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Hi all, I am going to use this thread to post pictures and videos of my autocross/track day events.
Track days will be coming next year, but for now I am running autocross events at Devens Airfield in Ayer Massachusetts. These are local autocross groups only, I do not run with SCCA nor do I plan to. The SCCA groups here will do about 5-6 runs per event, where ours do 14-18. My times can be found here, https://ne-svt.org/#/results name Ryan Paradis in Intermediate class, and yes my friend who runs the events changed my car name on motorsportreg to a 2006 Wannabe-Miat . This link will show the latest events results until about 7/23 when the next event posts its results, I have the raw data but its in spreadsheet form.
The classes are essentially experienced race (140tw or lower) and everything else grouped into 200tw or higher, sometimes they will be custom groups just to be funny. While some may think this is unfair, it is actually far more fun as you are directly competing against some incredible cars and not racing against the same class and people every single event, and it makes the wins that much better. It's all for fun and we have some incredibly fast people and cars that go through our groups, a lot of the SCCA members will come to our events as well.
Car is setup with Sakebomb FPSpec Long-Stroke Ohlins DFV coilovers 14kg/8kg, Mazdaspeed Strut Bar (brake brace), stock sways for now (have progress tech front/rear, just haven't installed yet), BHR Catless midpipe, Sakebomb IGN1A coils, aluminum Koyo radiator, stock wheels wrapped with Hankook Ventus V12, and 17x9 RPF1s with Falken RT660's (almost heat cycled out, claimed to only have two events left, I have actually not driven an RX8 with 200tw tires yet), working with a local member here @MincVinyl to implement the JDM spec tune through Mazdaedit, currently only have the fuel enrichment done/throttle remap/lower fan on temps and longer run time/more oil injected, will work on ignition later on.
I will be going up to Loring Megacross up in northern Maine by the Canadian border August 5-7 for a three day autocross event, and I will use the sticky tires there and run them out. The plan is to have two wheelsets for track and autocross duty, Kumho 730s for track days and one of set of these for the other wheelset for autocross days, RE71rs/A052/RT660.
This is roughly my 7th event so far, first season ever autocrossing, and I officially graduated from intermediate at the 7/2 event in the video below!
As you can see it was absolutely pouring rain, my run group (2nd) easily had the most rain, where the 1st run groups had it mostly dry out in the beginning of the day.
Video was not taken by me, was taken from the starting line tent. Eventually I will get a gopro and start doing onboard, for now I am just looking to have fun and punch above my weight class.
Enjoy!
Last edited by SparklingFresca; 07-07-2023 at 08:06 PM.
These pictures are from the 5/14 event. The guy riding along with me got me into autocross, he used to drive an 8, whom I picked up all of his race parts from, and now he drives a new GR Supra 6MT in the beautiful blue color. He always gets at least one ride with me, and I let him drive whenever he wants. The RX8 truly is a special car that makes people want to come back to it!
So I have had quite the summer, autocrossing nearly every other weekend at Devens with my three local clubs. I never planned on doing any SCCA events this year but someone special showed up to Devens so I had to meet her! Tamra is no longer driving the DSP RX8 and was letting her two good friends drive the car this year, of which I got to take a ride in, and wow, what an awesome car. They just recently put the car up for sale and I had a chance to buy it, but the timing wasn't right for me as we just moved into my new house we built and didn't have much funds for a full scca prepped car at this point. Had the timing been different I would've jumped at the chance to own this rx8.
The opportunity arose where I got invited to attend the Loring Mega Autocross up in Caribou Maine, which is about a 7hr drive for me. This was my first event using my very very very used falken rt660s, which ended up opening my eyes to actual speed and grip. It took me a couple runs to really learn how far into these tires I can lean before I found that limit of grip. Unfortunately by the time I was feeling fast on day 2 we had an incident on course involving a vehicle and two course workers. Everyone is okay now, but it truly was a somber day in remembering that motorsports are inherently dangerous and you cannot remove all risk from the equation.
