South Florida AX events - General AX discussion

[Jims5543]

Not sure how many on here are from Florida.

I am going to post events I sign up for in this thread just in case anyone is in Florida and wants to join in the fun.

I am also looking into putting together an Evolution Performance Driving School this spring.  I will give more info if it comes together, its not easy hosting them, you need a local AX club to step up and help with equipment, venue, insurance etc.. I hosted several schools in the early 2000's that were all a hoot, you get a seasons worth of driving in one day with tons of instruction. I need some seat time fast, this is the best way to do that.

This is the event I am signed up for it is at the St. Lucie County fairgrounds on 24 November.

https://www.erscc.com/


I am not 100% sure what class my car is supposed to be in,I chose SMF (Street Modified FWD) for now, I will let them class the car.

Its a 74 Cooper with a upgraded engine, suspension, lightened, etc.. I have no idea how to class it.

I used to run in a highly modified RX7, it used to be classed B-Prepared, that changed to X-Prepared. I used to run with the SCCA and PCA I do not care about $5 trophies, I just like to drive, both those clubs had an X class, it was an expert class where you did not muddle up the actual classes if you were not interested in competing. My RX7 was built for AX and was insanely fast, I would typically grab top time of the day in it.  Both raw and Pax.

Not sure Equipe Rapide has a class like that, I am fine running in whatever class they toss me in.


Next year I may upgrade my video to this setup hardwired into the Mini. I am digging it. Its a bit expensive but it looks well sorted.

https://www.race-keeper.com/

[MiniDave]

What I like to see in a camera is not only the ability to data log, but also inputs for external mics. It's great if you can hear the engine and/or comments from the driver, tire noise etc.  Have you looked at the Garmin Catalyst units? You can get them on sale from time to time for about 25% off.

I haven't done any serious AX since way back when, I prefer on track events where I get to put in some laps at speed. All of the tracks host those days, but they are pretty spendy. I guess if you want to play.....it will be interesting to see where they place you, and who you run against.

Once my hotrod is built and sorted I hope to do some laps at a couple of tracks, Hallet and Ozarks for sure. I think I did about 500 laps at Heartland Park, but she's gone now.

[94touring]

I've thought about just renting Hallet for one of our events. Tuesday to Thursday is relatively affordable split between 5 or more people. 

https://www.hallettracing.net/rent-track/

[Jims5543]

There are no road courses near me. Sebring is 83 miles
Homestead - 143 miles
Daytona- 157 miles

I loved doing them, the distance is a drag, plus they get really expensive, tires gas etc.

I backed away from track days around 2010 due to the costs and time. To be honest, I switched to meeting friends for Tail of The Dragon weekends which was about the same cost as a weekend track event.

And to be totally honest, after piloting a 560hp RX7 on road courses I am having a hard time wanting to take a 90hp Mini on a road course. Especially with today's modern cars that all are 500+ HP. I feel like I'll spend my entire day pointing out the window.

I am going to ease back in with some AX events. Then go from tere.

[MiniDave]

I hear you on the costs......Hallet is about 4.5 hours from me, Ozarks Intl is 2.5 hours so I get you. Heartland Park was under an hour....

There is a private track called Hedge Hollow that's less than an hour away, but I don't know what they're doing......I know the Mustang, Porsche and Corvette clubs have all done events there so far.....I'll have to look into it more.
Edit: it looks like NASA is holding events there now......

I used to take groups of MINIs up to Heartland, it was super cheap to run there - as little as $60 for the day! But those days are gone, and frankly I don't know that our current club members would be interested, since more and more of them drive the (relatively) huge Countrymen.

[Jims5543]

I've thought about just renting Hallet for one of our events. Tuesday to Thursday is relatively affordable split between 5 or more people. 

https://www.hallettracing.net/rent-track/

That is a fantastic idea.  Much better with a bunch of the same cars.  Even better is with under 10 cars the track is empty all day.

Running at DE's with 40 other cars on the track all with wildly varying performance abilities can be hectic, especially in a slower car.

I am happy easing into this, I am content Autocrossing for now, I find it way more challenging than road racing.

I would love to tow it up to NC for some Dragon Runs, hopefully in the Spring.

[94touring]

We normally have 5-8 on our drives.  Since it's not a "competition" I already know how the lineup would go at Hallet so the faster cars aren't being held up. Guess which car typically led our drives? Lol

[MiniDave]

Yeah, even when all he had was a 998 running on 3 cylinders he was fast, cause he never used the brakes once he got going! 

Hallet's price was for 5 cars, additional cars cost $120 each/per day. If you get too aggressive you will use up a set of tires as these are not race cars and aren't set up suspension wise for race type driving. Ask me how I know! 

