2013 in the Mirror

Well, after the Match tour I got busy, and kinda forgot about blogging. Now it's January, and I've got no races and the car is away for the winter, so I might as well do a recap.

The Match Tour was fun and my finish behind Leafy was worrisome but I had a good lead and 4 races to go. Just one race where I came out ahead would seal the deal mathematically. The future looked bright...

Event 6: Racing against Lukemia

This is a funny event. Not funny as in laughing, but funny as in oddball and not much like the other events. For this event we run in a parking lot at NHMS which greatly reduces the length and top speed of the courses. At Devens, we reach highway speeds and each run is about 50-60 seconds. At NHMS, we rarely exceed 45 and average course times are 25-27 seconds for fast cars.

Leafy's car didn't seem to like the course and in the first half of the day I was way ahead and feeling good. My car seemed well suited for it, as I was able to retain 1st gear for the first 60% of the course on account of my 8500rpm 2ZZ engine and gearbox which will do 30-35 in first gear. This meant I always had lots of torque. This was the plus side of things for me. On the down side I was sorting out a suspension change I had added Sector 111's V2 arms and the extra camber made the car turn much more eagerly. On several runs I had to let up a bit to avoid hitting cones after the car turned faster than expected. That and an inadvertent flick of the windshield wipers to the on position probably cost me the day when Leafy Finally figured out how to make his car go fast. On the final run, the extra camber caused me to over-rotate just before the transition to second gear on the final run. I was so busy maintaining control that I forgot to shift. On the back section I, hit the rev limiter, wondered what that unexpected noise was and then proceeded to drift through the final two corners due to the unexpected abundance of torque. Net result Leafy Wins, I take 3rd loosing to Don by 0.076 seconds... That's ok there's 3 more races...

Event 7: Scorched Orange

Back to the usual venue, 60 second courses and 60-70 mph speeds (for cars like min running the extra sticky Hoosier A6 tires). This day was good weather, but in the morning I couldn't seem to find good speed. At this point I don't remember why, but I suspect strongly that I was over-driving and not being smooth since I had some trouble with that this year. The day also had the added complexity that for reasons unknown at the time, I was suddenly failing sound. In the morning I got a warning that I was 90.4 db, perilously close to the limit, and I was asked to make an adjustment. I scrambled for a hose clamp, steel wool and hardware cloth and got it applied.

Despite my efforts it popped off on my first run of the afternoon and I broke the 91 dB limit meaning I had to re-adjust and if I went over again, I was done for the day. After a mad dash and much hasty work with tin snips lent by Brian (thanks!) I made my second run of the afternoon. I didn't break sound and the fix stayed on this time. Problem is, I spun and my previous run had a cone. 2 runs left to find a competitive time. Jenna was leading With Leafy close behind, both way ahead of me.

The next run finally brought my raw time within a second of the lead, but 2 problems... I had a cone, and I broke sound again. Done for the day. Later I found that the metal plug meant to close the hole for a 2nd pre-cat oxygen sensor had fallen out and all the noise was coming from the header before the muffler and my tail pipe remedies had been irrelevant. 3rd place again, but the saving grace was Jena beat Leafy, costing him 3 points so beating Leafy just once was still good enough for the season... with 2 races to go...

Event 8: Attack of the Cones

So once again we were racing at Moore Army Airfield in Ayer Massachusetts, this time in September. I was feeling confident due to an excellent day racing with the Renegade Miata Club. At that event I had been the 7th fastest driver of the day in raw time and on my fun runs I tied the 3rd fastest raw time of Mat Mickle who drives a fully prepared ASP subaru, and drives it quite well. It was also the first day on which I caught Scruffy (who drives a Porsche GT-3 Type RS and had FTD) checking my times.

Event 8 had a wet start but dried out and warmed  up by the second run of the morning. My final run of the morning had a raw time very close to the lead but a cone came along for the ride. In the afternoon my first run fell victim to my inability to recall the layout of the course and I went off course in one of the visually confusing sections. In theory one could read the pointers, but in practice that was difficult at speed and I wound up on the wrong side of several cones. I began to feel the pressure, and on my next run some random bump in the pavement set off my ABS at the hard breaking before the taxiway and there was just no way to recover. I was off course again.

