Lessons Earned

Guest post and 3rd place in the 2018 YSAR Author Contest. This one from my twin brother Mario. Editorial comments in red.

Lessons Learned Earned

I’ve been endurance racing for six years now, which is that middle ground where I’m no longer a noob, but I still don’t know shit. I’d like to think I’ve learned a thing or two, but if I add up the time and money spent, I think it’s fair to say the lessons have been earned, more than learned.

Alignment first – When we got our 1997 Miata it was set up with toe-out in the rear because the previous owner wanted to drift it. I found out really quick in Sonoma by spinning in T4. The instructor with me said “this doesn’t handle like a Miata.” I skipped a session, got everything aligned to zero, and it fixed everything. Another time our MR2 got sideswiped and it would crab sideways through a corner thereafter. Our teammate Ben Dawson could drive it like that, but I couldn’t get through two corners that way.

It wasn’t sideswiped. The axle broke from metal fatigue and the only replacement we could find on the day was from a previous year MR2 whose suspension geometry was slightly different. You had to saw the wheel just to keep it going straight. Mario got out of the car after one lap and said something like “I value my life too much to drive this”.

Don’t be obsessive about tire pressure – 200TW tires seem to work under a variety of tire temperatures. At a Hooked on Driving day I was at the center of a fairly volatile conversation between a Spec Miata guru and a tech from Tire Rack who completely disagreed on what my tire pressure should be. The former said to run my tires at 38-40 psi, the latter at 28 psi. The comments went from “You’ll fall off the track,” to “the tire will fall off the rim,” and back and forth.

Grassroots Motorsports recently did a 200TW tire test and tried a range of tire pressures. They found out that it didn’t matter much.

It was a bit shocking to find that the lap times were all the same. I think pressures start to matter more when you don’t have square setups. When goofing around I pump my rears up absurdly high. Also, off road so that the tires stay on the rims. 

Safety wire your oil drain bolt – I ruined half an HPDE day for everyone because the oil drain bolt came loose. If the corner workers had flagged me there would have been less cleanup, but for sure it was my fault. I now drill and wire the drain plug, and you should, too.

Get an infrared thermometer – If you’re a pro driver then you need a pyrometer to measure tire temps, but if you’re reading this blog, you can use a $20 infrared gun. It’s great for checking tire temps, seeing how hot your rotors get, checking track temperature, and various things under the hood.

MR2s are great endurance cars. Not. – Our MR2 spun every other race. No, it didn’t spin from snap oversteer like everyone wants to tell you, but it spun bearings all the time. And that requires rebuilding the bottom end. If you want to have a couple really great races and then replace the engine, the MR2 is an ideal platform. If you want longevity, look elsewhere.

Black flags matter – After too many black flags and unnecessary pit stops, we calculated the amount of time lost for a single pit stop vs different lap times. I wrote a whole blog post on this subject, but I can sum it up by saying the fastest driver with a single black flag is the slowest driver.

On some tracks where the stewards are outside the timing loop, a black flag can cost an extra lap.

Don’t trust a racing resume – We’ve had arrive-and-drives with impressive racing resumes, but they don’t mean much. One guy was slipping the clutch on purpose to keep the revs up (and bragging about that being the fast way around), and another had his hand on the shifter the whole time. He also downshitted and put our car to 9k revs, fucktard.

You need a coolshirt – We ran our first couple races without coolshirts and could manage 40-minute stints before we were a danger to ourselves and others (it was over 100 degrees and probably 114 off the pavement). One time we used dry ice to super-cool our ice, but haven’t done that since because most of the energy is locked up in the phase transfer from solid to liquid, and so it’s not worth the hassle of cooling ice further. A big block of ice is better than ice cubes.

Pit stop strategy – No battle plan survives contact with the enemy; no pit stop strategy survives the weekend. But it’s fun to plan them anyway. Also, you can make up time in the pits easier than on track. But like black flags, an unplanned stop takes more time than driving slowly.

Miata is always the answer – They handle, there’s always spare parts at the track, and they don’t break too often. They are underpowered and a bit too common, but still the answer.

Wear a diaper and a big hat – It took me a few races to get to where I could comfortably drive a two-hour stint, and when I was finally ready, my bladder wasn’t. Forty minutes into it and I was weighing the pros and cons of a pit stop vs peeing in my suit. I pitted and ruined our race strategy, but at least I didn’t soil the seat for everyone else. Now I wear a diaper (Depends) every time, and weirdly, have never had to use it.

I also wear a big hat because the sun can tire you out as much as anything. We were racing at Willow Springs one day and it was 108 degrees IIRC, and I had just finished my stint, so I was wearing nothing but a diaper and a big hat. I thought it was funny, so I texted my two sons a picture. One said “I can never un-see that,” the other said “Now I have to burn my phone.” It was so worth it.

Pit board > radios – We’ve had terrible luck with radios and headsets. We now run Boefang radios, but at the lower, and legal, 2w setting. And they still suck. Have a pit board on hand.

Bring a skateboard – Skateboards are great pit transportation, and if you have a longboard, you can carry a gas can on the front.

Don’t race on untested components – At the 24 hours of Buttonwillow, Ian put on tires we’d never used before, and the best brake pads we could find, but also hadn’t tried before (the Yaris has a dismal selection of brake pads). The tires sucked. And we ran out of brakes in the 8th hour. Of a 24-hour race. We only had one extra set of brake pads, and so the last 8 hours was pretty much downshifting and coasting with no brakes. Still placed third overall, tho!

Me culpa.

Put your most aggressive driver in last – I flew across the country for a race weekend. Our most aggressive driver went first. Nobody went next.

FWD is great – I love rear-wheel drive cars, especially in slow corners, but most of the time it doesn’t matter which wheels are driven. Some of the most fun I’ve ever had racing has been in my brother’s Yaris and Tom Pyrek’s Honda Odyssey minivan (Ninja Turtles theme). FWD is especially fast in the rain, and at the NJMP Lemons race, Tom’s rain laps were within 1% of our team’s best dry laps.

Quit racing – Ian and I keep talking about the day we sell our race cars. Then we’ll buy a couple brand new Miatas (him a Fiat) and do HPDEs and arrive-and-drives. Maybe we’ll still be saying this five years from now? I don’t know, but my wife was ready for that yesterday.

Mine too. Racing sucks most of the time.