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For Autocross fans. Show your stuff!

It's a Mazdaspeed, factory turbo, tweaked slightly from there. About 220 at the wheels.

Yeah, I think in my head I'm thinking that going wider in the sweeper lets me go a bit faster, but in reality the going farther part negates the going faster part.

You are exactly correct. You are going faster, and losing time at the same time in that particular part of the course. There is no set rule for the quickest line. Slightly wide in a corner that leads to a straight away is a good line in order to keep momentum up and get back on the gas sooner. Wide in a long sweeper loses time. Wide to get in better position for a decreasing radius corner is a good line. Most of the "rules" of road racing fall short when applied to Autocross. I bought Solostorm at the end of last year's season and it really helped tighten up my driving. It's amazing to be able to see exactly what is happening when the run is logged with position, throttle setting, g-forces, speed etc. I can be 6" off the line running faster and losing time according to the data. I can overlay runs and compare them. I'm in the early stages of data logging. I need to get faster at it so that I can look at a run as soon as I'm back in grid. All the top competitors have been doing this for several years. I finally decided to join in on the trend.

You have the perfect platform for Autocross. The Mazdaspeed Miata is a really quick, balanced car that is super competitive for very little investment.
 
I'm intrigued by Solostorm. I'm probably not at a point where it would benefit me much at this point, but it seems like some good coaching.
 
At this event I had to put the camera inside the car because I forgot they require a tether if the camera is mounted via suction cup on the outside of the car. It is the only club where I have run into this rule. The advantage is I get to see what I'm doing while driving. It helped me correct some bad habits. The disadvantage is you can't see the course as well in the video. There was a pretty long sweeper on this course. Plenty of people were walking the course WAY wide. This course was copied from one of the Nationals courses in the past. It is set up so that you can take several different lines and basically, hang yourself. My weekend was filled with mistakes. I could tell after the first run I wasn't operating at 100% and it stayed that way all weekend. I did PAX 10th Saturday and 4th on Sunday. To the naked eye my runs looked fast and were compared to the competition. The logged data told a different story. I was really sloppy all weekend. No two runs were the same. We're not talking adjust apexes by inches, more like feet. 10 runs per day on the same course, run in the opposite direction on the second day. My best time in each direction was only 0.295 seconds different. Autocross is such a mental game. I have good days and bad days/weekends. I like having the data logs to see what is actually happening. The sooner you make the jump to logging the sooner your driving will make a mega jump. The butt dynamometer is quite inaccurate. This was the last event of the season for this area. We are running at Mt. Bachelor Ski area at 6,300' elevation. Their parking lot is huge and very uneven. You have to read the pavement during the course walk to keep track of all the off camber sections and large humps that will get your car airborne. This was 10-15-22 and 10-16-22. We lucked out with perfect weather.

Saturday's fastest run.

<iframe width="1920" height="1080" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SlUd_FRCQmA" title="ACCO Event 9 run 9 44.845 sec 10-16-22" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Sunday's fastest run.

<iframe width="1920" height="1080" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ohdi3IihCWI" title="ACCO Event 10 run 4 44.550 sec 10-16-22" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Went to a trackcross event at Thompson the other day, pretty fun. I don't think I hit any cones but I did completely miss the first turn on my first run. After a few laps I offset the rear tire pressures to try and give the $300 amazon lsd a helping hand, but it started drizzling some poor guy in a Mustang ended the event. (He was ok)

<iframe src="https://streamable.com/e/orj0yu" width="900" height="506" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe src="https://streamable.com/e/c59z0s" width="900" height="506" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

guess which run was faster lol

I did take some in car video but it sucks cause you can't see the track at all. (phone ziptied to headrest)
 
Went to a trackcross event at Thompson the other day, pretty fun. I don't think I hit any cones but I did completely miss the first turn on my first run. After a few laps I offset the rear tire pressures to try and give the $300 amazon lsd a helping hand, but it started drizzling some poor guy in a Mustang ended the event. (He was ok)

<iframe src="https://streamable.com/e/orj0yu" width="900" height="506" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe src="https://streamable.com/e/c59z0s" width="900" height="506" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

guess which run was faster lol

I did take some in car video but it sucks cause you can't see the track at all. (phone ziptied to headrest)

That looks like a blast.
 
I got an email from the Solo Chair regarding my car classification. "It was brought to my attention...". Yeah, I think I picked 'E street' without thinking much initially, looked it up, MSM goes in there, and didn't really appreciate how hard core bone stock it really needed to be. So it's time for me to get in the right class.

Only, I bought my MSM already modded by someone else, and I've done a bit more (tires which are OK, 3.63 rear diff which isn't). So that lead to a discussion about what class I should be in.

Clearly not E Street, non stock springs, Wilwoods up front (even if on the stock rotors), engine mods. Normally the next step up would be STU for a turbo Miata, but some of the engine mods mine has (standalone MS ECU, bigger injectors) don't fit in there. So up I go to XSB.

I guess cars in XSB can get pretty wild, instead of specifically allowing certain mods, they specifically disallow a few (not many), and it's fair game past there, only distinction being it needs to be (plausibly) road legal still, licensed and insured. There aren't too many competitors in that class currently, and I wasn't paying attention to the class prior, but I think they're pretty heavily modified.

Not sure how I'll fare in XSB, but really, even if I was only doing mid-pack in E-street, it wasn't the right class at all for me. And I'm really just doing it for fun anyhow.
 
