Marc's Public Blog - Cars

Trying out K1 Speed Indoor Go Kart Racing

2012-01-28T16:00:00Z

Jennifer got a groupon for us to go try K1 Speed Indoor Go Kart Racing in Santa Clara. Turns out it's a stone's throw from where Speedring used to be before it closed.

What's special about this place is that all the karts are electric.

So, what I thought about the place:

unfortunately, they use lead acid batteries, so they don't have the power to weight ratio I was hoping for. They were fast enough, but not as fast as other indoors gas karts I've driven.

the lack of noise is actually not bad, and the lack of fumes is good :)

they have 3 rows of cars and 2 charge while the 3rd one is used. That's not so bad.

the track layout is a bit basic (easy-ish), but eh, it's still fun enough to drive.

the kart max speed is remotely controlled. This is used to force you to do a slow lap and come back in slowly or stop everyone to walking pace if there was an accident. It's a bit spooky but I guess that makes sense.

karts have a reverse gear, that's cool since they help you get out of a tight spot without external help.

All in all it was different but still fun :)

Jennifer is still lacking a bit of the aggressive spirit necessary to push people around who are blocking you, and making a spot where there isn't one, but her fastest clean lap wasn't that much slower than mine. She did well :)

Champs Elyses Car Displays

2011-12-28T16:00:00Z

When walking up and down the Champs Elysées, we went to see all the displays from car manufacturers:

Renault:

Toyota:

Peugeot:

Mercedes:

Citroën:

the many year winning WRC champion car, cool

That was a good match for Sébastien I had just met :)

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Re-Visit of Kleenspeed

2011-12-19T16:00:00Z

They invited us again to tell us about their progress since last time we stopped by. They are now expending and looking for investors.

the electric bike

the scooter had plenty of pull

they still have their race car

They definitely have good technology, I hope they do well in helping spreading electrically powered vehicles to the consumer. See more images for Re-Visit of Kleenspeed

3rd Coworker Organized Track Day at Thunderhill

2011-11-03T15:00:00Z

We had no idea how the weather was supposed to turn out today. Forecasts were not encouraging, and in the end calls of thunderstorms in the bay area for the afternoon/evening dissuaded me from flying: while I could likely have made the return flight ok, it looked like potentially too much hassle, so I just rode up with Bill who was driving anyway.

We had all kinds of interesting skies, but in the end only got a tiny bit of rain and the track never really got wet, so it was a great day.

This was my first time with Toyos R888, so I was anxious to see how they'd do since they sure sucked on the street when they had not been heat cycled yet. Well, my first session was quite of bad as they warmed up, but after that they did quite well. I got many laps under 2:10, and several 2:08s, which is good for me.

On the minus side, I drove the car much harder and first got the diff fluid too hot (although that's just a warning), and then found out that I toasted my front rotors on my last session as I ran through my brand new track pads and wore them to the plates on the last session, doh! (they used to last at least a day, so I didn't check them carefully enough after each session).

argh, this is going to cost me...

Anyway, good time was had, everyone drove home, and despite the upcoming service bill, it beats a kick in the nuts :)

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2nd Coworker Organized Track Day at Thunderhill

2011-09-29T15:00:00Z

This was the day that wasn't meant to be more than once. First, I had gotten sick with a pretty bad cold and it didn't look like I was going to recover in time, then there wsa the issue of my car that was still being worked on since last track day (among other things, it had a cylinder 5 misfire which they couldn't figure out).
I wasn't quite sure if I'd be recovered enough from my cold that day, or rested enough, but in the end, against all odds, Ferrari SF fixed my engine that morning, shipped the car to Los Gatos where they put the last pieces together, and a coworker nicely drove it to TH that night. The next morning, I was feeling well enough (with a little help of caffeine) to fly to TH and do the track day.

My first student was a first timer, and hadn't quite grasped the fact that you had to brake before turns. I saw several turns where I felt "you're not going to make it", and sure enough he braked way too late and we were only saved by the traction control :)
My personal laps were ok, but not stellar, my new tires are just not worth the money and hassle, as my times have gone down despite better brakes and more consistent driving from me (best times were around 2:10 when I've done 2:08 before).

another coworker took his 360

and Andy's 430

The more fun part was at the end of the day when I coached Hugo in his borrowed 458, and was able to give him the one tip that unlocked more than 10 seconds per lap in the one session we did together: if your foot is not already on the gas by the turn cone, you braked too late and you'll be slower. That was easy for me since were driving pretty similar cars, and he became so much faster when applying this. At the same time, I was very impressed how we got down to 2:14 in just a few laps and he was driving the car in street mode and automatic mode (i.e. the car was doing gear shifts). The computer in that car is pretty impressive.

I then got to drive the 458 for the last session, and while I had already driven them on the track, I was just so wanting to know what lap time I'd do in it at TH. I started in the 2:09-2:08 range with traction control on street, and 2:05 (best of 3 laps) with traction control in race mode. I'm pretty sure I could have gone down to 2:04 or 2:03, especially with fresher tires. This is to say that the new car does a lot better than mine (5-6 seconds faster a lap, which is huge). Oh well...

It was fun, great times were had, especially for a day that I never thought would actually happen. Thanks Attila, Marcin, Dave, and everyone else!

Here's my session in the 458 (sorry, filming from inside works better in my car since it's convertible):

To compare, that's a session in my 430:

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Visit of Pagani Factory

2011-09-06T15:00:00Z

The next morning, on our way out of Maranello and Modena, I had made an appointment at the Pagani Factory. It was by far the smallest of the 3 of course, they hand build a few cars every year (to this date, only about 120 Zondas have been built, they take 9 months each, many parts each relying on a single person to get done).

They don't officially do tours, but I was able to get one through some sheer luck and asking. The receptionist (who is actually much more than that, she probably had 5 jobs combined and was a jack of all trades), gave us a very nice 1H presentation and history of the company, and backstage tour.

On top of obviously being cars with impressive performance, admittedly the fastest barely road legal car out there (around a track that is, it's not built for ultimate speed in a straight line), and they do have stunning looks, especially the blue titanium lined carbon fibre body.

nice reception, of course, it's better just behind you :)

blue and gold does it for me.

the lining is a beautiful work of art

the track only nurburing champion car

it means business :)

grr!

We caught a car outside, going for a test drive. It was idling outside with no one inside. Soooo tempting ;-)

Inside, we got to see how they were making their unique titanium laced carbon fibre. It is super strong and the entire frame of the car only weighs 200kg. That's super light for a car that size (it is no elise in size, even if it also only takes 2 people).

This was an awesome way to finish our visit of the area before leaving Bologna. See more images for Visit of Pagani Factory

Morning Visit of Lamborghini Museum n Factory

2011-09-05T15:00:00Z

Planning the car factory part of our Italy tour took a while. Lining up a visit of the local factories and museums was challenging, especially when the Italian labour force decided to have a strike on the second day, which caused the Lamborghini Factory to close (but not the other 2), and a bunch of trains to be cancelled.

Anyway, after arriving bright and early in Bologna and picking our rental car (it's a slightly longer drive than Maranello, but there are many more fast trains going to Bologna, so it was actually faster stopping there and getting a rental car).

The bull bar across the street is where the engineers eat and where you can rent cars for a fun drive.

We started with the factory tour, which was a bit rushed (busy day), but still quite interesting. The factory actually wasn't that big (I was surprised to see how much smaller Lamborghini was compared to Ferrari, the difference wasn't even funny). I did like the part where since they don't have their own racetrack, they just test drive their cars in the neighbouring streets with the police turning a blind eye of course, since it is Italy :)

I was nice to see a smaller factory though because you got to see the entire line, including the people who were processing cow leather, and trying to fit all the parts necessary for each car around the imperfections in each leather piece (10 cows for a car by the way).
They had two assembly lines, one for their "cheaper car", and one for the newer 700HP aventador. The newer car is actually sitting on a plate that is moved in the line using magnetic induction. They can get 3 cars out per day with 3 days for a car from beginning to end (not bad).

We then visited the fairly complete museum they have, nice collector pieces there.

this would fit nicely as a drop-in in a prelude, right? :)

3.5: 710HP V12 from 1991, impressive power for then

sucks when you get that one in your rear view mirror :)

that makes a nice wall ornament :)

they had some rare cars

I feel inadequate with my 300s when they have 335s :)

It was a nice visit, plenty of supercar p0rn and rare models that I never got to see elsewhere. See more images for Morning Visit of Lamborghini Museum n Factory

Visit of Ferrari Museum n Fact

2011-09-05T15:00:00Z

After the Lamborghini Factory, we headed to Maranello aka Ferrari-town. Boy, what a contrast it is in size. Ferrari is not a building down some road like Lamborghini, it is almost an entire town (at least city blocks' worth).

nice company car :)

The factory is not a couple of buildings, it's an entire city block. Then you have the store, the museum, and let's not forget the entire racetrack, and nearby racecar handling buildings and race team with huge semis that can take your very own racecar and crew anywhere you'd like to go (for a few dollars that is :)

Several places next to the museum rented ferraris for short drives:

We then went to the museum to sign in for and wait for our tours:

All the ferrari staff wears work uniforms, red for builders and white for engineers

Ferrari cafe has lambrusco you can buy

We were lucky to get a long tour of the Ferrari factory (something otherwise not open to the public), and while it was as thorough a tour as they could give us, I feel like there was so much we didn't see (including the then secret 458 spyder), merely because of how big the factory is. Of course, they have to weigh how much they can show us vs not losing company trade secrets.

We started by a guided tour of the museum:

the 458 has a beautiful mean look :)

Interesting factoids I learned at the factory: workers all wear the same red uniform and the engineers wear white. Each car is made on its own building/floor. Contrary to Lamborghini, you can only chose from a few approved colors (Lamborghini will paint it pink or hello kitty if you pay for it :).
I saw engine pieces being fit together with a robot that dipped metal pieces in liquid nitrogen to shrink them just a bit so that they fit nicely without a hammer :)

Once the long tour was over, we saw the race team and a lap of their track, of which I got a lap but unfortunately in a van that I wasn't driving :)

I want to get paid to do donuts on their skidpad :)

It was a busy day and a great visit. See more images for Visit of Ferrari Museum n Fact

Coworker Organized Track Day at Thunderhill

2011-07-28T15:00:00Z

Some of my coworkers organized a track day for us at Thunderhill, so I could not help but sign up and go have fun with coworkers. The only little problem was that I was also supposed to go to Oshkosh EAA Airventure that week too. In the end, I settled for going to the track, flying myself back to Palo Alto, getting my stuff and taking a Red Eye flight out of SFO to Chicago and then Oshkosh.

Since I was not doing too well with sleep and almost got sick, I ended up flying the evening before, since I didn't feel like getting up around 05:30 and deal with IMC weather the next morning (pretty solid overcast and the previous morning even had ground fog).

this is what I found outside :)

So who was the fastest of the 2?

One of my coworkers was nice enough to swap cars with me for a session, so I got to drive his GTR. Annoyingly, I was a good 5 seconds faster in his car than mine, and that's with not driving it as well since I wasn't used to it. I could likely have shaved off another 2 seconds pretty easily. Ok, so the GTR kicks about everyone else's ass, the new one on top gear was faster than any Ferrari, a Veyron, and matched a Zonda F. Crazy!

As for the aftermath, the new set of Trofeos didn't do that much better: the front right tire is ruined just as much despite my keeping a precise 32psi in there. The brakes held up for the day, but that's about it, there's not much left in them (maybe not even one more session).

I guess track miatas were cheaper :)

I was battling being tired and borderline sick that day, but caffeine, 5 hour energy and adrenaline allowed me to get through the day. Thankfully I was able to keep my whits through the flight home too, which was about as uneventful as it could have gotten.

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Thunderhill Track Day with Golden Gate Lotus Club

2011-07-10T15:00:00Z

My last track day with GGLC ran a little short after I came out of the first session with a nail hole in one of my tires. So, it was time to try again. I used the opportunity to also try some new Pirelli Trofeo tires that were supposed to be more sticky than my Corsas.
First, getting there was interesting since the weather was borderline IFR when I took off. I was able to find a hole in the clouds to get on top, and flew across the bay VFR on top, which is always a nice sight :)

GGLC is always fun for the interesting Lotus cars you get to see:

One car locked up a brake and tire, went off the track, and the track got red flagge as a result. The flagger wasn't happy I took a picture of her even though all the cars were stopped.

The new tires, were, well, they seemed grippy for a short while but didn't last the day and one even got corded:. Note, tire went from brand new to corded in one day. That was a bit disappointing if I may say so:

The way home, I thought by then the clouds would be gone, but no, most of the north bay was covered with clouds from Oakland down to Stanford. My first plan was to duck under at Oakland, but since they were IFR, they did not allow me to do that. Instead, I was vectored into SFO Bravo and past 101 out of their way. From there, the clouds eventually subsided just before I got to Palo Alto

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Drive to Mountain House via Skyline

2011-06-18T15:00:00Z

A nice friend of mine gave me a gift certificate for Mountain House, so that was an excuse to drive there via Page Mill and Skyline since it's on Skyline :)

This was also a good time to get Jennifer some driving lessons, so we did :)

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Ferrari Experience Advanced Course at Mt Tremblant

2011-06-08T15:00:00Z

So I'm not quite ready to buy a F458, but when I got an offer to drive one at the track, it was difficult to pass up :) (Ferrari has a program for its owners that allows you to learn to drive their latest car at speed on a nice racetrack).
Ok, so it wasn't cheap, but considering that changing tires is around $2000, and changing ceramic brakes is in the $10k range (not sure how many track days they last), once you add that you can drive a car you won't have to buy and can't otherwise rent for track use, the cost becomes more acceptable :)

They use a track in French speaking Canada @ Mt Tremblant which is one of the best ski resorts on the east coast during the winter (although they all suck compared to the Rockies and Sierras). I liked the track layout, it was challenging.

arriving at the hotel

lineup wasn't too bad :)

The 2 day advanced course had a mix of:

skid pad in a Ferrari California, where you were actually supposed to do full powerslides through an figure 8 at the end (I was one of the least sucky students, but still not good at it, because it's hard).

autocross around a section of track to see who got the best lap time (boy was that hard, especially since I've never been that good at Auto-X).

driving around the north and sourth sides of the track first.

Of course, we then got to drive the whole track, although we were always "tethered" in a lead follow pattern where the instructor would only drive as fast as he thought you should (based on whether you looked safe or not, and then it felt capped around 2:02 per lap kind of regardless).

A few pictures of the F458:

the LCD rendered speedo is cute

Ok, let's go, let's lap this baby :)

We used the Ferrari California for skid pad training:

Ferrari California in the simulated rain, ironic :)

inside is nice too

They had one F598, which was used by the intructors to give laps, and slow us down (unfortunately, it is heavier and slower in turns, so I did feel like it was slowing me when I was behind it in the 458 :)

598 interior isn't too shaby

The fun part for me was that all the instructors spoke French, so half the time they would instruct me in French, half the time in English depending on what we felt like.

So, the slightly disappointing part was that as I got better the 2nd day, my lap times did not improve since I was effectively held back in some places by the instructor driving in front of me (although in other places they were clearly still a bit faster, since they were obviously better than me).
We also had to drive with the traction control in street mode, which wasn't as aggressive in cutting me off as I was fearing it would be, but I'm sure it slowed us down a bit compared to race mode which I use on my car at the track (but eh, I was willing to live with that tradeoff for being able to drive those nice cars on a real racetrack).

So even if I don't feel I got to improve much on the second day due to being held back, it was still a hell of a lot of fun :)

part of the track tours

Jennifer is ready for a hot lap :)

A good coffee and desert with fresh fruit keeps a sweetie happy :)

and everyone is a winner :)

They had an in car video setup, but it failed miserably, so they lost all of it. Lame...
Thankfully, trusting person that I am, I took a few of the laps with my GoPro (yes, the camera isn't straight, I was trying not to block the main camera that never worked).

Longish session following an instructor as close as I could :) (yes, the camera was sideways, it had to be where I put it)

Another session where I was following a slower F598 (it has a lot more horsepower, but has a hard time putting that power down and has a harder time turning and breaking with its extra 1000lbs of weight). Of course, the instructor was still faster than me, but I had to brake to early in places because of him :)

One of the last sessions, which were getting shorter by then, and where I hopefully did better :)

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TEAM event at Thunderhill

2011-04-28T15:00:00Z

After my last aborted event just a couple of weeks prior, I was ready to go back for some real driving.

John was helpful in being able to get my car there, and I was able to fly that morning to attend Bonni's event.

My front tires apparently had gone past their grippy section, so the car was understeering a bit. At the time time, it seems like the brake fluid should have been flushed earlier and braking was becoming uncertain after a certain number of laps, causing me to go out in 11 once (braking in a straight line didn't quite work out, so I finished outside, although no harm done).

On my 5th session, braking was really starting not to feel right, and sure enough my inside pads (which are almost impossible to look at without taking the wheel out or jacking up the car), had apparently ran out of meat way before the outside ones, and were rubbing metal on metal. Bummer...

Oh well, I didn't brake any records that day, but it still was a good day.

Once Andrew's car worked, he easily blew by me

The car, it's a bug-euh!

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Golden Gate Lotus Club day at TH

2011-03-31T15:00:00Z

I drove the day earlier, did my best to get quality sleep and after a few laps, I got a nail in one of my rear wheels (or a nail came out), and my tire was hozed enough not to be usable on the track anymore.

I got a few laps with Ralf and drove a few of my own laps, and wasted about 8 hours for the privilege. Oh, and someone drove over my air compressor and damaged it :(

Ralf, hard at work

Grr...

Thankfully I was able to get a tire plug at wallmart and it was enough to drive home without needing a tow truck. See more images for Golden Gate Lotus Club day at TH

Supercar Drive Day with Club Sportiva

2011-03-30T15:00:00Z

Since Club Sportiva had a special for their "Supercar sampling day" :) I organized a group with coworkers, and our day had come.

