Did the SCCNH auto-x school today, and I couldn't be more thrilled with how the car did and how I improved.
I got up at o'dark-thirty, loaded up my Miata with tools, oil, coolant, helmet, etc. and headed off down Rt 4A with some bitchin' rock tunes cranked for a 50 mile/80 minute drive to the NH Motor Speedway auxiliary parking lot. Once I got there I unloaded my gear to make a 'mini pit' for myself.
I planned for as many contingencies as you can with a 4-5ft^3 trunk. I staged my car then shot the shit with some of the other drivers. There were some interesting rides there. Here's my car in the staging area:
From left to righ we have a turbo Acura RSX of some flavor, Honda CRZ on r-comps, and a Cobalt SS. I will repeat that: CRX on R-comps.
Some more interesting cars here, notably a REAL '65 Cobra. That thing got driven HARD.
And my buddy Jeff just picked up a Miata that has a 5.0L Mustang V8 stuffed in it!
And to represent american muscle, we have the 650whp fully race prepped Camero. There was also a Mustang GT500, but he arrived after my camera's batteries died.
So I started off doing the large skid pad, just driving around it at a sustained speed to get used to the car's ultimate grip and to dial in tire pressure. I used a $25 compressor/gauge jobber I got from harbor freight, did the job perfectly. Fronts at 34psi and rears at 28psi balanced their grip about perfectly while giving both sidewalls about the same roll-over. Moved over to the small skid pad to practice slower cornering, which worked beautifully. Just set my line with the steering wheel and mostly used the throttle to steer the car around, it felt... so... good... *spooge*
The next station had us accelerating through a set of gates, then simply braking to stop to get a feel for the car's braking behavior. Next, they had us basically do 'lane changes.' First they were easy, then got progressively harder, eventually encouraging you to start leading into and setting up turns. The next iteration was pretty fucking ballsy: you drove full-throttle trough some gates going straight at the instructor, and when you felt like you were about to run the guy over he'd point the flag either left or right for a lane change maneuver. In the final stage you'd basically go balls out, make a hair-pin around a single cone, then go balls out back to a braking zone. It was really fun trying to estimate your line without any guidance.
We broke for lunch, then two mini-courses were set up. The first one was an opening slalom, to a TIGHT Chicago box, to a constant slalom, into a stop box. I ran that one for about an hour, got around 8-10 runs in and really had my line dialed in at the end. 1st gear through the course was INSANE weight transfer and acceleration, but a bit too rough to control easily.
Lastly we ran a mini auto-x course with some fun sweepers, a tight 180, and some chicanes. I ran that 6-7 times and nailed it. The car felt so good, especially when tire pressures were dialed in, I could just toss it into turns and adjust for whatever happened with throttle. I am so excited to run it in a real auto-x and see how I stack up to other drivers and cars.
I also noticed that the car handles VERY differently with and without a passenger. With a passenger it feels more settled and better balanced, but without a passenger it feels more responsive and agile.
Sadly the helmet cam was epic fail. The hard top on the Miata was so low the camera basically got a nice view of the top latch and not much else, especially because the windshield was washed out in all the videos. I will try to be less suck the next time around for that!
Edit:
A number of the instructors were very impressed with my driving/the cars performance. I got some really good advice from the instructors and it all just clicked: the car, the advice, and my confidence behind the wheel. The turbo, although it spools late, was a really good power level. Even at lower (3-4k) RPMs in 2nd gear could get the back end to scoot around.