GRIDLIFE came to the West coast for an exhibition of their Track Battle format. We had Hoosiers left over from UTCC last year just begging to get used so we entered in the unlimited class and got ready for the party.
It was a cold day out, low surface temp with little sunlight to bring the surface temp up and very little rubber on the ground after the storm the day before. Hard to get enough heat in the tires, they were about 40 degrees below optimal. Thankfully the weather held and it did stay dray through the day, and I was able to push to find as much speed as was available.
Lots of cool cars out at the event but at the top of the time sheets it turned into a battle for top honors between us and a fellow GTA competitor, Steven Chan in his 780 whp GTR on Hankook slicks.
The track got slower through the day with temperatures dropping and rising winds. With each session I cleaned up my lines a bit more and found areas to pick up time, but with every few degrees of temperature drop we saw the times inevitably rise several tenths. If the weather had gone the other way and warmed up we’d have been in the 1:16’s and contending for the overall production car record.
Still, 1:17.0 landed 1st place in Unlimited, Top Time of Day, and a new Miata lap record by a big margin.
The car felt solid, coming home with several little notes for tweaks and things to check before COTA but overall we’re ready to rock and roll.
This was also the debut of the new Miata fender vents. They’re now available at Singular Motorsports:
Loaded up. Gridlife is doing their first ever West Coast track battle event at Streets of Willow tomorrow. We need to test before COTA, so timing is perfect. What’s not perfect is the weather right now.. but the forecast claims it should be mostly clear tomorrow. Fingers crossed that we get some dry testing in.
Been crunching to make a bunch of improvements before COTA. Many refinements rather than massive changes. More power will be something coming later this year when I’m not under the gun, but every time I’m out with the car I learn more about it and come home with a long list of tweaks to make. GTA Finals at Buttonwillow was no different, the car will be the same overall spec as it was then but lots of details improved, reinforced, etc.
It’s making enough downforce to warp generally immovable things that the front loads transmit through, so have had to cut out and rebuild a few things.
Titanium skid pucks on the underside have increased in thickness.
Swapped the Wilwood 1″ MC and early booster to a NB2 Sport booster and factory 15/16″ MC. Mostly because I lost two 1″ MCs to date. One at Laguna Seca last fall, another at Buttonwillow on day 1. Then a third at a test day right after that, but the third one was my fault. Considered a manual setup, might still go that route but decided before I go bananas on it I ought to first try the simpler solution that the Stoptech calipers were designed to work with anyways. Coming from the old setup this is less piston diameter but more boost assist. This is the 6.4:1 booster (NB2 Sport non-ABS and MSM). First impressions driving around the lot, slightly longer pedal travel but less pedal pressure (no surprise). Pedal feels good once I’m through that longer initial travel. Miiight want to try a 929 MC as well, but going to test this weekend.
Will be testing some new bumpstop solutions.
Acquired spare throttle body, gas pedal, and ECU in case there’s ever a drive-by-wire issue.
New oil cooler config using the V8R engine plate, Setrab cooling, Staubli dry breaks… less pressure drop than old setup that was removed due to too much pressure loss.
Converted to manual steering via a custom idler pulley setup to eliminate the pump. Rack de-powered and welded.
We’re registered for Superlap Battle USA at Circuit of the Americas!
I’m working on the car every night, but mostly addressing things that need to be reinforced, repaired, adjusted, etc. So the car will be largely as it was at Buttonwillow in November. I’m extremely excited, also nervous. I expect that we won’t be taking the win at COTA this year, but I’m really looking forward to the challenge that will be taking everything to the next level and building towards being competitive at this track in the future.
This has been a season to remember. In March we set the Modified Production Car Lap Record for Chuckwalla Valley Raceway CW. At GTA Round 1 we took 1st place and top time across all drivetrains for Limited. At VIR the unfortunate contact with the wall set development back about 150 hours, but it also offered me an amazing opportunity to learn from the Supermiata crew as we thrashed to get the car back into running shape and made it out to set the 2nd fastest Miata lap of that track ever. GTA Round 2 fell just one week after the car arrived back in CA wounded from VIR. It took some long nights but we didn’t just make it to round 2, we took another 1st place and top time across all drivetrains for Limited. At GTA Round 3 we cinched the season championship with another identical result.
We’ve come incredibly far, and we’ve reached this point by setting big goals and working towards them. I want to continue to seek big challenges to drive us to improve. I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the second half of this year; where do we go to push ourselves to the next level?
With excellent timing, at the driver’s summit at SEMA the GTA series announced very exciting changes for the future. Inspired by and working with World Time Attack Challenge in Australia, GTA is evolving to focus on one new “superbowl” US event. This new Superlap Battle USA is to be held at Circuit of the Americas with a rule book tweaked to facilitate cross-over with WTAC cars from Australia, Japan, and more. Besides that event, there will be just three Pro series events on the calendar (two East Coast events and Buttonwillow remains as the season finals in November). At the driver’s summit at PRI they announced a joining of forces with other organizations to form the North American Time Attack Council, creating a new driver licensing structure and a new series hierarchy where SCCA serves as the club level entry point to time attack feeding drivers up the ranks into GTA as the premier Pro level national series for North America.
