got washed and a coat of quick wax (the only wax I do these days, I'm so lazy) and loaded on the trailer.

I swapped the Carbotechs onto the wife's car front brakes but left the rears alone. I noticed in videos from last time out that she occasionally hit the brakes after putting some steering angle in the car, and it seemed to want to over-rotate under those conditions. I think with less grabby brakes in the back (Hawk HPS), if she continues to drive in this manner, the car will do better to save her from herself.

Slushy got washed and quick-waxed and that's ready to go to Dominion tomorrow afternoon. I think we're going to have a good day.

Track Night at Dominion was another successful outing for Parsimonious Racing. Both cars performed flawlessly. Kate keeps going faster, lopping off another two seconds despite still letting the automatic transmission handle the gears. I think she's at the point where she's not going to be happy hearing it kick down a gear as she's leaving corners, so maybe she'll start gearing down manually entering them next time. I trimmed a whopping four tenths off my best from last month, watching friends with newer cars and fresher tires going a lot faster. Eventually I'll fire on some fresh tires myself, but I think I still have two sets of half-gone RE71R take-offs to burn through before I get to that point.

I think the tape on the nose contributed nothing to the effort as my straight-line speed was the same as last time, so I don't have to try that again. Besides, it's pretty ugly.

Kate's starting to ask what upgrades can be done to her car to go faster. This is when I have to remind her that it's her commuter car first, and we shouldn't do anything that makes it worse at that job. Good news, she tried a manual transmission a couple times this weekend and didn't report any ouchies from that (she's still recovering from two foot surgeries last year), so maybe the easy answer to have a faster car is to switch to Sloppy and not do anything with the automatic car.

We then got to enjoy a quiet weekend doing nothing. I decided that Slushie deserved an oil change while I had it in the air changing brakes, and now I'm immortalized on film hanging out underneath the car dealing with the oil filter.

Bruce has a quick turnaround as it's off to VIR on Wednesday. Fortunately, it needs nothing before getting loaded up to head out.

Track Night at VIR is in the books and it was a successful outing for Bruce.

It took a lot longer to build confidence in the car/track combination, and that was mostly self-inflicted. I've been looking forward to Road Atlanta next month so I've been doing a lot of sim/Youtube time concentrating on that, and kinda let VIR fly under the radar. It turns out that I probably could have benefited from a VIR refresher as my first session was not smooth, lots of double-inputs and herky-jerky braking. The car seemed to want to rotate more than usual and that had me a little gunshy on turn-in as well as powering out of corners. Then our first session got cut short when a car had a comprehensive engine failure on the backstretch, requiring about 45 minutes of cleanup. My buddy Chad in the blue Supra was just behind the BMW when it went kablooey and his new car got a fresh coat of oil all over the front end.

As we got more seat time, the confidence to push the car arrived. When I finally got up to something resembling full speed, I was lapping eight seconds faster than I did the previous year in Captain Slow the '90. My last lap of the last session was my fastest, so there's still progress to be made. Unlike Dominion, though, VIR only holds one Track Night a year so I doubt I'll be back there until the next one comes around in 2022.

I have to give the SCCA folks credit. After the long track cleanup delay we figured we were either going to lose an entire session or every group was going to have its sessions' length cut since we were racing sundown. But they kept things moving once we got going again, with the only victim being the touring laps, and we got all three of our sessions in. Bravo!

Next on the agenda is instructing at the WDCR Level 1 autocross school on Saturday.

Great thread!

Reminds me of our days running NA and NC on trackdays.  I don't miss prepping two cars! 

Saturday I was at the WDCR autocross school, instructing for the first time. This was a level 1 school, so it was made up of mostly first-timers in mostly stock cars on mostly all-season tires. The first part of the driving had the students drive two runs, then we swap seats and the instructor takes two runs with the student riding shotgun, then switch back. I was deathly afraid of spinning a student's car, or even hitting a cone with one, but I didn't spin any and I'm pretty sure I was cone-free. It's very rewarding to watch drivers taking huge chunks of time off run after run as they're probably asking more of their cars than they ever have before. As far as I can tell, my students were happy with my instruction and I'm encouraged to do more if I'm invited back.

