I Remember

The very first time I saw a Mazda GT. I had taken my Miata for yet another track day, this time to Buttonwillow, in December 2003. After all the daily drivers, like mine, had pulled off the track for lunch, out came this car in Coors Light, Silver Bullet regalia for an installation lap. It was Tom Dragoun, who was getting the car ready for the twenty-five hours of Thunderhill (yes, NASA has a 25 hour enduro, their slogan should be “We do Daytona one better”, but nobody asked me)

So, after all those dainty daily drivers, where you hear more tire squeal than throttle, it was one hell of a contrast for this full throated race car to come roaring around sunset and I remember what is now an indelible first thought, “Man, what I wouldn’t give to drive a car like that.”

I’d been wanting to race since I was a teenager; frankly Nixon was President back then and UOP was sponsoring an F5000 car driven by Jody Scheckter at Riverside, so you can understand I’d been waiting a really long time. But there was always some reason or other that I just couldn’t do it. The logistics, having a place to put a trailer between weekends and having something to haul the trailer with, those were just for starters. While working on the car on weekends sounds like fun, I’d spent too many track days watching guys waste their entire weekend neck deep in oil and grease, often never even getting their car out on track. I was leery, to say the least, about supporting the car myself. And while I understand theory very well, except for transmissions (since I learned on airplanes) I also became aware a long time ago that I have a singular talent for cross threading a nut. Sometime I swear I can make a screw strip itself with just a casual glance. It’s kind of like a reverse superpower. This explains why, thankfully, in the end I ended up working on computers rather than airplanes. So as much as I was looking forward to fussing with a race car in the garage between weekends, what I really wanted to do was drive it, and without support and some solution for the logistics and hauling and stuff I couldn’t see how to make that happen.

I remember the following summer, 2004, after taking yet another longing look at many different race cars, deciding to check out that really cool Mazda I saw the previous December. More important than the fact that the price of the car was a lot lower than I thought it was going to be was the realization that I had the opportunity to avoid all of the logistics and support issues if I wanted. Tom and Bette have an ‘arrive n drive’ program for the car that is perfect for guys like me. They store it, maintain it, transport it, and fuel it, support it track side, the whole nine yards. Of course I knew you could get the same type of thing while renting a race car, but who in his right mind wants to spend that much money to spend a weekend in a car driven the prior weekend by a sixteen year old with delusions of being drafted by Ferrari? Square tires and a tweaked engine, gasping for the finish line, no thanks.

With Seven’s Only you have the advantage of your own car while you can, and I recommend, having them do all the hard work. Which lets me just enjoy the weekend. As I talked with Tom that late summer day I realized that every single obstacle that was keeping me from racing was just solved. I wrote the check on the spot, and took delivery the following October and have been racing ever since. Frankly, if it wasn’t for Tom and Bette and what they do I’m sure I’d still be doing track days in my Miata and dreaming of the day when I could drive a real race car in a real race.

Now all that is great, but you’ll notice that it is all self-centered on just my experience. It’s all about I and me. There is more to the Mazda GT series than that. As much as I remembered, Josh’s first post reminded me of what I was forgetting, what I was taking for granted, which is the community centered on this car. Beyond the fact that the other drivers are fun to race with, there is group of people who are much more than spectators, who help make the weekend that much more fun.

On my desk at work I have a coffee mug with a photo Helen took at Willow Springs which is the envy of all people with good taste in cars. Little stuff like that, and big stuff as well, like Chuck and Kevin pitching in when I smashed the car up at the California Speedway, helping get me out to compete against their own brother. Memories of Mary helping me strap in at Willow Springs or Bob BBQ’ing a terrific steak on a Saturday night may be less prominent than drifting side by side in turns three and four with Scott, or a five car knock down drag out for third place at Thunderhill, but those are the quiet things that make the difference between just showing up to race against strangers and having a really… really good time with friends.

That was all too easy to forget, and I’m glad Josh’s post reminded me of it.

Thunderhill movie night

Ok, so part of what I’m doing this year, along with writing posts for this blog, is writing with pictures. I’m now responsible for movie night.