First, we got a visit to see what cars they had. They do have an impressive collection which is basically owned by their members who "cash in" points for their cars being used by others, which in turn allows them to use other exotic cars too. It's actually a good idea for those who like to just go out for drives planned in advance (not as useful if you just want to drive out of your house and drive somewhere).
Of course, they do not allow going to the track, which is a big bummer for me, since this would likely have been the main interest for me. Oh well..

cars being worked on

they had just received a Ferrari 458

They had a very nice De Lorean:

Then, we got to meet the cars we were going to drive:

Ferrari F430 Coupe was first:

First stop and car swap

The Lotus was next:

Second stop and car swap

Lunch at Alice's Restaurant

A huge bunch of motorcycle cops out for a ride too, also came there for lunch

Next Car was the Aston Martin DB9:

of course I was driving the speed limit :)

Then, was the the time for the Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder:

It even shows you which door is opened in case you forgot

Next car was the Maserati GT Spyder:

And last, but certainly not least, was the Audi R8:

still driving the speed limit :)

All in all, it was a great day.
The lotus was planted to the ground, and reminded me of my miata without shocks :)
The Aston Martin was an overpowered boat with scary steering and brakes as far as I was concerned :)
The Gallardo was probably my favourite (not counting the F430 I already knew).
The maserati wasn't bad, but just not my cup of tea as it may be :)
And last but not least, I actually liked the R8. It was lacking a read row of seats that my M5 had, but it was otherwise a fairly enjoyable car that was well built inside. See more images for Supercar Drive Day with Club Sportiva

TEAM event at Thunderhill

2010-10-15T15:00:00Z

Why is it that manage to get sick so often just before track days? After totally missing the Lotus track day 2 weeks prior, my cold was just barely good enough to go to Bonni's track day. I wasn't feeling at my top when I got up at 06:15 to fly to Willows, but it was good enough.

Thankfully the flying weather was fantastic, and I got there in 45mn flat once in the air, so I wasn't at the track too late.

Increasing amounts of caffeine during the day sealed the deal: I was able to run my sessions well enough, even learn some tips from an advanced coach. I only got down to 2:09 which didn't beat my best (2:08) but I seemed to be a bit more consistent and maybe slightly smoother driving.

There were some serious miatas there, some pushing over 300HP with slicks. I couldn't compete with that :)

oh, and did I mention race cars? :)

yet, I had a good time :)

Here's a video of my 6th session where I was playing with a porsche, we were pretty evenly matched:

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Visit of Kleenspeed

2010-08-31T15:00:00Z

A coworker of mine got us an introduction and meeting with the Kleenspeed folks.

their race car got the electric lap time record at Laguna Seca

we got a nice test drive around the block

that's a cool fuel gauge :)

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Karting at GoKart Racer with Coworkers

2010-07-28T15:00:00Z

My coworker Marcin setup a Karting outing, and I was unable to refuse the nice offer :)

Some of the people who showed up were almost professional karters, a couple in our groups were over a second faster than us and lapped us all in the race.
I did reasonably well and while I was being my usual inconsistent, I placed 3rd in the qualifying session. During the race, the 4th behind me was doing a better job than me after a few laps and eventually passed me, which was cool, but unfortunately the guy behind me pushed and spun me in a turn, pointing me in the wrong direction and making me lose an entire lap.
On the upside, I worked really hard to catch up from the back, and posted some good lap times (0:32:22 was the best I think).

The place is unfortunately far (1h30 return drive from home), but it's was good fun to dash it out with coworkers who were actually pretty good too :)

This is just the hot laps session to get used to the track:

Then the qualifying session:

And the Race:

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Drive Across Skyline to Hwy 1, Davenport and Back through Big Basin Redwoods

2010-07-06T15:00:00Z

I was needing some time outside after having spent too long indoors, and David wanted to give Mounira a ride in my car for her BD, so when other coworkers expressed the idea of going out for a drive this afternoon, it was an easy decision :)

We went for a nice little drive. I went easy not to upset my passenger and stay within safe limits for public roads, and outside of a pickup driver who got upset after I passed him to get rid of someone behaving heretically just in front of me, it was a nice drive (it was kind of hard to explain anything to him both because he wasn't in a listening mood, and I was unable to speak anyway).

Around Big Basin Redwoods, I slowed down due to reduced speed limits and people left and right of the road and likely to cross at any time, but I apparently made a bit too much noise with the car (well, it makes noise pretty easily, which is ok most times, but not great in the middle of a hiking forest) and got reported for "looking fast". Honestly, I was actually driving quite slowly there for obvious safety reasons, but I had my eyes peeled on the road more than at my speedo. Maybe I was a few miles over 25, who knows?

A friendly park ranger flagged me down after the report and told me to be mindful of other people, which was sound advise and pretty much what I was doing. I was not able to talk to him to explain, but he was satisfied with seeing that I got the message either way.

Mounira enjoyed the scenic drive and didn't get car sick, so all went well :) See more images for Drive Across Skyline to Hwy 1, Davenport and Back through Big Basin Redwoods

Old Times Sake's Dinner with Carlos and the BAMO Crew

2010-04-29T15:00:00Z

Carlos came to visit us and it was a great excuse to have a long overdue BAMO gathering, so we did.

A good evening was had by all :)

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SearsPoint Competizione Motors Tech Day

2010-02-27T16:00:00Z

Kevin nicely hosted us at his shop, Competizione Motors at Sears Point. He is a super knowledgeable Ferrari guy, and mostly works on race cars.
He gave us a very useful list of tips, like:

remember to go easy during your first laps to bring the brakes up to temperature, or you can glaze and ruin them

he actually recommends bringing temperatures to 3psi above stock and make sure that you equalize left and right temperature after the first session.

it's a good idea to slightly engage the brakes to set tha pads before you do the heavy braking

which fluids are recommended

you don't want slick tires on a street car

carbon brakes vs older regular pads

F355 mini pad vs current F430 carbon pad: huge difference

Kevin nicely agreed to work on my car to work out the bugs that have been bothering me, like misbalance shaking, checking the alignment, fixing the front/read brake bias, and a general inspection of the car. See more images for SearsPoint Competizione Motors Tech Day

HOD Day at Laguna Seca

2010-02-14T16:00:00Z

I had a few coworkers who signed up for a day at Laguna Seca and decided to join the group for Laguna Seca on President's day.

The main problem was that there was a 92dB sound limit and that turns out to be a lot less than what my car does at wide open throttle (100dB-ish).
I got thrown off the track after 2 laps on my first session, and 3 laps on my last session, leaving me to go home. Sessions 2, 3, 4, I did my best to not touch the throttle between turns 5 and 6 where they record sound.

Quite frankly, I'm quite annoyed at people who moved close to the racetrack and managed to mandate all those bullshit rules to force the racetrack to be quiet enough for them. It's the same kind of stupid selfish people who move next to an airport and then try to close it down because it's noisy. Fuck'em is what I say, they knew what they were getting into and got cheap housing for a reason.

Anyway, while in my opinion, the people who do track days at Laguna should do a better effort at telling people that the 92dB sound restriction actually does catch totally stock cars with catalytic converters and stock exhausts (and most organizers know which ones typically fail).
The HOD guys were actually nice in offering me a refund if I wanted to go home after being booted off the track on my first session after a mere 2 laps.

Since I was already there and that I would clearly never go back to Laguna Seca with my car, while starting to pack, I ended up deciding to just try and make the best of it, especially since I had several coworkers there that day too and the point was also to spend some time with them.

In the end, I got 3 sessions out of 5 :-/ and I just didn't do so well on the track, not counting the place where I just had to get off the gas and lose several seconds, my car felt unbalanced and unsettled (it's actually visibly shaking on some of the videos, and my rear brakes are now too powerful and cause the car to skip or skid a bit when I brake downhill).
On top of that the HOD folks seem pretty convinced that I overdrive my car too much and they're just too nervous about that. From my side, baring the hydraulic brake failure I had, I haven't put a single wheel off track yet and worst case I've overshot a few apexes and understeered just a little bit in a few places. I think the problem however is that I've been trying to approach the perfect speed for each turn from the slightly too fast side instead of the slightly too slow...

the second stage exhaust mufflers is what I needed apparently

street legal atom 3 (300hp)

My coworker Attila's GTR

This guy in group B unfortunately hit the inside wall around turn 6

Anyway, it wasn't a fantastic day, especially as I didn't get that many laps to improve my line and my braking points, not counting how my car just didn't feel very planted, but it was still nice to run the track at least once, and shoot the shit with my coworkers.

I'm hoping to get someone knowledgeable look at my car and offer fixes that will make it more manageable closer to the limit.

A couple of incomplete sessions:

See more images for HOD Day at Laguna Seca

2002 WRC

2009-11-23T16:00:00Z

While hacking, I have been watching old seasons of WRC, World Rally Championship. Unfortunately, I'm kind of doing it backwards: I started with 2008 and I now know the future when watching the older seasons.
Nonetheless, watching the 2008-2009 season and the close to photo finish by Sebastien Loeb, was nice.

Now, I'm back in time watching 2002, where some of the videos are from Speed channel before those morons dropped WRC, and others from a Japanese channel. The Japanese version is hilarious to listen too, and they totally win for having very appropriate great techno music tracks in the background. Others should have learned from them :)
It's cool to see Sébastien Loeb already win a tarmac stage in Germany all the way back then.

Awesome WRC highlights video #1

Awesome WRC highlights video #2

link to collection of WRC highlights videos

Skip Barber 2 Day Advanced Racing School

2009-10-24T15:00:00Z

After doing the 3 day racing school, it felt like I just got enough to get a taste and wanted more, so I did the 2 day advanced racing school.

you can see my gopro camera taped on my helmet

Unfortunately, I was sick all week just before the event, and while I was better the day of, I wasn't at my top. Adding to that that I didn't sleep well either the night after, day 2 wasn't much better: I had to dope myself up with energy drinks.
It mostly worked, but I did have some moments of brain fade, which isn't so good when you're driving a racecar. Not counting 3 spins including 2 track outs in 2 days (vs 0 on my 3 day school), I also almost rear ended an instructor because I kind of forgot to brake in 11... In the end, no harm done, but it wasn't stellar.

This gave for some somewhat more fun videos.

We also had some freak fog during saturday afternoon, to the point where I had to slow down and wipe my helmet visor to see anything. The video above shows some of this.

Anyway, back to the class: it was kind of the same format than the 3 day class, just faster. We got a quick intro/refresher on the cars and spent the morning autocrossing to refresh our memories with heel and toe shifting and oversteer control.

not much room between the brake and the gas

This time I brought old shoes where I had cut off the sides so that my wide feet did not push on the gas while I was trying to brake :)

Here's a short video showing the exciting parts of the autocross:

The rest of the time was spent on the track. Putting aside that I managed to spin out on the very first turn of the very first lap (triple doh!), the first day was mostly to practise threshold braking and the line, following an instructor. We got feedback from instructors standing at a few turns after each session. They were standing at vantage points like this one:

On the second day, we did some practise starts for those who were going to come back to race, and then we got 3 sessions where we got to follow instructors in race cars or where the instructors were following us. I did reasonably well within my group, getting only passed by one guy who was in the race series and just signed up for some track time, and the instructors of course who could lap all of us :)
That said, even if I got my laptimes below 1:50, I just wasn't consistent and by the one session before last I finally had an instructor who had time to follow me and give me some disturbing feedback on how I was basically doing it all wrong and being slow in the wrong places in turns. Also, I had some brain fades where I would just score a bad lap, forget to brake in time at 11, or spin in 5 (twice each :-/).
By the very last session, I had my time down in the 1:48's with a single lap at 1:47, strangely when I actually passed 2 cars in the process (meaning most likely 1:46 had it been clean track), and to celebrate I managed to spin out in turn 5 at the next lap :-/ .

In some ways I'm a bit disappointed with my performance since I got faster but not in the right ways, and either I was too tired/sick to be more consistent, or I'm just not good enough to be consistent like real racers... The other problem is that it took a while for the instructors to have the time to follow me around the track and give me feedback and by the time I got it (one session from the end, it was a bit late to improve all that much. That was disappointing too...

At least I got some good videos with the gopro camera on my helmet and used the opportunity to sample video editting software on linux and found that kdenlive is actually fairly decent and easy to use for piecing up video clips from multiple source and pasting them together with simple effects, which is really all I need.

Below are a few results of that work (and piecing video together actually takes way too much work, not counting that I had close to 3H of raw footage :) ).

By the way, the realism of iRacing is pretty impressive, although either the computer drivers are top notch, or the simulation is a bit over optimistic on speed, brakes, and/or tire grip. The video is worth watching just for the virtual rendition of the car and the track though:

While I was there, I also got Jennifer signed up for the 2 day car control clinic, and it worked out pretty well for her. She learned to drive more at the limit, where she wasn't comfortable being at all, how to countersteer, brake and turn at the right amount and in the right order :)
She did quite well during the 2 days and enjoyed them.

Also, I took my minimag RC plane and took some shots of the track from the sky, as per the Minimag RC Overfly of Laguna Seca post.

See more images for Skip Barber 2 Day Advanced Racing School

Minimag overfly and pictures of Laguna Seca

2009-10-24T15:00:00Z

I took my minimag to Laguna to take some shots like I did at Thunderhill recently.
Unfortunately I didn't have the time during lunchtime so the sun was lower and showing in some shots.

Laguna was also harder to get because of how much bigger it is compared to Thunderhill where I can mostly overfly the whole track while being in a couple of spots. Laguna has much more track that just isn't visible from the paddocks. So, I ended up driving around the track (not on) and finding other vantage points that had better visibility. This mostly worked, except my 200+ shots taken around the corkscrew: I had a great vantage point, but my camera got knocked out of angle during a tough takeoff and all my shots were unusable :(

Anyway, here are a few of the good shots, and you'll find more in the link below

See more images for Minimag overfly and pictures of Laguna Seca

TEAM event at Thunderhill

2009-10-16T15:00:00Z

Timing didn't quite work out here, I got mildly sick the day prior to the event. After a good night of rest, I thought I'd be ok enough the day of, but that turned out not to be quite the fact.

Anyway, I went to bed early the night prior and got up around 5:45 for my flight to Willows.
Said flight there was mildly interesting due to a presidential flight restriction and special flight rules, but it was otherwise a nice flight up with sunrise.

My buddy John from BAMO had taken the car up, and I was able to do 3 sessions in the morning before deciding that I just didn't quite feel right while driving. At the same time I had managed to forget my spare pads at home anyway and I really didn't have brakes for much more than those 3 sessions either way.

nice hood

My tech crew, thanks John :)

keeping close track of my brake pads

It just felt like a wise choice to call it quits while I was ahead, and I just went back home around lunchtime and ended up putting in a mostly full day's worth of work.

I got a couple of laps where I set my GoPro to take a picture every 2 seconds. If you wanted to see all of them somehow, see the picture library below, but here are a few samples

It just feels wrong to take 12-13 through the 'straighter line'

turn 4-5

The video of my 3 sessions are below:

Flight home was nice and quick. I was actually back at work by 13:15-ish.

See more images for TEAM event at Thunderhill

Hooked on Driving Ferrari Day at TH

2009-09-18T15:00:00Z

Unfortunately, I missed the similar day in June as my car's transmission grew some problem the day before the event so it was nice to finally be able to do good on that track day.
A big thanks again to Nkg for getting my car there again while I flew.

A few F430 scuderias were there

As well as all other kinds

and other kinds of cars :)

The HOD folks were a bit nervous with my driving: many folks in the group weren't used to driving their cars fast, or had no interest in doing so, which is fine, but that made me look aggressive compared to them, although I was not specifically. The other half was that I wasn't working my way back up gradually enough and was just driving about as fast I felt could. This was kind of the point for me, but at the same time sometimes I overshot the braking zones just a tad, which made the orgnaizers rather nervous, even if I always kept it in check and on the tarmac.
Anyway, I just dailed it down a bit, which made them happier and gave me a chance to work on my line, and that never hurts. In the end, I only got my times down to about 2:10, which I guess isn't too bad, but slower than what I've been able to do before. I suppose I was a bit off that day, which may be linked to the fact that I was half sick the day prior.

this was a slow session, but I got to pass a few cars there, which is good for video (click for vid)

However, I was also able to use lunchtime to fly my RC plane around the track and take a bunch of mid res pictures (see other post) See more images for Hooked on Driving Ferrari Day at TH

Minimag RC overfly / Digital Hero wide pictures of Thunderhill

2009-09-18T15:00:00Z

After getting a digital hero wide, and coming up with the idea that I should overfly the tracks I go to to take shots, I brought my minimag to thunderhill and took a bunch of pictures over lunch. Below are a few of them:

short video with takeoff from turn 11 (click for video)

turns 10, 11, 12-13

another vantage point

both straights

5, 6, 7

better view of 14-15

5 looks kind of flat from the sky :)

closeup on 14

another vantage point of 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15

Shot of one of the instructors who went out for fun during lunch

See more images for Minimag RC overfly / Digital Hero wide pictures of Thunderhill

Skip Barber 3 Day Racing School at Laguna Seca

2009-06-04T15:00:00Z

One thing about LS, is that it's a pretty track

the favourite corkscrew

After goofing around a few times too many on the track and hitting kind of a plateau, I figured it was about time for me to get some proper track training, so I signed up for the skip barber formula 2000 3 day class (there was the option of doing to do the same with miatas, likely for those interested in spec miata racing, but I was more interested in trying formula cars).

the formula ford 2000 car

you can see my camera on the 47 number

The tradeoff with that is that it takes a little while to get the hang of the formula cars. The sequential shifting is actually pretty cool, although the heel and toe for downshifting was harder for me with my wide feet (my foot would often push on the gas while braking, which caused me a few issues).

with wide feet, it can be hard not to push brake and gas at the same time

The good news is that outside of going straight off track in 11 due to not braking enough (click for vid) as I mis-pushed the gas with the brakes, filling the car with pebbles in the process :), I actually stayed on track the entire time: I never spun out or otherwise went off track due to trying to get in too hot (the only spinout was a self induced one on the AutoX pad as we were encouraged to push the cars and go a bit past their limits to see where said limits were).

one of the mechanics vacuuming the pebbles I put in the car :)

Many other folks did get greedy and spun out though :)

That's a little bit too sideways :)

another customer :)

The Skip Barber curriculum was good. They went through the car's basics, from braking to heel and toe (which is really left side of the foot/right side of the foot) shifting, threshold braking, lane toss exercises (for passing), passing theory (although that one would take a lot of practise to exercise), and in the last 2 sessions we got to put it all together: race start, passing, threshold braking for laptimes, and of course heel and toe for each downshifting turn.

side by side race start practise

Threshold braking exercise

The last session was a great way to finish the day with a little bit of (good) excitement for me: I passed 4 cars, including one that spun out right in front of me and getting very close to 2 bumpers. You can see the video of the last lap of the last session

Now, in a real race situation where drivers defend their spot, I probably wouldn't have been able to pass more than 1 or 2 cars, but eh, I'll still celebrate the minor achievement with my arguably still meager lap times of 1:50 (vs 1:38 when done by a professional). Speeds were 100mph tops, much less than what I do at thunderhill, but 100mph is actually plenty fast when you're on a rollcage with wheels with your butt inches from the ground :)

Either way, it was a crapload of fun :) I wasn't the best one in the group, but probably ranked 3rd or 4th, which provided a nice mix of little victories and humility :)

You can see some of the videos I took below (click the more info tab for each video to get offsets to juicy bits where relevant)

Instructor giving us a tour of the track balls out in an airport van :)

Lap taken at wheel level

Session taken from above my head, with track out in pebbles

2nd to last session on 3rd day, with practise starts

last session of the 3rd day, where I passed 4 cars and one spun out

The only downside, was that I felt I had just learned enough in 3 days to apply my skills and hone them on a 4th day, but there was no such 4th day. They are however happy to sell you another advanced class for 2 more days :)

During the 3 days, I got to see Jennifer on day #2 when we came for a car control class, and also found out that the track staff had had the same idea than me: that the track was a fine place to fly RC planes :)

Jennifer also came one day for a car control class

I wasn't the only person who thought that a track was a perfect place to fly RC planes :)

See more images for Skip Barber 3 Day Racing School at Laguna Seca

Hooked on Driving Event at Thunderhill

2009-05-15T15:00:00Z

I had a few reservations about the Hooked on Driving event because the advanced group only had 5 sessions of 20 minutes (which effectively is only around 12mn of track time per session). This is not so great compared to a typical Bonni/Team Racing event with 3 run groups, and 6 sessions of 25mn
Then again, I had some brakepads and tires to finish up, so I figured that limited track time would be enough.