On last run, I got off to a fabulous start and went flying through the first section of the course. I made a small error at the end of the first section which caused me to slide a little just before the turn on to the back stretch, and from there the rest of the run went very well. Leafy was in first with a 62.2, and when I crossed the line the display flashed 61.9! Fist in the air, I drove back to pick up my stuff, but a little voice in the back of my head said... "was it clean?"... and then I thought back to the end of the first section. That little slide would have put me awfully close to a cone. Then I got confirmation from someone standing nearby. The run was dirty. +1 cone. This was really bad news because it left me with no clean fast run. Even with the cone, the final run was my fastest time, putting me in 4th place. Having given up another heap of points, I now had no options. The only way to win the season now was to take first place in the final event...

Event 9: Stirling Moss Championship event. 

The day was uncharacteristically warm for October with temps in the upper 60's. Warm weather is a Boon for me since my car is light and the tires tend to get too cool on cold days. As a point of contrast, I was covering my tires with tire warmers while my opponent was spraying down his. In one way this day marked a sort of milestone. This was the first year I came to the Moss event with a shot of winning the class and becoming eligible to compete in the moss.

However, I also knew from the moment I looked at the registration sheet that my chances were somewhere between slim and none. Leafy, having done the math too had invited an instructor level driver to co-drive with him. If I placed second and Leafy placed 3rd Leafy would still win the season. Totally within the rules, but if you ask me it's kinda lame. I can only assume he was worried I might beat him, and the jacket was more important than the competition. The results of the first three runs were predictable. The hired gun blew away the entire field by 1.8 seconds. On the first two runs I tried too hard and over drove. I had just one do or die run left...

As the final run began, things all seemed to click into place and I ran the front stretch, the runway, and the taxiway the way I do it in my daydreams. It just flowed, and I knew I was running fast. Then came the turn off the taxiway. I remember it crystal clear. I know exactly what happened and why. Eager to get the fastest possible exit from the turn off the taxiway I let off the break slightly earlier than I had before, hoping to just brush past the cone with a little bit of slip to rotate the car. I did this entirely on purpose. It wasn't a bump or a moment of inattention or one of those "why did I do that?" type moves. Unfortunately, although entirely intentional, it turned out to be an error in judgement. The tires didn't hold. I got more rotation than I bargained for. The car slid sideways and the back end started to come around. The car got almost completely sideways and then I caught it and made it around the next cone but my angle was all wrong. I tried to steer away, but I hit the situation was not recoverable, and I took out 2 cones of the subsequent wall. By this point, I was nearly stopped and I knew it was over.  I brought my speed back up to about 80% of race speed and finished the course. My only goal at that point was to not hit more cones and mess up the course for the next guy. Then I saw my time. I was less than 0.4 behind my previous best scratch time.

I'll never know how fast that run might have been, but I'm willing to bet that between getting sideways and nearly stopped and loafing it home I lost at least 2-3 seconds. Maybe more. The hired gun was 3.3 seconds faster than my time on that run. Who knows what might have happened if I had made that turn and remained in control. It was small consolation that by the end of the day in the 3 fun-runs that followed, I came fairly close to Leafy's morning time I did beat Jenna's time for the full day, but the final 3 runs didn't count and so she got the official 2nd place.

Epilogue

Astute readers will notice that many factors contributed to my 4th straight 2nd place in season points. There are emotional errors such as over-driving seeking the win and simple errors in judgment of car control such as the final turn of the final run. There are also some random factors such as the mechanical failure that led to my sound DSQ, and the inadvertent windshield wipers at NHMS. There were also some factors not mentioned above, one was the loss of my co-driver for the second half of the season, and another was the race early in the season where I let Eric Chiang drive my car when his ride broke before he could even get in one run. He took first because he is a much better driver. Those 3 points would have taken a lot of pressure off and if the rest of the season remained unchanged it would have, led to a tiebreaker for season points that I would have won by virtue of more first place finishes. One can also consider the effect of event 2 where I just plain drove like crap. But that's all racing, and if my talents were good enough for a season first place, my times would have been fast enough to overcome those obstacles. A cone here, a tenth there and I come out on top... coulda... woulda... shoulda... but didn't

The history of my second places does not however represent stagnation. The first one was by virtue of attendance and a lack of competition. The second one was by virtue of my car's reliability, more than it's speed or my skill. The third one in 2012 however did involve beating some folks who were actually trying and driving half way decent cars. Similar to this year, in 2012 I developed an early points lead and then lost ground. In 2012, I was mathematically eliminated at the end of event 7.  This year I was a contender through the final event.

This year, I had a few fast runs, one of them winning the first event of the year, but the others marred by cones or mistakes near the end. Reliability and attendance still play a part, but this year unlike previous years the ultimate winner had to work to beat me. And I beat every driver in the field at least once. It's also worth noting that in 2011 I was generally running 5-6 seconds behind the SM national champion car driven by Dave White and PJ Corrales. This year I was usually somewhere around 3-3.5 seconds off their pace. Both cars are somewhat faster machines, than in 2011... so the exact meaning of the decreased gap between me and Dave is unclear but it's definitely not bad.

