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 | |  | September 24, 2011 - On the way home from Newfoundland, the two Targa cars stopped off in Ottawa.
One of the reasons (the primary one was because that's where my family lives!) was to visit the Underground Miata Network (UMN), the Ottawa-based club that supported us both in 2008 and in 2011. It was a good evening with lots of questions about the cars and the race as well as some excellent hamburgers. Performance Mazda vacated enough room in their showroom to let us park the cars inside, and the general manager there proved himself to be a proper gearhead.
The UMN was actually the club that gave us the most support this year. Their target was a thousand dollars, and after they passed the helmet around for a final time on Friday night they surpassed that fairly comfortably. I was involved with this club before I moved to Colorado, and I was really pleased to see that they're still so active and passionate about our little cars. If it wasn't for groups like this, we wouldn't have been able to run the race!
entry 996 - tags: support | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Romping through Gander.
This is the first time through, when I was basically acting like a hooligan. A hooligan with a big grin.
This is the first of a number of photos from Gordon Sleigh, the official event photographer. So we're going to take a few steps back through the race here. Note the red tape. You'll see both red and yellow tape in the background of a number of the pictures. Red tape denotes a potential impact area, and spectators are kept free of the red tape zones.
entry 997 - tags: 2011 race, day 2, Gander | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Exploring the limits of suspension travel in Gander.
The notes for this stage warn about bumps on the inside of corners where the drains are. And they're right! There's a much better looking version of this shot, taken just before I hit the bump, but this one's just so dramatic. I'm happy to report that the car was not upset in the least by this behavior, and the next shot in the sequence shows it carrying on happily. And people wonder why I spend so much time working on suspension travel. I was able to do things like this without any concern about upsetting the car.
According to Zach, there are something like 29 turns in this stage - and I suspect that he left out the dozen or so that weren't marked, but that were parts of a suburban crescent. Even without those, that means an average of one 90 turn every 10 seconds for 5 minutes. No wonder it's so exhausting.
entry 998 - tags: 2011 race, day 2, Gander, suspension | | |  | September 30, 2011 - The "driver/codriver communication class" from the first day of the race.
As you can see, the Flyin' Miata team paid close attention but it was a remarkably poorly attended class. The others in the room were mostly the supercar owners. More teams should take part in this class, it's very worthwhile.
entry 999 - tags: 2011 race, class | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Stampeding through Greenspond.
This was a remarkable stage, and we're just coming up through the most remarkable part of it. I've got my head lifted as high as I can, trying to see over the hood of the Miata as we come out of a steep climb and get ready for a hard right turn.
The car looks so industrial in this shot. The black tape is holding the hood down at higher speeds, and you can see some of the undercar skid protection silhouetted against the dust.
entry 1000 - tags: 2011 race, day 3, Greenspond | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Splashing through Brigus.
Action shot!
entry 1001 - tags: 2011 race, day 5, Brigus | | |  | September 30, 2011 - I took it easy over the bridge in Brigus, as I knew we didn't need the speed.
More importantly, I knew we were going to land on a greasy wet wooden bridge. Until you've driven one of these, you have no idea just how unbelievably slippery they are. With enough speed, we could have cleared the whole thing. But there was no reason.
Still, as you can see, we did manage to lift off. I had no idea until I saw this picture. The landing was smooth as silk.
entry 1002 - tags: 2011 race, day 5, Brigus | | |  | September 30, 2011 - The two cars at the end of the race.
Both are in fine shape - more on that later - and didn't require the massive interventions required to get some of the other cars to the end. They sucked up everything we threw at them. Nancy, the 2006, is running all off-the-shelf parts from Flyin' Miata including the Stage 2 suspension kit. Even though he'd driven it quite a bit during development, Brandon was really impressed with how it held up and dealt with the poor road surfaces. The only adjustment he made was to stiffen up the shocks slightly to suit his taste.
The Targa Miata was a star. Many of the other drivers thought I was nuts trying to wrestle a V8 Miata through the race, assuming it would be a beast to control. Of course, it was nothing of the sort. The big engine was the most obvious change to the car when compared to 2008, but the changes in the chassis also meant that the car was more competent at the higher speeds. Big bumps in particular were handled very well, and the skid plates underneath meant that I had nothing to fear if we did ground out. What a great tool.
entry 1003 - tags: 2011 race | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Brandon and Zach's office.