After the school was over, it was time to play. I didn't partake: I had brought Sloppy on all-season tires and I didn't think that was going to be much fun. Danny Kao had a better idea, though. He had his wife's well-worn Prius and invited me to a two-run Prius challenge. It was pretty terrible, and after Danny had done his second run he was clear of me by a full second, but I found all that time and more on my second run to take the win. That's a pretty good finish to a really good day.

Rainy day today so nothing got done. Nothing had been planned (I was way behind in producing the WDCR region newsletter so that had top priority) so there's no big loss there.

I like when photographers show up to Track Night. They don't seem to show up at Dominion so I bring my own camera so me and the wife can shoot some while the other is on track, but that doesn't work at VIR since you can't see much (or any) of the track from paddock. But SCCA arranged for Tradd to be at VIR and we each got a freebie, which is nice. I'm not a huge fan of how heavily Tradd manipulates the photos but I'll take it.

Oh there is a little news to report. At the first Dominion TNIA back in April, I took a rock off the very right edge of the windshield in the first session. It was undamaged for the balance of the night, but a crack appeared the next morning. It wasn't a very big crack, and it was still way over on the other side of the car so I thought I could get away with ignoring it until after the season. But when I went to get my helmet out of the car yesterday, I saw the crack had decided to hang a 90-degree turn and sprint about a third of the way across the very middle of the windshield. So now there's no wondering if it would be OK under the "no severe glass cracks" on the tech sheet since it's pretty severe now. It'll have to be addressed in the next week or so before Time Trials Nationals.

Big adventures this week. I knew over the winter that I was going to go back to Lime Rock for Track Night this year, and Danny Kao said he wanted to go too. As the week approached, Danny had a conundrum. He wanted to go to LRP and then spend the rest of the week with his daughter in Boston, which meant his wife was going to come along as well. This meant he couldn't take his own car... unless he could have me bring it to the track for him, and we would both drive it.

The car in question is another NC, this one a 2014 Club PRHT with, among the usual upgrades, a supercharger and big aero. I asked if he was sure if the car could hold up to two drivers running consecutive 20 minute sessions and he seemed confident. So I loaded it up on my trailer and at 4 AM I hit the road north.

Lime Rock Park is near and dear to my heart, as I grew up there watching dad racing there in the '70s. It was a real treat to have dad make the hourish ride to be my 'crew.'

While the NC is fast, it comes at a price. The car was tuned over the winter and never ran on a hot day with the supercharger. I was first to drive and after five or six hammer-down laps I looked down to see the temperature gauge over 3/4. I bailed out and the temps came back down to normal, but this was something we were going to have to deal with for the whole day. I found I could stay out of the danger zone by going to 5th gear sooner than ideally on the main straight. But we noticed that the longer we ran, the slower the car would feel until we brought it in and let it cool down some. But with two of us sharing the car, that wasn't really possible.

I went into this thinking this car would absolutely destroy the time I set with the '90 last year (1:08.9) but I could only muster a 1:07.7 today. We were not on ideal tires (Michelin PS4S) and the heat certainly didn't help, but I still expected better. Danny got into the 1:06s so the time was there, I just wasn't going to try that hard to get there myself. There was no way I was going to ball up someone else's car trying to get a lap time, so I ran with DSC on.

The highlight of the day was hanging with dad, who brought his '62 Vette and that attracted some attention. He took it out for the touring laps and I jumped in to ride shotgun, and that was probably the first time I rode in that car in 25 or 30 years. It still sounds just as good as I remember.

At one point a handful of cars behind us pulled into the pits, and Dad said that the guy who was now behind us was acting very aggressive in his mirror. I looked back and there's Danny trying to give us the business.

This was a good day.

This has already been a pretty good week, but this is the icing on the cake.

Someone first alerted me to Captain Slow making the magazine late last week, but my issue didn't arrive until yesterday. I'm even happier that they didn't use one of the many pictures of the car with my point-by arm hanging out the window.

