Unfunny

Engine 2021: knock knock?

Me: Who's there?

Engine 2021: Your connecting rods!

Me: %@#*! $#!^!!!!!

Some car jokes are funny. Automotive "knock knock" jokes are not... But if you're gonna race a heavily modified car it's a risk. Unfortunately, in this case I was caught between the intersection of Road Racing and Autocross... 

The engine had been newly built in 2020 to support 9250 rpm redline and use 14:1 compression, this had involved special valves, Ferrea roller rockers, lightened crank, Carillo rods, Cosworth pistons, and an externally driven oil pump system. This system was a half step between the traditional wet sump and a dry sump system. Basically it ran a pump off the crank that sucked oil out of the back of the pan which had had the drain plug replaced with an AN fitting. 

The engine was delivered in the spring of 2020... when covid was at its worst. During this period I was not very motivated because no racing was being held for the foreseeable future, and even when the first events were opening up I didn't want to attend because I and my wife have contact with vulnerable individuals. So, once things seemed to be turning around I got motivated again, but I had to go slow and be careful because the car had been apart so long. In the end I managed to get the car running again for 2 events at the end of the 2020 season. Both events turned out to be extremely tight, low speed courses. One so much so that my co-driver decided the course just wasn't fun and didn't bother with the last run.

These events showed that re-assembly went well and there were no major issues on that front, but also failed to really stress the car. It's possible that speeds on these two courses never exceeded 55mph. So when I put the car away at the end of 2020 it seemed like all was well. Unfortunately this was not true. 

The oiling solution had been supplied by Dynamic Racing Solutions who built the engine, and they claim they had used it successfully on two track cars. They are stand up folks who have a solid reputation on Lotus Talk forums, and field mid pack or better cars for professional TC Series races, so I don't doubt that this is true. But as road racers are often amusingly keen to point out autocross is not road racing. 

Road racing has hard stops no doubt, and they pull plenty of sideways G's too... but the transitions between those actions are smoother and less violent most of the time. Also road racers rarely hit the rev limiter or shift as soon as they do. Autocrossers do so regularly, and may ride the limiter, because we just don't have time to be shifting up and then back down unless there's a LOT of rev limiter. For anything less than about 1.5-2 seconds of rev limiter shifting is slower for autocross.

First event 2021 had a much more typical course. It was clockwise and the run through the small runway was mostly the type of sweeping transitions my car excels at. Because of my massive tires and big wing/splitter, after the initial slalom I found I was able to just keep the pedal down, and I touched the rev limiter just before the braking zone. I stabbed the brakes bled just enough speed and had an absolutely fabulous run through the sweeper onto the main run way, exiting hard on the gas. THIS was what I had built the car for and it took off like a rocket and quickly found the rev limiter again, this time for something close to the 2 seconds that would suggest maybe shifting is profitable. I managed appropriate braking for entering the slalom after the faster section...

Up until this point I was in Nirvana. Somehow I had more or less nailed the course so far on my first run and everything felt just GREAT. I can still remember that joy. It was that good. 

I entered the slalom with maybe just a tiny bit too much speed for the hard back side entry, but still basically it went well, and soon I went to add more speed... But then, the bottom fell out of my world. The car lagged and slowed rather than accelerated. I was momentarily confused. It felt like fuel starve, I wondered if I'd forgotten fuel. But soon it was clear something was wrong. 

I limped back to grid with the car actually threatening to stall on me at one point but then seeming to smooth out a bit about the time I got to the finish... I coasted back gently and talked it over with my co-driver. I decided to take it back to the trailer, hook up the computer and see what I could see. As I pulled out of my grid slot I heard a "clack clack clack" sound that I had never heard before. I quickly found it to be repeatable any time I pushed the engine to 2krpm, I quickly realized that it could pretty much only be one thing. I coasted up to the trailer ramp and shut it off. Friends helped me push it onto the trailer. 

My new engine had rod knock.

Data from the ECU showed that the clanking of the rods triggered the engine knock protection, and this very likely prevented me from throwing a rod through the side of the block entirely. If such a thing had happened on the exhaust side of the block, fire and total loss would have been possible. Hooray for good knock sensors and sensible ECU protection routines provided by Cohesion Motorsports!

The combination of working fine in slow courses, and failing bearings after hard brake / turn / accel / limiter pointed straight at the oiling system. Removing the pan I found that though 3/4 of the baffling had been retained there were some gaps where the 4th side had been removed probably allowing some oil to escape along the sides. Then I went back and watched one of my earlier videos and right at the end after the stop into the finish I heard a now way too familiar sound... 

Just a brief second of rod knock sound there and at low speed, probably nearly harmless as such aside from some minor wear acceleration, but a harbinger of the disaster to come. Not having heard it before I didn't recognize it in 2020. 

As described above, I would have broke hard and then accelerated to 9250 rpm immediately, so that knock would have arrived just as I got to around 8-9krpm... no good. A track car would have been turning, but usually waiting slightly before feeding in the power exiting a turn. Plus the track car would have had a shift point in there to bring the revs back down. What we call a sweeper in Autocross is a crazy sharp hairpin on a track. The oil would have sloshed forward, and then immediately leftwards with the motor working hard/fast to redline without oil and without pause.

My brand new race engine that only lasted for about 20 minutes... not funny at all.

The Season that Never Was: Feb - May

In addition to its other more horrific effects, the pandemic also makes for really boring racing blogs. This year was originally supposed to be THE year. as in THE YEAR.... I finally went all in, got the built motor I've wanted for this car since about 2012 .... 

• Brand new OEM block (finally ditching the one my former mechanic nearly destroyed)
• 14:1 Cosworth pistons
• Carillo rods
• Custom DRS spec Supertech valves
• Supertech springs
• Supertech Ti Retainers
• Micropolished timing gears
• ARP head/main bolts
• Daily Engineering external wet sump oil pump
• Ferrea roller rockers
• Piper Stage 3 cams (retained from previous)
• built by Dynamic Racing Solutions a shop with a strong history of successful high RPM normally aspirated 2zz race motors.

This should be sufficient to allow my car to run at 9200 rpm safely, restoring (and slightly enhancing) the top speed in 2nd gear which had been lost with the move to a 4.8 final drive.

