Mazda Protege 5 Track car project : Barber Motorsports Park / AMP in the rain…

First track day with the plug and play Megasquirt ECU at Barber Motorsports Park.  My last time here was not a pleasant experience.  The first session I lost a tire, and had to run on my stock tires all day, and I had a random misfire issue I was dealing with.  So I was hoping for a smooth day this time!

This time we decided to make the hour and half drive the night before and stay the night instead of leaving early in the morning.  Driving the car isnt that bad, but the forecast called for it to drop down to 38 degrees during the drive.  The drive wasnt terrible, but the cold breeze coming in from the open air duct on the firewall had me freezing.  But by the time it got bad, we were already there…

We got up early and we were greeted with 26 degree weather.  My run group was the first group out so it was not ideal conditions.  Barber is a pretty tricky track surrounded by a lot of walls, and I had only been here twice so I was still learning how to drive it.  The first session I was all over the place, the ice cold track was super slick, and I had zero confidence in pushing anything.  So most of the first session I just paced myself for safety and memorized the lines..

Around noon the track started to heat up, and the tires started to warm up and I felt more confidence in pushing more.  I can feel that I am losing most of my time at the first turn, and back carousel.  I am not sure if I can blame the worn tires for not holding my confidence or just the car improving so much over the last year.

I left Barber with a list of things for me to improve on.  Before the LSD, the car would rotate and I can control the rear with the gas pedal and weight transfer.  At the time I thought that was how it was supposed to go.  But with the LSD the car does still rotate, but I am able to control the car through the turn with the throttle and the steering wheel.  But I did remove power steering, and it takes much more effort with the wheel to handle the cars rotation at higher speeds.  I am not sure if its me that needs to learn, or if I need to put power steering back on.  The lack of power steering seems to have a  effect on my focus at times….

Here  is a 2 laps from the event.  Overall solid day….

A few weeks later I was back out at Atlanta Motorsports park.  I was excited for this event, as it would give me a chance to get a good day at a familiar track to end the season.  But mother nature had other plans with a rain storm in the forecast for the entire day.

From the start, the track was just slippery at the most crucial parts of the track.  And the RT660s just did not have enough life left in them for my comfort.

I cant really report back, because I spent most of my sessions gripping the wheel and trying to stay straight. We got a brief break in the rain right before lunch , and the track had a nice dry drive line, but when we went to lunch it rained again and it all went away.

The event was an eye opener, and a thought of possibly having a second set of tires for wet conditions so I can go out with some sort of confidence.  But I was happy to have had the experience on track, and make it home without any sort of serious issues.