Friday, May 30, 2014

Target: June 15th Fathers Day Autocross

The NMS stables have targeted Sunday June 15th for their next autocross event, this time heading north to Winston Salem NC to drive with the Triad Sports Car Club.  For the first time we're going to both drive the FIAT in G Street, so there will definitely be some bragging rights on the line for who can drive the massive 1.4 liter turbo-powered-with-an-engine-built-in-Detroit-but-car-assembled-in-Mexico-Italian-car (TPWAEBIDBCAIMIC for short!).


G Street 2 entries

#
Name
Year
Make
Sponsor
Hometown
77
Nixon, Robert
2013
Fiat 500 Abarth
Nixon Motor Sports
Blythewood
177
Nixon, Brian
2013
Fiat 500 Abarth
Nixon Motor Sports
Columbia



Brian and Robert both registered on line (the link is on our Driving Schedule page), and at the current time there are just the two of us in the GS category, and a total of 18 drivers so far.  With over two weeks to go, we'll be checking the registration page just to see how many more competitors will be in Winston Salem.



At some other events, we've both driven the Miata, and for some odd reason Brian is always faster than me in his own car!  I don't understand this, but have the suspicion that in between autocross events he goes out and actually drives it, just to get more practice. Well, seriously, that is one fun thing about autocross, is that you can use your every day car and still drive it to go autocrossing. There are some people that get more involved and have a car that is not road legal, so they have to then tow the car to autocross it, which of course also means they need another vehicle to pull the trailer that the car is sitting on.  As the saying goes, "Speed costs money, so how much do you want to spend?".

Since I've mentioned money, I have to state that autocrossing, like freedom, isn't free!  Most events charge $30 per driver or so to cover the cost of renting the location and other incidental costs. In return, the drivers get a full day of fun basically, including driving, talking about driving, meeting other people that drive, watching other people drive, maybe riding with other drivers, and then the driving to get to and from the event. If time is money, and you're happy paying $10 for lunch that takes an hour, or $20 for some popcorn and a movie that costs two hours, then $30 for say 10 hours of an autocross event is a pretty good return on investment!




Plus, you can spend more on "go-faster" parts on your car, like wheels, tires, a helmet, car parts, etc. The key here is that whether you have an expensive shiny new Corvette/Porsche or an old beater hooptie, you can get out there and drive with little money up front to get started.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Technical Difficulties

Testing and data analysis from Monday's event at CMP reveals NMS driver Brian Nixon is making a critical mistake that is easily costing significant time delays on track.  Below we see the file photo of our #86 driver holding his lunch of an apple and a peanut butter sandwich.  On further review the sandwich was seen to be constructed with a crunchy peanut butter and not smooth.  This goes against the principal that "smooth is fast" when racing.  

Brian commented, "We've been so busy with other aspects of the car and setup it's almost silly we've overlooked the simple stuff.  Luckily team boss, Robert Nixon was on hand and captured this key data so we can really get to work on making improvements for the next event.  We just need to keep a focus on our own lunch and not get too distracted on what other teams are doing for lunch and really improve our own game.  We've been able to deliver significant improvements in the last year and I'm sure this is no different.  We have a lot of time until the next event in June and I'm confident we'll get this sorted out.  I'm sure keeping a focus on being smooth will pay off in the end."

The team is now working with parts suppliers and re-assessing their sandwich construction techniques back at the Columbia base.  Revised parts are schedule to be shipped with the car to the next event as part of an overall lunch package that the team is hoping will vault them over the competing ES cars.


Sunday, May 25, 2014

Congrats, Marussia!

A big congratulations to the Marussia F1 team as they clinched their first championship points in over 4 seasons of racing to decisively move ahead of close rival, Catherham in this year's Forumula 1 season!  Driver Jules Bianchi had a terrific race in Monaco to put the car in 8th position, though was demoted to 9th position to serve a penalty.

I've been a big fan of the team since 2011 when the company I work for provided their IT support and I started watching the sport.  You may spot their team flag in some NMS garage photos if you have a sharp eye.  They do a great job of always pushing themselves to improve, even as one of the smallest teams with a significantly smaller budget than the top teams.

Hopefully we'll continue to see their performance improve and hold onto or move up in position in the constructors championship this season.  Read their story of today's race here.


Back in Black

I took advantage of the long weekend and painted the 17" Miata wheels black to match the overall color scheme.  Some of the wheels were getting chipped so this should also help keep them from flaking the original silver coating all over the place.  Luckily I had the garage all set up as a paint booth because a hail storm rolled through right when I was finishing priming the wheels.

Paint booth all set up, wheels drying in the sun after being washed and the Miata and NMS team truck hang out and watch.

All primed and drying while staying safe from hail.  About 60 minutes per wheel went into taping off and carefully covering the areas (valve stems, tires, and areas that contact the hubs/lug nuts).

