These posts are taken from my CR threads. I will be competing in the championship shootout on November 15th and will be running my NB
From the July 19th:
This weekend I ran the Lime Rock Open Auto X with Nutmeg Miata Club. I ran 5 years of Auto X before getting into track days and getting my competition license. Once I got out onto a track, I never felt the same about Auto X. Too long of a day for too little driving. However, Joe Wall convinced me to run this weekend. The format is relaxed and you get sessions of 5 minutes or so to do laps, which is pretty cool. I wanted to install my oil cooler before the event, but luckily the high was only 78 and the sun was hidden all day by overcast. Kinda perfect weather actually. The setup is on Lime Rock's go kart track. They split the morning up into two groups running on the upper and lower portions of the track, followed by a timed session on the lower, and then the full course for the afternoon. The top 20 times of all the Lime Rock open Auto X days throughout the season are invited back in the fall for a shootout free of charge with catering to compete on the full go kart track. For the timed sessions, I had FTD. This puts me in 2nd place overall for the top 20 by .07 seconds to the leader. So I earned an invitation to the shootout in the fall and am considering attending.
The track surface was rather slippery. My car has 1 year old 225/45/15 BF Rivals on 15x9's and I was barely able to put power down and go straight in comparison to how much grip I have on the street. I am not complaining though because it gave me the opportunity to really let the rear move around and hang the car out, which was rather entertaining (and exhausting lol). The videos are as follows. First is free runs on the upper portion, second is free runs on the whole combined track, and third was the timed runs. In the free run videos I was dicking around for the first halfs while tires were coming up to temp and then putting in a couple more serious laps for the second halfs. All in all it was a good day and the NA was a hoot to drive.
I built this car to be a street car, but with the dual purpose of being able to drive it aggressively whenever the mood strikes. This weekend was a good testament to the car's capabilities since it's purely been a street machine. Throughout the day I was dialing in the suspension to adjust to the slippery surface of the kart track. The only downside is that the seats while awesome looking and comfy, offer little lateral support and I got pretty beat up getting tossed around and bracing myself leaving me with bruised knees and elbows lol. The little Miata chassis is already overpowered with 254 whp, add that to a surface lacking grip and you find yourself working your ass off behind the wheel trying to tame it. I came off the track on several occasions breaking a good sweat haha.
For those who are curious, an overview of the car's setup:
1991 with 94k original miles. 20k of those miles turbocharged.
1.6 L
Stock internals minus ARP Head Studs
254 whp / 232 ft/lbs @ 18 psi
Tein Flex 7kg F / 8kg R
RB 1.125" Tubular front bar
Stock rear bar
Energy Master Set Poly Bushings
15x9 + 10 Work Equips
225/45/15 BF Rivals
-2.6 camber F and Rear
1/32 toe in F
1/8 toe in R
Minimum Caster
Depowered steering rack (cut and looped line method)
Hawk HP+ Pads on 1.8 brakes
FM Frame Rails
Free runs on the upper track:
Free runs on the lower track:
Timed runs on the lower track. Second hot lap was the FTD run.
From the October 30th semi-finals:
As some of you may have remembered, I ran the Lime Rock / Wells Fargo AxIS Shootout event back in July in my turbo Miata:
http://clubroadster.net/vb_forum/89-...ml#post3974537
During the timed session of that day I managed to set FTD, which placed me 6th overall from all the different clubs that ran the event over the course of the year. Almost 250 drivers total. This past Thursday Lime Rock invited the top 30 back to compete and potentially earn the opportunity to run the championship shootout on November 15th. Only the top 20 cars will be eligible for the shootout. Given the layout of the course and the fact that I felt pretty safe with my 6th place time, I decided to run my NB during this time because my gut feeling was that it might be better suited for this type of track. Turns out that my gut feeling was right because not only did I set FTD again, but I set the short course lap record, which was previously held by Steve Katz in a 2009 Dodge Viper ACR. I am now locked in for the championship on the 15th and will be running my NB again. What was really awesome was that after the event had ended, Skip Barber himself came over and congratulated me saying how happy he was to see a Miata on top for the first time ever since they have been running this series. We had a nice little chat about some of the development work I did on this car. All in all it was a great day. I am so thrilled that I was able to take one of my street cars (really my first serious car build and car I learned how to drive competitively with) and go out, run it as I do on the street and be able to perform this well with it.
Here is some in-car footage:
***Please note that some phone's built in speakers seem to have an issue producing the audio properly in these videos. If you have an issue, use headphones in your phone or watch them on a PC***
Here are is footage from on of the practice sessions:
Here is the in-car footage from the timed runs. The third hot lap was the record breaker. I was lost in the zone and almost ran a 4th lol. I'm pretty sure the car would have gone faster that lap too
If anyone has suggestions for the phone audio issue, let me know. Even copying the file directly to my phone and trying to play it with the built in speaker the audio is jeffed. I plug headphones in and it is fine.
Here are the current standings:
http://www.limerock.com/index.php?op...690&Itemid=286
Stay tuned for more updates!
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Originally Posted by etikoner