Day 1 on friday was the test and tune, in which the local news came out and did a story on those who showed up. It was absolutely pouring out there, I made about 30-40 runs on that day since there were only a couple people using the course, my buddy in the prelude and myself were absolutely not "testing and tuning," just having tons of fun. The background commentary is from our friends group waiting for hours to see and record this clip on the local news.
All in all I had a great time with my friends, we came to race and put down fast times, but left with stronger friendships than before, which truly made the trip special.
The porsche edged me out on day 1, but for the few runs we had on day 2 I was ahead of him by a significant margin. Yes your eyes do not deceive you, that is a supra! It's a surprisingly easy car to drive, the power delivery is very progressive and never feels overwhelming. The oven didn't work so I cooked pizza on the grill with my iron pizza stone, turned out amazing!
Well this season has been off to a great start. The car currently has the NC progress tech swaybars mounted now which I finally got around to installing, and also added the lower temp oil cooler thermostats, and a slight tune with the help of Minc. Biggest change has by far been running Bridgestone RE71RS, these tires are way better than the slick Falken 660's I got as hand me downs with over 200+ runs on them. First two events went great this year, couldn't of asked for a better start to my season! Again my friends like to troll my MSR account, I am Ryan Paradis driving the "2006 Mazda needs new apex seals in Hockenheim White."
Saturday was a great day for me, hit top 10 at our local club with some seriously fast SCCA drivers that day. It was my first day on the Bridgestones, which was my first true experience with what actual grippy tires feel like. I was playing around with pressures a little, and found that 30fr/29rear hot was the sweetspot to get the sidewalls wearing down to the sidewall pointer indicator, any lower and the sidewalls would start to roll over.
Sunday was even better for me as I placed top 5! This was my 17th or 18th autocross event ever and I feel I did very well, the tires are so confidence inspiring, it really is the best change I have made to the car. I think in an event or two I will start reeling in that NSX, or at least reel in Steve driving it. My current rival Eric Sholz is seriously fast for what he is driving, him and all the organizers want me to attend the SCCA events, which I will attend a couple eventually. The back to back days for 4/20-4/21 was a lot of driving and it was nice to have a break this weekend so I skipped the 4/28 NER Solo event to get some stuff done around the house.
Last edited by SparklingFresca; 05-08-2024 at 07:29 AM.
I had the pleasure of going to Thompson Motorsports Park in Connecticut on May 3rd for an open track day. There was maybe 28 entrants to this event, with about 3-5 being single seater racecars, some track prepped BMWs/Mustangs/miatas, and the rest being normal cars with full interiors. Since the driver count was so low, they placed all the race prepped cars into one group, then there was an advanced group to those that have been to Thompson, and a novice group for those that haven't been, which I got put into. You can see photos of the entrants here, https://www.turtlesway.com/Racing/Thompson-Track-Day
It ended up being an amazing day for me. I got placed with the Porsche GT4 RS, a newer Cobra Mustang, an M3 with 630whp, my buddy co driving the red ND miata, and a Lemons prepped Ford Ranger. I ran through about 5-6 20 minute sessions, and didn't take my last session due to not wanting to beat up the car too much. Through a combination of the novices being beginners, and me being an alright driver, I was easily able to get a point-by from everyone in the novice group.
For my first two sessions I was sent out last, and overtook the Porsche, mustang, ranger, and the ND miata, but was never able to find the M3 due to the time difference we were sent out, where finally on the third session I lined up first with the M3 behind me. On my first lap and a half I took it easy to warmup the tires and brakes, with the M3 hanging about 1/2-1 corner behind me, until we got to the back straight where he came up on me fast so I gave him the point by, well he didn't take it so I figured he wanted to play around. Once I felt the brakes were hot and tires were up to temp on lap 2, I pushed the rx8 pretty good, maybe 8-9/10ths of my skill level, and the M3 never had a chance after that. Every corner I would gain about a 1/4-1/2 corner on him, so by the time I was about 1/3-1/2 way down the back straight he would just be getting onto it, and not even his 630whp could make up for that time delta. All of us novices were stationed together in the garage, so I got major props from all the drivers, they were all very surprised what an RX8 could actually do given it had a good driver with good tires and suspension. After talking with the M3 driver, he purposefully didn't take my point by because he wanted to see my lines, and by the end of the day he was talking about how he wanted to de-tune his car so it's more manageable in the corners.