So now we wait for the 2014 season where the goal will be simple.... Drive faster and cleaner, and try to ignore everything else. I doubt I'll be able to make enough mechanical improvements to catch the SM car's times, but if I can shave another 1-1.5 seconds off that will be a good improvement. Eric Chiang proved that my car can be driven almost as fast as panda (probably about 0.5 seconds on a 60 second course).  The car might be .25 - to .5 seconds faster than when he drove it.

My job for 2014 is to find a big chunk the other 3 seconds... and have at least one race where I get within 2 seconds of the Panda. Another goal is to have at least day where I score above 0.940 pax factor one or hopefully several times. (Eric scored 0.96 when he drove).

Ayer Match Tour 2013 - Day 2

On the second day, the top 32 and top 8 ladies spend the morning feeling cool, and staying cool (except when they are assigned to work the course). They get to watch the rest of us contend in the "last chance qualifier" (LCQ). The LCQ gives you just 2 runs to prove your worth, and after the LCQ is complete the top 16 and 8 randomly selected drivers get to participate in the afternoon festivities.

My first run I was focused on driving a good line. I was relatively smooth with what I felt were nice lines, but evidently I sacrificed a bit too much and didn't push hard enough. I wound up a second slower than the previous. Awaiting my last run of the LCQ, I was haunted by the ghost of last year's final run. Last year I was on a near perfect run that was very fast and was fouled by a missed breaking point resulting in 3 cones.

For my final run I left the line in good shape I beleive I shifted slightly better and gained a little more speed than the previous run. I had been given some advice that perhaps I shouldn't let up on the gas at the end of the starting segment, but as I went into the first hard turn on the course, I could feel that if I didn't lift, the car was going to push and I would be in bad shape for the next element so I lifted to help the car turn in as before.

I carried more speed than ever before around the next element however and made a good entry and exit on the following slalom. This set me up for a good run to the hairpin turn onto the taxiway. I ran hard, braked hard and got the car to turn nicely, but it felt as if I sacrificed a little to much speed. I was not slow, but it felt like it had been a bit better on other runs. I instantly converted that feeling to a conviction that there was absolutely no excuse for me not to have a perfect entry into the next element, and so I ran the taxiway slalom as hard as I could, and close to the cones, quickly getting back up to speed.

My big mission for this final run was to be faster on the section after the taxiway. I broke as late as I dared, turned  and found myself looping a bit wide on the exit from the taxiway but also carrying a lot more speed than before. Since my car is underpowered relative to some of the monsters out there I was not entirely unhappy with this result. I immediately gave it as much gas as possible and I'm sure that although there was still room for improvement I was faster than previous runs.

The other big adjustment I had been struggling with through my previous runs was finding the breaking point at the end of the very fast section after the end of the taxiway. I had chickened out on several earlier runs and applied the breaks too soon. I was determined not to do that this time. Unfortunately I slightly overshot and the car threatened to spin. I wound up partly sideways, had to counter-steer and I lost significant speed, almost coming to a complete stop. For sure, I dipped under 20mph, but I did prevent the spin.

For a fraction of a millisecond my heart sank. Loosing speed there preceding the transitional section where my car should be faster than many other cars, was almost certainly the nail in the coffin for any attempt to get into the match portion of the event. Then experience kicked in. Runs where you get a little bit wild and off line are often runs where you've carried more speed than previous. So as long as you haven't actually spun out or hit cones there is always the chance that you only gave up what you gained, and you can still gain through the rest of the course.

With that thought, I once again parlayed the lost speed into a determination to translate my "velocity deficit" into "excess control" and perfectly place the car for the next section. The result was, I finally got a really really good result on the next big hairpin turn that preceded the next taxiway. I had watched the top drivers run that turn and noted that they often seemed to negotiate it by turning, easing up just slightly and then turning harder. I managed to do that for the first time. This worked very well and I was perfectly set up for the next section with good speed.

The remainder of the course was 2 iterations of essentially the same maneuver An S-curve leading into a nearly straight section followed by a turn. I ran both of them better than either of the previous runs. I'm fairly certain I was around a second faster in the final segments of the course and lined up for my fastest finish of the event. The net result, I gained a second over my first run, despite almost spinning and loosing tons of speed. My improvements exceeded my errors. The time was still 4 tenths less than my best time the previous day, but it was clear that had I put together a very good recovery, and landed myself 55th for the LCQ. If you add back the 32 qualifiers and perhaps a few of the women qualifiers who might beat me that''s similar to ending up 89-90th across all competitors. Just a few places worse than the previous day, but not very different. I did not get lucky and get picked as one of the 8 randomly selected drivers.