Sunday morning, my alarm went off at 4AM at mom & dad's. I had to pick up the trailer with the car from my sister's since the parents' place didn't have enough parking for the whole rig. I got to Devens at 7AM and everyone was watching the weather radar as we knew rain was coming. When Danny arrived we decided to go back to the Michelins, which was a good call as rain began just as the first heat was getting going and never stopped. It was never more than a persistent sprinkle, but we had it all day.

In the morning session, I could run with Danny and was even faster than him, except that faster run had a cone on it. We were sitting 1-2 in class and with the rain I wasn't sure if I could get decent enough conditions to match that run in the afternoon. I was pleasantly surprised to retake the class lead over Danny on my first run of the afternoon, and Danny said he was not capable of running that time. Whether he was taking it easy to make me feel better is up for debate.

Danny got a wrinkle thrown at him after his second run when he was told he was popped for a sound violation. The car's exhaust is nearly stock-quiet, but the supercharger under the hood makes for a pretty good racket. They said if we didn't do anything about it, he was done. If I made my second run and popped sound, we were parked. I made that second run and didn't trip sound, so they allowed me to make a third run. If I didn't trip sound on that third run, they'd let Danny take his third run. I again ran clean and quiet enough in my third run to get into the 61s, but Danny got one more shot to beat me. In that attempt, he spun so I had the class win.

I'm happy to win, but kinda humbled that our 290 HP car with big wing and big splitter got raw-timed by not only STR, but STS and even E Street. But that's not important. We had fun despite the weather, and I love running out-of-region events to see how they do things. I got to see some familiar faces on their home turf and we were all smiles. Danny got to get out of there in time to get back to Brookline for his daughter's birthday party, and I got to get a good chunk of the way home before having to stop for a nap. I dropped Danny's car in his driveway mid-morning Monday and rolled into my own driveway just after lunchtime. It was a great weekend seeing family and friends, and sharing a couple days with a great guy like Danny was the icing on the cake. Beating him at the autocross made up for his being a second and a half better than me on Lime Rock.

OK lots of catching up to do

I took Bruce to NCM Motorsports Park for SCCA Time Trials Nationals. I wasn't going to go back after last year, but Danny and Kate talked me into going so I did. Danny arranged the AirBnB almost within walking distance of the track entrance, and even provided a garage since the driver he originally got it for wound up withdrawing. In exchange for this, I was to bring Danny's competition tires there and back, as well as deliver a stock set of wheels/tires for a car he sold to the track, where the car's buyer was picking them up.

Things started slowly for me, as the first practice session ended after just a couple laps. It took a long time to get comfortable with how the NC felt on a track that requires some huevos in places, and it moved around a lot more than the '90 last year. But as we got more laps under our belt, the time started dropping. I doubted I was anywhere near competitive (I didn't look at any results until after everything was done Sunday afternoon), but it was fun trying to improve once I saw where opportunities were and taking advantage of them.

Heat was a real issue. Most people were getting one shot at a lap each session as tires would be cooked if pushed further. Fortunately, setting gaps on out-laps was much improved over last year, and traffic was not an issue for me.

Last year, I did not prepare for the Saturday trackcrosses at all, and did terribly in them. This time around, I passed up what was probably a fun social get-together to hang back and take my bike out to look at both courses and their turnarounds, and I think that paid off as I didn't suck (no surprise rallycross this time).

Sunday's three-lap time attack sessions actually came down to Sunday morning, as it was only going to get hotter. I set a goal of getting under 2:30 and squeaked out a 2:29.9 (ten seconds faster than Captain Slow last September) so that was good. I went out for Sunday afternoon but quickly saw that it was going to be futile so I pulled in early and got packed up to go. I accomplished the primary goal of bringing a car home with nothing to fix. I wound up 15th out of 19 in T4, pretty underwhelming really, but ultimate finishing position was so low on the priority list that it might as well not been on it in the first place.