The tape with numbers on it are to remind the crew what the average speed for a given stage should be. The spare ones on the door are both souvenirs and spares in case another stage uses the same speed. The two egg timers are a Day 2 addition, one counting up and the other counting down. This way Zach knows if they're running on time. There's a pre-stage checklist on the dashboard as well.
Moving over to Brandon's side, you'll see red tape on the speedo to remind him of the overall speed limit. He's also got a GPS mounted to the dash as a backup to the Terratrip, showing average speed. It's a different sort of cockpit than we have in the Targa Miata, fine-tuned for a different purpose.
It should be pointed out that, after competing in the Targa, I drove this car home from Ottawa to Colorado because the space in the trailer was taken up by another car. Race numbers, interior additions and all. The fact that it's a real car with cruise control and A/C made it a lot more comfortable than you might expect - these Targa cars work in the real world too. Although they do attract a bit of attention to be sure.
entry 1004 - tags: 2011 race, ergonomics, Brandon, Zach | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Back home and up on the lift, it's time to check out how the car fared.
Well, score one for skid protection. My UHMW sliders got a good workout protecting my catalytic converters, which is exactly what they were built to do. I think that small skidmark on the cat was already there. The front skid plate didn't take too many impacts, but there were a couple. One of them might have done damage to the v-band connecting the header to the exhaust system had the plate not been there.
Other teams - notably the army mechanics who were working on the Soldier On car - were quite impressed with the undercar protection. It worked.
entry 1005 - tags: protection, skid plates | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Overall, the car is in excellent shape.
The rear subframe brace took the worst beating, which wasn't a surprise. Ground clearance back there is at a bit of a premium and my experience in 2008 was that the back was the most likely place to hit. The skid plate/brace did exactly what it was supposed to do and protected the important bits.
Elsewhere, there's very little sign that the car just finished such an ordeal. In fact, all we need to do is bang the rear skid plate into shape and we could run another week. Even the tires would be good for a few more days of racing. We replaced a coil that had heatsoak problems due to my heat shielding, had a video camera die (and lost a GoPro off the roof at speed) and of course lost the main relay. But overall, the car proved itself to be a strong and reliable tool with a huge turn of speed. By contrast, I was speaking to one of the MINI drivers after the event and he had a big list of problems to fix. For example, both of his front upper strut mounts were damaged and he'd replaced them once or twice already during the race. We had no similar concerns.
I've also been thinking about The Relay. At the time it happened, I felt that I should have been able to fix it on the side of the road and rejoin the race without the DNF for one stage. However, it wouldn't have made any difference in the end. By the time we'd extricated ourselves from the car, set up the triangles and OK sign, instantly diagnosed the problem, reloaded ourselves and rejoined the stage, we would have lost too much time to catch the Challenger and the M3 that finished ahead of us.
entry 1006 - tags: impact protection, skid plate, post-race | | |  | October 6, 2011 - Transit in the rain.
Heading from the final stage to the finish line in a light drizzle, photo by Zach Bowman who was quite entertaining as he hung out of the window of the other Miata.
entry 1007 - tags: 2011 race, day 5 | | |  | October 10, 2011 - Time for a post-event track day.
Why? Because I can! The car was in as-raced form, right down to the bag of snacks stuffed into the passenger's door. I'd never actually tested this swaybar setup on our track, and I'd made some tweaks to the shocks in Newfoundland. So I figured this would be an interesting check on how the race setup worked in the different environment.
The weather was quite a bit different than my previous test days at this track. Instead of the very hot temperatures that plagued the testing all summer, it was cool. About the same temperatures as seen during the race, actually.
My first session was very entertaining. The car was loose, very loose. I know it had some oversteer tendencies during the race but that was also coupled with great turn-in and lots of adjustability, so I was quite happy with that. Rally drivers hate understeer! But on the little tight track, it was too much. The rear sway was on the middle setting, so I tried disconnecting it completely. That led to too much understeer on turn-in. Setting the sway to the softest setting woke the car up again. It was still a bit tail-happy, but very controllable. I think the best setup would be a slightly smaller rear sway bar than I currently have, so I'll dig into my collection. On a bigger, faster track the current setup would probably work very well.