Mazda GT has a party on Saturday nights, and when the sun goes down and our bellies are full, we’re breaking out the projector and watching the previous race shown against the side of Tom’s great big white transporter.

I don’t mind saying by the end of the first Willow Springs Saturday I was worried about laying an egg for next month at Thunderhill. A great big rotten stink bomb of an egg like an Easter egg you didn't find until July.

The reason is that we were still working the bugs out of the cameras, and haven’t got very many cameras in place yet, since to be fair the bugs need to be worked out before the guys plunk cash down for them. Mea culpa again, I just need to make the recommendations in time and be ready to support everybody once they get to the track. Toward that end I now have some excellent video of my driving my Miata to Von's, and yes, I will spare you the drama. I made it all the way to the store and back.

But going over what we’ve got for the first race weekend, it looks like I’ve got a lot more material to work with than I thought I’d have. Toward that end I updated the video parts, to your right, by breaking them in two. The pending section up top will be all from our new season video, while I moved the old junk down a bit and out of the way. Josh and I will be posting some more non-2008 season video down there as well, to go along with track notes and other sundry goodies. But all the 2008 season goodness will be up at the top, sooner or later.

For the 2008 season video, Josh’s Sunday qualifying race will be first up, hopefully with some outside footage to go along with it. The tentative title is, “Josh versus the venal viper!” cause he was in a fight with somebody or another from green to checkered flag. And he humiliated that viper by the end, and I love a happy ending. I think I finally understand why women like those flicks where a bunch of people sit around and talk until somebody's aunt dies.... Excuse me, while I grab a hanky...

Point's mea culpa

Whoops, turns out I didn't know our points system for this year. The end of first weekend standings have been changed to reflect the correct system which is twenty eight points for a win, and drops by two points per place after that. Thanks to Jim for setting me straight and for Barbara for keeping proper track of the official results.

The Rookie’s First Impression

Excited, intimidated, nervous, uncertain; all feelings that overwhelmed as my first season of racing approached. The season opener for the Mazda GT Championship Series was February 9th and 10th at Willow Spring International Raceway, a track that I had visited for the first time two weeks prior to the opening race. I typically suffer from fantasies of grandeur but, in this case, my goals were to finish both races and not make a complete fool of myself. As it turns out, I didn’t have as much to worry about as I thought.

I took delivery of my new GT car the day before the first race. It was an open test day, with little pressure to do anything other than get the car ready for Saturday. Items on my list were to set the steering column length, seat position, and pedal depth. I’m very particular about suspension balance so I was expecting to spend most of the day adjusting the dampers but Tom hit the nail on the head by referencing Thorpe’s #3 car. All I had to do was request neutral handling. Nice! I spent a bit more time bedding the brakes and working with the crew to clear up some tire rubbing and the car was ready to go. The day was mine to practice reading the gauges, work on my line, and bench race with the other drivers.

Coming into Saturday with a well dialed car was a big load off. Warm up was much like a HPDE but qualifying was an entirely different animal. I understood the fundamental goal around qualifying, which is to run your quickest lap before the tires get too hot. Theoretically, that’s likely to happen in laps 3, 4, or 5, or so the books say. Making theory a reality seemed much more difficult on the track than I expected. I went out with the intention of taking two easy laps to get some room ahead and knock out the third lap with authority. As it turned out, other people had the same goal and I spent the entire session chasing a clean lap. Note to self – work on strategies for qualifying.

Through some miracle of racing, or just dumb luck, I managed to qualify second, which put me right next to last year’s series champ for the points race. My plan was to drop behind Jim to see if I could keep up and learn a thing or two. To my surprise, Jim joined the ST1 group for the start. This should not have been a problem, since the Viper in front of me should have pulled away handily, leaving plenty of room at turn one. In reality, the Viper did not pull away and I got passed on both sides in the first turn. Note to self – work on race starts.

