Miatas Before the Gap powered by Rspeed

[— kung fu jesus —]

Danny, the options are simple for passengers:

Run two similar seats/harnesses or put the stock seat back in and use the OE belt.

If you choose to run just the raceseat and harness for yourself, that's fine too, but you cannot have a passenger.

[theothersawyer]

Danny, the options are simple for passengers:

Run two similar seats/harnesses or put the stock seat back in and use the OE belt.

If you choose to run just the raceseat and harness for yourself, that's fine too, but you cannot have a passenger.

I’m not disagreeing with the rules. I’m just letting everyone who I promised a ride along to know, that it is no longer an option.

[— kung fu jesus —]

What an awesome day! I had a TON of fun, decompressing right now and looking at videos.

It rained, but it was still terrific. People were gaining confidence, getting quicker as the day went on!

Many thanks to all the vendors; K Miata, R*Speed, V8 Roadsters, and Mazdaroadster.net for the swag! I think I’m forgetting a few, but I’m pretty exhausted and happy!

I think it’s safe to say we will be doing it again. Bigger & better!

[theothersawyer]

What an awesome day! I had a TON of fun, decompressing right now and looking at videos.

It rained, but it was still terrific. People were gaining confidence, getting quicker as the day went on!

Many thanks to all the vendors; K Miata, R*Speed, V8 Roadsters, and Mazdaroadster.net for the swag! I think I’m forgetting a few, but I’m pretty exhausted and happy!

I think it’s safe to say we will be doing it again. Bigger & better!

Such a wonderful event! I have lots of pictures to post! Great talking to you today sir! We are both normally too busy to actually talk to each other! Haha

[— kung fu jesus —]

Classic. LOL!

[theothersawyer]

[— kung fu jesus —]

Offering a ride along in the afternoon, I think this was a guest from R*Speed (Joe's son). Just some stuff pulled from my dash cam. It was slippery in T6 from an LFx (V8 Roadster?) dumping it's coolant. Just playing with shift points and adjusting to track conditions, it was a blast!

[theothersawyer]

I was able to turn the car so easily with the throttle yesterday! It was awesome. Just apply a little throttle and the car would step out a few degrees.

[— kung fu jesus —]

Loved these Contis in the rain. Really awesome, extremely stable and communicative. 80+ mph through the rain and some standing water, really no issues at all.

[— Agent☣Orange —]

That’s really good, first-hand information rather than just manufacturer’s claims.

[— kung fu jesus —]

Orange;222828]That’s really good, first-hand information rather than just manufacturer’s claims.

The other thing I’ve enjoyed is how pleasant they are in day to day driving. Honestly, this car sees far more street miles than the track. It’s tiresome to drive everyday on ‘trackday bro’ tires that howl constantly while cruising on the freeway.

[SigmaX]

...It was slippery in T6 from an LFx (V8 Roadster?) dumping it's coolant...

It was one of the RX8s. Owned by a shop that wanted to prove the stock radiator could handle hard usage. Result? Overheated, coolant on the track, blown engine.

The other thing I’ve enjoyed is how pleasant they are in day to day driving. Honestly, this car sees far more street miles than the track. It’s tiresome to drive everyday on ‘trackday bro’ tires that howl constantly while cruising on the freeway.

I just now realized that I totally didn't say hi.
-----
Here's a video of one of my sessions, I think the same one as yours. I suspect that there was something around T11 as well as it was extra-slippery, even accounting for rain.


My comments:
The facility: AMP is a motorsports country club (with a base membership cost of $10000), not a motorsports competition facility. You can definitely tell the difference, from the lack of on-site food facility to the fact the main building contains a couple conference rooms and carpeting, but no large track map. The split paddock is a little odd, but the paddock itself is small enough it's not a huge problem. The single set of restrooms for us plebs is a little strange too. The on-site shop holds mostly driver safety gear, some misc. vehicle safety gear, nothing in the way of spare parts or typical trackday stuff - couldn't even sell me shop towels. The owner is a really cool guy, was nice enough to chat with me about seats (and their fitment into Miatas), and with a ton of racing experience. Racing Analytics is the on-site mechanics/tuning shop, with one focus on Spec Miatas. I hung out and chatted with them for about 20 minutes, and they did a no-extra-charge swap of pads and rotors on my Miata in about an hour without batting an eye. I'll be trailering the Miata back down to have them do some race prep work in the future.