This presents us with big new challenges. 1) COTA is a big horsepower track. We’re the best on the brakes and in the corners, but GTRs can bring 1000hp to the fight and at this track with tons of room to use it that will be a massive advantage for them. 2) With the new spotlight on an event bigger and badder than ever, it will draw larger teams and budgets. Further to that point, with a chance of international teams making the trip over by 2020, competition is going to escalate to a new level. 3) Classes have evolved for 2019. Similar to WTAC, there will no longer be any division by drivetrain layout. It’s now just Enthusiast, Street, Limited, Unlimited. This means large fields. In the past we considered every Limited class car a competitor, now it’s official.
SLB USA 2019 is just around the corner, Feb 14. Very little time to make changes. GTA is planning 2019 to be a building year with 2020 bringing international teams, so we’ll take a similar approach; get to COTA this year with the car largely as it is now and use what we learn there to guide development through the rest of the year, building towards the big leagues: COTA 2020.
Going in this year the tactics were very different than last. Last year this was the new build that might shake up the field. This year was about seeing how far I could drill down closer to the class record, and my goal was to grab the one thing I missed by 6 hundredths of a second last year; the overall Limited class win across all drivetrain layouts. Every car in Limited was a competitor for us. The GTRs, Evos, STIs, Porsches, everything.
This year we had to work for it a bit, but the stoke was through the roof beginning to end. Having shredded 5th gear during the shakedown just days before the event I was working down to the wire to swap to the backup trans before Superlap, but we got things buttoned up and I even had a good nights sleep before the tow out to Buttonwillow.
We started right out of the gate with working through some stuff. On the first session of the day I lost two of the strakes in my splitter. Thanks to the lessons learned at VIR I brought spare material in the trailer so I cut new strakes out of aluminum, bent them over the tool box edge and gorilla epoxied those into place, plus a couple self-tapping screws (something I would never use in building the car but suddenly completely acceptable for a track-side fix). Those new strakes held for both days.
On an LFX related note, I had got sick of being unable to remove the driveshaft without dropping the diff or engine so while the trans was out I cut the flanges off the transmission tail shaft and the centering pin off the differential’s flange. This means the driveshaft has to be manually centered. Early on day 1 there was a lot of vibration coming from the driveline. We got under the car and re-centered the driveshaft and that fixed things.
By the third session I was down to a 1:48.1. Six tenths off my PB, but discussions with a lot of other teams and drivers revealed everyone felt that the track was slower. Various theories about why but ultimately you just get out there and wheel it, make tweaks to find the most speed you can, and the times are what they are and you see how you stack up with everyone else, so that’s what I set my mind to.
Last session of day 1 I had a brake master cylinder failure, no pedal going into Cotton Corners. Kept it on the track and tip-toed back to the pits. I had another MC in the spares bin, the challenge was bench bleeding it with what we had on hand. Thanks to John (Supermiata), Andrew (TSE) and Moti (BFW) for contributing ideas to come up with some McGyver ways we might be able to do it. Took a while, made longer because it was in near-freezing temps but had the MC in and bled by 11pm. Big thanks to our team member Greg for sticking it out with me in the cold to get it swapped and bled.
The next morning drove around the paddock at 7 AM, pop bled it again, then bled again after 1st session and the brakes were ready to rock for the rest of the day.
Fresh tires on for day 2. 1st session of day 2 was a mess with a bunch of the Unlimited class cars going off due to either failures or trying to push too hard. This caused some chaos with the restart and the flaggers weren’t communicating with each other well, so I had a near-incident with the Savvy Motorsports Porsche GT3. I was on a green flag flyer, he thought we were still under yellow. He was weaving to warm up tires as I approached at probably >60mph closing speed, he weaved left off-line which I mis-read as he saw me and was getting out of the way, then at the last moment he weaved right again in front of me. I wasn’t going to stop in time so I aborted right and sent it into the dirt. No harm done to the car, good place for an off. It’s always the lap that feels best when something like that happens.
Hoping we got the chaos out of the way with that session we dug in to finding some more time in the later sessions.
Set a new PB with double 1:47.3’s. After session 2 I wanted a little more front end bite so Moti and I cut and installed some gurneys on the splitter.
That worked but almost too much with things getting loose at high speed so we added 2° of rear wing and a click more low speed compression in the front shocks for the final session. I also went into the trailer and just closed my eyes and went through laps in my head for the last 15 minutes before the final session.
First hot lap of the final session showed a 1:46.95 on the AIM. Too close for comfort; sometimes the track timing doesn’t agree perfectly with the AIM and I REALLY wanted that official 1:46 so I did a cool down lap to really baby the tires and then went for another one. AIM said 1:46.599, I was fist pumping in the car.
Low on fuel so I pulled into the pits and got my high five hands ready for the whole crew. Official timing said 1:46.8, I’ll take it. Only later did we find out that Amir in the V8 M3 (600+hp) went 1:47.2 in that session, which would have taken the win from us if I hadn’t done the 46.
Final results: 1st in Limited RWD and an overall win across all Limited class drivetrains!
