Speed Demon Racing

CFR SCCA West Coast - Round 10

Hernando County Airport - Brooksville, FL -  Weekend schedule changes had me attending the Saturday non-points session -- fewer people, but more runs, and no lack of talent, including some eastern/central Florda drivers who normally don't turn up at the Sunday points events. We returned to an "up-and-back" course comprised of linked slaloms with a pin turn at the turnaround. Very much a momentum course, except for that annoying first-gear pin.

In contrast to the last time I drove at Brooksville, extracting the car's potential proved difficult. By the end of the six run morning session, I'd found some measure of speed, and lay barely a half-second behind the leading Miata, and a tantalizing 3d on the index. An additional four runs in the afternoon saw that gap open to a full second, as I found no improvement...by the end of the day, I'd slipped to 5th of 28 on the index, third of three CS Miatas.

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CFR SCCA West Coast - Round 9

Hernando County Airport - Brooksville, FL - The CFR course designers tried something different this time out: rather than the normal "up and back" runway course, they set up using the full width of the runway, and placed the finish at the far end. That required a break every few minutes to bring cars back to the start, but it generally worked smoothly enough. The course itself was a strange, disjointed collection of tight turns and slaloms, though. Some people figured it out, a few were lucky to find the course, let alone figure out how it flowed.

I was fortunate enough to find myself in the former group. After a couple of runs, the course made sense, and I turned times that let me run away from the other three cars in C Stock, as well as leaving me 4th of 52 on the index. A satisfying day...although it'll be more satisfying if I can repeat it at a future event.

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NASA-X Florida - Round 6

St Petersburg College, St Petersburg, FL - We must be living right...rain the entire week before, rain the entire week after, but this Saturday stayed dry long enough for everyone to get seven dry runs in on a short, but challenging momentu course. Big, sweeping turns connected by a pair of slaloms left plenty of room to experiment.

For the first time since starting with the Miata, I felt I was really pushing the car. The rest of the field was pushing equally as hard; I was the fastest non-S2000 in Class D (3d of 15), and 7th of 38 overall in a tightly-grouped field...less than three-quarters of a second covered third through seventh.

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East-Side Miatas Summer Rally

Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, FL - Had a chance to go back to my motorsports roots -- the East-Side Miatas of Tampa Bay staged a low-key time-speed-distance road rally as an enjoyable alternative to simply convoying to their summer party.  Only four of us elected to run the rally, but the real challenge in TSD rallying is internal:  to make as few mistakes as possible.  Jill consented to spend a couple of hours in the right seat as navigator, and kept us spot-on course for the 55-mile drive...we finished with only 9 penalty points (of a possible 500) for mileage and time, and missed only two of the 25 bonus landmark questions.  No better way to drive to a party!

NASA-X Florida - Round 5

St Petersburg College, St Petersburg, FL - We celebrated the first named tropical storm of the season with an autocross! We got away with it, too! Although Tropical Storm Alberto flung rain across Central Florida, we managed to run almost the entire event in the dry -- the second of three run groups saw wind and a sparse rain shower for their last runs.

The course was a series of straights and hairpins folded across each other -- as described by course designer Rob Edwards, "six lefts and a right". The right was a pin turn just before the finish that rendered second gear useless, and exposed my lack of practice with 2-1 downshifts in the Miata. I never quite got the flow of the course quite right, though, and never felt like I really drove it quickly. The Miata covered for me well enough to turn in some workmanlike runs, finishing 3d of 15 in class and 10th of 50 overall.

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NASA-X Florida - Round 4

Hernando County Airport, Brooksville, FL   As the club member closest to Brooksville (most live in the St Petersburg or Clearwater area), I volunteered to co-chair the event...arranging lunch, porta-potties, generators, and other logistical necessities. Since I was moving equipment or food most of the morning, I didn't get to drive in the morning session (although I found that 20 pizzas will fit in the Miata), but once turned loose in the afternoon, more made up for it.