While that felt good to take down all the novices, it was an especially great day to me because my friend who got me into racing that used to drive an RX8 was co-driving the ND miata, and he got put into the novice group so they could both run separate groups. He has talked about how in the past the ND Miata would slowly walk away from his RX8 on the straights, but after this day he realized his RX8 was likely down on power. Multiple times in our sessions I came up on him mid corner, or on the back straight, and the power difference was extremely noticeable. I had no problems catching him on the straight from about 80-119mph, we both agreed my rx8 is much faster than the ND2 Miata based upon what we saw that day. Funny enough, my friend actually got blue flagged from me on the very first session, I don't think he was prepared for me to push the rx8 that much that quickly.
From here I decided to run in the advanced group, since our faster friend who owned the ND2 Miata was running there. This story is similar to my friend who was driving it in novice, I was easily able to grab the pointby and hold our fast friend at bay, and I even slowed down multiple times so we could both tandem drive together. Unfortunately on this session I wasn't watching my fuel gauge and I ended up going low on fuel and getting fuel starvation by about lap 10 of 14. The car kept cutting power mid corner so I pulled into an emergency lane, where they had me drive back to the paddock where I filled up. Since the novice group was just starting up I decided to jump in there again to make sure the car was fine, and it ran great after it got some fuel. After this run group most people started clearing out for the day, I did about 125 miles on track while my friends did about 110, and we were just burnt out from all the driving and getting that feeling of having mechanical sympathy for the cars. I don't have any recording or timing equipment so eventually I got to a point where I feel like I got the most from the car pushing it as much as I can without actually proving if I am getting better on each lap.
My fast friend in the ND2 miata ended up running a 1:25.xx for the day, the M3 driver ran a 1:24.xx at his fastest, so we estimated I was roughly a 1:19-1:21 since I was about 4 seconds or so faster than the M3.
For one of my advanced sessions I actually drove the ND2 Miata since my friend really wanted me to try it. It's kind of a joke between all of us that eventually they're going to get me into a Miata one day so I can truly see the light. I can say I greatly enjoyed the car, it's light, nimble, the turn in is incredible, the visibility is amazing, but it just doesn't feel as planted in the rear as the RX8, and the traction control is super intrusive. I did not feel comfortable running his car without traction control on track for my first time ever driving an ND Miata, where as my rx8 traction control ended up becoming a hindrance on my first session so I completely shut it down. I ended up running a 1:30.2 which I thought was pretty good for using the TC and first time driving an ND Miata. Keeping the TC on forces you to drive smooth with wide arcing turns and lay on the power smoothly else it just starts to cut power. You can see that lap here
All in all it was an amazing day! By the end of the day I really wanted to jump into the race car group as I felt I could run with some of those cars and not get in their way, and my friends agreed that for whatever trackdays we end up doing in the future I should just go straight to the advanced/race run groups. This rx8 is such a joy to drive and seems to be setup so well, I can just park it at the limit of tire adhesion right at that slip angle and not feel and looseness or snappiness from the rear. Every time I drive this car at the limit at autox or trackday I just come away more impressed with how much of a great car it is.
Now here are the great pictures the photographer took!
Having owned an ND Miata and an RX-8 at the same time... I have no interest in owning another ND Miata, haha
I was honestly expecting a lot more out of it given how it's been talked up so much as the holy grail of sports cars right now. I'm sure it would feel more lively compared to the 8 at autox, but for track it just felt like a downgrade.
