Track Day 7 - SOW Clockwise - Multiple Drivers & New PB's for both drivers!
So the next track day for the Miata was a nice weather day at Streets Of Willow. This time we'd be putting the car to the test as it was going to be servicing two drivers the entire time in two different back to back sessions. The seating situation as I'd begun to implement for the car needed to be able to move between drivers pretty quickly while remaining effective at securing the drivers. The improved drivers seat (my old C5 corvette seat) along with the adjustable 4 point ASM seatbelt allowed for reasonably quick changes between drivers and worked out pretty good overall.
Boh's Driving Experience:
Boh was able to set a large gain in her personal best time, and started shifting succesfully more into additional gears for more drives out of the turns. Another area where she improved a lot is that she worked with Boitano a lot, and both coaching him through the track and seeing how much less apprehensive he was about braking in turn translated to some changes in her own driving. Boh was thus able to translate that to some track improvements and set her best time of 1:35.558, a gain of 4 seconds in this direction, and not that much further behind my best times in that car!
Another interesting point of improvement was gleaned when I was talking with Boh about the car and future improvements planned for the car (hoods and wheel well vents) she mentioned that she was able to notably tell the improvement of the front lip we'd put on the car a few track days back. With her increased pace and aggression she was able to tell the difference in how much more planted the car was.
Boitano's Driving Experience
This was Boitano's first day out in a sports car at all, and his first day ever at a track. He'd had some manual cars back in the day, and we'd driven sport bikes a bunch together, but he was definitely new to the car. Due to him and I having to share helmets, Boh went out with him to show him her lines and then in turn jump in the car and help coach him through driving around the track. John was nervous at first as most folks are, but quickly came to realize it wasn't all that bad and that the NC Miata is a particularly friendly and well setup car.
Boitano in the end was able to set a personal best time of 1:34.167, running about 1.5 seconds faster than Boh's best, much to her chagrin. A lot of that came from Boitano just being more willing to charge turns and be aggressive, perhaps due to his history in "extreme" sports or from sports bikes. John was running at the peak of his abilities however, and did eventually spin the car and go off the track. No damage was done to the car, but it definitely exemplified how far he was pushing his skillsets.
Takeaways and Future plans for the car
Currently the car is pretty good and not in need of much. New brake pads as the current set is likely toast, and some general troubleshooting around the efforts to spoof the airbag sensors so as the airbags continue to work.
Other upgrades that will hopefully occur in the not so distant future are better seats both installed properly on the car with harnesses, hood vents and wheel well vents, along with wheel spats up front to help handle just how large the wheels/tires are and how much they poke out when viewed from the front.