I'm still no threat to the winner's circle, but I've clearly improved over last year. And that's something of a victory.

Oh yeah, and the Match competition that I didn't get to participate in... That was fun to watch. Tom O'Gorman managed to run 58.5 - a full 7 seconds faster than me in the panda which is an SM car... and the ignition was misfiring on his run. His time was faster than Stacey Strout in her A-Modifed car! Truely incredible. You can see one of his runs on You Tube. Notice how he is always close to the important cones. 1ft away from the cone appears to be a long distance for him!

http://youtu.be/uaxTBwdmwL4

By the final Four it was all NER drivers, Billy Davis, PJ Corales, Brian Kuehl, and Dave Gott. Dave in his STX car faced PJ in the Panda, first and lost by a slim margin. Then Billy Beat Brian. Brian took the 3rd place run-off. This left a single run to determine the winner. Both cars had undergone repairs *during* the match competition, but in the end, it was Billy Davis by 0.1 second for the win.

Congratulations to Billy and the other winners, and thanks to the National Office for putting on a un event! Can't wait for next year!

Ayer Match Tour 2013 - Day 1

National Tour time! Last year the championship tour came to Devens, this year it was one of the new Match Tours sponsored by Evoloution Performance Driving school. It was a two day event. The first day was like the first day of a regular championship tour with two exceptions.  The first exception was that you get 4 runs instead of three. The second is that the top 32 drivers by PAX, and the top 8 ladies by PAX get a free pass into the "match" part of the event which runs Sunday afternoon.

It was unsurprising that me, (a second tier driver on a good day) and my under-prepared car (at least 3% slower than it should be, possibly more) did not qualify. My times vs the top pax of the day were a fairly typical. They work out to a .916 PAX rating. "PAX rating" is the best pax time for the event (run by Billy Davis on that day in his CSP miata) divided by your own pax time. 1.0 is perfect, and means you were the fastest driver. Thus In relative terms, me and my car were about 8.4% slower than the best time, about 4-5% of that is my driving, the rest is the car.

I placed 4th out of 8 competitors in my class, missing the trophies by one spot, although the margin was not very close. I did however beat Russ Sigglekoe for the first time ever. He did not have a good day, but my day was only a mildly good performance. My best day ever was a .925 at a local event last year, but the pax for SSM this year is .003 harder so this year that would be a 0.922. Last year, at the national level event I had a pax rating of 0.903, and in relative terms that means I was about a second slower.

Last year at the national level event I went off course twice and I lamented my final run where I hit several cones and ruined an otherwise very good run. This year was a nice improvement besides going faster, I only hit one cone during the entire event. I had much better control of my driving in general. Although I did not run my best times ever, I did run good times and ended up mid-pack in overall PAX rather in the bottom quartile like last year. Another difference may also be that the top cars are a bit faster this year too. I know Billy changed his Aero on the CSP car and has now driven it for over a year. By all reports Panda continues to improve and is faster this year than last.

So that was the first day. I didn't finish in the top 32, so I needed to be in the top 16 on the next day. Not very likely given my 82nd of 139 result, but I definitely felt there was a lot more time in the car, so it was worth a shot.

Season Points

This day also counted as an NER points event. The presence of Nate and Tom O'Gorman in the first and second spots helped me retain my present lead.  and Leafy took third earning 4 ponts vs my 3 for 4th. The closest two drivers in the season standings are Mat Nieman and Jonathan Lieth (Leafy).  I am 10 points ahead of Matt and 13 points ahead of Leafy. My lead however is still tenuous. Leafy's car is definitely faster than mine now that it is running well, so it's entirely possible that he will beat me the remaining 4 races. I've had good luck against Matt the last few events, but consistent victory over him is far from certain. To tie my season points, Matt has to take first 3 times and place 1 point ahead of me the one time he doesn't win. I don't consider that very likely given my slightly better than 50-50 record against him for the last 2 years, but I also think it's fairly likely that he will beat me at least once.

Then there's Jenna in the Panda... Maybe. She is 14 points back and the Panda is a stupid-fast car. It is clearly the fastest car of the field, but she has had issues with cones lately. When she has a good day, she can win it all, but she is not very consistent lately.