The field thinned out after the first lap and I was back in very comfortable HPDE-like driving. Focused on taking it easy and finishing the race, I fell into a consistent 1:32 pace and worked my way back into second place. “Go slow to go fast” was on my side. In the last laps of the race, the first place car was a good distance ahead and the third place car a good distance behind. “Take it easy and don’t #$%^ this up” played through my mind over and over. I dropped a couple seconds from my pace and locked in a second place finish. Let the fantasies of grandeur begin.

The post race natural high carried me into a BBQ with some of the coolest folks out there. I’m not sure if it’s the racing or the camaraderie that I like better; but with this group you get the best of both worlds. Tasty steaks, good discussion, and video of past races projected on the side of a trailer. No buyer’s remorse here. I made a good decision.

Looking under the cushion…

… of my couch may lead to some extra spare change. Looking at my cushion, the amount and type of room I leave myself for those small mistakes and corrections I need to make in a corner may lead to a change in my lap times.

Now the term, “Go slow to go fast” is the most overused, hackneyed cliché in racing. But it got that way by having a lot of truth to it. My problem with it is that the people who use it most often have rarely thought through why it works. To me the “why it’s true” is more important for a beginning driver since it’s the reason why too many drivers just reach a certain point, not all that high on the food chain, plateau and ultimately give up the sport in disgust. While others get unnaturally fast with far less seat time. All too often drivers will look to friends who will just tell them they are over-driving the car, which may work but again, is only the half of it. And while getting that half often leads them to fix the other half naturally, without having to think about it, I prefer to think things all the way through.

No matter how good and consistent a driver you are, you need to leave yourself a cushion in each and every corner. No one is absolutely perfect, using one hundred percent of grip and one hundred percent of the track, no more and no less, each and every time, is beyond anyone. Part of getting faster is being able to consistently use more grip and more track than the other guy, without ever exceeding a hundred percent of either. It’s about needing less of a cushion, in total. But that’s the long term solution, a small, bit by bit improvement that getting more seat time leads to in the long run.

The initial, beginners mistake that the “go slow to go fast” cliché is implicitly, but not explicitly, designed to address is to change the kind of cushion not the amount, which is more important to initially getting fast. No amount of seat time, while constantly over-driving the car, will lead to much improvement because while trying to get fast, too many drivers will push the car harder, which means using up more of the tire’s available grip. Since the driver still needs a cushion, the only place to get it once he’s used up all the grip is to leave more space on the track. This is the mistaken mindset that the cliché will implicitly address. It’s enormously clear that a car using one hundred percent of grip and ninety percent of the track is going to be much slower, and much harder to control, than a car that is using one hundred percent of the track and ninety percent of the grip.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come up on somebody trying to wrestle his car into submission, and using every last ounce of grip his tires have, but who I could just casually drive around the outside of, since he’s left two or three car widths of track-out for me. When doing track days they would often be convinced I had some special engine or trick suspension and when I tried to explain why I could pass their Corvette in my little 98 horsepower Miata they would either get it and get faster right away or they wouldn’t. But most of us had to at least be told the cliché once or twice, even if we never thought about why it works.

The reason I like the full explanation is that the first instinct for a driver told he’s driving the car too hard is to look to his apex, and that won’t necessarily help either. You can over-drive the car while hitting the apex every time. The driver needs to look at the whole arc. Track in, apex and track out. Friends and coaches might tell the driver he’s over driving the car, and that he’s not on the line, but the response is usually “I’m hitting the apex every time, so it must be something wrong with the car.”

Many drivers have an issue with ego, or like me, with memory or perception. To beat either, the best exercise is to take some video (with the sound off) and pause it at turn-in, apex and track-out of each corner. With a piece of paper (many of us are tactile learners) in my hand I write down how far I am from the edge of the track. If it’s just a few inches, ok, but I’ve spotted myself both crabbing in from the edge of the track while anticipating the turn-in, and using up all of the tire while leaving five feet of track-out as my cushion. Everybody watches their apex, and remembers when they get it right or wrong, but you don’t start getting really fast until you start paying just as much attention to your track in and track out; the whole arc.

Willow Springs: Week One

My oh my, after more than four months out of the car what a wonder to be back in it. If my posts weren’t so long winded I’d run out of words.

