Miata Mailing List: September 1997, Message #160
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From: 	Steve Lewinski <slewinski@mindspring.com>

Subject: Re: Racing expectations - long example

Date: 	Tue, 2 Sep 1997 00:29:09 +0000



>Want to torment those cars above, find some curves in the road and let them

>try to keep up.



An example:



My girlfriend and I ran a local track this weekend just to fool around.  



Neither of us had ever been on a track before.  It's a ten turn, two

mile road course.   My car - '96 base (lots of suspension mods and

Dunlop D40M2s).  Her car - '93A (mostly stock with low-end Dunlop

tires).  Top speed for me was about 92mph on both the front and back

straights. Both straights are .4 mile long.  As we were dueling it out,

we came up on a guy and his girl in a convertible '95 Mustang Cobra -

5.0 liter engine and NO RUST ;-) 



Of course, we had to pass him, right?  He saw us in the rearview and

gunned it down the front straight.  Left us looking.  By the back

straight, however, we were all bumper to bumper and the 'stang was

slowing us down.  On the second lap, he again was able to out-muscle us

down the straight, but couldn't leave us.  We could brake later and

less, so we carried MUCH more speed through the turns and onto the

straights We could get beside him by running a much tighter line.   My

girl and I both got past him on the second lap.  He never caught back

up. Our lap times were just that much faster.



Later, we met in the pits.  Our "competition" was a local boy who had

spent time on this track.  He was already almost through his second set

of tires in 5 months.  He was visibly disappointed to find out we were

running stock engines.  He showed up again yet later to recoup some

pride.  Didn't happen.  I opened a pretty large gap between him and me. 

My girl was trapped behind him as his rearend came loose in the twisties

(rearend came around about 75 degrees from corner-proper).  Her driving

skills and the great miata suspension were the only things that saved

her from serving him up a T-bone as he headed for the grass.



He left the track without so much as a wave.



So there you have it.  

Miatas : 2    Stang COBRA : 0     

ON A ROAD COURSE.  All in all, we had a pretty good day.  No one passed

me or Britt and could stay ahead of us.  We LIKE this stuff.  We WILL do

this some more.  We WILL be at Talledega this month with the Peachtree

Miata club where the competition will much stiffer as many will have

racing experience and ALL will be driving miatae!  Can't Wait!  Hope to

see ya' there...



Steve Lewinski

- '96 base

- Team Girlfriend Drives Better Than I

- Poster child for the OBD-II impaired    -- Bill, just when is that FM

ECU due for the '96?---  ;^p