June 20, 2010

Renegade Miata Club's 2nd Event

There is always something to be said about the Renegade Miata events. It's not JUST how great of a community it is, the number of runs or little quirks (Kenny cones, morning low-down, etc.) but it's also how amazing and energizing their course designs are. All of the above always makes for an amazing event on the weekend.I got to have Gunner co-drive with me for this event, and bagged some great footage of my runs, including some fun runs after. The course layout was designed beautifully, without the feeling of having something left to be desired. Many slaloms into some sweeping turns, which is just how I like my courses. I'd say my favorite section was the back half. In the video you'll notice me sweeping out of a slalom going left and into 3 six packs, followed by two directional slaloms, with some high-speed offset gates. Course elements like those are exactly what I feel the most comfortable in, with the car responding very well to my inputs.I wanted to try out running the course with the front sway bar set to full stiff (was medium stiff, with rear full stiff) as recommended by Bill Gendron. It felt a lot more planted on the turns, behaved exactly as I wanted it to, and seemed to make the car more balanced. Ben Wagstaff and Brian Levesque mentioned the rear feeling a touch too loose, which I find interesting because the car feels spot on to me. Granted, when they took the car out, the gas tank was almost empty, and I went to the event with 7 gallons. Maybe that could help play a role in saying the rear felt slightly loose? Either way, I really enjoy the setting, but we'll have to try some different settings for fun to see what else we can come up with. There may be different settings out there that will suit my driving style better!For the end of the day results, I came 2nd place in the "Other Mazdas" category behind John Stevens. I came first in raw with a 1'08.4, followed by Gunner with a 1'11.3, but not in pax points. Jeff managed to bag a 1'15.7 but could not hold off Matt Thompson, coming in with a 1'14.3. Fastest time of the day goes to Brian Levesque with a screaming 1'01.5. Any faster and it would have been warp speed! Check out the results page listed here on Renegade Miata. Just want to give a big ups to Gunner for teaching more some good tricks and the awesome lunch. Big ups to Jeff of Show Shine Detail & Performance for coming out and the great video with him in my car for a fun run. More big ups to Brian Levesque for taking me out for a fun run and showing me that I still have a lot to learn in my car, and letting me catch it on film! Some more of those big ups to Ben Wagstaff for taking my car out during some fun runs and giving me a show as I was working the corner. Wish I caught it on film! Huge thanks to Nayda for some of the great photos of the event, and lastly to my friend Patryk for coming out to see what Solo racing is all about. He is also racing, but on a much different platform. Feel free to check out his Ducati blog and see what he's up to.
The camera seemed a bit more jumpy then usual but it could just be that it's more noticeable since I recorded at 1080P this time around. Not quite sure, will do some testing since I have some down time from racing for awhile. First three videos are my fastest runs of the day, which were my 2nd, 6th and 7th runs. After that is a quick outside video Nayda took, 3 fun runs I took with some passengers, Jeff taking my car out with Patryk, then a special footage of Brian Levesque going all out (bagged a low 1'07 too)! Thanks again everyone, couple of long weeks with some rest time ahead of me so until then, stay tuned.









2 comments:

Boosted Thrills said...

I also felt the rear was slightly loose on your car compared to the first time I drove it.

Marc Monnar said...

Couldn't tell me that before? :) Good to know though. I guess we'll see what I can come up with. Thank you for the heads up though Jeff.