It arrived in early February, seemingly with enough time to swap it in and get it tuned. By Mid-March it was clear that the realities of the world at large were going to completely prevent racing for the near term. All events were canceled until further notice. This was a real downer, and I found myself unmotivated to continue for a while. By May things were still in a state shown in this video my wife shot:

Things in progress at the time were:  

1. Swap in full race motor built by DRS Motorsport
2. Refresh as many coolant hoses as possible, including heater hoses
3. Remove evaporator, dryer etc remnants of AC system
4. Upgrade to all aluminum radiator
5. Refresh the steering rack. (it had developed some clunking, usually a symptom of nylon bushings wearing out.
6. Add Oil Pressure gauge

I've started making progress again, so in the next post I'll bring things up to date with the current state of affairs.

CAR-VID '19

Pardon the irresistible pun of questionable taste... 😁  While we're all sitting home looking for ways to entertain ourselves, here's 2 minutes of entertainment from the last race in which I drove the car (in 2019 hence the title)

First up, me in my 3rd run of the morning... In the afternoon I fooled around with shifting to third with results not really worth watching, so this wound up being my best time of the day.

Sadly it was not actually clean, still not clear what cone I hit, but probably the slalom (where I was getting late, and I hit cones on other runs). Overall, not that great of a drive. There are also several points where I turn in early and have to correct. I'll blame the tires getting warm and sticking better... yeah that's it... riiiightt... (of course that doesn't excuse being chronically late through most of the course) Also, I count 8 seconds of rev-limiter in a 45 second course... so that's limiting me as well.

Next Up, Justin and Melissa in the car, Justin went on to grab a top-10 pax later that day. Best part of this are the comments at the end which entirely capture how much fun this car is and why I love to drive it. It never wears thin, it's always that much fun.

Just for Fun

I remembered these videos again and suddenly wanted to watch them. I had to spend several minutes searching the series of inter tubes until I found them. They are classics (in my mind at least) so to avoid having to searching for them again I'll share them with all of you. (I did not make these, credit goes to the owners on YouTube!) Please go like/subscribe there!

And I'm sure you can guess how that turned out... but wait you don't have to! Here's part 2

He said drive flat out? That sounds familliar... Ah now I understand! his dad is into track days... he's famous too!

New Heights, and New DIY

Once again, I've been slacking on the blogging, but as you will see on the standings page, the season has been progressing, and I've got a co-driver who's giving me some solid competition. The first few events were Freezing, Soaked and Soaked, so I pretty much lacked anything inspiring to blog about anyway. I went to the new Jersy Pro Solo, and had not really found my stride after missing most of 2017 in my car and getting almost nothing but rain events in the early season. I just wasn't getting slip angle like I should, and I was quite dirty, hitting cones or red-lighting on many of my runs as well. As will happen at the national level, if you aren't in top form you're at the bottom of the standings...

Some how I didn't feel eager to write about that either...

However, the weather improved, and satisfactory driving has finally come to pass. I've now managed to regain my prior level of driving from 2016, and in event #5, I finally found a new high point. One of the tough things about evaluating one's performance in autocross is that all measures are relative and the reference point is constantly in motion. To make a sane evaluation one has to make some assumptions. My first assumption is that the top drivers in our region are not getting slower. Given our region's consistent 6-7 national champions the last 3 years this seems reasonable.

While I'm comfortable saying that the top of the heap is still at a high altitude, there are some other things that clearly have changed. Firstly our region has had a buble of talented drivers mature in the last 2 years. I'd not want to argue that any of them have really pushed the top of the pax standings up yet in the way that Billy Davis did in 2015 and 2017, but they have definitely crowded the top. In 2016 I had 3 events where I was 1.5s off top pax, which resulted in 15th, 10th and 15th in overall pax. This year at the last 2 events, 1.5s from top pax is worth 20th and 19th... So making the top 10 or top 20 is significantly harder than it was 2 years ago.

Secondly, pax for the SSM class has been hit harder than any others besides AM, BM and CSP. BM/CSP and SSM are all almost a full percentage point harder than 2016 relative to the other classes. This translates into about .44 seconds tougher pax on a 60 second (raw) course. I've made a spread sheet here that shows that while all pax factors (other than AM) went down, the average pax factor went down much slower for SSM. This probably has something to do with the last 3 champions Thorne, Glagola and Wilcox all hanging out in the top of pax at far too many national events...

With that in mind, the 20th in pax result that had me 1.5 seconds off of top pax in event 5 Looks a lot like what used to get a top 10 in 2016. And my 2.3 seconds off of top pax in event 6 looks a lot like a top 20 in 2016 even though it now shows as 30th. Kudos to my co-driver Daryl, who kept the car in the top 20 at event 6 with his 19th in pax. For 2 events running my car has been 2nd fastest car with doors. Here's a video of my 2nd fastest run from event 5, which is probably faster everywhere except the start where I forget to shift like an idiot... Sadly I didn't remember to turn on the camera for the fastest run.

Additionally, I've also done some more maintenance/improvement on the car. Another factor in my bad results at the New Jersey Pro solo was epic levels of wheel hop on my launches on day 2 when the rubber was creating a lot more traction. A lot of exhaust bounce had also been noted at Devens, and the result was too much for my front motor mount to take.

The alignment was checked and it was almost 6mm toe in, probably due to bushing migration. Soft bushings, lots of toe-in and enormous race tires are a recipe for massive wheel hop. There was only one conclusion, tired old plastic/rubber A-arm bushings had to go. I replaced them with Monoball metal/teflon spherical bearings from Inokinetic. Since this seemed like an interesting job, I also made a DIY video for it:

The results? FABULOUS. Both me and my co-driver Daryl noticed improvement in the predictability of the back end when rotating it around a corner, and improvement in braking. The first was expected and the second was a nice surprise. My rear suspension had probably become so floppy that the ABS probably triggered earlier. I also suspect this slop negated all rear braking once it triggered by wagging the A-arms back and forth with the ABS pulses. The start for this course did not lend itself to hard launches, and due to the late date of it's discovery I had to continue with the above mount after Ryan welded the split for me. Next event we will be doing full launches if the course allows it and then I expect to find that the wheel hop has also improved.

Transmission Oil

Transmission oil is easy to forget about. This winter I realized that I probably had let mine go a little longer than I should have. It probably should be changed at least once a season on a car like mine. My car sees 20 autocross races a year at an average of 8 runs per event and almost a mile per run.

That's not an official service interval of course. There are no "official" numbers for racing since everything "depends" on the duration, level and type of racing. On a race car, nearly every bit of maintenance needs to be done a LOT more often than with street driving. So for another example I change my oil about once every 6 auto crosses, which works out to about 3-4 times a year, or in terms of mileage, about once every 40-50 miles of racing... Similar to changing it after every 1-2 track days.