So how did it work out? I set a personal best in the car, a 1:03.661. My previous best time was 1:03.725. Not a big improvement - but it's significant because the previous time was set on the RA1 tires and with much stiffer and lower suspension settings. I'm thinking I'll pick up a set of R-compound tires for next summer while I continue to run the R1R on the street. That should make a considerable improvement.
I did have one failure on the day, though. When I was driving down the interstate to the track, one of the exhaust tips fell off. Not a major failure, and I didn't even notice until I saw the car in the pits. oops!
The picture has nothing to do with the track day, but I didn't have my camera with me. Taken by Zach Bowman.
entry 1008 - tags: testing, track | | |  | October 24, 2011 - Road test!
If you're wondering what it's like to drive the Targa Miata, Zach Bowman can tell you. He slipped behind the wheel after the race and got a chance to get a feel for the car. I wish I'd been able to get him on to a closed stage so he could really feel it rampage, but he was really impressed with what he got. His biggest surprise was how docile the car was. He was expecting a challenging car, but the Targa Miata is really a pussycat to drive fast.
If you want to read Zach's writeup, it's on Autoblog.
The picture is of the Torbay prologue stage, taken by Ralph Saulnier. Come to think of it, it might have been fun to strap Zach into the passenger's seat for the second time through this stage.
entry 1009 - tags: autoblog, test drive, review, press | | |  | October 31, 2011 - I won't have to tape the front of the hood down anymore.
Another pair of hood pins at the front of the hood means no more lifting bodywork at speed. There are a lot of hood pins on this car now - four on the front and four on the back.
I also spent some time fixing the passenger's side rear view mirror. Big jobs? No. But improvements. And that's always good.
entry 1010 - tags: body | | |  | December 5, 2011 - I spent the weekend working for the 949Racing race team at the 25 hours of Thunderhill.
The two team cars finished 1st and 3rd in class, won the under 2.0 liter trophy and came in 8th and 11th overall. An excellent result, due to good cars, great driving and some very hard work by every member of the service crew - particularly when both cars had problems at the same time at around 1 am. And yes, that's what one car looked like at the end of the race.
It's really interesting to see what's involved in a successful endurance team. It's not just about going quickly, although that's obviously important. You have to watch your fuel use, because every moment you're not circulating the track your competitors are getting away. The cars have to be monitored as much as possible so that any failing components can be replaced quickly and before they become a major problem. Even something as simple as taking 20 seconds to check the oil every time you fill up can add 5 minutes of time in the pits over the course of the race. We practiced fuel stops, tire changes and driver changes with a stopwatch, trying to find a way to shave off 5 seconds each time. You could really see a difference in the pits between teams.
For example, on a four tire change, we had five guys. When the car stopped, two started lifting up the car with a jack on each side while a third lifted from the back. Two others pulled the rear lug nuts off with an impact gun. When the nuts were off, they'd move to a front wheel and start on those lugs. As soon as the car was up, the side jack guys went to the rear wheels, pulled off the old wheel and slotted a new one on to the lugs. Once the front nuts were off, the impact guns were tossed over to the guys at the rear wheels to tighten them on. When that was done, the front wheels had been changed and the guns went back to the front to tighten those up. The side jack men were back on the jacks by this point and the car was dropped to the ground. During all of this, the rear jack operator was placing wheels within reach and catching hot ones. Total time, less than a minute and every person and tool was busy the entire time.
And, of course, there are always repairs done while the clock ticks away. We had a car run off the track after brake use spiked up and the pads wore down to the backing plates - that left us with not only body damage, but also a damaged caliper. Another lost a wheel due to stud failure. Several hubs went out, along with an alternator. The team was ready for all of these with spare parts, but they still cost time and the repairs had to be done on a smoking hot car in the dark on a moment's notice. We had an excellent service crew and all of this was sorted out far more quickly than you'd expect with very little wasted effort. Quite a rush.
It's interesting to contrast the demands of endurance racing with something like the Targa. The latter's often called "the ironman of motorsports" because of the level of abuse the cars get. The total distance the vehicles cover is actually pretty similar in this case. But the track cars are at full race pace the entire time, with the clock running non-stop. Targa cars have long road sections in between timed stages, and there's always some down time during the day when the car can get checked over.