[Jims5543]

I did some more poking on that camera setup I posted above and found this more affordable simpler version that is more in my budget at the moment. I ordered it and will use this one for in car, still have the helmet cam and also use the go-pro outside the car somewhere. I really like the fancy setup, maybe if business is good int he spring I will consider it.

https://www.race-keeper.com/product/road-keeper/

$2100 ($420 x 5 cars) for that track is a deal and a half, I wish I lived closer.

There used to be some Mini only track events put on my Phil Wicks, it does not look like he puts on any more events, last date I see on there is 2022.

http://minidriving.com/index.html

[94touring]

Just have to plan a trip to Tulsa Jim!

[94touring]

Yeah, even when all he had was a 998 running on 3 cylinders he was fast, cause he never used the brakes once he got going! 

Hallet's price was for 5 cars, additional cars cost $120 each/per day. If you get too aggressive you will use up a set of tires as these are not race cars and aren't set up suspension wise for race type driving. Ask me how I know! 

Our last mini drive over in the Ozarks or wherever we were, was done on your current 032R tires Jim.  Those tires MAYBE have 2k miles on them.  Note the wear on the front versus the rear lol.  That was one weekend tearing up the roads.  I also blew off the bonnet after forgetting to secure it and lost a wiper spontaneously when it was raining on the one drive day.  I drove it exceedingly hard though.

Haha and yes even with a sickly 998 I was hanging.  I remember Don in his Vtec confused as to why he couldn't shake me off his rear bumper.  That was a long time ago! 

[Jims5543]

I was surveying a house 2 weeks ago, the dude had a beautiful BMW Z4M Coupe in his car port. I complimented him in my email when sending him his survey. I mentioned I am going to AX mine this coming weekend.

We are meeting up at the AX Sunday he registered his M Coupe. LOL!

[Jims5543]

AX was a blast, I remember now why I stopped doing them, 10 hours of your day invested into 10 minutes of driving.

Met a lot of really cool people. The people that run this event are from Miami and I instantly made friends with them. In South Florida we have a lot of Cubans, many of my clients are Cuban a few have become good friends to me, salt of the earth people you just love the moment you meet them. The crew running this were all Cuban and just amazing people. I took at stab at being a starter for the 1st run group, never having done it before, but have seen many do it, how hard could it be?  It wasn't hard at all, the guy running the event came up to me after we were done with the 1st run group and asked me if I was going to be there in December in his heavy Cuban accent, I said yup!! He said great, please make sure you are the starter next month too. We worked well together. I enjoyed that task a lot.

I found understeer!!! I also found oversteer, yes!! A mini can over steer and I managed to botch a run due to that, I also was able to use it to get the car turned and pointed where I wanted it to go as well. I am still learning this car and I am rusty as shit. I hit about 3 cones today which is 3 more than I typically hit.

I also learned classic Mini's like to come out of gear during hard right hand turns, the first time it happened I thought maybe it was me, the second time it happened I realized something was amiss. A quick text to Dan confirmed it is a "thing" with Classic Minis.

The Mini was the star of the event, I had 3 offers to buy it, over a dozen people came up to tell me it was the coolest car there, despite there being some sick cars there including McLaren being piloted by a 20 something kid from Miami. Nothing like AXing you 250K car.

Some pics and videos.  I had a really bad day concerning video, I left my GoPro memory card at home, so it was useless. My helmet cam the card was not inserted properly, so all my effort to make sure it was turned on and off for each run was a waste of time.  It recorded nothing.

The only camera that worked was the Race Keeper Cam. A guy who was racing a Datsun 1600 vert told me about this setup, its cheap and looks to be really useful for analyzing your runs.

https://www.gps-laptimer.de/

Pics!!  Old Blue on grid next to a cool Sentra SE-R



A really nice FD, I beat him by about 2 seconds. LOL!! We were not in the same car class, this was just raw time.






McLaren which beat me by over 2 seconds, as it should.





This Crown Vic was hysterical. It is a circle dirt track car, he set it up to make left turns too and took it out. He loved the Mini we were chatting a lot about cars.



2x4 hood prop LOL!




Sitting on the grid waiting to go, the CRX in front of me was in my class and beat me by 0.03 seconds. I am OK with that as I am rusty as hell. I am already looking forward to putting the race tires on this car.

A couple of Videos this was my best run out of 6 runs, I was really rusty and had a hard time getting into a rhythm. I am used to a 560HP, 2600 lb RWD car that is running on slicks and totally dialed in for this.  Switching to a 94HP FWD car is going to take a LOT of retraining my brain. I need to work on momentum more and smooth out my runs. I'll get the hang of it eventually.

This was my best run. I had one faster but hit a cone.

A kid came up and asked for a ride along, I always say yes even if it will slow me down, I am there to have fun and  I had a lot of fun taking this kid on a ride.