I don't know if I'll go back again. With a projected full autocross season planned, I doubt the schedule or the budget will allow another shot. Plus, if it happens in June again, I really doubt I'll be willing to spend another long weekend in that heat. If it moved to sometime in the spring I'd be a lot more enthused about it.

Monday after TTNats found me back at the Tail of the Dragon. I managed to get permission to go there last year on the way home, and miraculously got permission to do it again this year. I left Bowling Green somewhere around 2AM and unloaded at the Tennessee end of the Dragon. First pass was great, and I took it faster than my usual first run through since it was fairly fresh in my mind. I whipped the car around at the gas station and headed right back. It was glorious as traffic was light and cooperative. There were a couple of photogs shooting and I'm going to have to pony up for some pics when I get home. What a lovely day.

After taking a little break at the truck for a drink, I set off for North Carolina again. What I didn't notice was a Blount County sheriff officer running radar, maybe at the overlook, who knows? I was hammer-down the whole ride to the gas station again. I never saw him.

I parked at the gas station since I had to use the facilities, and picked up a Mt Dew. While in line to pay, the cop was in the store. I half heard him talking about dangerous drivers, with snippets that amounted to "if he's going to keep driving like that, he's going to kill himself or someone else, or he's going to jail." He left the store before I got to the cashier.

Outside the store, the cop was talking to a manager-type person from the store, and the two were looking down the parking lot in the direction of where I parked the car. I stopped and weighed my options. It was pretty obvious that I was the dangerous driver in question, and he probably wasn't going to let me walk past him, to the car, get in the car, and drive away scot-free. So I took off my hat to show the maximum amount of grey hairs and walked up to him.

"I think you're looking for me," I said.

"Are you the driver of that silver Mazda?"

"Yes"

"You're in trouble."

To boil the story down, he threatened to take me downtown and impound the car, but since I approached him and owned up to everything, he cut me a couple breaks. First break, I wasn't going to get arrested and the car wasn't going to get hauled off. Second break, even though he was going to write me a well-deserved ticket, it was going to be a county-level violation and not a state-level violation. This, he said, should keep points off my license. So, while this would be my first speeding ticket in over twenty years, it probably wasn't going to be as devastating as it could have been. He even said I would be free to stay in the area and keep making runs, though he advised that I keep my speed down (saying that he lets most people who seem to know what they're doing get away with speeds up to 45 MPH). He was pretty reasonable, telling me that he has to respond to a lot of accidents on the road and didn't want me to be in one whether it's my fault or not.

Having said that, I was no longer in the mood to keep making runs. I drove back to the truck and loaded up, and made the eight-hour ride home stewing in my anger at how bad I was and how much worse the consequences could have been. I figured I was going to get read the riot act when I got home, and I'd deserve it. I figured I earned a lifetime ban from going back to the Dragon, and planned on canceling the two Track Nights on the next few weeks' agenda to punish myself.

When I got home, Kate's first question was "how was the Dragon?" and I said I got a ticket, and prepared for the wrath. Instead, Kate laughed at me. I wasn't going to go through the whole story till a couple of days had passed, but since she wasn't really mad I went through it all. Then I said I was canceling Road Atlanta and PittRace as penance, and she said that was a bad idea. So I didn't, though I was still beating myself up, and all she said was GET OVER IT.

Fast forward a couple weeks when I called the courthouse to find out how big my fine was. The lady answering mentioned that the cop cut me a considerable break, as I indeed earned no points, and all I'd have to pay was $20. I had her repeat that to make sure I heard it right. Yup, twenty bucks, payable with a certifed check or money order.

I just might go back to the Dragon again after all. But if I do, I'm going to keep it under 45 MPH.

I got home from TTNats/Tail of the Dragon on Monday night, and the following Thursday was Track Night at Dominion Raceway. I had a feeling that I wasn't going to be up for another track day after a very intensive five days, so I was going to sit this one out and be Kate's crew since she wanted to go. Then she had an idea of having me take a session in her car (Slushy the automatic '13 PRHT) to find out what it's really capable of. I didn't really want that pressure on me, but I agreed. I signed up for run/work to get that single session in Advanced (TNIA wouldn't let us split an entry) while she ran in Intermediate.