On the plus side, there was an interesting collection of cars. 4 were even cousins of mine :)

F355

F360 with my old brakes

F430 with carbon brakes

Race F430

the Ford GT was back too

Out of the 4 rungroups, one was a race prepared group, which made for some interesting cars.

All kinds of race prepared cars

small ones too

While it was an enjoyable day, the track felt a bit crowded at times (very few clean laps at my speed), and I never really broke 2:11 (compared to my best between 2:08 and 2:09). I think it was a combination of the brakes being a bit less effective when the pads were low and overheating more easily, and the tires being chewed up, limiting my speed in turns.
Still, no one passed me and 2:11 is still nothing to sneeze at I suppose.

I bailed after the 4th session as my rear pads were really wearing thin (that's a new one, it's always been the fronts so far, but good news that my rear brakes are working harder).
All in all, it was a reasonable day. See more images for Hooked on Driving Event at Thunderhill

Nice Drive Down Calaveras

2009-04-12T15:00:00Z

When coming back from Brian's in Pleasanton, I had a much better idea than driving the boring hwy 680/880 home and we took Calaveras road from 84/880 back to Milpitas. Driven at good pace, it didn't take much longer than the freeway, but was a much more scenic and fun drive :)
(Calaveras however always kind of makes you wonder what would happen if a guy comes the other way from a blind turn on a 1.5 lane-wide road and isn't really on his side...

I actually kept a very reasonable pace because the road not being very even forced me to brake early so that my nose didn't scrape on the road when I was braking before a turn (braking hard just before a dip/bump was a guaranteed nose scrape).

See more images for Nice Drive Down Calaveras

TEAM event at Thunderhill

2009-04-03T15:00:00Z

I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it ot Thunderhill due to my recent hand injury (or the fact that it might have rained), but things turned out ok. One of my coworkers nicely agreed to drive the car to TH while I flew there (a good excuse to work on my flying currency). Flight to Willows was a bit slower than expected due to heavy headwinds, but I was there by 07:30, well in time for the driver's meeting.

The sessions went fine, except for the fact that someone or something reset my traction control to street from race, making me a fair amount slower than I should have been, and I'm kicking myself for not noticing it. My car otherwise did fine, the traction problems I had were likely due to the traction control trying to help too much, and my brakes were dependable and held up just fine.

night flight to Willows

making wider tires fit by widening the fender with a baseball bat :)

Tony means business :)

passing the lemons car :)

Putting aside the fact that I was blackflagged once for scaring a miata off the track and another time for not seeing a radical that I didn't see creeping up on me, and that I ended up blocking for a bit, putting aside the traction control issue, it was a good day :)

Since the wind was strong enough that I had to take off northbound, I used the opportunity to fly over thunderhill and take a few pictures:

Flight home was quick thanks to the winds :) See more images for TEAM event at Thunderhill

TEAM event at Thunderhill

2008-11-23T16:00:00Z

I really wasn't sure I'd be doing any driving that weekend, having gotten sick again, just days before the track day. That was quite annoying, 2 times in a row...
Friday I knew that I just couldn't do saturday, I was too sick. Saturday, I was feeling marginally better and decided to tempt going sunday. First I was hoping to fly there, but doing a night flight while sick (sunset at 17:20) just didn't seem like a swell idea. On the flipside, I didn't feel up for a 2-3H drive to Thunderhill, so I'm indebted to JBQ for offering to drive me there.

The next morning, I wasn't feeling great, but well enough to give driving a shot. I was a little bit apprehensive about being out of it and doing something stupid while driving, but I did well enough. It sure wasn't my most precise or consistent driving. I dropped a couple of wheels off the track once, and the car corrected some imperfect driving more than once, but it went ok in the end.
Unfortunately, I did lose a session due to my new brakes being much harder to change than the old ones (the entire caliper has to be taken apart, which you can't do without special tools I didn't have, and before it's cool to the touch). After I put the new race pads in, I was able to do two more sessions and score some times of 2:08, which isn't bad, but I know the car can still do better.

JBQ, trusty driver and photographer

Can't slide out the pads anymore :(

The big bolts had to be taken out and the caliper split in two

Another prey :)

All in all, while I sure wasn't feeling my top, it was still a good day. More thanks go to JBQ to driving me home after the last session: I was totally dead after my last shot of energy drink was wearing off...

Here is one video for my 3rd session. See more images for TEAM event at Thunderhill

Reno Fernley Raceway

2008-05-25T00:09:00Z

Bonni had her yearly event at the Fernley race track again this year. Unfortunately, she moved it a bit earlier in the calendar, and we ended up having freak bad weather there. The first day, I only got one dry session (rain in the morning, and then they shut down the track in the afternoon as mud and small rivers went across the track.
Sunday wasn't forecast to be better, but by mid-morning the track was actually mostly dry. Unfortunately, I only got one session and a half before I ended up climbing in a burm, which in turn caused some kind of tire failure and a flat (pinch flat maybe?), putting an end to that day.

My new shiny brake kit upgrade

double hole

In hindsight, that weekend was pretty much a waste of time and money, but hindsight is 20/20...
A few other pix... , a video from a wet session , and a video from a dry session

Got Guts at Thunderhill

2008-04-22T11:12:00Z

I had just gotten the car back with changed fluids, and brakes, and I was looking forward to getting some instruction from Rick Weldon. I did actually get a few laps from him eventually, but they ended as I got a total brake system failure: loss of hydraulic pressure in the breaking zone before T14.
Thankfully I was able to stop with the parking brake, go around the tire wall at the end of 14, and crub off the rest with a 180 on the tarmac connecting to T8.
Turns out that one of the speedbleeder screws check valve apparently failed, causing the loss of pressure and a good size bubble in the system.
After that, I decided to call it a day, since there was no need to take any risks with a faulty system.

This was a trip in memory lane: former instructors from my first miata school in 2001

first lap, with John

I've decided to get the system replaced with a more reliable big brake kit from brembo, which will hopefully take care such situations in the future.

here are the remaining pictures

Overdue First 2008 track day at Thunderhill

2008-04-05T12:27:00Z

It had been a little while since I got to flog the red car at thunderhill. I was curious if I'd get to improve on my lap time of 2:09 without the wheel misbalance issue.

I did what I thought was a nice pass in the SSes because of an NSX that was slow and way off line, but apparently I scared the guy off a bit and he didn't expect me to pass him. Oh well, he'll check his mirrors next time and stay on line or expect to be passed, although while I was in my full right to pass him anywhere in group A (if he's not comfortable with that, and/or can't keep pace, he shouldn't be in that group), I still apologized to him since he was clearly upset and I did scare him off a bit.

The NSX is visible on a portion of the picture on the left. Eh, at least the picture shows that I wasn't the only one on his butt :)

So it sounds like I can't talk about a track day without talking about brakes. Sure enough, my pads worked, but they were struggling with keeping the car in check, which I think is partially responsible for preventing me from going faster, as I just wasn't sure I'd be able to stop in time before the next turn.
And on the 4th session, I checked my pads before going, and it looked like I had enough pads left for one more session, but that turned out to be a wrong guess (the inside pads ran out first...)

I was under the mistaken impression that the 2mm of pads I had left would be enough for one more session

turns out that was pretty optimistic on my part

The brand new pads in

and they caused me to overshoot turn 14 and have to drive straight off the track to another piece of unused asphalt before I was able to stop the car (using the backing plate and whatever pads I did have left and return to the track and exit in the right place :)

Changing the pads was kind of a bitch since they were burning, and I only got everything changed half way through my next session. Better than nothing I guess...
Unfortunately, on my last session, some guy lost it in turn 1, damaged his car, had to be towed out and ruined the rest of our session.

The flight to Willows was uneventful. My trusty driver Scott showed up early that morning, and he had fully working brake pads and tires to drive home.
Unfortunately, on the way back he got a flat on Hwy 5, just 20 miles from Willows, putting him far from home. Poor guy had to call the tow service that came with my car, and got home around midnight while I got the car home a bit past midnight. I haven't heard back on what went through the tire yet, or why the fix a flat and compressor that came with the car, didn't work.

The flight home was also a bit eventful for me: I picked up a stranded passenger and CFI in Willows who could not go home due to a failure on their plane. I was dropped them off at Sonoma County Airport and then headed home by overflying San Francisco and the California Coast (made for a pretty flight).

The remaing pictures (including GotBlueMilk shots ) are here

Quick Skyline Drive with Daniel

2007-12-09T08:18:00Z

As Daniel was over for a quick visit, we were going to the airport, got slightly lost, and took a quick detour through Skyline :)
The only problem with pagemill down is that it's easy to bottom out, which didn't sound good, even with the skid plates.
Daniel had a good time though :)

A few more picts/vids

Thunderhill: Ariel Atom Experience and Team Racing Track Day

2007-11-17T11:53:00Z

Jason and I had been keeping track of the weather in Willows while impatiently waiting for the day we would be able to each drive an Ariel Atom at thunderhill, thanks to the folks from Ariel Atom Experience . You can see what that car looks like in top gear
The next day, I was able to line up a Bonni track day, making the trip to Willows, even more worth it. The flight there was interesting since it was pretty dark flying up, but I got there within slightly less than one hour, well in time to get some rest for the next morning.

I was impressed by the setup and organization at the Ariel Atom Experience. The organizers definitely cared about safety, customer service, and offering everything they could. Some people first expressed that $1500 was expensive for a track day, but I personally thought it was a bargain to drive a car I would never be able to drive otherwise, and it was without counting the extras that were offered:

Access to the cars, obviously. A track day in my car tends to be expensive if I factor in the set of pads I'll be wearing out, the high rotor wear and tear, and the tire use (for the Ariels they had to worry about flat spots since they had no ABS).
one on one instruction the whole day
GPS equipped cars to generate a video of your last session, showing you on the track, along with 2 separate camera shots of you, the car and track, and your position on the track
Headset communication with your instructor, and radio communication with the base if they had an emergency or need to shut down the track
Eflags, which are basically a visual representation of flag status inside your car (yellow, black...), so that you can't miss an outside flagger.
Oh, and of course, an entire track for 4 to 8 cars (well, not quite, more on that later)

The "problem" (from my point of view that is), is that the event was marketed to anyone, including people who had never driven at a track (apparently, they even had someone show up who did not even know how to drive a stick shift). As a result, they not only had to make sure we knew how to drive the car (i.e. no ABS, no traction control, a lot of power and fast response, and tires that gripped well, but did not seem to give a lot of warning when they were at the edge of traction), but they also had to teach people how to drive around a track without going off the next turn, or oversteering, going sideways in a ditch, and flipping the car.
Quite frankly, my kudos to the instructors who had to sit along for the ride, and didn't have much control over the car if things went haywire. My afternoon instructor mostly just sat there silently as I went around lapping faster and faster throughout the sessions, and reminded me that I should not stay too close to the people in front of me because I could not expect them to do rational things or not to spin out (good point indeed).
Now, I thought the main problem, from someone reasonably experienced with track days, and the track in question, was that the morning was mostly a throwaway: 3 sessions of lead follow where I only got to pass a couple of cars on the last session, and that session was still very slow. Again, I can't blame them for doing that when some of the other drivers didn't know what they were doing, but I really wish we had been put in skill groups: we only had 4 cars on a half track, and even with equal power, I would lap each of them at least once during each 20mn session (after being stuck behind them for a while).
While I understand they had a chicane in the straight so that people didn't go 130mph+ before trying to brake and turn (which can be hard with wheels that tend to lock up), I really wish we had had the entire track as opposed to a half track. I just have no idea how fast I was going compared to my F430 because I only had half track times which I could not do much with (also, the full track would have alleviated the problem with slower people getting in the way). Unfortunately, they didn't have enough flaggers to man the whole track. I really hope they do next year, especially as I can imagine the half track being a parking lot with 8 cars on it including slow people, instead of 4 (we were on the last day, and they had fewer people then, hence more room for us).
Maybe in addition to making skill groups on each day, since they had 4 days, they could also recommend a day for beginners who've never been at a track, and a day for experienced people. Within that group, you can even split it between people who know the track in question, and those who don't.

All that said, the cars were fun to drive, definitely required driver skill and gave you a sense for the road. Outside of the very mixed driver skill problem, the event was very well organized, and they all really deserve credit for organizing an event where you get to drive a car that you would not have been able to, otherwise. I think it's an awesome idea and I hope other such events pop up with other cars.

See the other pictures of that day .
After a fun day of driving the Ariel Atom around, I went to chill out for the evening, and came back the next morning with my F430 that Scott nice drove over for me.
The Pagids pads worked fine, and the Pirelli Pzero Corsa Rosso tires (tread wear 60), were great. For the first time, I brought my Thunderhill lap time under 2:10 (2:09 three times, including one when I passed someone), and I'm pretty sure I could have gone a bit lower still, but I had a problem with pretty bad vibration due to a missing wheel weight, or some other misbalance problem. Driving the car with that shake was a bit worrisome, but traction control and/or tire stickiness kept it on the road. No idea what it cost me time-wise though.
However, the extra speed cost me a lot more pad wear, and I ran out of pad after the 5th session, down to the plate. Doh! But, eh, I can't complain, I was apparently the fastest street car of the day. The flipside is that I ran my brakes pads down to the backing plates by the 5th session. I guess going faster meant wearing the pads faster too :)

Unfortunately, someone in the beginner group apparently had an ABS fluke/failure or some other problem and had his car shoot sideways when trying to brake before a turn, had the car go sideways off the turn, catch a tire in the dirt, and flip a few times. He was ok, but the car not as much.

See the other pictures of that day and the video of my best lap.
Since I was out of brakes, I decided to call it a day, which gave me the chance of driving home with daylight, which was good since I was able to keep an eye on the weather which was likely to be overcast and/or foggy, making takeoff and landing potentially harder. I turned out to be lucky at that time, and got clear skies for takeoff and landing, but that could have changed at any time.

Track Day at Sears Point/Infineon

2007-10-06T14:39:00Z

The Qimonda folks were nice enough to invite us for a track day at Sears/Infineon, with instruction from the Jim Russell Racing School folks.

I've always been a bit scared of Sears: too many walls, and sure enough, at least one guy hit one, despite the instruction we got. That said, seeing the line while being driven around in a van was both fun, and useful :)

All in all, it was a good day, and I got my time down to 2:04 from over 2:20, which was reasonably good for me.

Just in case you wonder if I went off track, I didn't. In the morning, we had a different track configuration :)

The rest of the pictures are here

Reno Fernley Race Track

2007-06-24T14:20:00Z

I had freshly gotten my car back from service that it went in the hands of Samer from Tailored Relocation Services, to be driven in en enclosed truck to the Reno Fernley track. Apparently the drive took 6 to 7 hours due to traffic.
Thankfully I flew there in about 90 minutes due to cooperative winds, and by adding preflight and tiedown, it was probably 3h end to end.

The track takes a while to figure out, it's more than 4 miles long, and a big thanks to Scott for showing me around the track a few times.
First, I was clocking around 3:26 or so, and by the second day, I took it down to 3:16. While I was figuring things out, I waved a fair amount of people by, who I'm sure were delighted to pass my car :)

making sure that all the wheels are still probably attached :)

I likely would have been able to take it a bit further below 3:16 by the end of sunday, but while I was lucky with the brakes working great this time (it looks like most of my problems were due to a front/back bias issue which went away when I replaced the rear pads with non stock ones), but unfortunately, one of my tire's sidewall failed, forcing me to call it a day a bit early.
Yet, I still got 2/3rd of my sessions in, which wasn't too bad considering. I'm just now wondering how long I drove with that bulge, or if I did catch it right after it happened.