Fluids are cheap the parts they lubricate are expensive! Buy good fluids often, because that's much better than buying cam shafts, engines or transmissions! Also,  you never miss a race because you had to do an oil change... failed parts however frequently cause missed or aborted racing.

For something new this year, I decided to try my hand at vlogging and produced a video that might be helpful for those who want to avoid a trip to the mechanic, save some money and change their own transmission oil.

This is not a difficult job, but of course I am not a trained mechanic, and you should use your own caution and do your own research before attempting any of this on your car (especially if it's not a lotus!) If you see something I could do better, leave a comment on this page or on the video.

Some additional commentary and advice here: http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f25/transmission-oil-change-445914/

Devens Tour 2017

With the ongoing saga of my engine upgrades, I am in Nick's STR car again (Thanks Nick!), but this time we're on Justin's 5 year old Hoosier A6 tires (Thanks Justin!). Day 1 was cool and cloudy, but generally dry. The weather just barely misted a little bit on us for the last run. Sadly Panda being driven by Todd and Stephanie was not working well, and had one less piston by the end of the day. Also, though a couple tenths faster, on his best run, Nick was dirty. I managed to take advantage with what I consider my best run in his car thus far (still some spots to improve of course), and I leapt out to a 1.8 second lead going into the second day.

As is typical for cool mornings on prehistoric Hoosiers, my first run of the day was a mess, but helped me sort out what to do where. The sun came out, things began to warm up, and I dropped a second on my next run, with clear room for improvement. I was too deep on every major corner, too slow in slalom 2, and got the car out of sorts at the start of the taxiway, making that entirely too sloppy.  Unfortunately, I seem to have nicked a cone, probably at the box on the taxiway.

The raw time on run two would have been plenty good to nail down the third place trophy. With warmer tires and so many easily fixable mistakes on that time, I felt quite confident that I'd have no problem fixing things up on my third run.

But this is racing, nothing is a sure thing. Yesterday Stephanie's car blew up on her, on Sunday she had a nice 59.1 run to jump into 3rd by 0.33 sec. Still easy for me to beat given my day 1 lead, warmer tires and a previous raw time 0.7s faster than I needed. None the less, the pressure was on... Here's the video of my final run. I think it speaks for itself...

And of course if I had had my actual SSM car...

Busy Summer!

I've had almost no time to maintain this blog lately. 50 hours has become my easy week, with multiple recent 70 hour weeks. However, I have manged (just barely) to sustain racing as well. The good news is that things have been improving nicely through the season. Highlights since the last blog entry...

TLDR; 

Won Jeff Gordon Trophy,  got top 10 at NER, FTD @ BMW, went to a pro solo,  Did well at other events, video of top ten run here.

SCCA 6/19 (Points Event #4)

This event was a redux of the first event's co-drive with Brian Levesque. Every thing about this event was fabulous. The course was fun and fast, Brian's advice was helpful and the car was working well. Brian drove the car to 6th in PAX finally providing evidence that the car is solidly capable of a top 10 finish.  (Ben took it to a 9th previously, but 9th and 10th are the bottom edge, and one can never know if it was a fluke or not, perhaps something only Ben can achieve...). Both Ben and Brian are fabulous drivers, but at 6th however, at least half the "regulars" in the top 10 had to have screwed up for it to be a fluke. I also had a very good result, with my best SCCA finish to date. 1.5 Seconds off of top PAX for 15th in overall PAX.

NE-SVT 7/16

Another excellent event, I managed to eventually find the 2nd fastest time of the day. The only car I couldn't catch was an E-modified Lotus 7 with a v6 engine... So I was the fastest production car of the day, but not quite able to truely say "FTD". Still, a crazy fun event. I got a second place prize shirt that says "Autocross, where the difference between winning and loosing can be 0.001."

SCCA 7/17 (Points Event #5, Racing against Leukemia)

This was a day of mixed results. My Co driver was Jeff Seeger who had driven last year, but this was his first time on the new wider tires. My results for the main competition were rather blah, a second or so off of the previous SCCA event, which punted me from 15th to 50th in PAX!! Holy stiff competition Batman! But that's just life in NER :). As nice as the previous course was, the course at this event unfortunately had one spot that really hit a weak spot in my setup. The big turn into the bus-stop 200 degree left-hander had it's braking zone on a series of bumpy cracks, and this set off my ABS on all but 2 runs. One of my worse runs was when it unexpectedly didn't ABS and I wound up stopping way too early and having to let off and re-brake (which then of course did proceed to activate the ABS and take me long anyway...).

As it turned out I was one of the top 4 fund raisers for the Race Against Leukemia again (other folks need to up their game!), so I got to race for the Jeff Gordon challenge for a second year in a row. This time I got to race first against Bob Lang, who was driving a B Modified formula car. So once again formula car vs Lotus (PAX/RTP time scoring). My run started with a big ABS and overshoot at the troublesome spot and an additional mistake on the main run way, probably with a cone or two. I knew I probably blew it, but I just kept going, stayed on course, and finished strong anyway. Always finish the race. As I began to pack up my stuff disconsolately I was amazed to learn that Bob had gone off course! ... ALWAYS finish the race. Never give up.

Next up was someone in an Street class car who's name I have unfortunately lost track of, but my vague memory is that he and his previous opponent were good fund raisers, but fairly new to the sport. None the less, I resolved that I was NOT going to screw up this run... And I did finally put down a fairly decent run, which was faster than my fastest run of the day in class competition. The result: I won! So for a year I get to keep this huge trophy on my mantle! 

Wilmington Summer Pro Solo

I had originally hoped to get my car down to this event, but transport options turned out to be unavailable. So, I wound up getting my first taste of Pro Solo competition in Sam's STS Honda CRX. It was a lot of fun, but Given that it was FWD (not RWD), street tire (not Hoosier), on concrete (not asphalt), with no abs (vs abs in my car)... I had a bit of trouble getting a handle on it, so the big accomplishments were to A) actually get my butt out to a pro solo, and B) not screw up any of the starts ( I had 3 starts in the .5xx 6 starts in the .6xx range and no red lights). We won't talk about my times... You can go look those up if you feel a strong need to be underwhelmed :)

BMW club 8/6 

Having just spent a bunch of time fudging around on a totally foreign setup I figured it would be a good idea to get re-acquainted with my car. The day was fabulous, and I discovered that I really really like Hoosiers better than street tires... so much so that I scored my first ever FTD (fastest time of the day). This was the real deal. I actually went faster than everyone else, within competition runs, and no * or "but" about it.