However, on the track the pits are never more than a couple of minutes away. Even with a wheel missing or running on a badly abused battery, our cars always made it back home - and if the car gets disabled on-track, it's towed in as soon as possible. On the Targa, the service crew could be a long way away and the cars might have to travel quite a distance for repairs. So you may have to perform a field repair with what's carried in the car. It's less a matter of getting it done in seconds and more a matter of doing what needs to be done to get to service.
The damage is different as well. On the track, things either wear out due to stress or (less often) get damaged when the cars make contact. If there are bad bumps on the track, the drivers know about them and will usually avoid or minimize them to protect the car. On the rally, damage is more likely to be related to impacts and pounding. Off-track excursions are usually much more serious due to the lack of runoff areas, and there are surprises lurking in the road that can punish everything underneath.
Some things are the same. Tires need to be managed, either because there's a limited number available or because it takes a valuable minute to change to fresh ones. You still have to trade off speed vs caution, whether it's preserving the car or taking fewer risks. The speech given by the crew chief before the 25 hour race started sounded much like my speech to the Targa crew, stressing the importance of getting the car home.
They're both long, tiring and very challenging types of racing. I'm glad I was given the opportunity to take part in the 25 Hour race with such a good team!
entry 1011 - tags: 25 hours of Thunderhill, endurance racing | | |  | January 21, 2012 - Time to get the car ready for a different sort of use.
It's going to be seeing the track a fair bit in the next year, and that means a different setup than the rally one.
The R1Rs were good for the Targa, but they get overwhelmed on the track. So I went back to my old favorites, the RA1 in the same 225/45-15 size. Honestly, I would have put on some Nitto NT-01s if they were available, but they are not. Still, the RA1 is a good choice because they're just so consistent and long lived. I'll be running this set of tires for some time.
The springs will get changed, probably to the 750/450 set I ran for a while previously. It's a fair bit of spring, but the AFCOs make them work and it'll keep the car planted on track. It'll tame the rear end a bit, as I don't want quite such a mobile tail as I had during the rally. I'll drop the ride height as well. I'm thinking of dialing in a bit more front camber than I had before. We'll see.
I'll be at the Miatas at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca event again at the end of March, so that will be the first "big track" event for the car with a healthy engine. I might see if I can sneak over to High Plains Raceway for a test day before then, but that's a challenge with Colorado winter weather. Still, it's time to get the car out of the garage and tearing up the pavement again!
entry 1012 - tags: testing, tires, track, suspension | | |  | January 24, 2012 - Targa 2011 videos are online!
Not every stage - yet - but there are 19 videos from the race uploaded to the Targamiata.com video page as well as the Targa Miata YouTube channel. Bumpercam, roofcam, crewcam and even the classic in-car shot. The patch from Janel's intercom means excellent audio in most of the in-car clips, so you can really hear what she's saying as well as the hollering of the big engine. More videos are gradually being added when I have a spare minute here and there.
The DVD project is well underway. Adam is working on it, and has plans to make one final trip to meet up with Janel, Brandon and myself to do some followup interviews. I'm really looking forward to the final result.
entry 1013 - tags: video, 2011, race | | |  | February 15, 2012 - Maintenance time for the Targa car.
I'm changing it over to track spec, and pulled the rotors off for a peek. And what I saw looked very familiar. The pad wear is even on both sides, it's just that the inner face of both front rotors is heavily worn. Interesting. I'm guessing it's related to heat, as the inner face has a dust shield on it while the outer does not. I'm going to do a bit of research here. I do know that the Performance Friction PFC 97 pads can be rough on rotors when cold, but I would expect that to affect both sides.
A new set of rotors is going on, of course. The pads are about 40% worn by eyeball measuring, which isn't bad considering how much I used the brakes this time. Faster car with worse tires means more braking.
entry 1014 - tags: brakes | | |  | February 15, 2012 - Time for an oil change.
Yes, that's 7 quarts of Redline oil you're looking at. And it's quite an adventure getting all the oil lines emptied out.
entry 1015 - tags: maintenance | | |
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