Jennifer was able to come this time and got her first laps around a real track, which is the best way to show what a car can really do, and how much leg room I have when I drive on the street (except for not knowing what other drivers not paying attention around you, could do at any time). Thanks to her for the extra pictures she was able to take while I was driving.
And here's a link to the other pictures from the TEAM track day at Reno Fernley

Unlimited Laps at ThunderHill

2007-06-16T12:06:00Z

It was a nice flight to TH and back, except for the weather being pretty freaking hot in Willows and causing some of my checklist plastic covers to half melt :)

Thunderhill itself wasn't great unfortunately, while it was pretty hot there, my car ran fine: no overheating issues, Ferrari definitely did cooling right.
My brakes unfortunately didn't fare as well, in the end I had to pack after three sessions and after having totally cooked my rotors and calipers (and boiled the brake fluid, which means your brakes pretty much stop working, and that's slightly undesirable when you're doing over 120mph and a turn is coming :)
I got some good help at the track, including from a nice coworker called Arnaud,but in the end, there wasn't that much to do, so I ended up flying home early.

After that, my car spent 4 days straight at Silicon Valley Auto Group where they fixed the alignment, changed the tires, cleaned up the abused calipers, tried to get all the brake pads to fit (Cobalt GT) and when it was all set and done and I got the car back, I finally got a callback from a Ferrari track specialist who told me that I should avoid those pads since they damage the rotors and tend to overheat.
Great, I had just spent a lot of time and money to try and get them in. Yet, it was good to know this just before the next track day, and I got an emergency change of the Cobalt GTs with Pagids I had on hand literally 2 hours before my car left for the next track day (and they turned out to make the overheating issues go away)
I also found out that my calipers cooked so much that they melted their dust shields and were supposed to be rebuilt except there no time for that before the next track day. I guess I'll find out then if things work, or not.
All in all, this track day was a bit frustrating, but also a learning experience.
A few more pictures are here

First Thunderhill of the year

2007-04-24T12:50:00Z

iI usually wait for the snow season to be over before going for the track. April 23rd sounded like late enough. Little did I know that I'd be snowboarding in more than one foot of fresh powder the previous day.
Luckily, the weather was ok the next day. Since Thunderhill was a mere few miles from the Willows general aviation airport, I took the opportunity to fly there. It was about 55mn in the air when flying by Mt Diablo (to avoid crowded San Francisco airspace), and close to 2H if you factor in going to/from the airport, getting the plane ready, tied down, and so forth... That said, it was both more scenic and peaceful than driving there, and I didn't have to worry about cops while doing close to 200mph :)

I was a bit sluggish on my first session, but started getting a bit more awake and precise on my next session and getting more comfortable with the amount of brakes and traction I had, or didn't have. Unfortunately, that's around the time that my brake pads started going out (I knew they wouldn't last the day, and brought spares).
Changing the said brake pads ended up being much more work than expected however. The pin that needed to be slid out was wedged in there quite well, probably due to heat expansion. We did get it out eventually, but the next problem was that the new brake pads I had were too thick, and just wouldn't fit.
After more calls, the advise was to rub them down until they were thin enough to fit. Sure enough, I used some stone to rub them against, and they fit eventually.

After that I had 3 more sessions left (one lost to brake changing), but unfortunately, something wasn't quite right in the pad install, and my brake fluid would overheat and boil. It's scary to have your brake pedal go to the floor with no brakes when you're going over 100mph, and there is a turn coming :) (pumping helped a bit, but was barely enough).
We drained the fluid, which helped a bit, but I still had problem after a few laps each time. Ultimately, we now think that the pads were a bit too thick, and were rubbing on the rotors even when I wasn't braking, overheating the whole system. My car is now getting a full flush and brake check, which should take care of that.
Anyway, I was able to get a few laps that were a bit better (down to 2:11 or 2:10), but still very far from what the car could do. Not only do I still need to learn how to drive it, as it's nothing alike my old turbo miata, but I was also being very conservative on braking because I didn't want to lose my brakes at 120, right before a turn...
That said, despite the brake issues, it was still nice to have a little fun on the track, but I don't feel I got to learn a whole lot this time, especially on my later sessions where I was more awake, but just afraid of pushing it too much and losing my brakes in the wrong place. Unfortunately, I also didn't much time to socialize, or take other pictures. I was too busy changing the pads, and then trying to bleed out the boiled brake fluid... (that said the pictures I was able to get (including 2 not from me) are here )

The flight home was fine (55mn) and I got home in less than 2H door to door, which isn't bad :)

The funny part is how I was trying to shift my M5 with the windshield wipers, which my brain had decided had become paddle shifters :)
Oh, and thanks to Jason for the help :)

SpeedZone in Dallas

2006-12-28T14:33:00Z

When done visiting the Dallas, we has extra time which I thought would be well spent by visiting an intriguing park they had: SpeedZone. It's the first amusement park I know that is entirely based on motorsports. They have 3 different tracks and kinds: one somewhat lame many vehicle, somewhat slow speed track, a faster slick track where you get to practise oversteering (and oh boy do many people suck at it), and a higher speed autocross style track, where you go for the best possible laptime. Those were much fun.
That said, the unusual part was the dragster track with 300hp propane powered dragsters. The setup is quite nice: you are on a rail and they automatically stop you at the end so that you don't hit anything :)

See more SpeedZone pictures
or the SpeedZone web site

Gotbluemilk Pictures

2006-12-18T13:29:00Z

Along the years, when going to track events, the guy from gotbluemilk.com took pictures of all of us. I recently bought a CD with all the pictures he took at different track events I've gone to betwween 2004 and 2006 (Laguna Seca and Thunderhill in my Miata, M5, and F430).

Let's start with a few pictures of my turbo miata:

Then, my one track day with the M5:

and a couple of recent track days with the F430:

All in all, some nice pictures. You can find the other gotbluemilk pictures here and especially the best of gotbluemilk .
Thanks to the fine folks at gotbluemilk for the great pictures.

Foggy / Rainy Thunderhill Day

2006-12-12T12:07:00Z

I took a slight gamble on the weather, but in the end the forecast looked good enough to give it a shot.
Unfortunately, we were greeted by ground fog, and the first sessions were delayed by about 90mn because the overall visibility was just too bad. Then, we had light rain, making the track quite slippery.
It made for a good exercise in light driving, and seeing how your traction control and ABS worked if you had any. That's where mine came in very handy, I set it to sport mode, which did a good job of cutting off before I got in trouble with the power. The corvettes however probably had a traction control that was so bad that they turned it off right away, and of course the next thing that happened is they ended up outside of the track.
By the afternoon, my third and last session was the only relatively dry one, and I was able to switch the traction control to race mode and get better times. Yet, wet tracks always make me nervous :)
I did have an instructor's session at the end, but I was just too beat due to a bad night, and decided to quit while I was ahead, instead of too tired, and off track, and headed back around 15:00 :)
Oh, I did get my butt kicked by a very fast Evo. That guy definitely had more balls than me. My times were around 2:19 in the half wet, and 2:13 to 2:15 in the somewhat more dry. Not stellar, but probably the best I could do that day :)

Yet, since I was there, I still made the best of it. Might as well :) (oh, and the best part is that the brakes held up. My new brake pads are definitely much better)

The rest of the pictures are here

430 at Thunderhill

2006-11-18T00:01:00Z

I can't believe it had been more than a year since I had last gone to the track, but with my miata requiring more love^H^H^H^Hhelp than I can give it, and my mostly flying machines that actually do have wings, I guess it just had been that long.
After the last (I'm sure minor, but annoying nonetheless) fuel delivery issue with my miata, and my not being a mechanic, I decided to call it quits, and sell my miata. That gave way for another car, and it was more than time to go back to the track to try it out.

Since I was still half on European time, getting up at 05:30 to go to the track wasn't that hard, so I just left that morning for Thunderhill. Weather was not that great, and the 505 raceway was fogged to the ground, with a police escort enticing everyone to stay below 70mph anyway (which I got all the way to thunderhill, somewhat slowing me down (about 2:15-2:20 to get there)

There were lots of varied cars in attendance, including some fast lotuses, and a Radical racecar (that one was fast).

hey, they look like they almost belong together :)

Unfortunately, my brand new brake pads barely lasted 100 miles of track, and I decided to call it quits while I still had enough pads left to go home

Although good time was had nonetheless.... The car felt solid and fairly forgiving, even with the traction control in race mode, and while I didn't get very exact times, I got down around 2:10 or so. I know the car can be pushed harder, but I'd rather work my way up to it while keeping it with the shiny side up :) and I also felt the car's weight a bit in the turns, but especially in braking, where I found that the stock pads didn't actually do that good a job stopping the car fast in my opinion (especially if they wear out that quickly in addition to that). Well, I'll see what can be done next time.

My timings were a bit sloppy as I tried to use my GPS watch as an automated timing device, but it just didn't work that well this time. I think a running/biking watch wasn't really designed to work at 120mph+, and pinpoint a loop point ot reset the lap timer at that speed :)

Drive home was uneventful, although not that fast due to generally too many people on the road, and left lane camping (2h25 or so).

You can look at the rest of the pictures of the TEAM event at Thunderhill

I drove the fastest road car in the world

2006-05-19T14:45:00Z

This morning, I got to drive a Bugatti Veyron , which is and probably will remain the fastest road car in the world (as well as the most expensive, with a price of 1.3 million dollars + tax). You should follow the link to wikipedia for the gory details, but interesting pieces are acceleration from 0 to 60mph in 2.5sec, 1006HP (and the 2 8 cylinder engines with 4 turbos actually develop 3000HP, but 1000 are lost in the exhaust, and another 1000 are lost in cooling).
Before you ask me how I pulled off a test drive, it's thanks to a coworker who had bought a car at the dealership, got an invite himself, and told me about it. When I called, with his referral, I was able to get the last test drive left on the schedule (the Veyrons were only there for 3 days). What's kind of interesting is that 2 people had already bought one, haven't received yet, and went for a test drive as their first time driving the car ever.
Anyway, in my case, well, it was just a cool thing to try. The test drive itself was unfortunately a bit short, and while I did get to drive the car for maybe 5-10mn, we didn't really get much clear road, and never got to see its handling or how it would handle when pushed in a corner. The other bummer is that the driver who would take you out was actually a Lemans driver and he told me how he would make a left on Bear Creek Road, but he couldn't do that anymore because the cops knew he was giving test rides.
Yet, we still got to do a few launches on the freeway, and boy does the car have power. Surprisingly it was very stable, easy to drive, and wasn't that loud, although you could hear the turbos spinning. While, we never got to push the car much, it was really nice to drive. Too bad I didn't have a newborn to sell :) so that I could reserve one for late 2007 (!)
Oh, the other interesting Tidbits is that I drove the actual car that Jeremy Clarkson drove on Top Gear when he tested it (race against the Cessna 182), and that VW loses about 4 million dollars on each of the 300 cars they'll make over the next 6 years.

Back at Los Gatos Silicon Valley Auto Group, I used the opportunity to test drive an F430 spyder, which is almost 5 times cheaper with its punny 490HP :)
The sound was pretty glorious, I have to give it that, and it was fun to drive too :) I kind of knew I liked that car, and I confirmed that I do :)

They also have all kinds of other exotic cars that you wouldn't really get to see in any other places in the world, including a Saleen S7. You can look at the pictures I took to see all those cars and other Veyron pictures I took . I just can't believe that I was stupid enough not to get a picture of me inside the Veyron. Doh!

Hahaha, I beat Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson and his NSX around Laguna Seca by 1 second :)

2006-01-04T15:00:00Z

I was watching Top Gear's last episode of this season, and Jeremy flew to Laguna Seca to compare how the real driving experience was with driving the same car on the same track on a playstation.
Turns out that I had done the exact same thing than him, and with the exact same track a year and a half ago :)
Ok, that's not actually a huge feat, besides my time of 1:56 around LS is ok, but nothing to be really proud of compared to what real miata drivers can do, but it was more funny to see Jeremy go through the same excercise than me :)

To be entirely fair, Jeremy probably did fewer laps than me anyway (although his car was probably as, if not more capable than mine), but in both cases we did much better times on the playstation than in real life, and we both concluded that in real life with the fear of death and severe mauling by fire, you don't drive the same than in the game :) (that, and the fact that the game is over optimistic on the car and track capabilities).

All in all, it was quite entertaining to watch

M5 at TH (T.E.A.M. Track Event at Thunderhill)

2005-07-19T14:34:00Z

After getting my trip to Canada and OLS cancelled (and not being very happy about it), I decided to join a T.E.A.M. track day at thunderhill at the last minute. However, my miata being out of commission (again :( It's at the shop to debug an electrical problem), I was left with taking my backup car, the M5 :)

Yeah, welcome to the track

I got a nice ride in Rick Weldon's car

Temperature was above 42°C, which made some engines hot. Oh yeah, MPG wasn't too good on the track, but then again, my miata doesn't do much better at full boost :)

My car sure talked to me today, and told me things we had never discussed before :)

By the end of all sessions, I had to short shift to bring the RPMs and temps down, but due to the remaining torque I had, it was not a big deal

My brake pads however totally vanished :)

Unfortunately, I had to bail after 4 sessions because I had just totally ran out of brakes (and did one session with the very little brake pad left warning light on the whole time).
Bonni nicely let me drive her spec miata, and it was such a contrast to go back in a small car that just stuck to the road and had so much grip that I barely ever had to touch the brakes: just gas the whole way.

Even though I only did 4 sessions in the M5, and I did struggle to use any power considering that the street tires would just not hold the massive weight of the car in turns, I was almost able to read a laptime of 2:20.
I know that with a little more practise, and had I actually reached the zone (which I wasn't quite in), I could probably have gone down to 2:18-ish, but still about 4 seconds slower than my miata. Now, if I actually had sticky tires and a bit more practise, I would most likely have been able to beat it, and get in the low 2:10s, but I'm not sure I want the hassle of new wheels and new tires for an occasional visit to the track.

Anyway, good time was had, it was nice to drive the car without traction control on (actually, it was mostly on the slight understeer side of mostly neutral, which I guess makes it safer). My brakes just had a hard time keeping up with the load, and gave up their life trying :)

Trip back was mostly uneventful, due to traffic jams on 80, it took about 2H25. The only interesting part was the chippie coming the other way on 505 when I was doing over a buck-twenty the other way. Either he didn't see me or didn't bother trying to turn around trying to catch up to say hello :)

Pictures are here

My miata

2005-07-08T23:59:00Z

Finally, I got my miata back after almost two months. Boy, did I miss it, I had to drive a boring big sedan in the meantime, it was hell :)

Anyway, after much work to fix/re-install the turbo, I got it back.
It's kind of funny how I have to relearn to drive the car, and it does confirm what I tell other people: it can be a scary car to drive at the limit, and right now I have to relearn that :)

For one, no ABS, but especially no DSC (advanced traction/stability control), which means that the only thing that will make sure I don't spin out in a corner is me, not the car :)

Bay Area Ms Drive

2005-05-23T15:00:00Z

This was my first club drive with BMW M enthousiasts, from a very rare M1, older M3s, M5s, and a Z8.
The drive was fun, although it was somewhat mellow since it was copper day (one of the first nice and sunny saturdays this year). After heading for Hyw 1, we drove up to the Presidio. All in all a very nice drive and a great day.

The picts are here
I've also created a list for BMW M enthousiasts, you can go can ask to join the BAMS mailing list

M1 (only about 60 of those in the US)

Z8

My miata almost made it into a movie

2005-05-12T12:00:00Z

No, no, not fast and furious 3 :)
A guy from skysound (Lucas' Skywalker Ranch Sound Studio) invited me to the old alameda runway, the one that was turned into a piece of freeway for Matrix 2

They wanted to do some sound recordings of my miata's turbo, engine and exhaust for one of their upcoming movies (I'm guessing Pixar's Cars ). Unfortunately my miata is in the shop, getting its turbo install cleaned up and redone (actually, it's been about 3 weeks now, and I'm really starting to miss it...).
Oh well, it would have been fun...

Thunderhill April TEAM event

2005-04-05T00:31:00Z

Can't read? Letters too small? Ok, then try the pictures here

I was looking forward to going to thunderhill again, it had been too long (since last year). It just wasn't quite done deal from the start though. After trying to guess from the weather reports whether it was going to rain monday or not, it first looked like it wasn't so I mounted my other wheels with Toyo RA-1s to replace the current "winter" tires (Toyo T1-S) a couple of days before the weekend.
On saturday morning, I managed to flat-spot my front right tire while bedding / testing my newly installed brake pads. Swell... At this point my options were to mount the tire in the wrong place (left back) and worry about the weather reports that had switched back to partial rain (those tires were not ready for rain at all since they mostly had the sticky rubber left on them, but little tread), or to take the backup car.
It came close to that, until Larry nicely answered a post on BAMO and offered to sell me his brand new RA-1s that were sitting in a garage (turned out it was the only way to get those on a saturday as all the possible warehouses in California didn't have them for same day delivery). Some running around to pick them up and get them mounted, by late saturday, I was all set. Yeah!

On the drive to thunderhill on sunday evening, I refueled at some Arco on the way, and noticed that my EGTs (exhaust gas temperatures) were shooting a bit high (more than 800C) at 110mph, so I just drove an almost decent speed on 505/5. That should have been a hint that things were slightly amiss already.
The next morning, I filled the empty portion of my tank with 100 octane, but that was only 4.5 gallons out of 12.7.

I first went out with my student to show him around the track in my car, and then later in his. He had a lot to learn, but eh, it was his first time, so that's normal.
After that, I went to have a little more fun on the track, but soon realized that my EGTs were really getting out of control. So, I called tech support (aka JasonC), took notes on what to reprogram in the Tec-II, and went to a support technician (aka MattY) to make sure the fuel enrichment and timing advance were done properly.
This helped a little bit, but still, I was running quite hot. Since Carlos was having the same issue and we both had gotten Arco 91 Kalifornia crapola gas, we figured that this week's Arco gas was probably watered down or something. We both added more fuel in our respective maps and messed with timing some more, which helped a bit. It also got a bit better for me after another more aggressive enrichment tune, and 6 more gallons of 100 octane in my tank once I had burned some by mid-day.
This is also around the time that I obliterated my AC/power steering belt (luckily it was that one), which in hindsight may be related to the high EGTs I was having, and a small exhaust leak (I think this caused my map sensor problem later). Anyway, I got to drive the last 4 sessions with no power steering, which made the drive a lot more intense (incidently, my back and shoulders were fairly sore the next day from pushing/pulling the steering wheel with such high gearing an no assist).