SCCA 8/7 (points Event #6)

I went into this one with a new motto of "no slow runs." This is an exhortation to myself to not allow my self an early safety run, or "motor course walk" but to go full tilt from the start. I did my best to put up a decent time in the first 3 and wound up 2.8 off of top PAX at the half way mark. On my first run of the afternoon I found 1.5 seconds which would have been enough to replicate my 15th place finish from 6/19, except somewhere I apparently acquired a mystery cone. I never found out where, but the next run was only 1.0 second pick up, and top PAX moved by .9 sec, so I wound up 2.7 sec back from top PAX, and 24th place. This was, however, good enough to win the class.

Renegade 8/13

Had a very good day, and came very very close (again) to beating Sam Creasy on PAX, but coned it away. Sam has been hard to beat because he reliably puts up consistently decent runs. I clearly can run faster, but I have trouble doing so consistently. This time my fastest run was 69.3 seconds and my second fastest was 68.1 + 1 cone... for a net time of 70.1. Again I fell victim to a mystery cone that I probably just barely based. Without that cone, I would have been almost a second ahead of Sam and would have had a second "true" FTD ... and Renegade is a much harder club than BMW. But a cone there was. FTD there was not. Such is autocross. Close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades.

SCCA 8/28 (Points Event #7)

Absolutely picture perfect day for Autox. Mid 80's not too humid, tires worked well and not too hot. Also was on sticker A7's which Alan was helping me scrub in. First run was trash, the release compound was not fully scrubbed off. Second run, I *was* looking ahead, but I picked up the wrong cone, and my line was all wrong resulting in massive Conage. Third run I was thinking about not making the same mistake, and made another mistake on the element before, not paying attention to the present, I tried to drive the taxiway exit in a similar fashion to the last 3 taxiway exits in that direction... but brake late and sweep was not the recipe for this one and I spun. 11 cones in the morning. Stupid mental mistakes.

In the afternoon I finally settled in, had a mediocre first run, and then a really good second run. The third run I actually lost grip in the rear in front of the tower and drove really well thereafter. I made up the lost time and was slightly ahead of the previous run, but got slightly late in the finish, and then the car pushed under acceleration. I was headed straight for the outside row of cones in the finish, and that could damage the car if I center-punched them all. So I tried to lift just a bit to get my nose inside the cone wall, and I did, but unfortunately that was also enough to spin the car. But standing on my 2nd afternoon run I won the class by 0.1 seconds and got my first top 10 finish at NER. Granted it was on a day with 132 registrants, and panda was breaking. My comments about 9th/10th being a possible fluke apply here too, but I did beat every raw time Panda did put up before it broke, so it's still a pretty good day.

Here are videos of Alan an my best runs:

Going into this event, I had a virtual lock on SSM class because none of the other competitors put in a consistent effort this year. This leaves me extremely likely to get a jacket that says NER class champion, but with the first half of the year having been a string of 2nd places, I've been feeling like it's the jacket I didn't want... one for attendance only. With that in mind, I've been pretty intent on showing some sort of improvement in my PAX rankings. In 2014 when I missed the season championship by 0.051 seconds, the competition for season PAX was not nearly as strong as this year. If I equal or exceed my 19th place finish from that year, I will feel like I have earned the jacket anyway. This result, a 96.82 (out of 100 possible) in PAX points definitely helps with that. I should now move up from 24th to something like 20th. One more really good day so I can shed my 92.80 and gain another 3-4 points will probably do the trick. Definitely looking forward to Leafy's return next year.

Season Under Way

All the pent up heat from cold weather this spring apparently got unleashed on us in one blast last Saturday. The second Renegade Miata event was the polar opposite of the first. The first was 50 degrees and windy, This one was 95 degrees and sweltering. Someone apparently determined that the pavement was 130 degrees in the sun. Tires were being sprayed BEFORE the first run. It was HOT. However, my car is generally a good car to have in hot weather with it's monster tires and light weight. Cold weather is a challenge, so as uncomfortable as the heat was, it was in some ways a very welcome change. I very much was interested to see how my car performed in such heat. The result was I managed to get a nice full day of runs where the only thing I needed to worry about was spraying the tires enough and driving. Mostly the tires were ok, though the 4th run of the morning they seemed to overheat, and gave out on me in a fast section. (my liberal application of throttle was also possibly to blame, but it worked the run before more or less). But overall, it was possible to manage the heat with spray water. I had fun, and by the end of the day I began to really feel like I understood the car again and was beginning to push it. My best time of the day got me something like the 5th raw time and while still rough in spots again, looked something like real autocross...

The very next day was the 3rd SCCA event, and the weather had evidently expended all of it's pent up heat, and was now 60 degrees and cloudy all day. Still better than anything mentioned in the last post, but not exactly warm either. The day went fairly well and I feel like I made some further progress getting comfortable with the car, finishing on 2 fast clean runs. Bob, my Co driver also seems to be settling in and learning the car. Here are our fastest two runs:

The data isn't showing as high of a G forces as I had hoped I would get with the new wheels, so soon I'll be looking to suspension setup to try to find more grip. On this particular day I turned out to be the fastest driver. Comparison of our two best runs shows he was faster in some parts early, but i was even faster in the final half of the run.

Finally a comparison of my best two runs...

Sector times seem to indicate I could easily have had another 0.75 sec, and perhaps even a full second without doing anything particularly new. So my coulda-woulda-shoulda time is something like 61.3 or so, which would have been 22ish in pax, and made my car the 3rd fastest vehicle (with doors) at the event. That's the type of result I want to become "ok" for me by the end of this year, with "good" being well into the top 20. Around here "well into the top 20" means putting at least a few nationally competitive folks behind me on their off days. That's the goal at least :)... it's a tough crowd and we've been gaining young talent in the last couple years.  But really, that's normal, so I just have to drive it!

