Category Archives: Cars

Spa Trip – Nürburgring

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The Nürburgring is only 100km from Spa. It would be senseless to come all this way to drive at Spa and not also visit the world’s most notorious track. Wandering around Brussels was the appetizer; lapping at Spa was the main course; now for the dessert.

August 6

The other day, when I was on the phone with the woman at my hotel, she said my breakfast would be delivered to my room the first morning but that I’d be served in the restaurant today. I assumed this meant I was no longer the hotel’s only guest. Poor assumption!

I walked into the restaurant at 8 and was greeted by a friendly dog. I didn’t see anyone and called out, “Bon jour! Good morning!” Nobody was there. But there was a table laid out for one, with all the items that were brought to my room yesterday. So I sat down and tucked in. A few minutes later, the gentleman who brought me my morning feast yesterday arrived. I have to say, it’s fairly odd being the only guest at the hotel and restaurant. I don’t expect it’ll ever happen to me again.

The drive from Spa to Nürburg was a pleasant excursion through rural Belgium and Germany. We were on back roads all the way. Even if the navigation system didn’t tell us we were only a few kilometers away from the town, we knew we were getting closer when we started seeing all the sports cars.

I couldn’t check into my hotel until after 5, and we couldn’t check in at Rent-4-Ring until 4, so we had some time to kill. We grabbed lunch (bratwurst and beer, with my beer being cheaper than Ryan’s Coke), then took a wander through the ruins of the 12th-century castle. They say you get a nice view of things from the top of the tower, but as my luck would have it, it’s encased in scaffolding, closed for renovation. They’re not going to renovate a castle that was destroyed about 350 years ago, but I guess they need to make sure it’s good enough that tourists don’t die when they climb to the top of it.

Nürburg is a unique place. My home race track, High Plains Raceway, is in the middle of nowhere. It brings quite a bit of business to the gas station and motel in Byers. Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is surrounded by little towns. The track drives most of the visits to the hotels and restaurants in these towns. Aside from being close to a world-famous race track, though, they’re just normal little towns.

Nürburg takes it to a whole different level. The track is an industry in and of itself. Without the track, this place wouldn’t exist. BMW has its M test center here. There’s a mall here filled with stores I’ve never seen in any other mall. Want a driver’s suit or gloves? Stop at the race gear store. Looking for a new car? You have choices: there’s a store full of BMW M vehicles and a Caterham dealer. Scale models and memorabilia abound. The most normal thing at this mall was the Subway sandwich shop.

I was thinking we’d get to take our laps pretty much right after we registered, but that wasn’t the case. The track was having some sort of race driver training/education day. Touristenfahrten (“tourist drives”) didn’t start until 6, so we just sat for a while on the bench outside the rental office. It was a beautiful day, so why not? There really wasn’t much else to do.

There are dozens of places in Nürburg where you can rent a car and coach, hotels galore, even a casino and a roller coaster. To top it all off, there’s a Grand Prix race track here, too. The Nordschliefe, the track we’ll be driving on, hosted F1 races back in the 60s, but it’s far too dangerous for modern F1 cars. Today, they’re getting the place set up for a DTM race on the GP track.

At 5:30, we had our briefing. Today, the Nordschliefe is not a race track. It’s a one-way public toll road with no speed limit. Keep right except to pass. Pass only on the left; if you pass on the right, you’ll get ejected. Anybody can drive it – track rats in their Porsches, novices in VWs, and grandmothers in station wagons. You can drive just about any vehicle except a bus or a motorcycle. And, because it’s been closed all day, there’s a big line revved up and waiting to go.

At the ‘Ring, at least on Touristenfahrten days, you aren’t required to wear a helmet, which always struck me as odd. There’s no way I’d lap this place without a helmet. Also, the car I’m renting has a roll cage. I’d never drive a caged car without a brain bucket. Rent4Ring’s rule is that if you have an instructor, they’ll wear a helmet and therefore require you to also.

My coach, Nashe, had a pretty good American accent. I asked him how. A great way to develop an American accent is to grow up in Missouri, which is what Nashe did. He has been living here for five years. He used to race motorcycles. He’s the “new guy” at Rent4Ring with “only” about a thousand laps of the Nordschliefe under his belt. That’s about 13,000 miles.

The prospect of trying to drive fast around this track intimidates me. I’m all sorts of apprehensive about it. There are YouTube channels devoted to showing crashes here. Rent4Ring has a sign in their briefing room: “Don’t feed the YouTubers – Drive safely!” People die here every year. Let’s just say I have a healthy respect for the place. I’m not going to drive beyond my limits, but shit happens.

Nashe did a fantastic job of talking me around the track. I struggled with instruction at Spa, and I was worried about how it would go today. But it’s two very different sorts of instruction. Kostas was trying to teach me the proper racing line, which I would get to practice lap after lap. Nashe was telling me exactly what to do. “Stay right, there’s a Porsche coming up on you. Brake, brake, brake, let off, let the car go wide, give it some throttle, turn in now and keep it tight, give it some throttle and go as fast as you’re comfortable,” pretty much non-stop for the entire lap.

It took me about three turns to get comfortable with this sort of instruction. My pre-lap jitters were unfounded.