The track: I can't decide if AMP was designed by a sadist, or an elitist. It is a highly technical track favoring lower-powered vehicles. There is a huge amount of elevation change, and every other corner is a blind, off-camber, tightening radius turn designed to test your throttle control and vehicle weight handling. However, there is plenty of well-designed runoff and safety barriers that make an off-road excursion less scary than it might otherwise be. Quite fun.

The event: Almost all of my trackdays have been with national amateur competition motorsports orgs, so my bias of comparison slants towards that. First off, I have to say I was really disappointed by the last-minute changes to rules and schedules. Many people (including myself) were coming from several states away, and changing requirements last-minute is REALLY unprofessional. Any changes not forced on the hosting org. should be locked out AT LEAST a week before go-day. The ancillaries were very nice - coffee, donuts, stickers, pizza for lunch, giveaways, etc. Not something I would expect at a "typical" trackday event at all; and with a REALLY low cost of entry I suspect the sponsors were heavily involved in the final bill. The lack of paddock-wide announcements was a real hassle; keeping track of the run groups' orders was all based on the watch. This hurt especially when crashes and spills on track caused delays and re-ordering of run groups. There seemed to be a relatively low number of entrants, which was nice for keep the track clear and allowing movement between run groups. The sessions were set at 15 minutes, which I really feel is too low. Not counting the warmup and cooldown laps, I was seeing 6 hot laps, depending on traffic. I would have preferred fewer, 20 or 25-minute sessions. Driver's meeting seemed fairly typical, except going over instruction better left for the classroom (like flag meanings). Classroom instruction for the beginner's group was... odd, I'll say. Spending the first classroom session having the safety gear shop owner talking about safety gear, and not a driving instructor talking about driving safety issues, had me shrugging my shoulders. My in-car instructor, I have no negative comments with; but individual instructor quality always varies person-to-person. Once I told him my experience level he was happy to bump me up a group and really only had an issue with my habit of using lift-off oversteer to correct my lines midcorner (which I totally understand, it's not something a typical novice, or even intermediate on this track, should be doing).

[— kung fu jesus —]

Sig, thanks so much for your feedback! We had some unexpected issues arise and some of our changes were controversial, to say the least. They were made with safety in mind and they were not made flippantly.

The first sessions were 15 minutes, the rest were 20 unless an on-track incident occurred. When one does happen, we use abbreviated sessions to catch up to the schedule.

We post schedules and email them out. For run groups, their are flags posted at Pit Out and the Tower that indicate which group is on the track (red, yellow, blue, green).

There are also restrooms in the clubhouse upstairs, BTW. There is also *typically* a map at the bottom, near the clubhouse, facing the track, but I suppose it has been locked away because of the weather. There was one in the classroom, too.

I would like permission to forward your comments to the Jzilla staff so we can implement improvements for next year, but only with your approval.

[SigmaX]

Sig, thanks so much for your feedback! We had some unexpected issues arise and some of our changes were controversial, to say the least. They were made with safety in mind and it were not made flippantly.

The first sessions were 15 minutes, the rest were 20 unless an on-track incident occurred. When one does happen, we use abbreviated sessions to catch up to the schedule.

We post schedules and email them out. For run groups, their are flags posted at Pit Out and the Tower that indicate which group is on the track (red, yellow, blue, green).

There are also restrooms in the clubhouse upstairs, BTW. There is also *typically* a map at the bottom, near the clubhouse, facing the track, but I suppose it has been locked away because of the weather. There was one in the classroom, too.

I would like permission to forward your comments to the Jzilla staff so we can implement improvements for next year, but only with your approval.

Sure, I have no problem with it. I'd be happy to discuss more if there are any questions, too. In response to your responses: The posted schedule was fine, until there was an incident that bumped everything around. I wasn't the only person in the paddock asking who was going out when and in what order by the afternoon. I was parked right next to pit-out, so I ended up talking to the gentleman covering that station and yelling back up the paddock what was going on. The flags being posted at pit out for whatever run group was heading out next was definitely something that should have been covered at the driver's meeting

The track map placements is more of a facility thing than a Jzilla event thing. The drivers' meeting room/main room not having track maps I just found odd, but again, it's a country club, not a competition venue.

[SigmaX]

EDIT: Fixed. This was the driest session I had all day.