I may come out and watch, though it's my first day back at the office in 3 weeks. I'll probably get there around 5 or 6pm if I do make it out.

 

Not going to make it. Work meeting just got rescheduled from this morning to this evening. Lucky me!

 

I'm not actually running, just going as spectator to see what it's about. I'm running low on the funds trying to get my car ready for our annual dragon trip in a few weeks. We usually go in the fall but bumped it back to June this year so I'm scrambling to get it all together, haha

 

I went there on the 12th. Had never done a full lap before. Overcooked my brakes but I was over-slowing for Turn 1. The track really favors horsepower since there are basically two drag strips. AKA the Front and Back straights. I did mostly 1:12s (some were 1:11s) whenever I got a lap without traffic.

Here's a really shitty/shaky video I took because my camera mounting technique sucked. But overlaid on it is speed, throttle, and RPM so it may be interesting to some. There's also a fair amount of point-bys given so it's not too terribly boring to watch. Well, except for the Hellashake, yo.

https://youtu.be/WT2s-pK2DPw

 

^ looks fun! But man it would make me nervous with all that traffic out there, one little mess up could cause a lot of damage. I am really bummed that they stop the trackcross, I liked how there was only one car on the track at a time.

 

Looks like you had a lot of fun. You were definitely carrying a lot of speed when you were in the open.

 

Yeah, Trackcross was awesome. I guess it wasn't profitable enough and I think their new insurance was not happy about a timed event.

And yes, the open track was a lot of fun but I was pretty limited by my confidence in my brakes. My telemetry setup said I should've done a 1:10:86 had I just been able to combine all of my best sector times in one lap. And I think better brakes would've cut another half a second from 2 locations on track so that would've reduced the lap time by another second. I also did this event with no rear sway bar and a slightly bigger front bar since I was getting too much oversteer during the Trackcross stuff. I think I might've changed the balance too much in the other direction. I did not get any oversteer the whole day even at times when I tried to get the rear to step out a bit. The plan is to run a rear swaybar for the next event that is half as stiff as stock and I'm hoping that will be the right balance. If it still understeers, I can put the stock rear on. But if the balance is just right, then I should be able to go WOT for the front straight earlier since I was getting a fair amount of understeer last time. Of course, this means slightly higher speeds for the next braking zone and will tax them even more. lol, excuses, excuses. But it is nice to be able to test the car in such conditions and get it setup exactly the way I want.

 

What was your telemetry setup? I wouldnt mind getting something someday to help judge my performance on the track.

 

It's a low budget setup.

Android phone + RaceChrono + QStar 818XT 10Hz GPS + ELM 327 Bluetooth OBD2. Total cost if you already have an Android phone is about $100. With this I can also load the data into RaceLogic's Circuit Tools and analyse it on a computer.

If you also want video with your phone, you can get a suction mount and install it on the rear wind deflector or windshield. Or if you already have a GoPro you can use RaceChrono to control it. Either approach gets your video synchronized automatically.

It's easy to setup at the track too. I just hit 'Start' in the app, select the track which is preprogrammed in, and just drive. The app will automatically start recording once it detects you've crossed the start/finish so you can start it before getting to the pits etc.

I am completely satisfied with all of its capabilities.


EDIT - I installed a Miata front sway bar at the rear today and even in street driving it already feels way more responsive. I'm hoping on track it will be mostly neutral with just a hint of understeer. We'll find out on June 9th I guess.

 

I've been seriously considering doing this setup with mine but I just got a new set of tires and bumped up to the more common 225/255 stagger so I want to test the feel of that first. Are you still on stock suspension otherwise?