The core of the course was a pair of large, high-speed sweepers crossing each other mid-course -- relatively straightforward, but visually deceptive. Run properly, a large portion of the course was flat out, just tickling the rev limiter in 2d.  The first big mid-course sweeper was particularly satisfying if you stayed wide, turned early, and blasted out in a slight drift.  I was pleased to be one of the 9 drivers in the 38-car field to get below 40 seconds.  S2000s and WRXs were the bane of my existance, accounting for five of the eight cars in front of me, but 9th out of 38 overall, and 3d of 11 in a typically large Class D (behind two S2000s...) was a good day's work.

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CFR SCCA West Coast - Round 6

Hernando County Airport, Brooksville, FL  Back to Brooksville's concrete.  Not quite as fast as March's course, this one drew a much larger turnout -- a number of drivers came up from south of Tampa to test the runway.  A combination of a little more seat time and some additional adjustments to tire pressures yielded more satisfactory results.  A little luck didn't hurt, either -- on what would have been my last run, I ended up completely sideways in the sweeper on the far end, only to see a courseworker standing with a cone the car before had knocked over, and he hadn't had time to reset.  The rules say if you stop and point out the course flaw, you get a rerun, so I finished the spin, pointed at the courseworker, and returned to the grid for my rerun...which turned out to be my fastest time.

The only other C Stock car was a relative novice, limiting class competition, but I also placed a reasonable 7th out of 52 starters on the index (and coincidently, 7th overall in raw time as well), with two national champions in that mix.

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NASA-X Florida - Round 3

St Petersburg College, St Petersburg, FL  An afternoon out on SPC's training pad, this time on a fairly technical course designed by another Miata driver.  This was very much a "point-and-shoot" course -- wind through corners as tightly as possible, then floor it to the next one.  Less maneuverable, but more powerful cars were able to reduce time by simply blasting out of corners...for the Miata, light weight and grip had to substitute for low-rev torque.  Like the February course, the combination was a partial equalizer across different cars -- times for experienced drivers clustered in about a 4-second window no matter what they were driving.

I managed to place on the quick end of range, even though I haven't completely eradicated some of the FWD reflexes from my driving -- good if I were still in the Prelude, but not the fastest for the Miata. Preliminary results showed me 3d of 15 in class (chasing Scott Levengood's S2000 and Rob Edwards' Mustang), and 7th of 45 overall. 

Click here for class results (I'm incorrectly shown in Class B).
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CFR SCCA West Coast - Round 4

Hernando County Airport, Brooksville, FL  This was my first time out at Brooksville this year, and first time in the Miata -- a much different surface and different sort of course than SPC. Like most runway courses, this one was a mixture of slaloms and chicanes, joined by a big hairpin at the far end. This was a fast course -- the Prelude would have been very happy here. Over nine runs, I experimented with riding the redline in second gear for most of the run, or going to third...somewhat surprisingly, banging off the rev limiter proved to be the fastest method, particularly after I put in a clean run. I had a better feel for the Miata's size, though -- I consistently came back with cone marks on the rear wheels, indicating I was on the right line, but cutting just a little too close...easily fixed with practice.

As the only C Stock car on the grid, I was both first and last in the class; on the index, I finished a somewhat uninspiring 11th of 38 starters...but obtained valuable setup data for the next time.

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NASA-X Florida - Round 2

St Petersburg College, St Petersburg, FL   No danger of rain this time...or for that matter, shade. The course was deceptively simple, but with plenty of room for mistakes. The equalizer was a long sweeper emptying into a large, spacious S-turn before the finish -- carry too much speed into it, and you'd miss the turn-in point and end up trapped against a wall on the far side, condemned to creep around the last part of the S at low speed. The early braking point didn't trip me up, but I find I'm still learning the size of the Miata, leaving too much room between me and the apex cones. I need to hit a few to learn how close I can get....

The NASA-X classing system makes for an eclectic mix -- my stock, race-shod Miata was matched against everything from other Miatas to several Mustangs, a CSP Honda CRX, and the aforementioned S2000. D-class proved to be full of hotshoes again -- of the 10 fastest times, only three were from other classes. I finished 3d of 19 in class and 7th overall of 55 starters.

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