My work assignment was pretty unessential, being the guy who prowls paddock to tell people that they should think about getting to pit road as their session was coming up next. This meant I could be Kate's crew, making sure her camera was set and the car ready to go. She ran her first two sessions and was consistently turning 1:44 laps when traffic allowed. I strapped in to run the final Advanced session.

The car isn't bad on track. It's sprung a lot softer than Bruce (Slushy has off-the-shelf Ohlins) and it was much better composed over the bumps that upset the other car, especially in the big esses on the back portion of the track. It took quite a few laps to figure out shift points using the steering wheel paddles, as the ratios seemed very different from the manual transmission. In Bruce, I get to 5th gear on the front straight, while I never needed to do that in the automatic.

The other revelation was that I needed to turn off DSC and/or traction control as it was holding me back in a few places. With that done, I got a few clean laps in and my fastest wound up being a 1:42. That's quite a bit off of Bruce's best (1:38) but close enough to Kate's to make her think she's not massively underdriving the car, and her ego didn't get crushed. I mentioned the DSC thing and she said she wasn't aware that her car had that, and she's always run with it all on because she didn't know turning it off was an option. She made her last session with it off, but didn't get a clean lap to see if it was going to get her a faster lap time.

It turned out to be a good evening at the track. The car was well-behaved and held up well even going back-to-back at the end of the day. It's not terrible to drive on track, though I wouldn't want it to be my only Miata since the automatic transmission sucks a lot of the fun out of it.

Ideally, I'd like to add one new track a year to the list of ones I've driven on. I wasn't sure if I was going to do that this year since I did a bunch last year, and theoretically we were going to do more autocross, which would limit the time and budget for tracking. But when Pro Solo got put on the shelf, I started planning more tracks, with the highlight being my first time driving Road Atlanta.

I've been there before. My dad went there every year for the SCCA Runoffs starting in the middle '70s, and at some point started bringing a kid or two along for the ride. I think my first time there was in 1981 I think, when I was a 7th or 8th grader. My brother and I would be snoozing in the '74 Civic as dad drove nonstop from Massachusetts popping No-Doz like there was no tomorrow. I went four or five times total, with the last trip being in 1989.

When we started crossing autocrosses off our schedule, the wife started going through the Track Night listings to see if anything might appeal to me. New Jersey? Nah. Pocono? Nah. Charlotte? Nah. Road Atlanta? Nahhhhhwait a minute...

I have a bunch of laps there on a sim, and watched a lot of videos. It looked like fun, so I signed up. It was outside of my desired go-down-and-come-home-the-same-day window, but we had hotel points that made a Monday night in a Holiday Inn Express a freebie. I enjoyed a no-rush-no-fuss drive down Monday, got in the hotel and arranged a late check-out, and on Tuesday I got to enjoy a long lunch before finally heading to the track a half-hour away.

I got there an hour before the scheduled gate-opening time, and, unlike other places, they really weren't going to let anyone in until that time. I had nothing else to do but watch some sort of Porsche club turn laps from outside the fence while hanging with other early arrivers from Memphis and New Orleans. I wasn't the only idiot driving a long way to run this Track Night.

There was some free time before things got going once we got inside, and I did a little exploring. I found the road that led from the infield to the turn 5 spectator area, which brought back some fun memories of epic traffic jams from the Runoffs days. But eventually I'd have to put on my game face and think about driving.

I joined the novice paced laps at the start of the evening on the recommendation of the brass running the show. I might have said a bad word or two the first time I went under the bridge and saw the run down the hill to the start-finish line, and that was at a pretty sedate pace.

This was the first track I'd been to in the NC that I hadn't already been to in the NA, so I didn't really have a target lap time to chase. I saw some other NCs on this track running sub-1:50 so that's what I was shooting for, though I was a bit off of that in my first session. It took a while to get the timing and rhythm of the 3-4-5 complex, as well as figuring out how much braking was enough for 1 and 2. And then there was the downhill, where I never really knew if I was lined up right. On the plus side, I tended to err on the side where I'd be too far right, which was just not as fast as it could be, rather than too far left, which could have agricultural adventures.