[Jims5543]

Bonus video when you oversteer too much..... LOL

[94touring]

We'll need to look at a few external items that may be causing the gear selector to pop out.  Since it's only when you're thrashing on it hard, and we rebuilt that gearbox, it's hopefully just one of the motor mounts allowing the engine and gearbox to move around enough it pops itself out of gear.  Otherwise it's selector forks, baulk rings, or I guess bad synchros. But again it's not an old or abused gearbox.  Might be time to add some additional motor mounts.  Also would be a good time to make sure the shift box isn't loose or sloppy where it mounts.  One other thing is I've heard the rubber gaiters where the shift rod meet the gearbox can put enough tension to help aid in it popping out.

Laughed at the cone jumping out at you.  Sounds like the kid enjoyed the ride.

[94touring]

That FD looks like it has regular street tires and Graham light wheels.  We used to call them Graham heavies because the last thing they were was light! Having the sequential twins probably helps him.  My last FD was 4x SCCA champion and had the twin turbos tied together non sequential. The Enkie rpf1 wheels I run in 17x10 on the rear are almost the same weight as a stock 16x8, which were light as is.  Add in the toyo 888s and it really sticks.

When I was walking around Thailand earlier in the month there was some beat up pickup truck with Enkie rpf1 wheels. I almost took a picture it was so funny to me. The wheels cost more than his truck.

[Jims5543]

That FD was not set up correct at all. I kept that to myself, do not want to sound like a sexual intellectual* out there.

As soon as I saw he was running a staggered setup I knew he was set up wrong, that car needs a square setup, with a perfect 50/50 weight distribution that car would be amazing setup square.  I bet he was dealing with a lot of understeer.

Speaking of which, I keep thinking about these runs, the one place that was killing me was the 180° turns, I felt like the car was just not rotating as fast as it should. I need to watch my runs a few more times and see what I was doing wrong. My initial thought was I am attacking those too aggressively, I need to setup better for them, I was wasting a lot of time waiting for the car to come around due to the entry speed being too fast.

I was not really experiencing any real understeer except for those 180's.   That might be because I was asking too much of the car and more so the tires.

I am not sure what the top speed you can hit in second gear is, I do not think I was near redline, I am worried putting the race tires on might force me to use 3rd gear in places.

One big thing is how rusty I am, I typically trim 1-2 second off my time from my first to last run.  This time I was running the same time every time and never improving, I had one run where I trimmed almost a second off, I hit a cone on that run, as a matter of fact I only had 1 clean run out of 6 runs, which is horrible and sloppy.

Since this is my first AX in almost 10 years and my first in a FWD momentum car I have a lot of work to do on me.  The car? Its fantastic, I just need to work out the shifter and its perfect.  I am used to a high HP RWD car and LHD, there is a LOT to adapt to here.

The biggest is not trying to drive this Mini like it is a high HP RWD car, I have to completely change my approach to these courses. I need to watch some FWD cars more and ignore the RWD cars.


* F*cking Know it all

[94touring]

Top of 2nd at 6k rpms is about 45mph.

You'll have to fiddle with tire pressure and the shocks are adjustable too to help with your 180s. 

[MiniDave]

If the rear sway bar is adjustable, tighten it up some more, that will help get the back end around and the front end to bite more. If you don't have a rear sway bar - get one.

I was having big trouble with the inside front tire just smoking coming out of slow turns - trying to get traction - a rear bar completely cured that.

[94touring]

There isn't a rear sway bar on it.

[Jims5543]

If the rear sway bar is adjustable, tighten it up some more, that will help get the back end around and the front end to bite more. If you don't have a rear sway bar - get one.

I was having big trouble with the inside front tire just smoking coming out of slow turns - trying to get traction - a rear bar completely cured that.

I am going to look into a rear sway, I was having trouble putting the power down coming out of the turns, I could feel her torque steering and with the inside tire losing traction coming out of turns.

I know with the R53 Bini's a stiffer rear sway really transforms the car. I am going to look into a bar.

I see Mini Spares has a street and race bar, the street bar might interfere with the larger exhaust on this car, I wonder if the race one will fit better?

[Jims5543]

The next Autocross with Equipe Rapide is on 15 December.

Registration is not open yet, I hope to have the race tires mounted and possibly the rear sway in her.

As well as bracing the engine better.

[Jims5543]

There was a guy at the event snapping pics, he was friends with my client that was there, my client just forwarded these pics to me.

[Jims5543]

Anyone have any suggestions for a nice light drivers seat that will hold me in place better?

I found these?

Maybe just a drivers seat? I really do not need the passenger seat.

https://usa.minisport.com/cobcmn-s-kit-cobra-clubman-seat-package-red.html

[94touring]

Awesome pics!

I was wondering when you'd get a race seat.  The tighten the belt up didn't work on those slippery seats?  Lol

Cheaper options

https://minispares.com/shop/classic/Interior/Seats~Belts/Seats.aspx?170501