The thread of discussing my stupid cars and how I waste my

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Some shots of the first qualifying and race.

(SPOILER)

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Okay, I have safely returned from my very first hillclimb.

It was a a pretty solid performance. More importantly I had a blast while I was there. I'll have to brag on myself a little bit. I ran consistently in the top 10 in a field of about 56 cars. My car had the least amount of horsepower to weight of any of the other top performers, so there were a few cars surprised to see me and the little Miata hanging with them. That's my giant killer.

I won my class with a time of 2:12.564, and broke the old record for my class by around 9 seconds. (For perspective, beating an existing record by a second is considered quite good.) While I was hoping to finish in the top 10 over all, the Factory Five Daytona Coupe I was trying to stay ahead of managed a 2:12.3..something and beat me by a few 10ths of a second. Still a first in class, and 11th over all against some very nice purpose built race cars is pretty pleasing. My car is starting to get dialed in.

The most fun part was when spectators would walk by and say something like, "Oh, it's that car! Hey we watched you on the mountain, and you were our favorite person to see run. That car of yours sounded great, and you came by the spectator area so fast each time." There were some really neat hillclimb specials, GT cars, and other formula cars, so it felt good to get noticed in my little Miata. Some kids even wanted autographs, which was both embarrassing and cute.

I'll try to get the videos of my runs up the mountain if anyone is interested.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

....here are my two best runs up the mountain from last weekend.

Second Best Time.

Best Time

Sorry for the double posting.

[NorthernChaosGod]

Yay, videos!

[Jiro]

Do you have to approach hill climbs differently to other races? What kind of tactics would go into it?

I am deeply naawwwwwing at kids getting your autograph. You're a hero!

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Those kids will grow up and realize no hero drives a Miata. I'm glad you guys liked the videos, though.

Yes, a hillclimb is pretty different from road racing.

Road racing means a longer time out on track, so prepping for a hillclimb changes several things.

For a hillclimb, the course is much shorter. It's a sprint. This course was around 2 and a half minutes for the average car. Around 2.2 miles. By comparison, my average race is around 45 minutes.

To prepare for that, I changed my brake pads and rotors. I needed a softer compound pad that would heat up faster, and new rotors for them to bed on. Road racing pads need to last against heavier, repeated loads for many many laps, so they don't heat up as fast, and lose heat more quickly.

The differential I used had a taller gear ratio for better acceleration and pull up the steep elevation.

This course was incredibly bumpy, and I had debated running softer springs. That would allow my tires to maintain better contact with the surface, and that would mean faster cornering speeds. I might do that next year.

Ideally we would run tires that reach their operating temperature much more quickly (similar to the brakes). I still ran my road racing slicks because that's what I had, but it meant I was sliding around a good bit more. I basically used the first long left hand corner of the course to try to force heat into the tires.

I pulled the ballast from my car that is required in road racing to help make the car as light as possible.

Also for weight, I only kept about 1-2 gallons of gas in the car at a time.

Road racing usually runs a "cool suit" which is a cooler full of ice water and a pump that circulates that water through a shirt around my body to help drop the temperature in the car. The whole system is probably 25 lbs or so. I took that out, and just dealt with the heat since is it's such a short run.

Since I'm the only car on the course, I don't need to check behind me. I removed my side mirrors for a little less aerodynamic drag.

I had a good time!

[NorthernChaosGod]

I didn't know it was that serious. Here I was thinking it's all just Gran Turismo up in that B.

[Jiro]

Dude that's smurfing sweet. And I love that you just took your mirrors off and didn't wear the cooling suit. You're just like "DUMP ALL THE EXCESS, WE NEED TO GO FAST."

[NorthernChaosGod]

He's Ricky Bobby!

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Here are the official results, and some pictures.

Results.

Forward Motion Gallery

Killboy Gallery

One of my favorite shots.

[Jiro]

That event was called Chasing the Dragon. Dude that's wicked. Looks like you did pretty damn well in the results too. None too shabby.

[fire_of_avalon]

Was gonna look at your pictures first, but then I saw the words "Red Camaro" and I'm sorry but I had to.

EDIT: In #21 on I can see your big head. ? Also who stole your number two and made you tape 11 on the side?

[NorthernChaosGod]

That is one sweet smurfing shot.

[Pike]

Here are the official results, and some pictures.

Results.

Forward Motion Gallery

Killboy Gallery

One of my favorite shots.

Ooooh that is a sexy car.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Thanks guys!!

Some of the paint doesn't match up and there's lots of marks from other cars, but I think she looks better with some battle scars.

Another red Miata had number 2 already, and several other permutations were already booked. That left me with finding the simplest way to turn #2 into another number. So I cut up some pieces of blank magnetic sheets into some "ones" and went with it.

FOA, actually that Camaro is a long time family friend of ours. He's been racing it for years, and it's a fine example of the breed. This time he was having some running issues though. You can see by the exhaust fumes in his pictures that something wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

A picture of me looking rough after the end of the weekend, at the awards ceremony.