Matt "I'm too cool for my hair" Y

Carlos "I'm faster than you, but I can't drive 10 10th right now"

Jason "My blower is bigger than your turbo, so there!" W

Marc "Look at the back of my car, that's all you'll see Carlos" M

bling bling! represent! :)

By the end of the day, I was able to run the open track at full bore and came down to 2:18-ish (maybe 2:17), which was decent but not as good as I did last time when I didn't have all those mechanical problems and was much more focussed on driving and shaving off imperfections. Eh, at least I got a nice "you are positively insane" comment from the last passenger I got. All in a day's work... :)
Just for the record if you were wondering :), I never got close to losing control of the car, left the track with even one wheel, or made any dodgy pass, but with the RA-1s, I could drive very hard and keep a nice controlled yaw angle through turn 2. For that matter, even Bonni tried to get me off track by getting off turn 10 backwards and throwing dirt right in front of my car, but she failed too :)

Now, on the mechanical side, my clutch started acting up again, just like last time I went to TH: somehow it wouldn't always downshift from 4th to 3rd before turn 2, or 2nd to 3rd in turn 11 (mostly due to temperature apparently). This was annoying in itself, but on top of that in turn 11 while struggling to shift back to 3rd, I must have messed up a bit, and the gear somehow slipped in 1st, when I was at the top of 2. Ouch!!! I was actually expecting to see my engine drop on the road in my rear view mirror after that, but somehow it was still working...

Things became more gloom when I came back to my car that was idling on the paddocks to circulate oil through the turbo while it was spinning down and cooling off, and I noticed that the engine wasn't running anymore. Ok, maybe a fluke, so we drive to Willows to refuel, and when I'm ready to leave with my BAMO buddies, my car half starts and dies, and then won't start. Damn...
I pull out the laptop and connect to the engine diagnostic/reprogram port, and notice that one of the sensors is reporting failures: the MAP sensor (manifold air pressure). The Bamo buddies who had stopped to help me start looking at it, MattY at the laptop, and Carlos at the engine bay, and Carlos finds that one of my vacuum lines by the manifold was very hard and half pinched (hard due to temperature under the hood I'm sure, and pinched due to poor routing). Carlos cut it, re-routed it, and that took care of it.

We head out on Hwy5 south, but I end up driving slow: 55-60mph because I noticed that my EGTs are quite high. Argh... After pulling over, I tried to re-upload my engine map from the track (over-rich) even if I'm not supposed to need it and it might knock with less 100 octane gas in the tank. Car barely starts and move after that upload. Argh! Ok, now I try the middle map I had (a little less rich), and the serial connection fails half way through the upload, and I can't see the engine computer on my laptop after that anymore. Argh, argh, argh!
At this point, I was quite stressed because it looked like a half upload was a failure you couldn't recover from. Yet, somehow after restarting the stupid wintec2 crap software, I finally got an upload to work, and the car was finally on its way. EGTs were still high (more than 800C for cruising), but I was able to drive 85mph or so.
Then, I noticed on the way while looking at the real time engine stats on the laptop that it was showing much lower RPMs than I was driving (2900 rpm when I was doing 4500 or so). Since I know my gearing, I knew that my dashboard was right, and the laptop (and therefore ECU) wrong. While I'm not much of a mechanic, I knew enough that my ECU being off on RPMs by 1800rpm is very wrong. For that matter, my engine won't run if it's off by an 8th of a turn, never mind more than ten thousand times that. Anyway, the car limped along up to Mell's diner on Hwy 80, and after talking to tech support (JasonC), I re-routed the crank position sensor wire away from the ignition wires which were apparently messing with the electrical signal (Jason also said that the Tec-II has a weird failsafe mode where it apparently runs the engine without really knowing what position it's in)

After a dinner at Mel's with the BAMO guys, the car started fine and showed the correct RPMs, so we headed for the freeway, where I proceeded to drive 45mph this time due to even higher EGTs :( The convoy nicely pulled over for me again, and Matt helped me look into the problem again. Since the RPMs were now fixed, we reset the original map (the non enriched one), and Matt slightly tweaked it. After a quick test drive the car really seemed ok this time, and we were able to finish the drive home.
This was frankly more excitement than I was hoping for, and I'm not quite sure what state the car is in right now, but I'll have John look at it.
Either way, I'm somehow still happy I was at thunderhill with the BAMO crew and the miata, and thank you so much to all the people who helped me and waited for me on the way back.

Moral of the story: if you have a Tec-II, don't leave home without your laptop, a cell phone, and your tech support numbers :)

Anyway, you can browse the pictures here

Got lucky, thanks to BAMO, my car club

2005-04-03T12:37:00Z

Current Music: AVB - ASOT 82
Current Mood: Good

After confirming that it would be impossible to buy a new set of RA-1s today, and having posted to the BAMO list, I got a few replies with offers and suggestions, including a friend who had a set of brand new RA-1s setting around at a shop in Santa Clara. Talk about luck.
He gave me his set in exchange for my old tires and some money :) and I got his mounted in time before the shops closed, and to realize after driving off that some of the balance weights they put in were scraping against my back RX-7 calipers (horrible metal scraping noise). Tss, can't they even test a car after putting tires on...
Anyway, I found another firestone affiliated place where they nicely agreed to fix the wheel and rebalance it (took all of 10mn). I tipped the guy for saving me a longer drive back to the other shop that was closing anyway.
Now, I'm out of excuses for not bringing my miata to the track monday :)

In other car news, some guys hacked their honda prius to run in electric mode only, swapped the batteries and added a plug to recharge the car. They now get more than 100mpg (using off the grid electricity to recharge). As much as I was really not convinced by the hybrids and their inability to run on electric for even 20 to 30 miles, or to be recharged without using gas, those modded cars are really what's it's all about. Hopefully the carmarkers will get a clue.
NYT with soul selling registration article here

Calveras Drive

2005-01-24T08:17:00Z

Well, it was nice outside after noon-ish, so I just had to get out.
By 13:00, I headed out for a drive to Calaveras, and it was mostly empty, which
made for a nice drive.
I'm still learning how the car handles with DSC (dynamic stability control) and deciding whether I ever want to drive it without. DSC is sometimes a bit too aggressive for my taste, but I also know that it can save my butt in ways that the controls I have wouldn't even allow me...

Anyway, it's definitely interesting to drive all that weight around, very very different from the miata obviously. On one side, the car is very predictable, it handles quite well, brakes very well, but on the other side, I can't push it nearly as much in the corners, both due to DSC and the weight...

Either way, I had a good time:

The rest of the pictures is here

Oh, I had a friend asking about the top speed for each gear, so I got some numbers:
1st: 40 mph
2nd: 65 mph (miata: 62mph)
3rd: 105 mph (miata: 85mph)
4th: 140 mph (miata: 115mph)
5th: ? :) (miata: 140mph)
6th: >190mph (one reaches the aerodynamical limits of the car first)

M5 Shakeout

2004-12-21T00:00:00Z

Current Music: AVB - ASOT - 164
Current Mood: Good

Yesterday, I really felt like I wanted to get out after all the paper sorting I had been doing (and all my overdue expense reports for the past year, more than $2000 worth, ouch :) ). My regular Mountain Biking / Rollerblading options didn't sound too appealing because my right knee is still bothering me, so I went for a drive instead, something I hadn't done for a while.
I took the M5 up pagemill to Skyline, and then ended up taking the dreaded Alpine road (damn, that road is still a piece of shit) before catching 84/La Honda back to skyline upper north, and back down south on Skyline to take pagemill back down. The cool thing is that satellite navigation came in quite handy to know where the hell I was going :) but also (even better), so see the curves that were going to be in front of me to see if I was going to get a chance to pass someone in front of me in a slightly straighter section.
On one side, I was a little bit apprehensive since it was my first time out curve driving with this car, and those roads can be treacherous (pagemill can be interesting, but Alpine was definitely the one to worry about), but I have to say that the car performed beautifully.
Despite its size and weight, it felt fairly nimble, ABS was useful considering that all 4 wheels are not always in full contact with good road due to bumps, dirt, holes, etc, and it some places. However the winner was traction control, which was going crazy and blinking a lot. This reminds me of a Top Gear quote about a 500hp mercedes "you can feel the traction control constantly working on keeping you on the road. See, right here, machinery just saved me from driving off the road" (said Jeremy Clarkson joking while driving in a straight line)
Anyway, it's hard to judge speed from the inside, so I have no idea how the car did compared to my miata, but at least it felt really good driving, and safe. The only issue was that the car being bigger, it was much harder to pass someone on a narrow road: I just wasn't sure that I was going to fit on their right while passing. As for traction control, this is really where it correct one or two wheels where needed faster than you even could even if you had control on individual wheels. I don't actually think I need the "thrill" of driving without it, I just stick to the miata where I don't have a choice since it doesn't have any.
Anyway, long story short: it was a fun drive and the car did great.

Well, 400hp will be enough afterall :)

2004-12-12T13:06:00Z

Current Music: AVB - ASOT 172
Current Mood: Like a kid with a new toy :)

Funny how things work out, I went to check out and test drive the RS6 I had
seen available. Turns out the owner just put it for sale a few hours before I found the ad. While I liked some parts of it (outside of what I read online and little "details" like 450hp :), it had quite a huge trunk, and a reclining back seat if you needed extra space (handy to fit a snowboard or huge luggage). Unfortunately, the avant (hatchback) model never got imported in the US. For that matter, the current model had less than a 1000 units imported in the US altogether, making it rarer than an NSX.
Anyway, it does look nice

And then, I drove it...
Well, of course I made use of the paddle shift since I'm certainly not going to settle for an automatic today. Long story short, tiptronic gearboxes suck. Sure, they're smart, sure they'll make sure I don't overrev the engine by downshifting when I'm not supposed to (i.e. 4th to 3rd instead of 5th). It will even resist auto-shifting when you have lateral G-forces (i.e. in the middle of a hard turn). But, then, it also decided that I didn't have enough RPM to shift from 4th to 5th or auto shifted back to 1st when I stopped at a red line (which is kind of what I wanted, but that's just back to an automatic box, and that just annoyed me).
On top of the fact that I hate automatic gearboxes, the shifts took close to one second after I initiated them on the paddle shift, and that was just utterly unacceptable.
In the end, it just felt like a fast boat, and I don't like driving boats, even if they do have 450hp.

So, it was back to the BMW dealership to see the used M5 they had just received, and do a luggage fit test on my way back home for lunch (I was lugging a couple of pieces of airline luggage with me to give me a idea of what trunk sizes I was dealing with).
I can't believe I'd ever say that about a car salesman, but he levelled with me from the beginning, knew what kind of driving I was into, and sold me on the certified pre-owned concept: paying a little more for a car that's been thoroughly checked, brought back to spec, and will be fully warrantied until december 2007 (it's a 2002). Quite frankly, for that kind of car, it's not only a nice insurance that you're not being a lemon, or an overly abused car, and it's also nice not to have to worry about all the hassles of being from an individual, getting a VIN inspection, getting it to green slip or AAA for a full 100+ point inspection, etc, etc...
I'm not a big impulse buyer, but there was definite value in being able to drive the car away an hour and change later. I also really appreciated just being able to tell the guy "look, so I'm not into playing games, haggling and all that unpleasant stuff: what's the real price you can sell it for", and him returning with his final price 5mn later.

Thanks to help from Xav, I got the car home, and we went for lunch to celebrate after that :)
My only two small complaints about it would be: no cigarette lighter adapter in the back, for passengers to get laptop power :) and more importantly, the reverse gear is very easy to mistake with the 1st gear (that's more disappointing and a real life potential problem if you back up into the car behind you when the light turns green)
Apart from that, it has a lot of nice amenities, pretty much all the options that were ever available on that model (including a folding back seat, which strangely enough, was a rare option, but something I wanted very much). I'll probably spend the rest of the evening reading the manual and fiddling with all the buttons (of which there are many :)
I think one of the most impressive parts of the car, outside of fixing very stupid driving moves that you might try (its rims and tires are a bit more money than a miata if you smack a curb :), is how quiet it actually is inside, and how you have no idea that you're suddenly driving the speed you are before you look at the speedo and slow down.

I also felt a bit bad buying the car on the spot without going home and going through the used M5 ads I had seen online, but having done that now, it turns out it was the only M5 anywhere close, it had all the options I could have wanted, and it was actually quite fairly priced, especially for a certified vehicle.
And boy, does it feel nice to fulfill an old dream (yeah, I still remember watching one of my first Top Gear videos, and tiff driving the M5 sideways . If I quit my day job, I can also become a cab driver :)

Now, I just have to figure out how on earth I can plug in my empeg in there. That's definitely not going to be a piece of cake... Oh, and after upgrading my 4 door car, maybe I need to buy a new pair of shoes without holes on the side :)

Info and stats on the M5 if you're curious

There are days with, and days without

2004-12-10T07:18:00Z

Current Music: ATB - Mix Vol1 - 04 ATB - Long Way Home
Current Mood: Undeterred :)

Today was the break stuff day. First, I somehow manage to drop (lack of coordination) my empeg mp3 player , and still get my useful reflex to set my foot out so it fell on it, and got fairly cushionned before finally hitting the ground. No external damage, but the hard drive isn't recognized anymore. I'll have to open it up to see if I toasted one or two of the drives.
That should probably have been a clue, but never mind that, 10mn later I oversteered on my usual shoreline left on amphitheater turn. Actually, I didn't really make any mistake: got the apex right, some speed but no godly amounts. Unfortunately, while the road up to there had been ok, that patch was too wet and slippery, and the back wheels broke traction almost at the end of the turn, at a time where it's too late to do anything.
End result, the back right wheel hit the curb pretty hard. The wheel and tires are toast (no big deal, I have fully mounted spares, they're not very solid anyway), but it also bent at least the axle. I'll know tomorrow how much needs to be swapped and what the bill will be.
All in all, I'm not pissed because I didn't really do any clear driving mistake outside of just having driven a little hard for the last 4 years, and finally got nailed by a piece of road that didn't allow it and left no room for correction. I'm not complaining about bad luck either, I've taken calculated risks, had a lot of fun in return, and eventually am still in the same risk category than the average unskilled driver (who also drives slower as a result), something I was already fully aware of, and was ok with.
It's just a good reminder to always judge the consequences at all times of loss of control and adjust accordingly (hitting a curb vs going sideways on the freeway or off a cliff), something which I've been very careful to keep in mind every time I goof off.

Comments:
Well, I just fixed my empeg player again. This thing is really well designed. The hard drive anti-vibration rubber pieces took most of the shock, and came out of their sockets, but apparently they did enough work to save the drives: the player wasn't booting because the shock unplugged the IDE cable from the drive. After taking it all apart, and putting it back together, it works fine again. Yeah! (a little known fact is that it's a very overpriced sweet piece of technology which unfortunately did cost $1500, so I had some vested interest in seeing it still work :)
posted by MM : 09 December, 2004 19:59

In other news, the repairs on my car amount to about $1100, which is more or less what I expected, and what I spend on a set of wheels and tires anyway. Obviously, I'd have done without it, but it's really not that bad.
posted by MM : 10 December, 2004 15:00

Thunderhill again

2004-10-23T00:44:00Z

In a nutshell, the day couldn't have gone better. We narrowly escaped rain, my car was all ready for the track (new bushings, Tein shocks, fresh alignment and RA-1s), and despite a problem with my tranny (shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear when the car was hot) which forced me to take turn 11 in 3rd gear, I shaved about 5 seconds off my previous best time (now 2:13:7-8x). 5 seconds might not sound like much, but actually, it's a whole lot, especially the more you get under 2:30 at TH.

Needing new brake pads: $50
Needing new race compound tires soon: $500 for 4
Hearing "boy was that you in the white miata, you were damn fast" several times: priceless :)

What's interesting is that once again, I've shown that I can have a bout of performance (i.e. two great lap times), and then lack focus entirely, to the limit of day dreaming (went off track a bit once, and spun twice while staying on track).
Once, I just spun off turn 2 because I was pushing it a bit too much on my first lap and apparently my tires had cooled down a bit too much (this seems to have scared Matt off since he came up with a lame excuse why he wanted off the car :), and my off track in turn 1 was so bad, I don't even really know what I was doing, except that I obviously wasn't paying any attention at all since I don't really even remember what I did, if I came in hot, or not, whether I caught it a bit or not (I saw a video taken by someone behind me, and if it weren't for that, I still wouldn't know what I did). Mmmh....
My last spin (on my last session and lap of the day), was in 5, my first time ever. That one, well, I don't have to feel bad about it, I just screwed up: I tried a different line going in, and it just didn't work :) I kind of sucks how I've been constantly tired in the past two weeks, and have been struggling to stay alert and awake. Basically I was running on red bull and rock star during the day, and I could really tell when the previous one was wearing off...

Long story short, I am estatic about having dropped my lap time so much. I was running 2:15 on most my laps, some even included passing folks, and many also included very bad misshifts in 11 as my tranny/clutch just refused to shift back from 2nd to 3rd.
I had planned to play with the brand new lotus that was there, but I made the mistake to start in front of it instead of behind (i.e. the driver waved me by in the pits), and I never saw him again until we pitted at the end of the session :)
I also did some sweet passes in unusual turns (for me), like multiple passes between 2 and 3 by taking people on the inside of 2 at its exit, and I also passed several cars between 5 and 6.
Practise, more confidence, and better tires also helped me work up to close to 90mph exit speed in turn 1, and up to 92-95mph in turn 8, with does require a little faith :)

My "lap time" going to TH on wed night was 2:00:30 (doh, didn't make it under 2 hours. If it weren't for all those cops coming the other way on 5 and driving my V1 crazy...). On the way back I got a more respectable 1:51:45 (to 237 and Lawrence Expy exit, after that, well, it was street, so I slowed down :) The funny thing was that I found that I'm better off cruising between 110 and 120 tops as after that (130+), I have to be full boost, and well, my 12 gallon tank doesn't quite last the 160 miles required for the trip :)
It was kind of funny driving the way up glancing at both speed, RPMs, EGTs, core temp, trip distance left, and how fast the gas gauge was going down :)

Oh, did I mention that the lotus 2005 looks really sweet? :)

Pictures are here

T.E.A.M. Track Event at Thunderhill

2004-10-21T15:00:00Z

The picts are here

Well, my tires worked hard that day :)

Ready for the track

2004-10-21T02:14:00Z

Current Music: Armin Van Buuren - A State of Trance - Episode 162
Current Mood: Good

After spending way too much time writing TPS reports (or something that seemed pretty close to it), I gave up and went home last night, so that I'm not too out of it tomorrow morning when I wake up around 06:30 in Willows for my track day at thunderhill (yeah! I can't wait)

As a quick shakeout after the recent work on my car (new bushings, shocks, racing pads, and brand new alignment), I used the fact that the road was mostly dry by the time I got to work this morning to try my 100mph run on the back stretch leading to our parking lot.
I actually didn't get a good start (low speed in the turn) due to the light not beeing green at the right time, and having to wait for an oncoming car before I could do my left turn, but yet, after flooring it, I reached 100mph a bit late, and was able to do really good braking and stop just in time for the left turn in the parking lot. I was really impressed by how sticky the tires were despite the road condition, and the heavy and consistent braking from the pads.
Tomorrow should be fun, I need to break 2:19 for my laptime, and I don't think that's going to be a problem :)

Doc Wong's Driving Clinic

2004-10-16T15:00:00Z

I actually got my bushings and new shocks in just in time for the drive, so it was a great time to wear them in on bumpy roars. Unfortunately, the alignment guy from firestone didn't know toe in from toe out, and misaligned my car to have toe out (which can induce sudden snap oversteer). So, I had to take it reasonably easy (not counting a sliding sideways turn in gravel in a sharp U turn )
But then, the road started getting wet due to fog and condensation on trees causing drops, with the end result of the roads being uncertain, and all of us backing off, because it really wasn't worth taking risks (especially down Jamison road). While this made the entire drive a bit less fun, it was still a good outing, and definitely a good shakeout for my car.

The picts are here

Doc Wong's Driving Clinic

2004-09-11T15:00:00Z

I can't believe it had been so long since my last DocWong drive. I think that one week, I had just run out of excuses not to go )
We had a fair amount of cars, and all went well, except for a mostly stock 240SX, who thought he had to race me down Jamison, except that I had Toyo RA-1s and 4 piston calipers with racing brake pads. He ended up banging up his car by hitting the wall that actually stopped him from going downhill off the cliff. While his car was crippled by the time he finally got down (tss, this is not a race, drive within your own and your car's limits), he got lucky overall
I did find out however that something was out with my suspension/alignement/bushings, as my car felt unsettled in too many spots. I guess it's time to fix all that up (Tein 16 way adjustable shocks, Flying Miata Super Pro bushing, and a new wheel alignment and rebalance (ok, as always Jason knows better )
The Toyota wagon-like front wheel drive driver gets muchos points for sticking really close to me despite a car that's not as capable

The picts are here

Track Day at Laguna Seca

2004-08-30T05:45:00Z

So, I've always been quite content running my car at Thunderhill. It may not be a famous track (although it's been featured in several commercials, like Mazda's and the Ford GT40), but it's both challenging, familiar (well, for me), and safe (everywhere is pretty much a runoff area, no walls to run into except in the start/finish straights. The only small shortcoming is that it's about 2H away at fast driving pace (or 1h50 if pushing) while Laguna is under 1H15mn away.

turn two, one of the more challenging ones in my opinion

That said, I heard Laguna Seca was a very nice track (which it is, the surroundings are indeed pretty), and well, it's known world wide, so it's always nice to have been able to run there once. Rotarynews had an all mazda track day (sponsored and subsidized by Mazda) for the incredible price of $165 (on a weekend day no less; this kind of price for Laguna is unheard of).
Cars ranged from 4 door saloon mazdas, to RX7 and old concept rotary cars, to of course: miatas (not counting a few odd balls like a ferrari 355).
Since this was an awesome deal, it was sold out almost as soon as I heard about it, except for the most advanced group. While I qualified for that group without problems with my experience, I was still uneasy about it, because I had never driven that track and would get thrown in with seasoned drivers who knew the track quite well (in the end though, I should have remembered that it was really only about being safe, predictable, and letting people pass you as needed, which I have no problem doing)
Anyway, I borrowed a playstation 2 with grand tourismo 3, and a steering wheel with force feedback (from nice coworkers), and used that to practise the track. The big question was of course "how useful would it be"?
Well, my impressions where:

The track was rendered really well in the game. I have to admit that it was a very exact replica. This was most likely the most useful part for me as I got to drive the track and its succession of turns many times in my living room before doing it in my car.
I got to pick between two miatas in the game: a stock M1, and a later model M2. The M2 was closer to my car's performance, but still short (on power, brakes, and tires). Yet, I felt it'd be a good exercise (if you really play the game, you can buy turbos and add mods to your car to make it closer to mine, but I didn't have the time, nor the inclination to go that route)
never quite got the hang of GT3, because you just can't tell how close you are to losing traction on a TV screen, even with a few hints from the feedback steering wheel, you just don't have the "seat of the pants" to tell you what's happening with your car. Yet, I still made better times in the video game than in reality (1:53 vs 1:56 on my very best real lap in my car). This just can't be as my car and driving performance were both definitely better on the track than in the game, so the game was clearly overly optimistic.
Their brakes are too good in the game. They were as good, if not better than the ones on my car, however mine were upgraded big rotors with 4 piston calipers and very good racing pads (which none of the original M2 is close to having)
GT3 got really annoying when one of its modes (whatever that was) would make the car oscillate left and right multiple times after coming out of a turn. Sorry, but real life just isn't that way, even if you're a mediocre driver: the car's weight settles after one "rebound", not 5 or more.
The one thing that seemed accurate, was the rendering of the stock miata's limited HP (making it struggle to go up in 3rd gear from turn 6 to 8), and the resulting speed you got (I had only a slightly higher speed with the turbo, and similar speed if I kept off it)
Oh, one good thing was that hitting walls in GT3 is less fatal than with your own car :)

So, for whatever reason, this is the second time in a row that I get sick before a track day, and that I recover somewhat the day before, show up, half-recovered, with red bulls and other things to hopefully keep me somewhat sharp while on the track. Yet, it turned out surprisingly well considering the potential for a bad day.
I was already apprehensive due to the new track, the group I was in, and of course, the concrete walls everywhere (that's why I love Thunderhill so much: nice runoff area just about everywhere, should you screw up), so being very tired and potentially not very alert, wasn't a good addition to the mix.

Yet, either the red bull, being in the car, or both, allowed me to be sufficiently concentrated to do a decent job around the track (pretty much all laps under 2mn, with a best time of about 1:56), and definitely do a better job than the 5 or so people who ended up hitting walls (not head on thankfully).

One of the several RX7 casualties

I sure didn't do my best driving ever, nor did I run around the track, riding with other folks and taking pictures of everything, but I went through the event without any incident (or even getting close to one), and was still able to push the car quite hard (the racing brake pads, as well as the stickiness, consistency, and predictability of my new RA-1s tires, was just amazing, and made for rather fast laps around the track, despite my below average shape and driving)
The highlight of the day were probably doing the 4th session with very little pad left on my front brake pad (if you pay too much attention to my car stories, you'll know why :), and changing the pads in 20mn flat between the 4th and 5th sessions (and boy did I get close to the backing plate and scratching my rotor). After that, I was able to run all 3 groups of the last session (about an hour of track time), and get more than money's worth before going home :)

There sure wasn't a lot left on those pads :)

The other funny part was when I got black-flagged on one of my last laps, pitted to find out what the reason was (maybe they didn't like the drifting I had just done in turn 11 :) and I was told "93.6". I said "what?". "Your car was measured at 93.6db, above the 90db sound limit for today". Turns out (as they had warned us), that this was a 90db day, and that cars louder than that would be pulled off the track after 3 warnings. I knew my car could get a little loud when pushed and hot (which it definitely was with 105F weather outside, I was quite thankful that my cooling system and its mods were enough to keep the car from overheating), but I had no idea that it would end up being as loud as the Ferrari 355 that day. ROTFL :)

The pictures can be found here

I guess it was a car week :)

2004-08-23T15:05:00Z

Current Music: DJ Pi - Trance Empire Volume 10
Current Mood: Tired, but smiling :)

(warning, I'm tired, the following "prose" is somewhat readable, but barely better than the half non sensical raw stuff that comes out of my brain :)
Saturday morning, I woke up without wanting to go to step. Ok, I guess I went twice this week already (instead of boot camp) and that those classes were more fun than the somewhat lame class I take on saturday, but still... I figured I'd make it up with mountain biking the next day. (little did I know)
After some undetermined time on my laptop, I started installing the new wheels and tires that I had just received for my car.
At the same time, I took the opportunity to bleed all my brake lines (the most likely reason why I had uneven braking and why my front left tire would lock up first), and replace the entirety of my brake fluid with fresh stuff, in time for the track.
In the process, I swore in several languages while trying to remove the overtightened bolts that held my original wheels with the original wrench that came with the car (too short, not enough leverage), as I was actually standing on the tip of the wrench to use my weight for getting the damn bolts off. After getting one wheel out, I broke one of my socket wrenches while trying the breaker bar I had just bought as a result (I was tightening the new different-sized bolts for my new wheel).
Several trips to the hardware store later, I had 3 of my brake lines flushed, and the 4 wheels changed, along with their fresh, very gummy tires (I like the inscription "recommended for competition events only" on my Toyo RA-1s :)

(yes, I know it looks like a catheter, but trust me, it's not :)

I was never able to remove the 4th speedbleeder nut with my adjustable wrench though, as it was overtightened, and because I had prior plans with Meggin (movie: The Village, which turned out to be quite slow, and sushi & catching up after that, which was the better part of the afternoon/early evening).
My short ride to the movie theater and back already put a smile on my face due to the incredible grip my new tires have (and anyone who's ridden with me before knows that my previous tires, Toyo T1-S'es, weren't bad to start with), but trying them out further was enough incentive to get my sorry butt out of bed at 06:20 on sunday and meet Jason and some coworkers in Saratoga for a drive around the twisties.
Long story short, I beat the crap out of my car, and it performed absolutely perfectly. Its only downfall was its light weight and shaddy overall grip on a very uneven and baddly paved piece of the drive. The highlight was probably taking some air at 80mph+ on a nice bump :)
We didn't have that many cars, but it was also fun to have the fastest car in the group (in a straight line, it might have been close for a few of us, but in turns, with the grip I had, and my upgraded brakes with racing pads, I had a clear advantage in the foot down, brake hard, turn and accelerate to the edge of traction game :)
On the way down from skyline, I went to pagemill to ride that road that I'm now somewhat familiar with since I take my bike up and down it almost every week (in my other car that is), It was fun to drive it with my fast car instead of the poor beat up mazda protege :)

(the rest of the picts can be found here )

The only shortcoming from racing pads is the instant dust you put on your rims, even if they're brand new, or freshly cleaned (check the bottom part of the rim to see what I mean)

On my way home, I went to get more tools I was missing (including some very small open wrenches in order to get my last speedbleeder nut out, which I proceeded to do when I got home). I tried to find true distilled water for my radiator without succeeding, and got my oil changed (or refilled depending on how you want to look at it :)
At this point, my car is actually ready for the track Saturday. I can't wait.

The plan after that was to go mountain biking, back in the same place I just came from, but I felt just too tired, so when I finally got home after shopping (gosh, I even ended up at Fry's on the way), I took a short nap, and worked on my laptop instead.
Oh damn, I was supposed to get a haircut...

Smog vs Computers

2004-08-21T12:21:00Z

Finally, my car passed smog this morning. I should be able to get a new registration now :)

That said, I have to share how painful it was (and it really shouldn't have been): to pass smog, I had to reprogram my engine computer with a laptop that had a serial port.
My original laptop died the day I was planning to upload the new maps. I ended up getting a replacement, but that didn't have onboard serial ports anymore (they're gone from most laptops now)
I tried 3 USB serial port adapters for my new laptop, and none worked (i.e. the windows app couldn't talk to the car computer). A PCMCIA/serial card was $150, so I didn't go that route, but turns out that with a port replicator, there is actually a way to get a serial port out of my laptop.
Full of hope, I plugged it in, and it still didn't work, even with a bona fide onboard serial port. WTF?
(apparently, I now think that it just doesn't work with Windows XP at all and the laptop won't run my Windows 2000 image. Lovely...)
While I was trying this, I bought an ancient laptop for $20 at the flea market last weekend, and I went through hell to try and get windows running on it (the first hard drive died, the second didn't get recognized at first, but worked eventually, and it took about 3H to get a PCMCIA network card to work on the thing, I just forgot how badly windows sucked back then (safe mode, deleting drivers, re-installing them multiple times until it pseudo randomly worked eventually)).
Anyway, that laptop eventually worked, and I was able to use it to load new maps in the car's ECU, tried smog a second time on tuesday, failed by a very little bit, got a new map for thursday, never made it to the smog shop since my transmission became non functionning, go it fixed yesterday, and finally made it to the smog shop again and passed this morning.
Yeah! :)

(Jason gets real credit for helping me out with all this, and providing me with the multiple smog maps to help me pass)

wideband tuned.bin:
RPM  %CO2  %O2  HC MAX/Ave/Meas  CO% Max/Ave/Meas  NO PPM Max/Ave/Meas
1853 14.4  0.9         93/21/61    0.57/0.06/0.03         720/150/1328 << fail
2086 14.4  0.6         59/13/36    0.55/0.05/0.00         774/136/1394 << fail
emissions2.bin:
RPM  %CO2  %O2  HC MAX/Ave/Meas  CO% Max/Ave/Meas  NO PPM Max/Ave/Meas
2962 14.7  0.5         93/21/63    0.57/0.06/0.13         720/150/660
2979 14.7  0.4         59/13/30    0.55/0.05/0.00         774/136/840  << fail
emissions3.bin:
RPM  %CO2  %O2  HC MAX/Ave/Meas  CO% Max/Ave/Meas  NO PPM Max/Ave/Meas
2970 14.7  0.4         93/21/23    0.57/0.06/0.01         720/150/480
2945 14.7  0.3         59/13/12    0.55/0.05/0.00         774/136/597  << pass

The funs of owning a car

2004-08-20T12:12:00Z

So, I was going to a smog place for my (hopefully last) time since Jason gave me a fuel/timing map that further detuned my engine and should have made it pass smog.
Except for the fact that I had a really hard time putting gears in (i.e. wouldn't shift at all) when I wanted to get out of my driveway, and I realized that I had pretty much lost hydrolic pressure in my clutch.
Luckily, I found a clutch place 10mn from where I live (by foot that is), and managed to drive my car there without the clutch (that's when my training of up and down shifting without the clutch paid off). I kind of did run a red light just a little bit (at low speed when it looked safe) so as not to have to stop the engine and restart the car with first gear engaged while cranking the engine, and I made it to the shop without the clutch.
We found out pretty quickly that I had a leak in the clutch hydrolic system and that I was completely out of fluid (just like losing your brakes, but less fatal :)
The mechanic found that my slave clutch cylinder had to be replaced, and fixed it for less than $200 today, so this wasn't a big deal after all, and hopefully I can take care of smog for good tomorrow morning and set my ECU fuel and timing maps to slightly more fun levels :)
It kind of sucks that all the ways to reduce smog pretty much reduce performance (do you remember MTBE in your gas not that long ago? They found out that it reduced performance by more than it saved on gas polution and finally repealed that in california recently).
The other "fun" one is that cars need to have an EGR (exhaust gas recirculation), which basically means taking exhaust from your engine and feeding it back with fresh air in the intake. If you are wondering "but wouldn't that reduce performance since you're reducing the amount of air to burn", the answer is yes. So, almost all of the smog reduction techniques reduce power, and usually cause the manufacturers to put bigger engines that use more gas as a result. In some cases like a catalithic converter, it makes sense as the polution reduction is substantial. In many other cases, though, the gains are much more debatable, or even negative if you normalise them with power output. Ironic, isn't it?
Oh, and for Ford enthousiasts, my mechanic said "oh, I love fords, they break down all the time, lots of good work for me" ;-)

Son of a bitch, I got it

2004-08-18T14:36:00Z

Current Music: Armin Van Buuren - 003 In Motion - 13 Rising Star - Clear Blue Moon
Current Mood: Good

After a good farewell sushi dinner with Daniel and Patrice (bye guys, we'll miss you), I was driving back and trying out my brakes, and locked my front left wheel again (too early for my taste), when it finally hit me: it was my front left tire that I flat entirely spotted two months ago, and it's also the tire that had been locking up a bit easily. Here's a picture of the bad tire after it came out, the flat spot is kind of obvious :)

Then, I remembered that I swapped that front left caliper a few months ago, and bled that brake line (means removing air and old fuild from the brake lines). My big mistake is that I didn't bleed the other lines.
End result? My current guess is that when the hydrolic pressure is spread across the 4 calipers, the front left one brakes a lot better because its fluid is newer and bubble free, causing the tire to lock up before the other ones.
This should be easy to fix after I flush the rest of the fluid with some help manning the speed bleeders while I press on the brake pedal :)

Burning Rubber

2004-07-29T14:02:00Z

For the brits in the audience, no, this has nothing to do with anything below the belt, but with the tires on my miata :) (well, I guess they are below my belt, but I digress...)