To lock in a season win, I need to place second or better in every race.

But given the field, that is a very diffucult task. Let's imagine a more likely scenario... Imagine that they each win one event for the next 3 events and, I place one behind Leafy every time. Leafy may have the hottest car/driver combination at this point, so lets also imagine that Leafy is 2nd or 1st every time. Matt's car probably shines a bit better in the small parking lot in New Hampshire so we'll imagine that he wins there, though him taking 1st is probably the least likely part of this scenario. In a case like this the standings going into the final event might look something like this:

Gus - 30 + 4, +6, +4= 44
Leafy - 17 + 6 + 9 + 6 = 38
Matt - 20 + 9 + 3/4 + 3 = 35 or 36
Jena - 16 + 3 + 4/3  + 9 = 31 or 32

So, if nobody dominates the field, and I grab 3rd twice and a 2nd once, I'll walk away with the season. What I can't do is start placing 4th or worse. My lead won't support that. If we flip mat and Leafy in New Hampshire, then I have to make 2nd in the final event to win, and if Leafy takes all 3, then he will have 43 points and I have to beat him, unless he's in 3rd or lower in the last event. If Nate Whipple, Todd Kean, or some other alien were to show up in the panda, they would probably take first, but since I have the lead, that benefits me by reducing the points others can earn.

With 5 events done, I have a non-trivial chance of winning the season. That would earn a spiffy jacket, Instructor status and my first chance to compete for the Sterling Moss trophy.

The other variable of course is my co-driver who has beaten me several times in the past. If I let him beat me, I'm not very likely to win. The flip side, is if I can put together one more win in the last 4 events, my chances improve greatly. But that's the point isn't it? You have to win to win. If I can't win, I don't deserve the season championship.

With season points out of the way, the second day is for fun and for pride, and for the off chance that I find 3+ seconds and make it into the match tour... I'll detail that in the next post.

Some help from the A-List

The last event was a lot of fun. Not because of the great competition. Panda broke before the event, Matt's miata blew out a tire on the first run, and Leafy's miata died on course... twice. My car was the only one completing all the runs in a reliable fashion. It wasn't fun because of the weather either, although it didn't rain it was sweltering 90+ degrees. It wasn't even fun because of the trophies. All my competitors broke yet I still only took second.

The fun came from handing my car to Eric, a top caliber driver and watching him demonstrate what the car could do. He had been the co-driver for one of the broken cars and is a national trophy winner for the last 3 years. Last year he took 2nd in E-stock at the National championships. Although it cost me an easy trophy, I got a ton of good advice.

Advice on the car: It drives well, with slight push at high speeds. It's great to have confirmation that the handling is good and that I shouldn't be looking for time there. Based on his times vs the top drivers of the day, my car is about 1.4 seconds slower than it should be in the hands of a top driver. This is about 3% of the total time for the race, so when we look at my pax percent scores, (generally around .91) add .03 and you get an idea of what my driving capabilities are. This also means that one only needs to find 1.4 seconds to make the car competitive at the national level. Adding the LSD and fatter tires should account for at least half of that, and .7 seconds worth of power might be within reach for a light weight N/A build.

Advice for the driver (Me): Go faster! Eric didn't actually tell me this, but it was instantaneously obvious from riding with him. Several areas I was just dog slow and didn't realize that the car could hold much more speed. Riding with him a second time also showed me the right line for the turn-around, something I had been getting wrong regularly on elements like that. He also picked up on and confirmed that I have a problem with memorizing the course, which can lead me to stop looking ahead and to not drive the course as it is and as I am currently positioned. Reassuringly he said that this is a common problem, though exactly how to to break out of the bad habit is not entirely clear. He also said that I tend to move my hands too much, shifting them on the wheel unnecessarily.

As for my times, the official result was solidly mediocre (for me), but the fastest scratch time was possibly the fastest I have ever driven, and within 2 seconds of his time. The cones on that run were +3, but it was all at the same point where my back end swiped the outside of a clams-hell. Just one small error, of questionable speed value. If that time had been clean I would have been 35th in overall pax and if one wants to imagine I had a car that was as fast as it should be (i.e 1.4 seconds faster assuming Eric drove as well as the top driver of the day, or perhaps 1.0 seconds if he wasn't on the top of his game) that would put my skills around 20th to 25th of 150 drivers.

But of course that's a fish tail about one that got away. I did hit the cones and my actual time puts me at 55th, with an actual skill estimate of 42-36th of 150. There's always next time, and it's clear that I should be setting my sights on the top 25, and on qualifying for brackets at the match tour.