I was able to put the rad and speed holes to the test last Friday. Even though the weather was cool and overcast (single-digit temps, in Celsius), there was no discernible timing retard over the course of a 20 minute session. Mission accomplished!

However, my front wheel bearings are exhibiting signs of going south. I was planning to re-do my rear hub & bearings (prophylactically), so now I have to add the fronts to the list. Not much time before I leave for Miatas at MRLS, so I have my work cut out for me.

 

I bought a full set of Mazdaspeed hubs (front & rear) and sent the car to my local specialty shop for installation (I could do the fronts, but the rears are more fiddly than I'm comfortable with). I got a call soon after with a report that it's not the bearings that is causing the front wheel play. Instead, it's the stupid set of upper-control arm offset bushings that are wearing out. I'm told that, while it will cause a bit of play in my camber settings, it's not enough of a problem to prevent my going to Miatas at MRLS. Hope that's the case.

Now I'll have to buy some Delrin replacement bushings and have them installed next year. Of course, that means another alignment/corner-weighting session. Grrrr!

 

Long story short: I made it to MRLS and back again, with no mechanical issues and the only concern being excessive tire wear (which was expected).


Car prepped and ready to go. All I had to do was fill the trunk.




The start was inauspicious, as there was a major snow dump across the province the day before we departed. There was a lot of fingernail biting (I was driving down on RA-1s and the rest of the group was only slightly better off, being on summer performance tires) and there was obsessive checking of the forecast and road conditions. Tuesday dawned sunny and cold, so we decided to take our chances.


This was how the first 100 miles looked - roads clear and dry and only snow on the shoulders.



However, further south conditions deteriorated, with hard-packed snow/ice occurring every few km. It was grooved and corrugated and a complete nightmare. At every spot where these build-ups were present, a litany of cars and semi were in the ditch or up against the "cheesegrater" median divider. At one point, traffic was slowing to a crawl and I hoped against hope we didn't stop as I wouldn't have been able to get going again. For obvious reasons, there are no pictures of these sections.

We white-knuckled through to Calgary and met up with a couple more attendees. At this point, the roads cleared again and we had no more trouble. The day was gloriously clear and we could see the Rocky Mountains on the horizon almost the entire way.





It truly is a spectacular part of the world




Our cars, however, were filthy



We eschewed the Interstate as much as possible and took the most interesting route possible, given time constraints.

Avenue Of The Giants




Highway 1 scenic overlook, as it meets the ocean past Leggett. The preceding piece of road, while missing an ocean view, is simply spectacular.




After the second day, I rotated my tires front to back, in order to even out the wear on the inside tread blocks caused by my excessive negative camber.







After an ill-advised detour onto Hwy 101 past Fort Bragg, we endured stop 'n go traffic a good portion of the way and arrived at the hotel around 3 pm on Friday.

 

Up bright and early on Saturday, we headed over to the track and found parking in the paddock.


Three of the five Alberta cars




It was a gorgeous day, if a little hot later in the afternoon




After a drivers meeting that went on for what seemed forever, I found out that my request for an instructor was denied, given that they were too few in number and earmarked for D and E groups. I started the morning taking a few laps as passenger in Andrew Kidd's car, trying to take in the appropriate line. I managed to rope one of the FM crew into passengering with me for a few laps of my first session in B and then I was left to fend for myself. MRLS is a lot faster than my local track, and has a lot more blind corners. I was, naturally, a tad intimidated and was extremely cautious. My best recorded lap was over 2 minutes. I started to figure things out after a while (for example, there is no need to lift before Turn 1) and was able to push a little harder. Times dropped into the 1:50s and I was very pleased about how the car was performing. It pulled strongly and was a pussycat in the corners. Even where I overcooked a corner, slides were usually benign and easily corrected. I finished Saturday trying to break into the 1:40s but couldn't quite do it.

Some pictures from GotBlueMilk, the official track photographer:





Some countersteer








Sunday

 

After a couple of sessions on Sunday, it was time to change my brake pads. Luckily, I had the foresight to order some from Trackspeed Engineering, who brought them to the track for me. I also took the opportunity to install the Dynapro bridge bolts that I bought from Flyin' Miata (who also brought them along).


Thanks again to Savington for the technical advice and for the use of his jack and cordless wrench.



I was still struggling to bring my lap times down and finally found salvation in one of the instructors, George Wells (I hope I remember his name correctly). He was brave enough to go out with me on Saturday and provided some constructive feedback. Specifically, while my car was quick and handled well, I was overdriving it. He also convinced me to start using the curbing to increase my corner radius (while my local track has curbs, they're not the kind that are a good idea to drive over). The final piece of the puzzle was when he took me for a drive in the third session on Sunday. His car was closer to a Spec Miata (stock power) and he had to drive it accordingly. My next session, I came closest yet to breaking out of the 1:50s, but I was still a few tenths away.