Since they're toast, I have to replace them (will do friday in 10 days), but well, they still have a sizeable amount of rubber on them, and it'd be a shame for all of that to end up in a landfill, so after getting home from work too late, I went practising donuts (ok, those aren't too hard), and especially opposite lock steering under powerslide (that ended up being hard to do because my car was mostly understeering due to the front tires being flat spotted). As for burnouts, those didn't work either because the mis-balance in thread made the car go sideways from a still start.
Oh well, I still had a little fun :)

Turbo Blues...

2004-06-08T01:19:00Z

Current Music: South Park - Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson - O Canada
Current Mood: I know why I'm not a mechanic

So, the dreaded exhaust leak problem came back after about a year, and sure enough, the FM3 turbo kit from Flying Miata was really not supposed to be installed with bolts. I so wished that they had told us though... Of course, now they do tell you on the phone that you should use studs and locking nuts, and they sent me a bag for $10, but that doesn't make up for the almost entire day Jason and Matt spend on my car a year ago to replace two of the bolts on my wastegate with studs, or the entire saturday I just spent at Jason's to do the other two when one of them fell out a year later (to put things back in perspective, the wastegate does hang from the manifold, and it's exposed to high vibrations and extreme heat (800-900 degres C), which does put bolts through a lot of strain).
Anyway, this time, the valiant knights were Jyri, Carlos, and Jason also helped us out, even though he had to stay focus on his engine rebuild.
Jyri and I first took the turbo out, which took close to two hours (lots of nuts in uncool places, but that was nothing compared to what was in front of us). Carlos arrived around the time when we were removing the wastegate (which was now being half held by just one bolt since the other one had fallen out).

Putting the studs in with Jason's double nut trick wasn't too hard, but we spent the several following hours trying to figure out how to put a bolt back on the nut as I did lose the single hardest bolt to replace in the car: the bolt that holds the external wastegate to the 90 degree adapting piece. It's not that we didn't have the right tools, but no wrench would fit there because the bolt was too close to the wastegate, preventing anything but an open wrench from fitting there. The small hitch was that you couldn't use one because the engine was in the way.

So, the next logical move was to remove the manifold so that this could all be bolted together without the engine being in the way, but the kicker is that the manifold can't be removed without removing the wastegate adapting piece, and that's the one that we spent so much time putting in place with studs last year so that it wouldn't move ever again (that was the part that was falling out soon after the turbo install).
After too much time of fudging around without getting the damn nut tightened to any useful extend, Carlos came up with the great easy to shave off some material off the wastegate, did nothing else but remove the TIAL lettering, and that turned out to be enough. It's really ironic that the logo was what prevented us from putting a bolt on, but that's actually what happened.

You missed some funny parts where Jason and Carlos used a PVC pipe on top of an angled wrench to get more leverage, and make sure the nut never ever comes off (considering that it's a day's worth of work to get to it...). We then started the job of putting everything back together (including jacking up the exhaust so that the downpipe would match up with the turbo long enough for us to put the bolts back on).

After that, Carlos had to leave so as to remain married :) and Jyri stayed until most things had been put back together, and I proceeded to wait for Jason who had a previously planned dinner with friends, and we finished putting the remaining pieces back together when he came back around 23:00.
In the process, we fixed a coolant pressure leak, replaced some hoses that were either very tired, or insufficiently heat insulated and would have failed soon, and made sure to give them extra protection so that hopefully they'll last this time.
There wasn't a whole lot to put back together, but it still took another two hours as we applied a few last minute fixes and carefully checked things up as we were putting them back (and had to figure out why nothing was plugged in the blow off valve, and were the missing vacuum hose was). I proceeded to slice one of my fingers open by reaching for my swiss army knife in my pocket (which I hadn't quite closed from its last use), and thanks to all the people mentioned, I got home around 01:30 with a working car again.
I have to give Jyri, Carlos, and Jason a big thank you again, and the guys who designed the FM3 kit, a big fist in the air for having designed the most unmaintainable kit there is out there.

You can find all the pictures here , including a cool small video of the wastegate here here

So, obvious questions some people could ask:
Is it all worth it? Well, when you turn blots a 16th of a turn at a time and leave pieces of your arm in the engine bay, it may not be that obvious, but when back on the road with a huge grin as the boost gauge is hitting 10, the answer is an absolute yes :)
How about buying a faster car, can't you afford that? That's a sensible one: well, today I probably would, but putting aside the blood and tears, I do have for less than $20,000, a car that's faster than an S2000, a porsche boxter, or a Z3/Z4 (not M) and that can also outhandle both of them. That said, there is something to be said for buying a car where all the stuff is already fitted from the factory and they did use studs instead of bolts were needed. My guess is that today, I might consider alternatives, especially knowing the pain when maintenance is required. That said, the friends I made through BAMO, priceless...

Thunderhill picts

2004-05-26T14:00:00Z

Current Music: Paul Van Dyk - That's Life
Current Mood: Fair

I got some pictures back from my car at Thunderhill last week. Here's a cool one:

Watch the penguin hanging from the windshield and see how sideways it is (it usually hangs straight down), that'll give you an idea of the cornering speed :)

Today, I was also supposed to go to Speedring for some karting with coworkers, but the organizer didn't make reservations (ok, that I can understand since they ask for money up front), but neglected to even call before we headed over there, so we went there for nothing because they were booked for the afternoon. Grrr....
(I was both really disappointed because I was very much looking towards doing this, but also very annoyed at having wasted my time due to very poor organization. One phone call to check they had spots wouldn't have been too much to ask... I guess that's what I get for trusting other people :)
At least I won the fastest drive from work to speedring and back, but whatever, that one wasn't really hard to "win" (not that it even was a race, but what can I say, I had my mind set to it and didn't get it...)

New Brakes / Thunderhill

2004-05-20T14:28:00Z

Current Music: Björk - Big Time Sensuality
Current Mood: Good day

So, at the very last minute (7 hours before I left), I received my new compound E brakepads from Wilwood and ended up installing them around 19:00 (a bit behind schedule, but I was just not feeling that great, and really needed a nap when I came back from work)
After swearing in different languages untorking my lug nuts with the cheapo wrench that comes with the car, and pushing the pistons back in, I put in the new pads (took less than 30mn, not too bad considering how under-equipped I was :) I went to try them in the neighborhood. Holy crap, did they make a world of difference, I could almost lock my tires instantly because how well they gripped.

I ended up heading for Thunderhill around 20:10, somewhat behind schedule, but got there in about 1H55mn (163 miles) and the funny part is that I passed both John who left 20mn before me, but from Fremont by 680/580 (about 30 miles ahead of me), but the better part is that I also passed another 10 or so thunderhill bound miatas on the way, including the BAMO guys who had left from Milpitas an hour before me. The only hitch was that by running a full boost on 505 (about 135mph), I ate up a lot of gas (funny how that works) and barely made it to willows on my full tank of gas (11 galons, 163 miles, that would be under 15mpg, ooops, my car used to do up to 26mpg when driven nicely)

The next morning I pretty much felt like a trainwreck when I got up (well, it was also the fact that it was 06:30). Maybe the caffeine or being on the track helped, but by the time I was on the track, I was feeling a bit better.
As I expected, I wasn't doing too well on my first times out (2:24 lap times), and even got my car very sideways several times, although I amazed myself when I was able to save the car every single time (i.e. I didn't spin out or even layed a single wheel off the track). Group A had a couple of seriously fast miatas though (a white one with blue stripes was actually running a good 15 to 20 seconds faster than me apparently, it had a big turbo (much bigger than mine apparently), and also a very fast driver)
I also rode with "Maniacal Engineer" Matt in group B, thanks to whom my car was in running order, and he didn't need a lot of instruction from me. On his second time out, I really didn't have much else to tell him. He pulled a 2:25, which for his second time at Thunderhill in an NA car is seriously impressive (I don't think I'd have done a whole lot better in his car, and I've ridden thunderhill a few more times than him).
By lunchtime, the adrenaline that was keeping me alert wore out and I went to crash somewhere, I was absolutely dead. My first session out in the afternoon was just not good, I was feeling really weird physically, still feeling the effects of that stupid cold, and was actually apprehensive about doing something stupid while on the track.
I had another caffeine drink, and somehow pulled out of it, so that by my last session, and especially open track, I was finally doing better again, bringing my times down to 2:21, and finally under 2:19 during open track (maybe 2:18, but that's on my stopwatch, so I might have been off by a second). This is mostly by improving my times through turns 1, 5, and 8, realizing (thanks to Char) that was sometimes being too conservative in 9, and doing my last laps under very light rain (WTF, where did that come from?)

While my brakes were fine, I could really use some heel and toe shifting skills as I'm now losing too much time braking and trying to pop the clutch back in without unsettling the back end too much, but on the equipment side, I've really reached the limit of my Toyo T1-S tires. I was really driving the car sideways in sweepers, at the very edge of what those tires would do, and that wasn't nearly as fast as some other people can do with slicks (surprise, surprise). That said, it was cool to see how far I could push them and flirting with the edge (mmh, reminds me of something else, bug I digress ;). I however stayed conservative on turn 1 and 8 (85mph and 90mph max respectively) as screwing up on those yields really bad outcomes, and my balls are only so big (at some point the will to survive kicks in :)
I was pleasantly surprised by how well my car performed under stress, both in handling, and turbo-wise. It got warm (oil reached 150°C and coolant reached about 108°C according to my Tec-II readings), but that was within acceptable numbers (luckily the day wasn't too warm, which is why things worked so well). I also have some pad left on my brakes, about 2/3rd, which is nice, and while they were dusty as expected, my rims weren't entirely covered with dust by the end of the day.

On the way back (2H flat to sunnyvale), I drove a bit more conservatively as the day being over, I really got hit by fatigue (to the point that I was close to pulling over as I was afraid to fall asleep at the wheel), but just this once, it actually subsided. On 505, I was able to pull a top speed of 139mph which was a new personal record for the car :)

All in all, I was really worried about today considering my physical condition, but somehow, my brain and reflexes pulled through while I was on the track, and I had a great day (and no tickets on the road, which is always good)

Here's the relevant link to miata event page as well as a link to the pictures

Comments:
sweet ass!! :-)
posted by goaliegirl : 20 May, 2004 02:34

T.E.A.M. Track Event at Thunderhill

2004-05-19T15:00:00Z

Man, 7 months since last time at ThunderHill already? Time flies... :(
Thanks to Bonni from T.E.A.M. Racing for organizing this event again, it went quite well, and it was fun to meet up with the The BAMO crew at the track again.
The best part, is that for a second time in a row, my car performed flawlessly, I didn't overheat, my compound E brake pads worked quite well without actually being 100% worn by the end of the day like the D compound ones
I managed to improve my skills throughout the day, I was able to get my laptime under 2mn 19 secs on my last time out (actually another cool part is when I was not doing so well in the morning, I almost lost my car 5 times, but each of those times, I was able to react quickly enough and save it without leaving the track)

The picts are here

Car work before the track

2004-05-19T04:22:00Z

Current Music: Les Misérables - Fantine's Arrest
Current Mood: feeling better yet?

"I will see it done", "but Mr le maire...", "I will see it done", "but Mr le maire...", "I will see it DONE!"

Ok, so first thing, Matt absolutely rocks, when he says "Maniacal Engineer", he isn't kidding :)
So, I was really feeling uneasy about going to thunderhill and driving 320 miles plus racing my car at the track with a possibly flaky crank position sensor.

From what I can tell, my sensor did "see" the teeth in the trigger wheel, but the difference in measured resistance was just not a lot, so I think my Tec-II ECU barely saw the teeths (which gets in the way of knowing when to trigger the spark plugs or send gas and air to each cylinder). My guess is that my recent "breakdown" about a week ago was due to heat expansion causing the sensor to be slightly too far from the teeth and the computer then not being able to see the engine position.

Anyway, the fix was to upgrade the magnetic sensor from the default 3/8" to a bigger half inch. My checked it out before installing it, and indeed my ohmeter was showing that it could "see" the teeth from a much bigger distance, and that the resistance differential in ohms was much larger (i.e. a lot easier for the ECU to pick up).
So, great, it's was "just" a matter of drilling a bigger hole in the sensor holder, and putting the new one in, except... that there wasn't enough spare metal around the hole to safely widen it.

But a puny detail like this is not what's going to stop Matt, we were at OSH in no time, he picked some random metal bits, and before you knew it, the half inch sensor was installed and working

and the best part is that I was able to drive my car home with that :)
The remaining pictures can be found here

The part that wasn't as great is that I found out why I didn't feel too hot when I got home. It's because I was (fever stroke again). I'm still hopeful to be able to drive to TH tonight (160 miles) and be on the track tomorrow though

For that matter Wilwood finally returned my front caliper, and the racing pads I had ordered. Talk about last minute... (their fault, I did ship and order all this two weeks ago, and they kept sitting on it. They then swore I'd get it yesterday, and when I called them today, they couldn't find the tracking number. Tss, how lame...)

How well, I guess I'm going to go to work for a few hours, get home, pack my stuff, install my new pads, and head for TH.

Car trouble ended up ok / another mustang GT kill :)

2004-02-24T15:03:00Z

Current Music: DJ Nyman - Trance Mix (seeing a pattern yet? :)
Current Mood: Much much relieved

So, my car died today, but not just mine: the friend I was meeting for lunch never made it to the restaurant because of car trouble, and the coworker I first Emailed to see if she could get me home after boot camp never made it to work because her car broke down too this morning.
What are the odds?
(this is after a coolant leak which happened to me just two weeks ago, but I was thankfully able to diagnose and fix by myself, and I can't complain, my car has been very reliable considering that it's boosted and how I drive it ;-) )

Anyway, I was very worried because of an explosion like sound I had heard soon before the 5th time the car died on the way back from the restaurant (after looking like it was never going to start and get off the parking lot)

I abandoned the car and had a coworker pick me up and drive me back to work. I then Emailed the list from my car club (lots of gearheads, like me with computers, except with cars :) ) and I got a few possible diagnosis, including a lose crank wheel messing with the crank position sensor reading, and the different kinds of fuel delivery problems which could explain the engine not running.

My friend Matt from the list came to pick me up after work, and luckily, it was a meeting day, so I had my laptop with the Tec-II software for my custom replacement ECU (engine computer).
It only took 2mn after plugging my laptop in the serial port to realize that the ECU wasn't seeing the engine RPMs during cranking, which meant it had no idea the engine was even turning, so it didn't deliver any gasoline or spark (which makes it somewhat harder for an engine to run)
In a nutshell, my Tec-II has a very sofisticated sensor that counts the rotations in a gear and is able to tell exactly which position each cylinder is in order to provide a perfectly timed ignition along with the right amount of fuel under the boost of my aftermarket turbo

It's kind of interesting that the car didn't just die and that I was able to restart it several times as it was failing, but at the same time, it explains why I had the explosion sound that came from my engine soon before the last time it died: the sensor was failing, so the Tec-II was confused about the engine position and provided ignition at a very bad time.
Luckily it only lasted one second before the engine died, so hopefully there will be no permanent damage from that.

Just because Matt is not only a great guy, but also has everything, it turned out he had a Tec-III himself, and pulled the sensor from his car and put it in mine (luckily, his Tec-III isn't running his car yet, so he was able to do without until I buy him a new one from electromotive)
After the replacement, it magically worked much better, so we put a few zip ties, and I drove with him back to his place, as a shakedown test.

On the way there, it just happened that I pulled next to him at a light, just to play with him a bit, and didn't notice the mustang GT who was in the 3rd lane on my right.
I barely reved my engine to mess with Matt a bit, and when the light turned green, I did a decent but not complete peel out start (there was no point burning rubber, poor Matt is still boost-less for now, although you can't always tell when he goes around a corner ;)
That's only then that I saw the mustang on the other side that was trying to race me. Unfortunately for him, with my 7200 revs to redline and boost, he didn't make it and I stayed in front of him up to 3rd gear (I then stopped since we were getting very close to El Camino ;)
He must have been pissed to be eaten by my small car :-)

I've now learned something new about my car, and I'm very relieved that my engine is ok (at least it seemed to drive fine under boost during my tests).
Total cost:

a new boost sensor: $30-$40
not having to tow the car: (free since I have AAA)
not having some puzzled mechanic trying to understand how my car works since it's not stock in any way: saved hundreds of dollars and days without my car
A lap dance for Matt: $20? (not sure what the going rate is :) )
A car club with great and clued buddies: priceless

Another cool link on highway safety and speed

2004-02-22T12:11:00Z

Current Music: Armin Van Buuren, A State of Top 20 (Armin absolutely rules)
Current Mood: Fair (tired from a snowboarding day with not enough sleep, good snow though)

A quote from a friend: "France and Germany expect more of their drivers so they get it, we expect the least and get it."

Anyway, on a car list I'm on, they posted another nice article on the stupidity of low speed limits.
Let me quote the best part:
"Applying numbers to the most accredited relative risk bell curve, by Cirillo, tells an interesting story. This curve was based on urban interstate research during off peak hours. It found the safest speed to be the mean plus 12 mph, and when charted on the graph the safest speeds extended up to the mean plus 18-20 mph.

Translated, the current mean on most rural interstates is between 70-75 mph and the safest speed would be 82-87 and the vehicles least likely to be involved in an accident are those traveling between 70 and 93-95 mph. The current speed limits are set so low that the vehicles least likely to be involved in an accident, according to the studies, are the primary targets of enforcement during the best highway conditions.

Should the limit be set at 90 or 95 mph? Either way, it would seem to have no effect on accident rates. The Montana and Autobahn real life experience of unposted limits having no apparent effect on safety can not be ignored."

What to do if you got a ticket, and how to avoid them

2004-02-21T07:45:00Z

Here is original post, which triggered the "well, you could drive slower" response (see below)

If you get a ticket, go to these places:

http://ticketassassin.com
http://www.helpigotaticket.com/
(Geo, the author is paralegal and better at answering Emails than Patrick from ticketassassin)
NMA, the national motorist association http://www.motorists.com/issues/tickets/
You should become a member for $30/y or so, and you can get lots of useful info (they'll even pay your ticket if you fight it and lose)

You should also seriously consider:

a good radar detector, not a fake $50 one: http://www.valentine1.com/ (not cheap, but paid for itself several times for me already)
train yourself to scan for cop hideouts and signs of enforcement (as well as tips like, increased enforcement at the beginning and the end of each months as each officer meets illegal ticket quotas)
You'll also be a safer driver by paying more attention to the road and your rear view mirror
you can also plea bargain with the judge before the court date by mail for a 2nd traffic school within 18months, which is a lot cheaper than $1500-$3000 in increased insurance over 3 years

About speed limits and enforcement

2004-02-21T07:30:00Z

Well, I didn't last a week without ranting about speed limits or enforcement thereof.
But that's not my fault, someone at work taunted me saying that one wouldn't get tickets if one drove the speed limit. Arghhhh....