Data from the lap shows some ridiculousness for street tires. As in, it looks like I’m on 275 Hoosiers. The aero package is really strong. I’m continuing to improve the chassis setup, the brakes are stellar, and the more I race and dial this car in the better it gets. There’s more to come.
I want to thank every single person who tuned in to the live feed, followed along on Instagram/Facebook or kept tabs in the forums. After the dodge with the Porsche on day 2 a bunch of people reached out to make sure things were OK which was really cool. I’ve said it many times before and I will continue to; when we’re out there dicing with Goliaths it really feels like we’re racing for an entire community of friends and enthusiasts behind us. Each of you are a part of what motivates me to push forwards.
Where to now? That Limited RWD record is still out there! The gap is down to 2.255 seconds. The current record was set before the rules slowed Limited class down, but I really believe we’re on the way to resetting it despite that. I have more plans on the drawing board that I didn’t get to this year, so there is more coming soon.
There’s been a severe lack of updates! Things always get crazy at the end of the season and with the additional chaos of moving our Goodwin Racing home to a new larger location I’ve been even more tied up than usual.
We won the Pro Am round 3 at Buttonwillow which also meant winning the ProAm season for Limited class (the season points are measured against competitors with all drivetrains).
For that event I got the repaired GT1000 wing back on the car. Had to trim it down a lot in angle to balance with the 2017 front end. It was a hot day but still the first time I was able to take Riverside completely flat out, so the wing is definitely an improvement over the last… which is saying quite a bit coming from a massive Kognition airfoil before. I used to enter Riverside at about 110 mph and bleed down to 106 or so at the apex before accelerating out. This time I’m entering with my foot on the floor never lifting and at that same point I was doing 106, now I’m at 114 mph and climbing. Power felt low all day and I had worries the engine was getting tired. Then in the last session after splashing some fresh gas in the power came back. I did some backtracking in my head on the age of the E85 that I had left in the tank and it was just at the 3 month mark in age. One of those things.. you know E85 ages out but then when you have an experience like that it really underlines it for you. I’ll be ensuring I get fresh fuel for every event in the future.
Following that, all eyes have been set on Superlap Battle. The primary focus has been rebuilding the 2018 front aero, with a trip back up to Blackbird Fabworx. We ended up cutting the splitter in half, putting the good half back in the mold and building out the other half fresh the same way we made the original. Pretty darn cool to do the whole layup and put it under vacuum and the finished half and the fresh carbon half just suck into the mold like a glove and cure together. Not saying it was easy, but certainly rewarding. Thanks to Chip for CNCing some aluminum bits that needed to go in to the splitter at the last minute for me.
Finished splitter came back to San Diego with me and then it was thrash time to rebuild the brackets, ducting, front bumper, etc. for that front end. The last of the VIR damage disappeared with the addition of some carbon/kevlar fenders.
Tired of the issues with the SPEC clutch I swapped to a Luk factory clutch/flywheel. Not ideal, but given the choice between 20 lbs and a clutch that works, I know what I’m picking.
Lots of other small updates like changing to Stoptech’s race floating rotor that allows a little more float which should help with knockback from the flexible factory front uprights. Full inspection on the car, replaced several bits, etc. Another corner balance and alignment and then we were ready to do a shakedown of all the new stuff.
With Superlap Battle coming up on the 8th, I went out to Streets of Willow this past Saturday. Great shakedown overall, worked through the many little things that always pop up on shakedowns with new parts, and the car feels great. The good news is the clutch is shifting way better. The bad news is that 5th gear is toast, too many times grinding into gear and the damage was already done before I changed to the factory clutch. It got worse through the day to where at the end of the day it refused to go into 5th any more.
Despite that, we happened to set a new Miata lap record for CCW… while coasting down the straight in 4th, and on the street tires we run at GTA. So, a lot of things are working right. Both aero and mechanical grip are dialed.
So, we’re back at the shop and last night I got the drivetrain out. I have another MV7 here, it’s the one I was running in 2017 that never shifted right because the shifter pivot was seized. We fiddled with the pivot for a couple hours and got it freed up, so in it went! This trans has had plenty of grinding into gear on the old spec clutch as well, so its health is unknown but it was still working when it came out so now with the good clutch in it hopefully it’s happy. Sit rep as of last night:
She’s back in the car now, getting the last bits bolted on and fluids in tonight. Fingers crossed the trans is good and we’ll be rocking and rolling in two days at Buttonwillow.
Just swapped to the stock clutch and flywheel a couple weeks ago. Haven’t yet had a chance to drive any more than moving around the shop. Engagement point is close to the floor, going to try to bring it up a bit higher, still need to bleed the clutch hydraulics again. I finally bit the bullet despite the 20lb gain in the hopes that I would have a trans shifting without complaints. I had a good lap ruined at the last event because it wouldn’t go into 5th. Can’t be having that. I’d love a lighter trans option.
I won a free Competition Clutch at the last Global Time Attack event for fastest overall time. I can’t use it (they don’t make a clutch for the LFX) so I’m giving it away on Instagram. If you know someone in need, help me find a good home for it by nominating them:
