Speed Demon Racing

CFR SCCA West Coast - Round 2

Gainesville Raceway, Gainesville, FL -  Sunday morning dawned bitterly cold...there was ice on the ground in the registration line...in Florida!  We couldn't complain much -- the day was rather nice once the sun was up awhile.  We'll miss it in August.

This time, we ran the Gainesville road course, which the pavement design forces into a series of long sweepers linked by slaloms -- an exercise in precise car placement.  This was another place I'd run the Prelude, but not the Miata, and I found one advantage of the topless Miata is it's easier to lean my head around the A-pillar to look sideways!  The cool temperatures made it tough to get heat into the tires, and there was still that strange difficulty getting the car to rotate, but a little work with tire pressures resulted in some decent runs by the end.  As the only CS driver on race tires, the win was a bit inevitable, but 10th of 72 on the index was a reasonable result for the day.

Awaiting class results 
Awaiting index results

FAST Round 1

St Petersburg College, St Petersburg, FL - NASA-X Florida transformed itself into FAST with a bang!  Sixty-two drivers -- including 17 novices -- constested the course, nearly double the turnout we'd normally been seeing in 2006.  New classes mixed up different sets of cars -- I ran street tires again, simply because the under 3-liter production street tire class had 14 people in it and looked like fun.  A decreasing radius figure 8 tested grip, while a long sweeper with a tight corner at the end tested nerve and timing.  That latter I had...the former was tougher to come by.  Although the surface was in better shape -- none of the grit that plagued us last month -- I could not get the car to rotate!  That especially hurt in the figure 8, since the steady push limited my ability to lean on the throttle.  I held on to a good position through most of the six runs, but Steve Frank and Mark Jones, both in Miatas, each managed to pull out a half second near the end.  I finished 4th of 14 in class, about a second out of first, and a dismal (even for street tires) 34th of 62 overall.  The event went so well, though, that it was impossible to count the day as a loss.

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CFR SCCA West Coast - 2007 Season Opener

Hernando County Airport, Brooksville, FL -  After a rainy Saturday, Sunday was a pleasant Florida "winter" day, attracting 56 drivers for the day.  That's one of the larger events in recent local history, even without a number of the regulars.  Everyone had six runs to find the fastest way through a set of linked slaloms, joined by the inevitable pin turn at the far end of the runway.  In spite of a few early problems with cones, the Miata showed plenty of poise and speed -- the harder I pushed, the better it responded .  At the end of the day, I finished at the front of the three-car C Stock field, and 4th of 56 on the index.

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2006 Season Summary

As a learning year with the Miata, I am quite pleased.  I finished the NASA-X Tampa series second in Class D behind Scott Levengood's S2000.  In Central Florida SCCA West Coast series I finished as the C Stock points leader with four wins and a second-place -- I needed one more event to qualify for a class championship, but that's just incentive to run more events in 2007!  My performance at the state championship event was a little disappointing, but I'm already looking into next year -- NASA-X Tampa will be going independent to become FAST, which a different classing structure that may present some new challenges.  The first CFR SCCA West Coast event already has more entrants than any of last year's, including a couple of new faces to C Stock.  Two more weeks to the start of the 2007 season!

NASA-X Florida - Round 9

St Petersburg College, St Petersburg, FL - The final NASA-X Florida event was a nice low-key event.  Forty-four drivers turned out to run a technical course with a little something for everyone.  Several of us, having worn out this season's race tires, took our runs on street tires.  The combination of hard tires, the technical course, and an unusually grit-covered, slippery surface threw in a little extra challenge, especially for the first run group -- right-foot discipline was essential to avoid overdriving the corners.  Event chairman Steve Frank (in a lightly modified '94 Miata) and I had been engaging in some friendly trash-talk over the previous two weeks, and initially he jumped into the lead as I had problems with cones.  We swapped places midway through the runs as I found the rhythm, although he almost pulled it out at the end...we finished 55-thousandths of a second apart, 2d and 3d in the 12-car class behind FTD winner Bob Tamandli (who hadn't used up his sticky tires quite yet), and 8th and 9th of 44 overall.   A satisfying end to the season

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For next year, the club severes its relationship with NASA and goes independent -- some minor management changes, but the same full schedule of challenging, fun events at Brooksville and St Petersburg.  See you next year!

33d Annual Florida State Autocross Championships

Buckingham Airfield, Ft Myers FL - Central Florida autocross clubs take turns hosting this event every year; the 2006 event returned to the Gulfcoast Autocrossers site in Fort Myers.  Buckingham Airfield is one of the hundreds of WWII-era training bases spread across the southern U.S., in this case the remnant of a former gunnery training center now housing DC-3 and UH-1 spray aircraft of the Lee County Mosquito Control District.  GCAC periodically uses the southern runway -- actually part of the original parking ramp -- for autocross events.  The pavement is nearly three times as wide as a standard runway, leaving course designers considerably more room to work with than a normal runway course, and the well-maintained concrete provides outstanding grip.  The course for this event meandered the length of the half-mile runway and back again, including an unevenly-spaced slalom on each side. 