A chilly start

This year started with very cold early April and early may weather. The first event was so cold I had to cancel a registration for the first time in years. Thus my very first time out on the new setup was an SCCA points event. Overall the spring has been less than kind to autocrossers. My experience so far has been:

• NE-SVT #1: Registration filled up, was very cold anyway...
• BSCC #1: 28 degrees F in morning forcasted, canceled. Snowed the day before
• SCCA #1: Cool, dry, tweaking setup & trying to remember how to drive, but on a completely different feel... only 4 runs dsq due to sound 
• Renegade #1 Cool, dry, slow tight course, car felt very loose 
• SCCA #2: Cold, Rain AM, one Dry run in cool conditions afternoon, car felt better than previous (faster course? Aero helped by use of soft top?) 
• TC USA #1: Cold, Rain AM, PM drying Couple Dry runs 
• NE-SVT #2: Cool, Rain AM, Dry Afternoon, pavement warming quickly, first really good weather but only 3 dry runs b/c tires corded. 
• NCR-Porsche #1: Cool, but dry and partly cloudy. High in mid 60's.

At the first SCCA event, My co-driver Brian was helpful in spotting the first issue to crop up, which was my front shock settings needed to soften a little. The initial turn in had gone numb probably from the increased sway bar setting. This was then followed by mid corner over steer. The net effect was that one turned in and began to compensate for under steer and just as you started to get that under control the car quickly went into mid-corner over steer. This wasn't actually disastrous, and could be caught, but it generally cost speed and distracted one from focusing on the line.  With changes we got it to the point where the oversteer was consistent and predictable, and thus more driveable. Then we got Disqualified for violating sound.

Subsequent testing with a sound meter in the following week (Thanks Jeff!) led to the belief that putting the closed end on the super trap would solve what appeared to be a highly directional exhaust sound problem. So far there have been no subsequent violations, but as noted above, the events have been less than ideal and rarely allowed me to fully utilize the car.

At the first Renegade event the weather was cold, and the course was very tight, rarely allowing speeds much above 45mph. In these conditions with no soft-top, the car was very loose and not very confidence inspiring. Ben drove my car and although he managed to shave over 4 seconds off my times, he concluded that the car was "just too loose" and lacked the "balanced feel" that it had last year.

After that things went wet on me. The next 3 events all rained for at least half the event. There were dry moments however, and interestingly the car felt more predictable than at the renegade event, perhaps this is because the rain had caused me to put the soft top on, and this decreased the turbulence, and improved the performance of the wing. The best conditions thus far came at the end of the SVT event, whereupon my tires promptly corded... (big sigh).

Luckily I had already ordered replacements and so I showed up at NCR porsche with brand new sticker Hoosier A7 tires. It took a couple runs to get them scrubbed in, and I started to get a feel for it by the final morning run but all runs were still dirty. Finally in the afternoon, I got what I had been waiting so long for a full afternoon on consistent tires with consistent conditions. First I equaled my fastest run with a clean time, then improved with cones then got a clean time a couple seconds faster and finally on my last run set a GOOD time, that would have been FTD for production automobiles, except I slightly clipped a cone with my left tire. It wasn't dramatic, but I did hear it and it totally counts, but it's also probably worth no more than a tenth or two, so while I had to settle for 5th raw time, 3rd among cars with doors. 

Like LSD man...

Ok sorry for the goofy title, I couldn't resist. So after doing all the work of pulling out the transmission, it became very clear that I want to minimize the number of times I do this. It's sort of fun in a way, but it really does take a lot of time and effort. So besides replacing the tattered, clutch that was probably a hairs breadth from grendading like this one:

The flywheel, and the Limited Slip Differential (LSD) were also installed. Basically, as a consultant, my time can be converted to money fairly readily and long term it's cheaper to do it all at once.

The flywheel is the Fidanza Aluminum flywheel, which shaves 6.8lbs off (about 45%) the stock. The clutch plate itself is only an ounce or two lighter, but it has less mass near the edges, and the clutch plate cover and pressure plate is a pound less, so the total weight savings should be about 8lbs of rotational weight. 

The LSD will offset that somewhat, adding back a couple pounds or so, but the diameter of the added rotational parts will be small, so perhaps 5-6 lbs off the car, and even more reduction in rotational inertia. PLUS power will now be available in the corners!

Only one problem... with great power comes great responsibility. It turns out that a lot of the time I've not been very gentle with the throttle. The LSD exposes this flaw in my driving in 2 ways. First, if lateral grip is not at maximum, but the car is turning, when the LSD locks up, this results in power only on the outside wheel (since the axel has become solid the inside wheel with less weight and traveling a different radius must slip). That tends to torque steer the car into the turn. This is potentially useful, but also throws you off if you are not used to it. Second, if you are at the limit of lateral grip, adding power now causes the OUTSIDE rear wheel to slip... and that will tend to make the car want to spin.

So while the LSD unlocks a new level of potential speed, the open diff will tend to save you from yourself, and is slightly easier to drive. My first event on the new LSD was quite disappointing because I was discovering that my throttle work needed work. After about 5 events, now I'm getting used to it and learning to ease onto the throttle and not be on/off the throttle as violently, and may just be beginning to reap the benefits of the additional speed in the corners.

Other notes on the changes I made... the lighter flywheel seems to make it slightly harder to get the car to actually turn over, which puts my present battery solution right on the very hairy edge... I probably need to think about setting up a cold weather jump system to ease the wear and tear on my starter when I have to leave for a race in the early AM. Mostly I just need an easy way to get jumper pack clamps on the battery.... without risking a short. The present space is pretty tight.

Stay Cool FTW

When one gets a run of continual improvement going it has a sort of magic of it's own. Each time out there is the dual hope that it will continue, and fear that the bubble will burst, and the streak will be broken. I have a streak of improvements with each event this year, and as a result I am already bursting through my wildest expectations at the beginning of the year.

Two events ago, I went into the event, more or less having achieved my goals for the year, with several events putting me in the top 20-25% already. Then I ran 22nd of 139, just one place (and 0.091s) short of my top 15% stretch goal. It was fabulous, but how on earth could I top that? How do I keep the streak going?

Well, my tires were mostly toast, ending the last event at 120 runs and 138 after the last renegade event. The 70 run tires I took off just before the tour went back on. Changing setup and car balance during the season can be disastrous, if the car behaves different and you can't adapt, cones and slow times will often result. But, I was facing elimination in the points race. If I lost, I would be mathematically eliminated and the final event of the year would amount to a test and tune/fun runs. With this in mind, I decided to fix the front splitter.

Over the course of the season, the plywood splitter I had added had become warped. Attached at the front and the back with foam to seal the air in the middle, it the middle was bowing downward, and the car had started to push. Both Ben and Brian remarked on it, and I felt it too.

