I'm back from another weekend of time trials at the go-kart track.

I didn't do as well as I was hoping, but only a couple of people managed to get close to their personal bests or improve upon them, and I think only one person got a new personal best without having improved something on their car.

The RA-1s were pretty good, but I think there is something to getting them shaved from the start. The corded tires I had last time seemed to have more grip than the close to full tread ones I had this time. To be expected, I guess.

And, I need more camber. -2.0° doesn't seem to be quite enough to keep the front tires from rolling over a bit too much. I had the front outside tire up to 45psi hot, and it was still rolling over a bit more than I wanted it to. I might have to get my car re-aligned. I don't know that I really want to go to -3.0° for a dual purpose car. Maybe -2.5°, maybe -2.75°... I also don't know just how much camber I can get out of my car.

The fun part of the weekend was that I got to drive 6 other cars in addition to mine. Most of them were "car trades" where someone else and I swapped cars. A few people offered up their car without wanting to drive mine. Everybody that drove my car (all people who haven't driven a MINI or much else in the front drive world) were amazed at how well it turned and gripped, and how much you could change the balance of the car mid turn by playing with the throttle. And, pretty much everybody said "your car would be great with some more power."

So, what did I drive?

Some Miatae... a bone stock 1.6 liter (the lightest Miata you can find) with Azenis, but no limited slip. The 1.6L Miata has the same power as the Cooper, and weighs close to the same. They're remarkable similar to drive until you get close to the limit, then the front wheel drive / rear wheel drive difference shows its head. The 1.6L Miata was nice and tossable, but if you got the back end out and hit the gas (to keep the back end out), it felt like the engine was bogging down, and you lost speed.

Next up was a newer, 1.8L(?) M-edition with all sorts of goodies... RA-1s, coilovers, swaybars, header, exhaust, etc. And an LSD. This one was fun to drive, and you could trail brake in to get the back light, then hit the gas to keep the back end out. With the LSD, it just kept on truckin'. This one did bite me though... It came around on me pretty quickly and I had to go both feet in and come to a stop. The punch line was that as I was getting moving again, the Miata owner (who was driving my car) managed to spin too.

My favorite Miata was an R-package Miata. R-package cars have no A/C, Bilstein shocks, LSD, and no power steering (and probably some other stuff). This one also had an aftermarket exhaust. Man, was that car fun. I had perma-grin after getting out of it and couldn't shut up. So tossable, so easy to balance... so easy to get the back end out and just leave it there. The manual steering is amazing. I thought my Cooper told you what the front wheels were doing really well (thanks to the Helix camber plates and poly control arm bushings), but the Miata without power steering puts it to shame. You feel everything. Sure, it would suck when driving around a parking lot, but on the track it kicks booty. And this one didn't have much in the way of power mods, so it wasn't much quicker than my Cooper... I turned a 1:01.01 in the Miata and a 1:00.94 in my Cooper.

I also drove a couple of Subies. A stock WRX wagon on Bridgeston RE-01-R tires. I didn't understand this car at all. It was my first AWD car, but I just didn't get it. Tons of understeer, but when you hit the gas the understeer didn't get worse. Very different.

The other Subie was a well sorted / modded STi. Putting out ~400 crank hp. Tein coilovers, RA-1s, Ferodo race pads, bigger turbo (I think), custom ECU and turbo timer, etc, etc. This Subie actually turned. I couldn't get the car to rotate with trail braking, and I usually wound up going into a turn too hot and having it just understeer. And with the massive HP available, figuring out just how much throttle was safe to pull the car through a turn was an experiment I didn't really try that hard. But, I did run it pretty hard. Stupid fast in a straight line, and it didn't do anything crazy in the turns. Pretty easy to drive, actually. At least at 75%. But, even with 400hp... I'm just not bit by the horsepower bug. It's fun in a straight line, but in the turns it just doesn't buy you much.

The STi (drive by its owner) and my Cooper (driven by me) had the same exit speed coming out of the fastest turn on the course - 55mph (from a radar gun somebody brought). The difference is that at the end of the straight after that turn, my Cooper was up to 68mph, and the STi was up to 82mph.

And, I got to drive an 80cc shifter kart (6-speed). Krazy. Of course, I don't think you can actually say I drove it. More like the kart pwned me (as the kids would say). I had no idea at all how fast I was going, or what gear I was in. No gauges, and no visual indication of what gear you are in. There's just a lever - pull to upshift, push to downshift. So, that was hard for me. Coming into a turn, I was never sure how many times I needed to downshift. Going down the straight, it just kept going faster and faster. When the acceleration started to slow down, grab another gear and keep going faster and faster. And another gear. And another gear. And another gear. They just kept coming. The problem was that I'm not that good at left foot braking, and the brakes on the kart are pretty sensitive. And, something was kinda hosed with them. Admitedly, I hit the brakes too hard. But, when I did, the kart would veer right violently. At the end of the straight on the first lap, I was on the left side of the track - hit the brakes - and wound up on the right side. So, I pulled into the pits and asked the owner what was up. He said it was fine and I just needed to hold onto the wheel harder. So, I went out for another lap, hit the end of the front straight that time, and the kart started sliding sideways. I wound up sliding off into the grass sideways, covering pretty much every part of the kart with grass. People had a good laugh at that one, including myself. It turns out the left caliper was binding, which through the bias off to the right.

Good times... I got to cross a few things off my "to-do" list. More rear wheel drive experience, some AWD experience, and some 300+ hp experience.

Of course, now I'm bruised and sore.

 

Nice write-up, great experience !!!

 

sounds like a fun day at the track.