Early in the final session I was hoping to get to 1:49 and on the second lap I did with a 1:49.3. We were fortunate that there weren't a ton of drivers in Advanced (18 I think, and at least one broke and loaded up early) so traffic was a complete non-issue. I came away loving the track, and it quickly moved up into the top half of the six I've had the pleasure of driving so far, probably tied with VIR for #2 on the list behind Lime Rock.

The only thing left to do after that was enjoy that nine-hour ride home, which necessitated a nap, but I was still home by noon so it wasn't that bad. I could probably be talked into going to Road Atlanta again in future years, though the distance from home would be a pretty big deterrent from doing so.

Kate brought Slushy home in the days after the last Dominion saying that I broke the car, there was some sort of clunking going on underneath. From experience I suspected that the middle exhaust hanger had broken, and I was right. Car only has 13000 miles on it, but the most recent 6000 miles have been a lot more vigorous than the first 7000.

Bruce wound up being Slushy's hero. On a whim I entered Bruce in the Flyin Miata summer camp virtual car show as a "Spicy NC." I then completely forgot about it until a friend told me that the voting was over and Bruce was the second-best vote-earner. This earned me $20 credit at FM, and $20 just happens to buy a couple of polyurethane exhaust hangers. I also treated Bruce to a couple of borderline ricer tow hooks after hearing organizers at both TTNats and TNIA Road Atlanta strongly suggest we have those installed before going on the track.

With Slushy's broken exhaust hanger replaced, and Bruce's intact one replaced as preventative maintenance, it was on to the next adventure: TNIA Pittrace.

I ran Pittrace last August with Captain Slow and left feeling pretty meh about the place. It didn't help that I was in the advanced group full of Camaros and Corvettes so I never had a lap where I didn't have someone show up in my mirror and I had to let it pass. When I left there, I said that I didn't have to go back again, but I figured I should find out how much better the NC would be at Pittrace so I made the 5.5 hour trip there for Track Night in America on Tuesday.

This was only the second time I'd been at Pittrace, a track that doesn't appear to exist in any sim I own, in a different car. The first flying lap of the first session was a clean one, and 12 seconds faster than the best I could do in the '90 last year. But here's the funny thing, that first flying lap of the first session was my fastest lap of the day.

The car rides on RE71R and it was a 90+ degree day, so plenty hot and decidedly not Bridgestone-friendly. The tires got pretty greasy the more I ran, and with the compact TNIA schedule (three groups, 20 minutes at a time, so only 40 minutes between sessions), the tires never got back to completely cool. Even when I tried babying the tires on my out lap to attack the first flying lap of the second and third sessions, I couldn't duplicate the time of that first lap. When the tires get slick, it causes more corner-entry oversteer than I'm comfortable with, and that's not a recipe for fast times.

But I was baffled watching this video. There are places where I'm appear to be slow to get on the gas, and places where I'm lifting a lot trying to figure out where the track goes. As I ran more and got more comfortable with the corners, surely that would make me faster than when I had cool tires but less of an idea of where the next corner is, right? But the stopwatch doesn't lie.

When I left Pittrace, I still felt pretty meh about the place. Something about it just doesn't click with me. It might be all the blind corners, or the fast bits aren't fast enough, or the tight technical stuff isn't tight or technical enough. Whatever it is, I don't have to go back there again.

I hope your luck with urethane exhaust hangers is better than mine...

I think pittrace is something of an acquired taste. Probably the blind corners are a big part of it. I really like the track now that I know where they the corners are and how to drive them, but the first couple of times I ran there I didn't love them...and also tried to die a couple of times, particularly the fast blind corner coming into the back straight. But now that I've been there a few times and mostly know how to line it up I think that's my favorite turn on the track. It is also kind of a big track and is probably more fun in a car with at least a little bit more power, especially the one big uphill dig out of a relatively slow corner. Even with basically double your power that sucks a little for me and I have to downshift there which I'd really rather not do but the car just won't pull up the hill in third gear.