To start with, an eleven car field is at least twice as much fun as seven or eight car field. We had two brand new cars, Josh in the Endsight racing #35 and Aaron in #5. Both the drivers did very well and are great additions to the series. Clean and smooth, with good situational awareness and fun to compete against. Our series has always been blessed with an abnormally large number of drivers who are just plain fun to race with, and it’s outstanding to see that trend continue. Josh in particular did very well capturing two podiums his first weekend. He’s also joining the blog as our second poster. Aaron got at least one podium in his #5 as well. With a large field that’s some good driving right off the bat.

For myself, I had a near perfect practice day. The track was open, without sessions, all day, so there was no hurry to do anything in particular. After a few installation laps to get the temperatures in line, I was happily putting in as much seat time as I could handle.

Race day practice and qualifying went well for me. I was just a few tenths off of Thorpe in the #3 car, which made me pretty happy since he’s been quick for a long time. Jim continued his domination from last year setting a jaw dropping 1:30.3. That’s only a second off of the track record for our car, which was set with slicks, not the RA-1’s, in perfect conditions (I was there.) Bob continued to be really quick as well (maybe these guys have found some kind of racing Viagra or something…)

NASA continues to organize a great weekend, and like they do every once in a while they replaced the qualifying session on Sunday with a qualifying race. That is always a real treat from a drivers perspective since it means a three race weekend instead of just two. It’s not another point’s race; it just determines the starting order for the Sunday point’s race later in the afternoon. But it’s just as much fun without a three dollar trophy at stake as with one, and this race was a blast.

The pace car went too slow, leaving us crawling below four thousand. Our cars are purpose built race cars so first gear is closer to where third is in your daily driver than a typical first. So as soon as the pace car pulled I brought us up to seven in first and held there. Scott was on the outside in the #77 car and caught on to what I was doing; but when the leader accelerates like that it’s generally the clue for the guys in the back that the flag has dropped since they have a harder time seeing the stand. Mark in the #50 took off, pulled nearly up to the front row, realized what went wrong and got off the throttle. The starter saw what was happening, and to avoid a black flag, but make it fair, he held the flag long enough for Mark to drop back. That, of course, killed his momentum and most of his race.

Scott took the #77 car around the outside of me into turn one, side by side, and I discovered that the outside might just be better than the inside at Willow Springs at the start. To give him a car width of racing room I lost so much track out, compared to normal, that it wasn’t even a question of who was going into turn two in the lead. Scott managed to hold onto that lead for the whole qualifying race and put the #77 on the pole. Either the #77 is faster, or Scott is much faster (ok, Scott's certainly faster, but it should have taken another corner or two) or, and I think this is likely, the outside is actually the better line into turn one during the start. Usually if I try to pass someone there it’s an early apex, I get there far enough ahead that I can still use the entire track out. Side by side I think you get skunked on the inside.

I managed to hold onto fourth. Josh went in deep into nine, and I rarely pass there since it costs so much speed to contest, but he pulled it off well enough. I saw it, and so planned an outside-in to take him back, and exited with a lot more speed than he had, but as the straight went on I just slowly stopped pulling on him. By the time we reached turn one, I was on his left rear quarter panel with a smidgen more momentum and the inside line so it would have been worth a try to repay the favor by out-braking him into one on the inside, but I decided against it since he was at least a second a lap faster than I was even when I went full tilt boogey, if not two, so it just would have delayed the inevitable. Anyway, it was a very good race with a lot of fights all over the field. Exactly why I do this…

Jim got me as well, so I think the qualifying race order ended up being Scott (#77), Josh (#35), Jim (#98) and I (#76). Scott is Tom Dragoun’s son, and it turned out after putting it on the pole Tom decided to race his own car Sunday afternoon and put Scott in Phillip’s car (#78) at the back of the pack.

Of course, while sitting in grid it was decided to invert, again, which didn’t hurt me much (fourth to seventh, I think) but put Tom right on the tail end, wasting all of Scott’s effort. This start went a lot cleaner, but was very exciting since I think we were four wide for a bit in one. I was afraid I pushed somebody two wheels off, but it happened behind me so quick I don’t know who it was. I just saw a flash and used the last of my grip to hold in, a half a car width from the edge, which was all I could by then. No accident’s, no touching, everybody made it thru the gaggle.