Unfortunately, a great site and a good course was marred by unbelievably inefficient event administration.  Rather than different classes taking all their runs at one time, everyone's runs were spread throughout the day.  Waiting hours between runs was additionally frustrating because I did not drive well.  In spite of the magnificent pavement, I spun early in my first run.  My final two runs, although clean and improving, were badly off-rhythm and off-pace.  I finished 4th of 7 in class, fully five seconds out of the lead and two seconds behind Dat Nguyen.  A dismal 64th of 139 on the index underscored the performance.  Better luck next year.

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CFR SCCA West Coast - Round 12

Gainesville Raceway, Gainesville, FL -  Gainesville was essentially a new venue to me. Rather than using the road course, the event organizers began setting up the course in the parking lot outside the dragstrip, which allowed more flexibility in course The course was straightforward to follow, but crossed two different sections of asphalt, each with different traction characteristics. Cool (for Florida) fall temperatures and low humidity magnified the changes (or at least in comparison to what we're used to here!). I hadn't been there since switching from the Prelude to the Miata, either. Topping it off, I'd finally made time to have the Miata aligned, and found it badly needed it! New pavement, new car, new adjustments...it promised to be an interesting day before I left the house!

The new alignment immediately showed itself in the car's handling. It was much easier to control rotation with a little throttle, and the entire chassis felt more balanced. After the first run, I readjusted the tire pressures, and proceeded to chop a half-second from each of the next three runs...although I nicked a cone on my last one. Lest I get too smug, fellow Miata driver Dat Nguyen laid down a best time fully a second faster than my fastest scratch time...good for not just the C Stock class win, but fastest stock class time of day, and first on the index. If you're going to be beaten, be beaten by the best.... My second in the class of four CS Miatas was also good for 6th of 72 on the index -- a satisfying day, promising even better results as I continue to learn the car.

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NASA-X Florida - Round 8

Hernando County Airport, Brooksville, FL - Steve Frank came up with a truely interesting and challenging course for Brooksville's runway, demanding well coordinated use of the controls and careful car placement. A very small contingent of 26 drivers contested it; the small turnout meant we were a little thin on workers, but all got 10 runs to compensate. Unfortunately, I found a cross-threaded lug nut when I started to change to my race tires. Rather than risk breaking off the wheel stud and sidelining the car, I chose to run on street tires instead. I'd run the Miata on street tires at the January NASA-X event, the first I'd ever run in the car; this time, I had the car dialed in better, and enough seat time to push it much harder.

The difference was significant! While the balance was the same, there was almost no grip by comparison... even tiptoeing through some maneuvers, the Miata was something of a pig on skates, and every run was an exercise in driving just beyond the edge of control. On the other hand, launching the car became much easier, since I could finally get some wheelspin off the line. Bringing a knife to a gunfight cost me in the results, though, with midpack finishes in Class D -- 4th out of 8 -- and overall -- 13th of 26. Not to mention the future joy of changing a wheel stud before the next event.

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CFR SCCA West Coast - Round 11

Hernando County Airport, Brooksville, FL -  Forty-three drivers showed up to run an autocross in the shadow of a rainstorm that hung about 5 miles off the airfield all afternoon...but kept its distance. Typical late summer Florida weather meant the drivers reached maximum temperatures before their tires.

Although C Stock had four drivers, my real competition was with the older Miatas in E Stock. Although my morning times were in the hunt, the Miata didn't feel responsive, and closing on the 0.7-second lead of Albert Popalis' E Stock Miata looked difficult. Continued adjustments to tire pressures changed the car in the afternoon -- everything "clicked" and although I didn't quite catch Albert (who was having a very good day, and went on to post Fast Stock Time of Day), I cut his lead in half and posted one of the quicker raw times. The result was good for the C Stock win and 7th of 43 on the index.

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NASA-X Florida - Round 7

Hernando County Airport - Brooksville, FL -   Mid-August in Florida. Forget about frying an egg on the pavement...it was hot enough to fry an egg on most driver's seats! Thirty-two drivers -- a somewhat small field than usual -- turned out anyhow. The course was an interesting combination of S-turns, a hairpin turn at the end, and a pair of slaloms on the way back. What made it challenging was the rythm changed in every section -- in some ways, it was two or three short courses, rather than a single course. This demanded drivers think two or three corners ahead of the car.

Like last week, I started out very well -- at the halfway point, I was barely a tenth of a second behind Scott Levengood's S2000, and 6th overall. When we regenerated for the afternoon session, though, I couldn't make the jump between thinking far enough ahead of the car, and translating that to brakes and steering, particularly in the tight S-turn leading into the turn-around hairpin. At the end of the day, I still lay 2d of 11 in class, but by a gap of just under a second, and slipped to 7th of 32 overall.

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