On the last session, I lined up early, sans passenger and was at the front of the queue. The clear track and lower weight helped and, despite the afternoon heat, I blew away my previous best by more than two seconds. I was completely chuffed with myself. I'm sure there's still more in the car, but I was still driving relatively conservatively, given that I had little in the way of safety gear and I had a 3,000 km drive ahead of me. Here's a video of my best lap:




You'll notice a few bobbles and mis-steps in that lap, but overall I was pleased with my progress on an unfamiliar track. I really enjoyed the experience and meeting a lot of people only familiar via e-mail or on this site. I hope to be able to return for next year's event.

P.S. The drive home was (mostly) entertaining. The forecast through the Rockies called for lots of snow on Wednesday (our last day), so we decided to get up early on Tuesday and drive all the way through. It ended up being 23 hours on the road, with a couple of nap breaks. We made it, but it wasn't an experience I care to replicate anytime soon, or ever.

 

P.P.S. I was forced to flip my tires inside out on Monday evening, as I was getting perilously close to cording the inside blocks. I was lucky enough to find an enthusiast owner/operator at a Les Schwab that stayed an hour past closing time to help me out. Here are the tires. You can see that a couple were going critical.

 

I can't help but notice how it seems that you are staring at the dash. Make its just your helmet? If not, EYES UP MAN!

IIRC you spun on t11 on Sat right?

 

Nah, it's the slope of the helmet. It may have been my first time at Laguna Seca, but I've been keeping my eyes up for a long, long time.

There were at least two other red MSMs in B group that weekend, including a lady (whose name escapes me) that did spin in Turn 11. I wasn't far behind her and had a bit of oversteer going through the corner (probably reflexively added a touch more brake when I saw her in the dirt, facing oncoming traffic). I didn't focus on her, for obvious reasons, but she told me afterwards that her eyes were as big as saucers. No offs or spins for me the entire weekend. My only miscues were to miss my braking point between turns 1 & 2 (I blew my line but stayed on the racing surface) and later on overcooking my exit at the Turn 2 track-out point and putting one rear wheel briefly in the dirt.

I'll have to look through all my GoPro footage for the T11 incident, as I'm pretty sure it's in there somewhere. (EDIT: I think that happened on the last Saturday session and my GoPro battery had given up the ghost by then.)

 

My car has been pretty reliable since I made some key upgrades (FM rad; hood ducts; TSE BBK; TSE M10 inconel turbo studs). Even my oil test (post MRLS) came back looking really good. Since then, it's been basic maintenance plus wear & tear (brake pads, tires). However, at yesterday's track day, I noticed that at least one of my turbo studs was turning out through the captive nut:



Without removing the heat shield, I couldn't say for sure that the other two studs were okay, but this one was definitely causing a leak under boost. I lost a session while I waited for the engine to cool enough to double-nut the stud (almost) into place. That was enough to allow me to complete the last session and then drive home.

I'll obviously have to r&r the stud. Question is, do I Resbond it again or try something more radical like drilling for a set screw. Resbond would be easier, but it's already failed once. Has anybody successfully drilled an inconel stud? I understand that they're incredibly hard. I'm certainly open for suggestions.

 

Saw your car sneak into the shot from a blog I follow: Duncan's Back! ? Apex Attack

 

Cool! I think I've spoken to the driver of that MR2. Nice car and nice guy.

 

love the car and the build. You just go so fast that the paint is ripping off the front bumper.

 

So, I was prepping for tomorrow's track day (pad change, quick fluid bleed and tire rotation) and found this:
LR


Of course, this prompted a close inspection of the wheels on the other side, whereupon I found this:
RF


I have a spare set of 15x9 6ULs (in black, so I'm going two-tone) and will put them into service for tomorrow. Of course, everything's closed today so I had to throw myself on a friend's mercy (he has a sweet garage mahal, including center-post lift and a tire changer/balancer). Emilio has said that track wheels have a finite lifespan. I guess I've found the ones on these. Make this yet another cautionary tale to incent everyone to inspect their wheels after each event.

 

My track-mostly MSM went to a new home this afternoon. A fellow Club member and former track student of mine pulled the trigger on it, so it's going to be driven both with respect and enthusiasm.





I'm a tad verklempt but I suppose it was time. I got what I wanted for the car (plus a spot in my garage for my Bimmer winter beater) and now I can focus more resources on endurance racing, which I started doing this summer. I'll likely continue to instruct, as I really enjoy that, but no more bombing around the track on HPDE days, hunting down much more expensive cars.