Now we were told, before the start, about some oil in turn two and some oil dry. We also got the debris flag at the starters stand and going into two. But I wasn’t at all prepared for the amount of oil dry they used. The formation lap was bad, but the first race lap was indescribable. I literally held a higher speed than I’d planned, since all I could see was the tail of the car five feet in front and I was afraid if I fell more than those few inches behind it I’d lose my only visual clue as to where I was. At the same time I was simply amazed that the car didn’t just slide off the track at the speed we were going on that stuff. I literally couldn’t see the ground in front of the car and whoever’s rear spoiler I could just barely see was really just a dim hazy kind of outline, despite the fact that I could almost reach out and touch the damn thing. I was very thankful once we got out of two, although I never was able to see again out of the right third of my windshield. Of course it took more laps to clear up, but it wasn’t quite as bad the second time around.

Josh did the turn nine inside trick again.

I got a launch on him again, and this time I wasn’t going to be quite as nice a guy because we had a lot of other traffic and if I could get him back it might just stick. Besides he mucked up Tom’s plan and so I got a run on the both of them (getting them both would've been sweet), but in the end couldn’t do it because of the huge gaggle it created going back into turn one. Mainly Mark in the #50 and T.W. in the #17 who were getting slammed by Tom & Josh in the same corner I wanted to pass them back at all while Jim, Scott, Aaron and everybody else was trying to get to the same apex at the same time.

I had to be especially careful because, after taking him into turn three the first time around, Scott had moved his car right up behind me and was showing me his nose on lap two. I don’t know who went into one in what order (I’ll have to wait for the video) but it was almost as much of a gaggle as the start.

Scott was slowly closing on me for most of each lap but I would generally pull all the time he gained back in turn eight since the #78 car seemed to have a lot of trouble keeping up to speed there (I think maybe a flat spotted tire). Overall, with no other factors I could stay ahead with him in that car, that day, which even with me in a better car at the time is something to be proud of.

Nevertheless, experience tells (Scott’s been racing a long time and is a really…really hot shoe) and he wound up knifing through traffic far better than I could and took me going through the three-four complex a few laps in. Note to self, the inside into four may look like a good defensive move, but only if you can close the door by the top of the hill. Scott was inside and nearly even with me by the apex of three, and as we went side by side to the top of the hill it became obvious I was going to have to give it up before the second apex or cause an accident that would be my fault. Better to go deeper into three with an early apex and contest it there. Anyway, from then on I’d get a run on him going into eight, but it was never near to close enough, and besides, Scott is just a magician with traffic. I ended the race about sixty yards behind him.

That still left T.W. in my sights. I was slowly pulling on him, but so little it was going to take a very long while to get in range, when he overcooked just a bit into one. That caught me right up, along with Scott who was still on my tail at the time, but eventually I got an inside line into turn one and made it stick.

Now last year, when T.W. started out, I would’ve expected him to drop back and I’d lose sight of him a couple of laps after passing him. Not this year. He’s getting better and it’s just a matter of seat time before he hands me my head on a stick. It’s what I remember (aside from the oil dry) the most about this race; being just short of making a race with Scott while I had to keep pushing the car really hard to stay out of T.W.’s range. That just seemed to last forever and I’m not sure which idea motivated me more. Falling behind T.W. or catching Scott. I haven’t lost to T.W. straight up, yet, but it’s obvious that it’s just a matter of time (and not much) before I do. I need to put some kind of 'stop getting faster' hex on him or something…

Turn two got better and better, even if my window didn’t, but there was no real chance to relax the whole way. I always had T.W. behind to worry about and Scott ahead to try to catch while traffic, faster and slower, kept making things even more interesting. Which is why I like these bigger fields; sure, the new trophies (very nice with a photo from the race by Helen, just for our series) are much better than NASA's same old, same old, although it might be awhile before I get my hands on one. But it’s much better to have a race where you have to struggle that hard for the whole distance than to just get another trophy.

After all, it’s what I came for.

Rev Limits

A new guy who was testing at Willow (he rented Phillip’s car) was asking about Rev Limits for our Mazda GT. In a nutshell they aren’t any. A rotary motion, as opposed to the up and downs of piston’s and valves, can take a lot more RPM since the stress is always angular. It’s the same reason turbine engines can routinely spin at twenty thousand RPM. Now this doesn’t mean we’ve beaten back the laws of physics or anything, it’s just that the concept of ‘this far and no farther’ doesn’t quite work for us like it does with pistons and valves.

In physics the stress on our rotating parts will increase at the square of the RPM’s. So the stress, and increases in heat, will start to spike dramatically in our motors between nine and ten thousand RPM. But it’s not going to fly apart as soon as you hit, or even exceed, ten thousand either.

Prior to the Jerico this lead to some interesting trade-offs. Because the gaps between the gear ratios varied from gear to gear in a regular transmission, you could stretch the motor a bit in certain gears, to insure that after the shift you would remain in the power-band, which trades some longevity for performance. If you look at the old ‘Best Thunderhill’ video, for example, you’ll notice my stretching the rev’s well past the shift light for a lot of that race. One of the many things I like about the Jerico is that there is less of a premium on stretching out the RPM, meaning you can be competitive without having to spend two to four grand on the motor each year. The reason is that the gears are evenly separated and close. If you are above 8.5 you’ll at least stay in the power-band (best thought of as seven to nine) after an upshift. An advantage to going higher is still there, and you can and should use a few more RPM’s, judicially, when you are in a tight fight, it is just a lot less rewarding than it was before. So if you want your motor to last, recognize that the trade is between longevity and spinning really fast (above nine), which leads to the obvious question, “why waste that mojo in practice.”

Myself, I routinely shift a little shy of nine thousand during practice and most of qualifying, (I’ll try a bit harder in qualifying during laps two-four when the tires are at their best) and will push to between 9.2 and 9.5 (my shift light is currently set to 9.2) routinely during the race. I am willing to stretch all the way to ten to get by somebody where I know I can stay ahead after the pass. After having motor problems early on, once I learned this along with some other engine goodies, I’ve found either a magic engine or my paying attention to all the details you need to increase longevity are finally paying off. My motor was put in the car at the beginning of 2006, when dyno’ed midway through 2007 it was stronger than any of the other motors (at 220 to the wheels) and it still feels good at the start of the 2008 season. All with nothing more than routine maintenance.

Now you can, and I do, adjust those numbers a bit for conditions. For example, at Willow Springs this weekend (Feb '08) everyone was running a little higher EGT's than normal. This can be caused by any of a number of differences in conditions or just the quality of the fuel. A lot of the time we can just change the jetting to make the carb run richer, but when I tried it the car went way too rich. After changing it back I decided that during most of practice and qualifying I'd shift a little lower just to keep the EGT's at the top end of third gear below 1,700.

One other huge difference between our Mazda GT’s and your daily driver is that, realistically speaking, we have a minimum RPM as well. In fact, it is easier in some cases to damage a motor by spinning it too slow than by spinning it too fast. The reason is that a peripheral port, like we have, isn’t happy at all at low RPM. Casually stomp on the throttle at four thousand and you’ll regret it. You’ll neither move, nor will the engine be very happy with all the coughing and sputtering.

Bottom line is, once you get the engine between seven and nine thousand RPM; try to keep it there and it’ll be happy as a clam. If you are in a fight and don’t mind a little extra wear if it means winning, push it to ten K. If you’re starting out of the pits, be gentle with the throttle until it stops sputtering and pay attention to what RPM it’s sputtering at. If you get caught out on track and lose RPM, you’ll need to know where to nurse the throttle since it’s likely to be the same range.

Above all, when you get out of the car, be able to tell the mechanics what the gauges were saying when. I know it's hard to do with so much to pay attention to, especially at first, but the engine you save will, not might, be your own.