It?s a slippery slope as soon as you start modifying your car. XSB is a very fast class. As you said, almost anything goes. That?s the same thing with my Mustang. It?s no longer competitive in F Street, so I either move it to ESP, STU or CAM C. All three of those classes are like the wild wild West. Just bring mega dollars in order to hang with the rest of the people in the class. I am window shopping for a different car for next season because of that.
 
Yeah, I think my car has a few mods that stick it in XSB, but by and large, it really is more of a STU car. Put stock injectors and ECU back on and I guess I'd be there, I guess re-gearing the diff would be allowed. Lots of competition in the STU class.

I actually do have a stock MSM ECU and the stock injectors, my car came with a lot of the stock parts. I spent a weekend afternoon last year trying to get it to fire up on the stock ECU just to see, after messing with it for a while it did nothing but crank, never even tried the slightest to fire. It's a PnP Megasquirt, so it is (in theory) pretty easy to swap back and forth. I think in retrospect it might have had something to do with the immobilizer module.

But really, I think I'll just leave it as is and run XSB and see how silly I feel for being so slow in that class. Probably not very.
 
<iframe src="https://streamable.com/e/35twou" width="889" height="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
If you ever decide to move past the tape routine this company sells number/letter packages for a very reasonable price. I think my last set was ~ $60 including the postage. Good quality materials and work. It takes me all of 30 seconds per side to put them on and straighten them out. 5 seconds per side to remove them.

https://www.soloperformance.com/
 
/\ /\ /\ They're a garage in StL, about 5 minutes away. I had him do an alignment on the Miata a few weeks ago and discovered the front passenger alignment was a bit wonky. Not much of a pull, but it was a bit inconsistent turning different directions. Had him do an 'autocross' alignment. -1.5 camber in the back, -1.3 in the front, 0 toe up front. It feels a lot better now.

Did the Novice school again today. I did it last year too, didn't do a whole lot of events last year so didn't feel bad about doing it again this year and getting lots of runs in (10 total). Granted it was a bit on the cool side (50's) so the RT660's aren't at their best, especially early in a run, but I think I've sort of caught up to the tires to a decent extent.

No official timing, but just from a casual perusal, about the only car faster than me in my heat was a Lotus Evora, by about a second. I kept improving, they kept improving, second gap remained as I bottomed out in times for the last 4 runs or so (within a half second or so each run).

My instructor took it for a run, looped it on a fast 180 turn, he said he wasn't used to a Miata with power (he drives an NB).
 
/\ /\ /\ They're a garage in StL, about 5 minutes away. I had him do an alignment on the Miata a few weeks ago and discovered the front passenger alignment was a bit wonky. Not much of a pull, but it was a bit inconsistent turning different directions. Had him do an 'autocross' alignment. -1.5 camber in the back, -1.3 in the front, 0 toe up front. It feels a lot better now.

Did the Novice school again today. I did it last year too, didn't do a whole lot of events last year so didn't feel bad about doing it again this year and getting lots of runs in (10 total). Granted it was a bit on the cool side (50's) so the RT660's aren't at their best, especially early in a run, but I think I've sort of caught up to the tires to a decent extent.

No official timing, but just from a casual perusal, about the only car faster than me in my heat was a Lotus Evora, by about a second. I kept improving, they kept improving, second gap remained as I bottomed out in times for the last 4 runs or so (within a half second or so each run).

My instructor took it for a run, looped it on a fast 180 turn, he said he wasn't used to a Miata with power (he drives an NB).
What tires are you running? That is bias-ply camber and street car toe and will promote lots of understeer, which is the opposite of what you want in autox. I'd want 1/8" out front, 1/16" in rear total minimum to start, and around 3.0-4.25* on the camber in front for radials, depending on tire construction, and about -1* in the rear to start. Dampers I can't help with until I know what you're running.
 
Is autocross using 200TW tires now or is that for a street tire class? In the 90s I think I was using 50TW tires. They didn't last long but the sure were sticky. I was never very fast in my 93 Miata, but sure had fun.
 
What tires are you running? That is bias-ply camber and street car toe and will promote lots of understeer, which is the opposite of what you want in autox. I'd want 1/8" out front, 1/16" in rear total minimum to start, and around 3.0-4.25* on the camber in front for radials, depending on tire construction, and about -1* in the rear to start. Dampers I can't help with until I know what you're running.
RT660's. I don't think you can get that sort of camber using stock suspension arms on a Miata.

It doesn't understeer at all (unless it's on-throttle understeer), pretty well balanced and the rear end is pretty active (TWSS). About the only time an end slides out it's the back.
 
Quite a few classes have to run the 200 TW tires. All the prepared and modified classes can run pretty much whatever they want. All CAM classes have to run on 200TW tires.
 
Is autocross using 200TW tires now or is that for a street tire class? In the 90s I think I was using 50TW tires. They didn't last long but the sure were sticky. I was never very fast in my 93 Miata, but sure had fun.
Street class tires. They do exclude a few specific tires from the general 200TW rule.
DOT tires with a UTQG Treadwear Grade of 200 or higher are required.
o EXCLUDED: Kumho Ecsta V720 ACR; Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 and Pilot Sport Cup 2 ZP.
 
Quite a few classes have to run the 200 TW tires. All the prepared and modified classes can run pretty much whatever they want. All CAM classes have to run on 200TW tires.
Street class tires. They do exclude a few specific tires from the general 200TW rule.
I like that. I think I was in what was called C Street Prepared because of my modified suspension. I will have to look up rules for my mini and maybe go when it is back together.

Fun fact, tires under 13 inches have no treadwear rating. I have Yoko A008s on mine, probably around 200TW or higher.
 
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