This warping is a result of my insistence on not attaching the splitter to the fiberglass. Attaching to the frame in the back with supports on the front was fine when I was using a carbon fiber splitter, but not so fine with plywood, especially after it got wet.  I needed a stiffener. I didn't want to add more aluminum angle along the bottom. The front already scrapes on the occasional curb cut if I'm not ultra careful about where I drive. Adding something that hangs down further would not work, and of course I always want to minimize the weight. Thin, light and stiff made me think Carbon Fiber. I found some economy 5mm 6"x30"  carbon fiber for under $100. 5mm CF is rock solid. When I got it I could barely flex it at all. So I applied that along the top, eliminating the aluminum bar that hung down in the middle previously

I probably gained a few ounces, but I only have the "feel" of it since I forgot to actually weigh it. In any event it worked marvelously...

Much straighter, much tighter to the bottom of the car. But would it mess up my driving, or help it?

SCCA points Event #8 was a cool, blustery day to start, Morning runs for the 3rd run group were in the low to mid 60's. My first run was messy and slow. On my second run I spun in a slalom, but I got a good practice run at the finish. Both Dan and I noted that the car felt different and that the push was reduced, or maybe gone. Sounds like a disaster in the making...

BUT here's where the seat time this year paid off. I didn't panic. Instead I set about trying to figure out how to adjust my driving. I said to myself... "If it's not pushing at high speed anymore, that means I should be able to nail the sweeper hard. I need to set that element up so I can take advantage" and I also said to myself, "I need to be extra careful on my entries to the slaloms...." My 3rd run of the morning was faster and clean... and came in just 0.4 sec behind Leafy, whom I needed to beat to remain in the hunt for a season championship.

While I was fairly happy with the first part of my 3rd run, I knew that the finish had been a near disaster. I had become late on the angled walloms, and then been forced to focus on controlling the car rather than putting power down at the finish. I only just barely touched the rev limiter at the finish line. When I checked the numbers, my run was fairly decent. After the rest of the morning runs finished. I was 2.8 seconds off top pax, which usually equates to a top 30 finish. But of course folks will find time in the afternoon, so I need to find time as well. I said to my co-driver Dan, "I need to put the finish of my 2nd run on the first 3/4 of my 3rd run."

Then came the afternoon runs... Temps were up by about 5-10 degrees. The tire blankets were not needed, but it was still cool with somewhat less wind. On my first run, I more or less did what I set out to do. I pasted together the front of run 3 with the end of run 2, and managed to find half a second, enough to put me in the lead vs Leafy's morning time. But I knew that Leafy would likely find time too. Reviewing the run in my head, I decided that I still wasn't working the first part of the course hard enough.

On my second run of the afternoon I found another .8 seconds which firmly cemented my lead, but I FORGOT to turn on video! DOH!! However SoloStorm did start it's data logging, so here's a video of my 3rd run of the afternoon which was as fast or faster than my fastest until I botched the finish (if you ignore the cone). Overlayed on that video is a video of the solostorm comparison playback with my fast run (run 5). The paragraph that follows is my from memory description of run 5 (not 6 which you see in the video)

So here's my "in-head video" of run 5, (the green line on the above video):

I made a more agressive start and it felt good but I slightly under broke in the turn before the big sweeper, so my sweeper was a tad slow, however I kept my foot in and built good speed, barely taping the breaks to get through the following slalom. As I did so, I realized I probably didn't even need to touch the brakes, and I felt I slightly over broke on the turn towards the taxiway too. As those thought flitted by, I immediately said to myself, well if I'm a little slow, I should be able to get a good turn onto the taxiway to compensate. I remember feeling that I did a good job of the turn, but didn't really get on the gas until the end of the taxiway. The surge of power as the cams kicked in at the end of the taxiway reminded me of some other times I had overshot breaking points, so I laid into the breaks as hard as I could, and then let off and just turned the wheel where I needed to and prayed it stuck. It did stick, but just barely. The back end slid just a tad and then hooked back up, putting me in a pretty good position entering the main runway. Even as I was noticing this, I found myself thinking "GREAT, lets take advantage of this!" and I accelerated out of the turn as hard as I could. This actually put me just slightly shallow on my entry to the first slalom on the runway, but I realized I was not getting a great entry and with a quick stab to the breaks managed to rotate the car and get in half way decently anyway. I knew I was immediately facing a cut back across the runway at the end of the slalom, so I only fed minimal throttle to avoid making that turn too difficult. This worked well, and I got a more comfortable entry into the second slalom. With a good position on the second slalom I was able to be on the accelerator at the cone before the end of the slalom and gained a lot of speed through the slanted six pack. Much like the exit from the taxiway, this left me slightly shallow and I again compensated with a stab of the breaks. Then through the walloms I worked on being patient and getting ahead of the cones in preparation for the finish. I was able to mash on the accelerator and I knew I was going to be all over the rev limiter so I tried to go to third and missed (oops).  As I crossed the line, I wasn't quite sure how I had done, it felt clean and fast, but I'd been so busy thinking and adjusting through the run I wasn't sure. When the display read 50.9 I was shocked and elated, and prayed it was clean, which it was.

In retrospect this run was a huge achievement, but not because of the time or the PAX position. It was huge because I had retained focus, and adjusted on the fly effectively. In essence, I had successfully implemented the advice Eric Chiang had given me a year and a half ago. I drove the car as it was on course. I drove based on the feedback the car was sending through the steering and the seat of my pants and by the status that my looking ahead was giving me. A year and a half ago I was falling prey to driving based based on my expectation of the course. Eric had noticed when he road with me that I accelerated in some spots beyond what made sense, and guessed correctly that I had been thinking to myself  "I should be fast here, I should get to the rev-limiter." He said it was a common problem and hard for some people to overcome.

I also felt that the run was a huge achievement in that I went from coning and spinning in a car that was doing new, strange things to running my best time ever within a few runs. Even better, it's easy to see from the above video that there was more time out there 50.4 seems very doable, and that would have been top 10 (just barely)!

Here's my thought on all of this... the big thing that seat time gets you is a familiarity with driving at speed. It brings instant recognition of "Oh crap, I'm getting too fast, brake hard NOW!" (e.g. at the end of the taxiway), and the calm analytical workaround of stabbing the brake to help rotate the car on a less than ideal entry. It allows thoughts about where to go faster next time without becoming disappointed or distracted, and it allows you to find the silver lining when you are slightly slow and just keep driving... I finished that run, my fastest ever, and I didn't have the shakes, I wasn't out of breath. I had remained calm and focused throughout, and that's probably why it was possible. Without that calm, the success of the hard breaking would be wasted on relief that I escaped disaster. Without that calm, the timing of the break stab would likely be early or late doing little good at all.