I was honestly expecting a lot more out of it given how it's been talked up so much as the holy grail of sports cars right now. I'm sure it would feel more lively compared to the 8 at autox, but for track it just felt like a downgrade.
It might feel more lively but also not. The steering feel is non-existent and the brakes are truly awful. The brakes don't work and you get "panic assist" crap trying to help.
These plugs have 2 autocross events, 1 track day, and some street driving to and from the events since I last cleaned them. These have about 7-9k miles, and I clean them every oil change. They have roughly 16 autocross events and two track days on them. The car is premixed 0.5oz/gal for all street/autocross driving, and up to 1oz/gal for track days. The last miles on these plugs were spent at Thompson track and then the ride home. They are the stock heat range plugs 9/7 being fired through IGN1A coils, clearly these are running way too hot for the track, the ground straps are fully annealed as is half the surface of the face of the plug. I have since switched out to the R7420-10's in all four spots, and will swap in two 11 heat ranges for track days.
So far the R7420-10 x 4 seems to run great on the street and the one autocross event I have done on them. There are no idle or startup issues, everything feels exactly the same. I might be getting slightly worse fuel economy than normal, so I may get another set of stock heat range plugs to run on the street and for autocross since my car spends most of it's time idling while at autocross. I'm going to run the R7420-10's for a couple more autocross events and pull them to see how they look, then make a decision from there for which ones I will run on street/autox.
The higher heat range plugs seemed fine for us for everything but daily driving or highway use. We'd get occasional misfire CELs cruising on the highway or around town if we didn't put any real load into the engine to get the plugs hot.
That said, those plugs look nice and clean at least!
I had another good weekend at autocross in Devens while all the fast people were away at Brunswick
Ended up placing 3rd in street tire class (Driver - Rotary Problems LOL), but it was an uphill battle getting there. I was running around 7-9th position all day, couldn't quite get the course layout right, and I was nailing cones left and right. Looks like I hit 23 cones all day, which is a new record for me, usually I will hit around 5-8 over the course of 14-15 runs. Eventually after lunch I rode along as an instructor for a first time novice, since he was having troubles DNFing regularly, we got the layout situated for him so he understood how to navigate the elements correctly. After that we jumped in my car, and I think explaining to him what I was doing while I was driving really helped me understand the course layout better for myself.
After his run with me where we got into the 64's with a bunch of cones, I started backing off from smacking cones, and was able to put a clean run together which bumped me from 9th to 3rd, which I was very happy about. I've been chasing the co driver in the NSX all year (Steve Belliveau in the "Honda Insight"), and I was super pumped I finally got him. Chris Lindquist in the supra has always been fast and I'm happy to have gotten the edge over him as well. My friend Robert Bouchard in 2nd was driving an ND miata all day, it's just setup so well and he has been on fire this year. We have been battling back and forth a while now and whenever he drives someone else's Miata we're usually very close in times with us leapfrogging each other. Him and John Frongillo design the courses for our clubs and have like 25 years of experience between the both of them, so I am happy to be right up there with them!
What started out as a frustrating morning actually turned out to be a great event for me. I was aiming for low 64's and I knew I could do it but was having troubles putting all the puzzle pieces together. Finally hitting that goal after all the work put into it makes it feel that much better.
It's a fun site, there is always an event every weekend, either through SCCA/NER SCCA or the local clubs, NESVT, Bay State Corvette Club, and Track Club USA. I would avoid the other clubs that run there such as Renegade Miata. The local clubs, NESVT, TCUSA, BSCC average 14-16 runs per event and have all the same people that run in SCCA so it's a great time to get a ton of runs in for test and tune, which is primarily what the scca folks treat it as. Plus NESVT has free pizza for lunch for all the members, can't beat that!
07-07-2023, 07:48 PM
. This link will show the latest events results until about 7/23 when the next event posts its results, I have the raw data but its in spreadsheet form.
