There are 59 cars signed up and they ranked them 1 to 59 by estimated lap time and broke them into 4 run groups. They had me at 58 based on my track experience and the car being a 96 Miata. I was fine with that but I had posted a comment on the facebook event page and one of the guys noticed my profile pic.


So he tags the organizer and after a short but funny discussion between them as they snooped my profile and youtube channel they bumped me to 31. So the pressure is on and there was some late nights in the lab preparing!


Saturday morning the weather was great and my first 2 sessions were just to get to know the car and speed and evaluate her condition and performance. It felt good so I rode with an instructor my 3rd time round and he was excellent and super helpful. Turns out he raced spec Miata for 2 seasons and our first couple laps he was all smiles and omgs!

After lunch I rode with him in his BMW then it was off to find the line. And that's when she broke....

The good news is I know exactly why it failed. The bad news is I did it to myself! There is an old hot rod trick that you put an extra disk in the rearend so you have a tighter posi unit. That's all fine and dandy on the street but when the differential gets really hot those clutch packs get so tight the wheels are locked together. In a corner something has to give so the outside wheel can turn faster and in this case it was a cv joint.

It doesn't look like much in the video but at 1:50 you see the engine went to rev limiter and for me everything went on auto pilot. Let off, check gauges, check mirrors - see smoke obscuring red Mustang in mirror! The joint that went is right under the exhaust and it sprayed it with grease.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_uUZ-3fVK4

You will no doubt notice the bit of grinding in the brakes and that was another heat related deal. I mounted the calipers with a bit of clearance to the rotor at the outside edge but when they got hot and I got on the brakes that clearance on the right front went to 0. No biggie there it just scuffed the paint off the outside of the rotor and scraped a casting seam on the caliper housing smooth. The brake set up worked magnificent on the track and I was really happy with them.

You will also notice I never shift. At this point I was just working on the line and control not looking for speed. I didn't want to crowd the red mustang and tried to stay back but I really should have been in the next group up. Next year...

So that leaves me at Saturday afternoon 200 miles from home with a dead car. Once again I clearly see Gods sense of humor in the solution! I have a friend with a truck and a trailer who has had his inlaws and 4 grand kids under the age of 5 in his house for the last 6 days. It's not that big of a house and he was so happy to get my call he wanted to leave Saturday night rather than Sunday morning!









These were my 2 favs for the weekend. The exhaust notes alone from this shot was worth the trip!


Oh and yeah this one too...



It was still really a great weekend. Fun to hang out with the camera and to hang out with my buddy that came down to rescue me.


Back to the garage for the next time out probably 7/3...

 

Much surprised to see grease in the boot but the joint itself was bone dry inside it. The exhaust runs right under it and I would imagine over time has cooked it out of it.


I was hoping the custom axle shaft would be OK but no such luck.


There was a lot more damage in there than I thought there would be and it kind of looks like it's been hammering for a while but I never heard or felt it. I'm going to pull the boots off the others to be sure they are in good shape while I have things opened up.

The good news is I should be able to get her back in shape for about 200 bucks but I am going to miss the vettes in the park autocross on Saturday. Oh well last year Miatas took 2 of the 3 trophies and it was a little awkward anyway...