Storm has passed and the tires continue to dry with several coats of gloss black and clear coats.

After many hours spent washing, taping, painting, and 24 hours of drying, they're back on the car just in time for the CCR SCCA autocross tomorrow at Carolina Motorsports Park just down the road in Kershaw, SC.  Should be fun to get to autocross on the track even with the chance of rain.


Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Anatomy of an Autocross




Let's just take a look at our last autocross results from May 10th at Darlington. Here's the run times from all six runs in the E Street, F Street, and G Street categories.  All drivers get the same number of runs, but only the fastest one counts.  Kind of like how I golf: it takes me over 100 strokes to play a round, but as long as ONE of them is good, then I'm a happy camper and want to go back and do it all again!

ES – ‘E Street’
Entries: 7 Trophies: 3
Times
1
2
3
4
5
6
Total
Diff.
1T
Tyson Bevirt
1995 Mazda Miata
38.185
+1
38.517
37.311
39.532
+dnf
38.771
+2
38.860
37.311
-0.389
2T
Kyle Ray-Smith
2001 Mazda Miata
38.465
37.841
38.218
+2
37.093
+1
37.273
+dnf
37.700
37.700
+0.389
3T
Brian Nixon
2004 Mazda MS Miata
46.034
+dnf
39.694
39.108
+2
38.901
+1
39.735
39.408
39.408
+1.708
4
Kyle DeGennaro
2002 Mazda Miata LS
41.025
+1
41.267
41.417
+2
52.410
+2
40.046
+1
40.438
40.438
+1.030
5
Andrea Harris
95 miata
43.604
+dnf
42.279
44.187
42.919
+1
41.017
40.840
+1
41.017
+0.579
6
Zachary Smith
1988 Mazda RX7
48.739
43.329
43.388
42.455
42.118
42.115
42.115
+1.098
7
Josh Cooper
1997 Mazda Miata
51.213
47.520
44.479
43.725
44.113
43.573
43.573
+1.458
FS – ‘F Street’ – Total Entries: 1
Times
1
2
3
4
5
6
Total
Diff.
1
13
Derrike Black
2007 Ford Mustang GT
39.529+dnf
42.799
54.084+dnf
41.487
42.445
41.087+1
41.487
-
GS – ‘G Street’ – Total Entries: 4 Trophies: 2
Times
1
2
3
4
5
6
Total
Diff.
1T
Michael Arnold
2014 Ford Focus ST
40.546
+1
40.032
+1
39.698
+1
40.287
38.698
38.621
38.621
-2.122
2T
Robert Nixon
2013 Fiat  Abarth
40.575
+dnf
41.689
+2
42.513
42.363
40.809
40.743
40.743
+2.122
3
Jonathan Clark
1999 Lexus GS300
45.733
+dnf
44.221
+1
42.868
43.446
+2
43.117
+2
43.903
42.868
+2.125
4
Robbie Solesbee
2004 Ford Mustang
43.138
+3
45.087
+dnf
42.957
+1
45.103
+2
43.966
44.259
+1
43.966
+1.098




Brian started with a DNF (did not finish), then on run 2 posted a 39.694, and by the final drive on run 6 nailed his fastest time of the day at 39.408.  He ended up 1.7 out of 2nd place, and over a second ahead of 4th place.

Getting faster thru progressive drives always makes my day, since besides the times getting faster it shows that the driver is maintaining or increasing the concentration needed to keep going fast. In other words, I think if I learn from each run on where I can pick up speed, and pay attention, then I'm way more likely to keep going faster the more I drive the same course. 

One other note on Brian's 3rd place is that since his class had 7 drivers, then the top three take a trophy, so it's always good to be up there near the top, whether it's in Victory Lane at the Indy500 or on the podium at Monaco in Formula 1.  Or in this case, in the top three!

I included the one driver in F Street, just so you could see his best time compared to the faster ES cars and the slower GS cars.  

OK, down in G Street, Robert ends up in 2nd place, and without complaining I will point out that I was the very first driver on the course in the morning, so if I WAS going to use any excuses for a DNF right off the bat, I'd point out that the course was still a little slippery from sand and debris that would later get pushed out of the way by hundreds of runs.  Anyway...first two runs not so good with a DNF and hitting two cones (+2) on run two, so run three was clean at 42.513.  Well off of Brian's pace in the Miata, and about a second behind the Focus in my class. After that I kept dropping time and ended with a best time of 40.743, so depending on what you compare that with it's either slow, OK, or not bad!  For GS on this day it was good for 2nd out of 4 drivers, but two full seconds out of first, so not so good. On the other hand, two full seconds ahead of 3rd place, but also about 1.3 behind Brian, so he's beaten me again!  My time was faster than the one FS car, and a few of the ES cars also, so maybe overall not too bad. For me, mostly I felt good to improve even in the last run!