And as I said in my last post... drive fast, and the points will follow. I won first place and I remain alive (if just barely) in my hunt for a season championship. I think my driving at this event this event was championship level driving, but alas, I was not driving like a champ at the beginning of the year. I have to hope that someone beats Leafy, and I beat them. With a result like today, where I was almost a second ahead, it seems like a possibility, but very very far from a certainty. I'll give it my best, but smarter money is on next year at this point.

I really hope I can keep my cool like that in future runs. The results are waaaay cool :).

Just get faster...

Hi folks, I've been a bit busy and so I haven't gotten around to posting for a couple weeks. I've got a backlog of a couple events but let's start with a review to draw a clearer picture...

This season I started the season saying "Don't worry about points, just get faster and let the points follow" To that end I committed to running 50% more races than last year, finding a co-driver and attending an Evo School. So how's it working out?

The first half of the season went by quick, and my relative pax rating climbed 2 points vs the previous year by July, with the highpoint being the National Match Tour with a .938 (which was also fresh Hoosiers). Seat time and more regular participation had already started to pay off by the time I got to the EVO School.

At the Evo School I was lucky enough to get 20 time National Champion Mark Dadddio as my instructor. He spotted my difficulty easily and I learned a very key lesson about the correct way to look ahead. I also was reminded to be patient in the slow parts. After these lessons one of course looks for signs that they helped...

Since the Evo School, there have been hints of some improvement. The first SCCA race after it, I had a scratch time that would have been a record setter for me... but I had hit a cone, so it didn't count. It was a scratch time only and scratch times just don't really count in the end. What counts is the fastest clean run. Still scratch times are an indication of what is possible with a little more attention to detail...

On the next event I finally had a genuine win over Leafy, and I was 14th in PAX with a (personal) record shattering 0.949 pax rating. However New Hampshire Motor Speedway courses are atypical for our group with only 40% of the normal attendance. Certainly it sounded good, but it's very difficult to figure out how that compares to the regular full length courses at Devens.

Ok so that's the review, now into the new news

The next weekend we were back at Devens, and some solid signs of improvement came through. I placed 22nd in pax, 8 places higher than ever,  and almost scored a second win against Leafy. I came up a quarter second short on my fifth run, but it was pretty clearly my best performance to date at Devens, and to beat me Leafy had to score his highest ever pax rank as well. So he beat me but he had to run his best ever to do it. This is a nice contrast the same mid-august event as last year where I lamented missing the opportunity to catch him when I hit a cone on my single hero run at the end following a spin and a DNF. This time I laid down 2 runs at the end, one within about .25 and the other within .1 but with a cone. This time it wasn't a fluke.

Furthermore, I ended that day on tires that had 120 runs vs tires that had 37 runs the previous year. I probably had a tire advantage last year and did better at a disadvantage this year. The other thing that was encouraging about this event was that it was a difficult course with some tough elements. I can see some folks did worse than usual on it. In the past I used to be one of the ones that fell down on the more difficult courses. This time I did better on the difficult course.

Then, at the end of August, was the next Renegade event. In this event I pushed my scratch times to a new level, but had some cone trouble. I have never before run scratch times let alone clean times as fast as Scruffy in his Porsche GT3 type RS. This time, on tires with 135 runs on them I posted a dirty (+1 cone) time that was only .05 seconds slower than Scruffy's clean runs including the 2 second penalty for the cone. On his very last run scruffy found the extra .9 seconds I was pretty sure he should, and I ended about a second behind him unable to find a fast clean run, but in fun runs I cleaned it up and posted a time more or less equal to his fastest, another first. So Grant usually runs a second faster than scruffy, and my scratch time therefore was (possibly) competitive with Grant on raw times. Grant often has FTD... If I had run clean, and I hadn't handed my car to two super star drivers, I would have had the fastest time of the day. I've never been so close... Brian and Ben are superstar class drivers and so they proved that there was another 1.3 and 1.8 seconds out there respectively vs my scratch times, but again I've never come within 2 seconds of either Ben or Brian before.

So guess what? It's just like the experienced drivers always tell you... seat time, and Evo School pays off. I like the shape of my curve this year...

Now all I have to do is keep it going! As for the points. They came, but not quite enough. I'm in  almost the same position as last year, BUT Leafy's car was in working condition from the start this time, unlike last year where he didn't really get it going until the 4th event and then killed me for the second half. This time, I've stayed close. Theoretically I could still win, but the odds are against me. Perhaps next year... or perhaps not. As long as I drive faster I'm happy!

Let's end with some video...

And now... side by side of Brian and me.... (Damn I wish I had video from Ben too!)

The Results - Part 2

Renegade events are fun/practice events for me. They are a place to try out new stuff, bed in brake pads etc. This is not to say I wasn't trying hard at the previous event, but SCCA is where the proverbial rubber hits the road. This is for the points, the glory and (oh yeah) the fun. At scca you can find out where you really stand vs some of the best drivers in the country. 

At the start of this race I was 9 points back in the season standings. With this being race #5, one more loss and the little red turbo miata would officially be running away with it. The day was beautiful and the first two runs went well, with me jumping out to an early lead. Ominously the fastest scratch time however was set by national trophy winning, Rachel Baker who was driving they little blue smurf of terror (the Keuhl CRX). 

On my 3rd run I ran what seemed to be a faster but clean time. Unfortunately, I will never know how fast because the timing system had had a false finish somewhere and it read 84 seconds… my previous run was a 51.281 so clearly the Timing Monster ate that one. The timing monster was particularly hungry because it evidently ate times for 11 other people as well. It was decided that the dozen or so of us would get an extra run in the afternoon. 

My first run of the afternoon went really well and I set what would become my fastest time, 50.564 seconds.

The next run had a 50.026, and was dirty.

Then I got a 50.643 that was marked as off course, but I can’t find it in the video… can you?

But the run wasn’t fast enough anyway so I didn’t argue. While I was getting called off course for no apparent reason, Rachel finally had a run that was both fast and clean, 49.833 which gave her the win. I had one chance to top that, and I was having a very fast run, perhaps fast enough but I did something silly. I tried a new line at the last element before the finish, but I didn’t do a good job of it and spun. It occurs to me that with a little presence of mind and and a lot of car control skill (that I probably don’t have) I was very close to executing a clean backwards finish. That would have been fun. But alas it was just a spin. Unfortunately the battery had died in my camera so I don't have that one on video.