Claff said:

I just noticed me in the background of this picture. I can't for the life of me remember what I was doing under the car.

Just last week I saw there's another TNiA at VIR on 8/20. I swear that wasn't on the calendar earlier in the year. You going?

Already signed up for VIR in August. Got a couple of places I know I have to do better than last time and glad I don't have to wait till next year to get that opportunity.

The last weekend's adventure was back to autocross with WDCR. Bruce got the call again and I took my chances driving it the two hours to Summit on Bridgestones that were, optimistically, at the wear bars with the threat of afternoon storms in the forecast. Luckily STR ran in the first heat, not that this made a big difference since we never got any rain. We did, though, get shut down for half an hour because there was supposedly some lightning nearby.

STR was just five drivers: Marcus and Steve sharing a ND2, and three of us in NCs. Marcus destroyed literally everybody, FTD and FTP. I thought I could at least scare Steve to run second in class, but it took all six runs to get there. It was a shortish course and I hung myself badly in two braking areas, but still got a 40.001 (really wanted a 39 but oh well). That got second place, 22 out of 101 in PAX and got me closer to second in class for the season standings.

As much as I wouldn't mind cutting back on autocross, maybe just doing national stuff and not bothering with locals, I realize watching my reaction at the end of this video that I still really enjoy it. If only the only places to do it around me weren't 90-120 minutes away from home.

I was on my way to Pittrace when Sam Vassallo, WDCR Solo Chair and Porsche salesman, buzzed me.

"What are you doing next Wednesday?"

"Heck if I know"

"You should go to Summit and drive some Porsches"

"I can't afford to drive Porsches"

"It doesn't cost anything!"

"I'm in"

This is the first I heard of the Porsche Experience. Sam got me in, despite my not at all being a potential Porsche customer, as an "influencer" since I publish the WDCR newsletter. This meant I had the pleasure of getting up at 6AM to be at Summit at 8:30. Paired up with Big Mike Snyder, we got three driving activities: laps on most of Shenandoah Circuit in four-door stuff, then in 911s, and something resembling autocross in Taycans.

The four-doors were split between Panameras and Macan Sseseeses. We did well in the Panamera, getting in the first car behind the instructor. That was OK. Switching to the Macan was a backwards move as the little SUV had significantly more body roll than the sedan (go figure). Also, the dudes in the Panamera that was now ahead of us were not as good at keeping up with the instructor as we were, so the instructor wasn't compelled to increase speed as he was earlier.

Next, the 911s. Now I don't know squat about Porsches, but people were making a big deal about these things, and calling them a different number than 911 despite the badge on the back saying 911. This thing was ROWDY. Even with the slushbox and nannies enabled, it was still trying to jump out of line with hamfisted Miata-driver attempts at going full-throttle when that was probably not the prudent move. I drew the short straw as we were in the second car behind the instructor, and the driver ahead of us when I was driving was not as enthusiastic as I was. When we switched seats, Mike found the second driver ahead of him just as willing to push the instructor as he was, and we had the third car right on our bumper as well. The fourth one was, well, back there somewhere.

The base model Taycan was still pretty peppy accelerating from a stop. The course was basically an oval with a nonexistant wiggle on the front side, and a more pronounced five-cone slalom on the back side, with a sweeper in between. The car pushed in the sweeper, which wasn't a huge surprise, but it transitioned through the second slalom a whole lot better than expected considering the weight of the thing.

There are far worse ways to spend a Wednesday morning.

I got drafted to be an instructor for WDCR's Level 2 autocross schoolon Sunday. I was a little apprehensive as there were drivers on the entry list who had either more experience or more success than I have, but I figured I could help regardless. I joked some with one driver who has been beating me in STR that I had a conflict of interest in helping him, but then we got down to business.

