Getting Ready for the 2014 Season

I will not lie... the off-season this winter came and went much faster than I (and my bank account) was hoping. The first MARRS race is next month and I am getting ready.

The good news is that Flipper's engine has been fixed by RP and I am awaiting some hopefully good Dyno numbers as soon as the weather gets a bit hotter.

I spent some time working on my in-car cooling system this winter and have a few months before it needs to be finished.

More importantly, my friend Mike Wiggs helped me work out a logo for SpaceMonkeyRacing. I cannot wait to finalize it and get it on the hood of Flipper.

There is still a bit to do... front bumper and fenders need to be cleaned up/replaced to allow the car to pass the new SCCA "Clean and Neat" rule, and I need to work on a dash mount for my telemetry system.

FATT Instructor Appreciation Day 11/23/2013

It is always good to get some more track time. This time, it was during the BSR FATT Instructor Appreciation Day and with the red and white RPPerformence miata. The weather was good, the car was fun. A video of session 3 is here

Had some fun with Mhyar in Session 2 but Harry's Laptimer's crapped out and I have no video. A real shame because we had some fun in the second half. I think that my passenger got a little scared. You can see the video on Mhyar's Youtube channel here.

FATT 11/15/13 Ouch… that hurts!

Another day of FATT using Flipper. Beth came and was in the red and white RPPerformence miata, as a student. It was a lot of fun and  I instructed her for the last two sessions. I also got to take her out with her car for the instructor demo session so that she could experience a bit more of what that car could do (in my less than well experienced hands).

Unfortunately, the day was tainted by Flipper's engine giving up on the warming lap of the very first session of the day. It seems like it might be the head gasket and I have a video, of course, here. The engine never got very hot and this happened first thing in the morning. That was a real downer as I was really looking forward to driving on the track at the same time as Kai, who had rented the #70 Miata from RPPerformance.

Engine is being looked at.. It is unlikely that it will be cheap and very unlikely that I will be able to race during the Turkey Bowl. This could be the real end of the 2013 racing season. Sniff...

FATT 10/26/13 Getting to know Flipper

Took my car to the 10/26/2013 FATT this weekend. It was an interesting experience and I was at first wary of driving the car on the Shenandoah track. A few laps into my first session, and I started getting comfortable with the car and christened it: Flipper, in honor of its older European cousin Sharkie. 

I am posting the video of my second session with the car on my channel on Youtube. While my iPhone was not recording acceleration on those laps (the latest updated of Harry's Laptime seems to introduces a few problems :-( ), the key chain can serve as a poor man's accelerometer. While it (mostly) look all smooth and slow, the keys do not lie, the car pulls more than 1G in all directions :-)  

A video is available in the Video section of this site and at http://youtu.be/jFYoJhYfyYc 

MARRS 13 is over - Season is over!

This was my first chance to drive #42. The car was fine. The driver was average. It is interesting that I seem to run the same lap times with pretty much any Miata I get in. This says a lot of the driver than those cars. While a 1:30.x lap is not bad, it is about 2-3 seconds off the pace of the leaders and I obviously need to look for some time somewhere. Ran two races, in both cases starting near the end of the pack. I gained 3 positions in Race 1 (Video here) and 4 positions in Race 2 (Video here). I had some good  competition from car #10, shown below.

This marks the end of Season 2013. It has been a busy time filled with new experiences and some interesting times! I now have a racing license and I just bought a car. I am looking forward to Season 2014 :-) 

MARRS 11 and 12 9/1/13 Labor Day Double

That was a pretty good and learning experience. Rented RP's car #70. Practice put me a little more towards the mid pack times and qualified in the mid 3rd. Found some good speed compared to people around me and actually passed a few people, but due to bad luck and a mistake (i.e. spin) in turn 5, I ended up having to pass the same cars a few times. It was good to see that I was getting faster. I did however get a little bit over eager when trying to pass two cars on the inside of turn 10. The car got loose and the only way to avoid broadsiding anyone was to lift and cause more lift understeer. I did not manage to catch the car and ran wide in the gravel trap, resulting in an interesting few seconds. I actually remember trying to find some grip, unaware that the car was no even touching the ground at that point. Damage to the car was not bad, hurray for Miatas, and I drove it back to the pits. Front right end of the car got fixed pretty fast (tie rod and cross member bent) and in time for the MARSS 12  race the next day.

My GoPro did not work for that race, which is a bummer and another reason to dislike GoPro's, but Chris from Finish Line Production was there to catch the moment. It took me a few months to track him down but I now have the pictures to remember the good times.

MARRS 5 and a Headache...

MARRS 5 was my first real racing weekend. I had three nice stripes on all sides of my car to warn people that I was a novice and to not expect too much from me. 

I doubled dipped and signed up for for the SM (Race 1 and Race 2) and ITA (Race 1 and Race 2) classes for a total of four races. It rained on the last race, I had different tires, and a stupid incident that could have been avoided in hindsight.  

Running with RPPerformance 1994 blue SM. The car was nice and ran well all weekend. I enjoyed the 1.8L more than the previous car (#4 red and white) that had a 1.6L engine. Even with the air intake restriction on the 1.8L, the car just seems more fun to drive.