But wait… what about the little red miata??

Well it turns out that my primary opponent in the season points race spent the preceding evening helping with the funeral for Brian Keuhl’s civic DX (“smelvin”) that blew it’s motor the previous day (at the renegade event). This meant that he didn’t have time to switch the R6’s off of his wheels and so he and Bryan Mancuso (his co-driver du jour) spent the day driving on tires optimized for track, not autocross. How much difference did this really make? I have no idea. They also had lots and lots of cones, each with only one clean run. 

The final result, Rachel, Me, Bryan, Dan (my co-driver) and then Leafy. Points wise, this is a tremendous boon, as I pick up 4 points in the season standings, and I’m just 2 wins away from a lead, with the possibility of taking a lead into the final race. I remain in a position where I (at least theoretically) can win by taking 1st place repeatedly and I would not need “help” in the form of other people beating Leafy to exaggerate the point differential. I’m still behind, but I hung in there and made progress.

How fast did I really drive? What’s the big picture? Well lets just say it’s complicated. Brian Keuhl had an absolutely fabulous day. He clearly found time that nobody else could find. Perhaps the course was just perfect for his car, perhaps he wasted his “win nationals” run on us local folks. He beat everyone else in the pax standings by a full second. I was 3.9 seconds back of that. Normally I’ve been more like 3 seconds off the pace, and if we consider him an outlier, the next fastest was one of our regular winners, Billy Davis. I was only 2.9015 sends behind him, which would have been my first time inside of 3 seconds from top pax.

So the stats look like this

• 0.918 pax rating, 0.934 vs Billy
• 28th of 149 drivers in pax
• 16th of 149 drivers in raw time
• 11th of 142 production cars (things with fenders)
• 2nd of 6 drivers in SSM

On the strict by the numbers basis it is a small improvement, getting inside the top 30 for the first time, and picking up points vs leafy. Looking inside the numbers a bit, This was one of my best days, and I had a faster run that gave away 0.5 seconds due to a cone. That is qualitatively different than previous best days where I generally was clean on my fastest run, often on run 6. This time I set my fastest time in 3 runs (ignoring the rerun). So the improvement in my driving *might* be a bit more than the numbers show.

The Results - Part 1

In the last post I talked about how I had a great time at the Evo School, and how discovered that I had a serious error in the way I was thinking about looking ahead. I'm very lucky that the Evo School was immediately followed the next week by two races. School is great, epiphanies are wonderful, but the proof is in the pudding. Can I translate what I learned into actual results at a real race?

In this post I'll look at the first event with the Renegade Miata Club: Their events are scored by averaging two fastest runs, then paxing the result and dividing the fastest pax in your category by your pax and multiplying that by 100. This makes the maximum score possible 100 points, which you only get if  you have top pax across two runs for your category.

Summary of Renegade Season thus far:

1. May 3 2014 - 96.310 points, 10th place for Non Mazdas, 13th over all. but Neither Grant Reeve, nor Steven Stephen Lefebvre were there to set the pace
2. May 24 2014 - 88.916 points, 19th place for Non-Mazdas, 33rd over all. Only had one clean run, if I had matched my best run I would have had about 93 points. Grant had Fastest Non-Mazda with 63.854 vs my 66.902 (3 sec off grant)
3. June 21 2014 - 94.464 points, 8th place for Non-Mazdas, 14th over all. My best, 72.2 - Ben sets a low 67 while giving me a ride in my car during fun runs. Grant had FTD with 69.987 (My best in fun runs was 71.1, 1.1 sec off Grant)
4. July 19 2014 - 97.571 points, 8th place for Non-Mazdas, 11th over all. Grant not there, Scruffy FTD @ 64.461, I had 65.097 or about 0.6 second from Fastest Non Mazda. 

So Did Evo School help? Yes I think it did, a little bit. I was close than ever before to  FTD *within* the regular times. Grant Reeve wasn't there, but On the next day I ran 1.3 sec behind him, and if we transplant that differential here, I would have had 95.062 points.

So I was a little faster. The difference is not stunning, but I did hand my car to Ben again, and this time he got a 62.3... only 2.7 seconds faster than my best time (instead of the almost 4 seconds in the previous event). We also had some added Hot Shoes in the class, including Ben in an STS CRX, and Bob Lang, and a totally new face in an STX Acura. So if I place that 95 points into the prior event, I gain 2 places in the Non-Mazdas and would have given me a time for about to 10th overall pax. So non-mazdas, and the field in general might be slightly stronger in this event than the last.

Statistics in racing events are dodgy due to course dependency and mechanical changes/failures etc, and in events with variable attendance it's double dodgy, but I certainly didn't do worse by any measure, and better by some. Another encouraging thing is that this club requires 2 good runs to do well, and one hero run won't do it. I was able to back up my fastest time with another reasonably close time on the preceding run.

As for looking ahead without following specific cones, I think I did better about that in the stuff on the main runway, My eyes did still tend to come down for the tight turns. It's hard to break old habits. It will take some time I think, but I know what it is I'm trying to improve now.

Anyway, here's the video for my the fastest run of the day.

Video with Data!

Yesterday was the Renegade Miata Club's School event which is a great opportunity to test out the car, and my new data/video equpment while getting advice from top drivers in the area. The day was a distinctly New England day... it started dry/cool, moved to wet, cold and sleeting and then the sun came out dried everything up and temps moved up into the 60's. In any case I sorted out some kinks and began to remember what to do when presented with several hundred orange cones, open pavement and a lotus.

Here's a video with data for my second fastest run of the day... 72.6 seconds. I didn't bother to shoot video for fun runs, when I had a 71.1.

The video was shot with a Sony Action Cam, data logged with a Race Capture Pro data logger, and video rendered with Race Render. It all worked great except Race Render doesn't seem to like empty values in the first row of data, so I had to open it as CSV in copy a couple of values from row 2 to row 1 to get it to recognize the columns properly. After that it was a breeze.

I'm very pleased with the quality of data from Race Capture Pro. It has none of the jitter an looks way better in Solo Storm than the MaxQData logger I bought 4 years ago (for more money). Of course in fairness to the MaxQ folks this could be because I actually took the time to mount it on vibration reducing mounts bolted to the dash rather than just slapping on a bit of velcro on it...