There was a fun mix of stuff there. A very quick CAMT '66 GTO, a '86 300ZX, a couple NCs, three S2000s, etc. I was designated the NC guy (I took Slushie) and it was eye-opening switching from one student's box-stock automatic on all-season tires to another's STR-prep car on Yokos.

I continued what I think is my perfect record of not hitting any cones in a student's car. Most say they don't mind if an instructor does, but if I were the student, and an instructor was driving my car, I don't think I'd like to see the instructor hitting stuff with it.

I had a couple very satisfying moments. One was early in the day where a driver who I instructed in last month's Level 1 school sought me out and said he wanted me to continue working with him if that could be worked out (it did). The other was at the end of the day where a student made sure to come by and shake my hand and thank him for the help before he headed home.

Eventually it'll cool off enough for me to start tackling the list of stuff that needs to get done with the fleet, but not quite right now. In the meantime, we're going to go have some fun with Marmy at the Toledo Pro Solo next weekend.

It wasn't stupid hot today so I decided to accomplish some stuff outside. I had to replace one of the PPF-to-differential bolts on both NAs, and the Duckling was first up. It took longer to get the jacks under the car and the car in the air than the actual act of putting the bolt in. According to some random internet page, the torque setting for this is ~90 ft lbs and that's where I set it. Let's see if it stays there.

I could have done the same with Slow, but I wasn't much in the mood to move cars around and deal with the jacks a second time, so I left that for another day. Instead, I figured mid-July seemed like a good time to swap from the winter wheels to summer stuff. I was happy to see that the winter tires still seem to be in decent shape despite being made in 2002 (!). Compared to the stock tires that came off Slushy (made in 2013) that already show a lot of evidence of dry rot, these Michelins still look very usable.

Finally, the Duckling went in the wash bay. I know I didn't wash it at all this year, and I'm pretty sure I didn't wash it all last year either. I kind of liked the barn-find patina it was starting to show, but deep inside I prefer clean cars to dirty cars. Washing the Duckling isn't as satisfying as it is with other cars in the fleet, since the car isn't all that shiny even right after a wash, but at least the stripes are fairly bright again. Usually I can torture the paint into shining with some quality time with the buffer and some compound and wax, but that's not in the cards today.

It was fun to get back in Marmy and tackle serious STR competition at the Toledo Pro Solo. 15 drivers in class, no half-prepped cars, everyone is in the right car for the class. Nice to be in Toledo and it not rain on us (it did rain but only at night).

Very first run, I charged into the first corner and super optimistically assumed it was going to stick, and it didn't. Ate a cone with the middle of the bumper and that was in my head for pretty much the whole weekend. I spent the rest of my runs bouncing between overdriving and underdriving, wishing the car had a better diff and brakes that had more bite, but those excuses don't hold up when the car owner drove the same car into fourth, .002 seconds out of third. I wound up 11th, which was mildly disappointing. I still paxed 69 out of 230 so that's some consolation. It wasn't that long ago where I couldn't pax in the top half of a Pro.

We put our names in for the bonus challenge, and to make sure one of us got picked for that we put the car on the trailer and strapped it down for a quick getaway in case we didn't. But I did (my first challenge in a Pro since 2014) so we got to unload all over again. I've done three challenges now (bonus challenge DC Pro 2014, underdog challenge 2018 Charlotte Match Tour, bonus challenge 2021 Toledo Pro) and I have a perfect record of getting eliminated in the first round of each of them.

The big problem is that I went into that challenge recognizing how I was driving poorly (waiting too late to brake, then braking too much and not being able to turn in), created a plan to back up my braking points to allow me to turn in sooner, and completely abandoning that plan right from the start lights on both runs. I was behind by three tenths after the first run, made up two tenths on the second, but it wasn't enough. It cost us an hour or two before leaving for home, but neither of us were in too much of a hurry.

We do have plans on upgrading Marmy's diff and brakes, but I doubt it'll all get done (or started, for that matter) before Solo Nationals. I think we'll be good there even with how the car sits now. Trevor's obviously clicking with it despite not having been on a course in a couple months, and I've proven that I can be decent in it if I can get my head on straight.