So, here's the answer he got (and that I can refer to for next time):

you can get pulled over and ticketed without violating traffic laws (I have been, by a cop driving 100mph in the slow lane, and pulling me over because I crossed it and made him slow down when I was exiting on an off ramp while properly signaling and driving 60mph)
you may be impeding traffic while driving the speed limit (california as strange and interesting laws about those cases).
The speed limit in cities may not actually be legal and properly supported by traffic surveys
there are enough traffic laws that you don't know about (not counting the ones you do know) that you're most likely violating at least one every time you drive somewhere, so driving the speed limit doesn't mean in any way that you can't and won't be ticketed.
Ticket quotas and speed traps are illegal in california, but both are practiced anyway, leaving you with the only options of fighting or paying when it happens to you.
several studies have shown that 80mph speed on the freeway (which is what many other countries have) isn't actually a problem for properly educated drivers (actually they have a lower crash rate)
http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html? &A; =1234
http://www.hwysafety.com/hwy_montana_2001.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/a-facdec.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irre0.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html
http://www.hwysafety.com/brief_mi_fptenents.htm

T.E.A.M. Track Event at Thunderhill

2003-10-16T15:00:00Z

It had been a while since I last went, too long almost. So much work, so little time...
The good news is that it motivated me to replace my crappy shocks and replace them with decent ones (bilsteins shocks)

The whole BAMO crew was there, and it was fun to share the track with them. On my side, I got lucky, nothing blew up in my car, no even the brakes

The picts are here

NSXCA Pebble Beach Drive

2003-05-10T15:00:00Z

It had been a while since I had gone on a club drive, and I hadn't seen the NSXCA folks for a while, so their drive was a perfect opportunity to go out. Besides, with my turbo miata, keeping up with them wasn't too much of a problem
It was a fun, layed back, enjoyable ride, and I was happy to see the NSX crowd again.
You can find the pictures here

T.E.A.M. Track Event at Thunderhill

2003-04-24T15:00:00Z

The Sacramento Area Miata Owners Association had another track day at ThunderHill. This event was easier for me since nothing fell out of my car . The only little hitch were my brand new pads that I ate in a little more than 1H of track time, but they were braking well

My car was definitely faster, but I didn't gain that much on my lap time because

I can get better
My suspension really needs work now (stock shocks)
My car was wobbly (bent rim)
I was rather tired and simply didn't drive that well, but I went mowing the grass twice

The picts are here

Miata Performance Driving School at Thunderhill

2003-03-29T16:00:00Z

This time, I came back as an intructor, and it was both fun and gratifying to be able to help new drivers and give back to the community that has helped me a lot. For that matter, I owe a lot to the people who helped me saturday night: Barry, Larry, and Ravi for their expert advise, help and tools. What happened is that my newly installed turbo still needed a shakeout, and sure enough, the bolts from my wastegate got loose due to the extreme temperature (900 degrees Celcius) and vibration. End result: very loud fat noise caused by the resulting exhaust leak, which on the track ended up melting my speedo cable, and then got both my brake fluid and shifting hydrolic fluid so hot that I temporarily lost the ability to shift, and almost lost my brakes
Thank to their help, I was able to run a bit the next day and take a few students with me, until the leak started to re-appear around the time when I completely melted my brakes

This worked out just fine because I got more time to ride with students, something they were all very thankful for.

You can find the pictures I took here
You can also find the TH Miata Performance Driving School web pages here

T.E.A.M. Track Event at Thunderhill

2002-11-25T16:00:00Z

The Sacramento Area Miata Owners Association had a track day at ThunderHill again after the success of the previous one, and this time, it was a miata only event.
Among the participants, we had the Track Dog from Flying Miata (insanely fast car), and several turboed miatas. The usual suspects, including Bonni Weatherwax were there, and we also had several BAMO members.

This time, I'm definitely stuck at 2:24 for my best lap, we'll see what I'll get with better tires and my turbo next time

The picts are here

Track Day at Thunderhill

2002-10-08T15:00:00Z

Man, it had been too long since I had been to the track, my turbo install almost became a never ending story so there was no point to further postpone track events and I decided to show up for this event (thanks to Aleksandr and Neil for organizing the event and letting me join at the last minute)

It was an interesting mix of cars, Ferrari Modena, Porshe GT2, NSX, Audi S4, BMW...

The picts are here

Oakland Hills Panoramic Run

2002-07-21T15:00:00Z

You can see all the pictures here

NSXCA Meeting and drive

2002-07-06T15:00:00Z

It's been a full two years since the first NSXCA event I went to. What can I say, they're a great bunch, and the cars are great too
I got to ride with the legendary Vytas and while the drive to Mount Hamilton wasn't very spirited on the way up since we got a nice sheriff escort, the way back down was more fun.
We eventually made it to Kirby's, who had a great party and lots of food ready for us.

Thanks to Vytas & Jackie for the ride, the Kirby's for the great party, and everyone else for helping and showing up
You can find all the pictures here

Dr Wong's Driving Clinic

2002-05-18T15:00:00Z

It had been a while since I had been to a drive. It was rather uneventful (which is a good thing ) except for that moron in an X5 SUV that tried to pass us on the right, off road, and ended up getting stuck right in front of me, blocking my view.
Of course, the fact that we were stuck behind 2 or 3 weekend drivers on 9, who never fathomed the idea of pulling over, didn't exactly help. Oh well...
The picts are here

NASA weekend at Thunderhill

2002-05-11T15:00:00Z

Man, it was a zoo . I know thunderhill, but with all the cars, trucks, RVs, and such, it was barely recognizable.

The event wasn't near as bad as the previous event at Sears Point, but still NASA has a bad habit of just allowing too many people to sign up at once, to the point where the track is near unusable due to the number of cars on the track at the same time.
Because the second day was mother's day, that day was actually better as many people didn't stick around for the second day

It was fun however to see all the different cars, from formula Ford to Spec Miata and mini cooper.

The many picts I took are here

Full Moon Run

2002-04-27T15:00:00Z

The funny thing is that it didn't even feel that cold, I didn't miss a hat or gloves. I guess it's because I practise during winter time
It was a nice run, thanks to Don & Bev McLain. I should have probably have stuck in the back of the pack, where the catching up is a bit more fun though.
We got lucky, it didn't rain, and we all arrived at Max's to indulge ourselves with food.

You can find the few pictures I managed to get with the limited light here
(note that you can switch the picture size to original to see the full sized pictures).

NSXCA School at Thunderhill

2002-04-23T15:00:00Z

It was a very well organized event, with probably the strictest rules I've seen so far .

That said, 2:30 hours of track time in 5 sessions for $180 was a great deal.
I was initially in group B, but after passing 8 NSXs having no one catch up with me, I suggested that I probably wasn't in the right group (not that I'm that good, mind you, but people in group B probably were going easier on their cars, which considering their price, makes sense)
Group A was much better, and while I was sometimes hard to catch in the turns, I was quick to wave people by in the straights (includes 7-8 & 9-10). Some NSXes with sticky tires were also quite impressive in turns.

It felt like were actually happy that I was there, it gave them a different car to compete^H^H^H^H^H^Hcompare against. A miata is no NSX, but a few were still impressed by what the car could do when pushed a bit.
My S-03s are just amazing, I've been ripping through turns. I'm now going in 1 with about 85mph (I don't quite have the guts to do more yet), I can exit 2 at 75mph, rev-limiting my 3rd gear, and it seems that I can do turn 8 flat out (which in my stock miata is apparently 87mph, but I'll take that as good enough )

The cool thing is that on my very last run around (just before the checkered flag), I felt that I was going to spin in 14. I don't think I went in that differently than other times, but anyway, I somehow actually managed to countersteer and catch the spin before it happened.
I'm not sure I could reliably reproduce this on demand quite yet, but this was way cool. Woohoo!

End result: my front break pads were toast, and so were my 7K S-03s (incidently, the Wheelworks guy I just saw told me I was past the sticky part on my S-03s, and that I would have had to expect more upcoming spins had I kept them on)

The few picts I took are here

NASA Autocross

2002-04-21T15:00:00Z

I Can't believe I had gone almost 6 months without an autocross, time flies...
This was a very challenging course, there wasn't much of a straight, so you were better off having a car that stuck to the road and that could turn real well, ideal for a miata
As usual, I was very inconsistent. My best run was almost 2 seconds below my average times, but that best run was pretty good. I like the picture below, it where I passed the finish line almost sideways and caught the car so that it didn't spin
The picts are here

Samoa Track Event at Thunderhill

2002-04-11T15:00:00Z

The Sacramento Area Miata Owners Association had their first track event at thunderhill. Lots of miatas, it was a great event.
The weird part is the plane that flew over the track, broke a wing, and crashed meters from turn 6-7. Unfortunately both occupants died, even though the TH ambulance was there in less than 5mn.
The event resumed an hour after that and went well.

Many thanks to Raphael, my friend who tagged along for the event and took great pictures of me. Incidently, the first time he rode with me, I spun in 11, and the second time, I went right past the tower in 5 (didn't manage to brake enough and was not going to make the turn). Figures...

The many picts are here

Mt Hamilton Run

2002-04-07T16:00:00Z

This was a scheduled Delta Miata Event, which got cancelled, but due to miscommunication, the BAMA members didn't get the cancellation notice, so since we had showed up at the meeting point, the 3 of us ended up doing the drive since we had gotten up and driven there. it was great and well paced.
We got a slightly longer than planned stop at the rest point as a bicycle rider broke his hip, and had to be evacuated by helicopter, and the funny part is that after leaving from the observatory about 15mn after a police officer, we ended up catching up with him right before the bottom. Ooops

The pictures are here

Miata Performance Driving School at Thunderhill

2002-03-22T16:00:00Z

It was just too much fun last year for me not to go again. This year, I had my rollbar, and really went for it. It was perfect preparation for the upcoming days at Thunderhill that I signed up for.
Again, thanks a lot to all the people who put this even together and all the instructors who volunteered their time.
You can find all the pictures I took (170+) here (note that you can switch the picture size to original to see the full sized pictures).
You can also find the TH Miata Performance Driving School web pages here

NASA HPDE event at Sears Point

2002-03-16T16:00:00Z

As my first NASA HPDE event, and my first time at Sears Point, it was interesting, but we ended up only getting half the track due to construction, and they had way too many people so it was not exactly the best event ever, but at least I got to watch other people in smaller groups run
The picts are here

Dr Wong's Driving Clinic

2001-10-27T15:00:00Z

I had promised myself that I wouldn't go to a drive like this before getting my rollbar (better be safe than sorry).
Now that I had it, it was time to give the drive a shot. Dr Wong gave a quick introduction and filled in for the speaker, who wasn't able to show up that day, and gave everyone a warning about not driving over their capabilities.
The drive went fine, and as a bonus, we saw a huge convoy of bikers heading north on HWY 1 (more than 500 of them)
The picts are here

Roll Bar Install

2001-10-23T15:00:00Z

(All the pictures of the install can be found here)
It's a bit embarassing to admit that getting a rollbar was the first thing I wanted to do after buying the car, and that it took me about a year to actually get it. I think it was first a matter of finding the bar that was right for my car, which I got to do by seeing the different kind of bars available on other BAMA members' cars.

I ended up going with the Hard Dog Sport bar (I didn't like the looks of the autopower too much, and I didn't want the diagonal from the hard core bar)

After that, it was a matter of actually buying the bar, and figuring out whether I was going to get it professionally installed or if I was going to do it myself (with other people's help). I knew it was a real pain to install and I seriously considered professional installation (about $300), but several BAMA members talked me into saving my money and accepting their help with installing the bar

Can't I just duct tape the bar on the car? It seems faster

Even moving the damn bar is hard, it doesn't fit in the trunk

Several people in BAMA kindly offered their help with installing the rollbar, and I ended up accepting John Formoso's help as he organized a tech afternoon at his place (6-7 of us showed up and did miscellaneous modifications to our cars, two or us installed rollbars). John rules, he knows his stuff

Bigger is better, right?

Some of the others who showed up that day and helped (including Jason Cuadra who was doing his rollbar too)

So, then came the time to get to work. Jason helped me take the car apart, and get to the car body where the rollbar was going to be bolted

taking the car apart wasn't too hard

You gotta work around that pesky ECU, which not content of broking the back seat, also was in the way of the roll bar

The car need to be jacked up so that you can remove the wheels...

... and install bolt plates to help bolt the bar to frame

The painful part is the holes you have to make in the frame so that the bolts can be passed through (and since they're in a place where you can't really drill holes, the common method is to drill through an innocent piece of frame with a long drill bit so that you can drill the second layer of frame, where the bolts need to go (sorry, I was too verklempt to take pictures)

And it's not over, you thn need to do more cutting a fitting (takes more than 2 hours, especially for the plastic that goes around the bar, down by the door frame

Cutting isn't very hard, but cutting the right amount in the right place is

that piece of plastic to cut and fit is probably the worst part. Just very time consuming to get it right

I ended up putting the pieces back together around 23:00 (thanks to John for being so patient, helpful, and having so many of the right tools I needed)

almost done

I guess it does look better than the first picture

All the other pictures of the install can be found here

BAMA Annual Picnic

2001-09-23T15:00:00Z

Cai and John Fermoso organized a nice picnic in Alameda. We had a nice afternoon and showed our patriotism by making a flag of our own

You can find all the pictures here

NASA Autocross

2001-09-16T15:00:00Z

The second BAMA autocross, another great track (courtesy of Tom Burke)
I first had runs before my walkthrough to give Jane Justi a ride (she was working in a trailer when Bill was running, so she didn't get to run the course), and after having a little too much fun during my first two runs, I got some respectable times for the last two ones (although, Bill still beat me by about a second), but after the walkthrough, I went for a other set of runs (fun runs this time), and blew a little steam. I had lots of fun spinning the car around, and got crappy times as result, which would have been ok except that due to a card mixup, those ended up counting as my official times. Darn...
Anyway, thanks to Tom Burke, and all the other BAMA members who showed up and helped, especially for those who came and helped on saturday before the autocross)
The picts are here

NSXCA Meeting and drive

2001-08-26T15:00:00Z

After having had such a good time the previous year's July 4th party, I made sure to come back. We had a fun drive again and enjoyed some time to socialize around the pool, or (for some) grand tourismo
The picts are here

Marc's Public Blog - Cars

Trying out K1 Speed Indoor Go Kart Racing

Champs Elyses Car Displays

Re-Visit of Kleenspeed

3rd Coworker Organized Track Day at Thunderhill

2nd Coworker Organized Track Day at Thunderhill

Visit of Pagani Factory

Morning Visit of Lamborghini Museum n Factory

Visit of Ferrari Museum n Fact

Coworker Organized Track Day at Thunderhill

Thunderhill Track Day with Golden Gate Lotus Club

Drive to Mountain House via Skyline

Ferrari Experience Advanced Course at Mt Tremblant

TEAM event at Thunderhill

Golden Gate Lotus Club day at TH

Supercar Drive Day with Club Sportiva

TEAM event at Thunderhill

Visit of Kleenspeed

Karting at GoKart Racer with Coworkers

Drive Across Skyline to Hwy 1, Davenport and Back through Big Basin Redwoods

Old Times Sake's Dinner with Carlos and the BAMO Crew

SearsPoint Competizione Motors Tech Day

HOD Day at Laguna Seca

2002 WRC

Skip Barber 2 Day Advanced Racing School

Minimag overfly and pictures of Laguna Seca

TEAM event at Thunderhill

Hooked on Driving Ferrari Day at TH

Minimag RC overfly / Digital Hero wide pictures of Thunderhill

Skip Barber 3 Day Racing School at Laguna Seca

Hooked on Driving Event at Thunderhill

Nice Drive Down Calaveras

TEAM event at Thunderhill

TEAM event at Thunderhill

Reno Fernley Raceway

Got Guts at Thunderhill

Overdue First 2008 track day at Thunderhill

Quick Skyline Drive with Daniel

Thunderhill: Ariel Atom Experience and Team Racing Track Day

Track Day at Sears Point/Infineon

Reno Fernley Race Track

Unlimited Laps at ThunderHill

First Thunderhill of the year

SpeedZone in Dallas

Gotbluemilk Pictures

Foggy / Rainy Thunderhill Day

430 at Thunderhill

I drove the fastest road car in the world

Hahaha, I beat Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson and his NSX around Laguna Seca by 1 second :)

M5 at TH (T.E.A.M. Track Event at Thunderhill)

My miata

Bay Area Ms Drive

My miata almost made it into a movie

Thunderhill April TEAM event

Got lucky, thanks to BAMO, my car club

Calveras Drive

M5 Shakeout

Well, 400hp will be enough afterall :)

There are days with, and days without

Thunderhill again

T.E.A.M. Track Event at Thunderhill

Ready for the track

Doc Wong's Driving Clinic

Doc Wong's Driving Clinic

Track Day at Laguna Seca

I guess it was a car week :)

Smog vs Computers

The funs of owning a car

Son of a bitch, I got it

Burning Rubber

Turbo Blues...

Thunderhill picts

New Brakes / Thunderhill

Comments: sweet ass!! :-) posted by goaliegirl : 20 May, 2004 02:34

T.E.A.M. Track Event at Thunderhill

Car work before the track

Car trouble ended up ok / another mustang GT kill :)

Another cool link on highway safety and speed

What to do if you got a ticket, and how to avoid them

About speed limits and enforcement

Comments:
sweet ass!! :-)
posted by goaliegirl : 20 May, 2004 02:34