When we registered, I said more than once that I’d only do one lap. We reached the Karussel (about 8 miles in) before I knew it. It went by so quickly. Between there and the end of the lap, it was clear I had to go around again.

The second lap was a bit more hectic – more traffic. I didn’t check the time when I got on the track for the first lap, but they were running three lanes of cars past the card readers, so there was a steady stream of cars getting on the track, and not very many of them quit after one lap, so traffic was getting worse every minute. I haven’t checked the video, but I’m guessing I encountered at least thirty more cars on the second lap than I did on the first.

I always thought driving a car on a track required your full concentration. At the ‘Ring, it’s like that, but on steroids. Staying right when cars come up from behind, working out how to get around slower traffic, and driving fast, all with almost no margin for error, because if you go off the track, you’ll be in the barrier.

Two laps was plenty. If there’d been half as much traffic, I might have been tempted to go around again, but I knew it would only get worse. I don’t care how much you like driving on a track – traffic never makes things better. My first lap probably had as little traffic as you’re likely to get here, so I feel quite fortunate.

  • In Germany, beer is cheaper than Coke
  • Renovating the Ruin (not Renovating the Castle)
  • My car today
  • Skeleton key!

In the end, I had much more fun than I expected. I put it all down to the coaching. No amount of practice on a simulator or watching YouTube videos could prepare me to be both as fast and as safe as I was with Nashe. It was a lot of money – each lap cost more than a full day at HPR – but it’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.

It was a full day – I didn’t get back to my hotel room until 9 pm.

My hotel is maybe thirty yards from the entrance to the castle ruins. I didn’t try to estimate the age of the hotel. Like at so many other buildings I’ve been in on this trip, I thought, jokingly, “This place isn’t up to code.” Small, steep stairs, the door at an angle to the little entry. And I mean little. It’s only an inch or so wider than my suitcase. The pièce de résistance was the skeleton key. Skeleton key, how quaint. The last time I used a skeleton key was in February of 1975, in the Soviet Union.

Spa Trip – Curcuit de Spa-Francorchamps

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And now we finally arrive at the reason for this whole trip to Belgium.

I first saw Formula 1 at Spa on The Wide World of Sports in the late 1960s; you’d get about a fifteen-minute highlight clip from the broadcast with Jackie Stewart doing commentary. But it wasn’t until I started watching F1 in 1994 that Spa really grabbed my attention. For about thirty years, if you’d have asked me what my favorite track is, the answer was Spa.

I don’t golf, but I imagine my driving a car at Spa is akin to a golfer getting to play a round at St. Andrews. For me, a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Wow. I’m here.

August 5

I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, but I had yet another bad night’s sleep. Two and a half hours of sleep, about that much tossing and turning, then a couple more hours of sleep. It was raining the entire time I was awake.

My breakfast was delivered promptly at seven. It put the fare at my Brussels hotel to shame: a basket of bread (three different rolls and two pastries), orange juice, grapes, cold cuts, cheese, a few cherry tomatoes, peach yogurt, fixings for coffee, and an assortment of packets: Nutella, honey, two different jams, and butter. Far too much for me to eat!

Ryan picked me up at 7:20, and we were at the track a few minutes later.

First on the agenda was the drivers’ briefing. I’ve driven quite a few tracks now, and although there are many similarities, each track runs things their own way. As Dorothy said, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore!” Here at Spa, things are quite different than any of the tracks in the USA. I’m pretty sure it’s a European thing and not just this track.

At home, we’re required to have our windows down. If you get in an accident, the glass from the side windows won’t go everywhere. And the rescue crew won’t have to break a window to get you out of the car. Here, windows have to be up. Even for convertibles!

At home, when faster cars catch up to you, you give them a “point-by”: use an arm signal to tell them which side to pass. At Spa, with windows up, you can’t do that. Here, you use your turn signal to indicate which side you’ll go to, and the overtaking car goes on the other side. That took me several laps to get accustomed to.

I will point out a few more notable differences later.

After the briefing, we met our instructors. Mine was Konstantinos Zannos (Kostas), a native of Greece now living in Spa. In over 70 track days, I’ve never had an instructor before. A couple of times, at Portland and COTA, I’ve given rides to instructors, but it wasn’t for coaching – they just wanted rides in a Lotus.

Kostas set up some helmet-to-helmet communications so we could talk to each other. In my car, top off, window down, and engine behind your head, without an intercom, it would be impossible to communicate other than by hand signals. In my Spa rental car, a BMW M240i x-Drive, a comfy coupe, we’d have had little problem. Still, a comms setup like this is the way to go.

During the briefing, it was mentioned that the most common accident on track is a driver going off in the first turn. This made me think of my day at Harris Hill, where I did exactly that. Naturally, today I again did exactly that. The Kemmel straight is the fastest part of the track. The track was still wet from the overnight rain. But most importantly, the turn is much tighter than I expected. I was tentative, too light and late on the braking. I missed it big time! It won’t be in the highlight reel, though, as I wasn’t running the camera in the first session.

I really struggled that first session, despite Kostas’ excellent instruction. It’s a new track in damp conditions (still wet from the overnight rain) in a car I’d never driven before, which is about twice the weight of my car and also a fair bit faster. On top of that, it’s a long lap – the longest I’ve driven. It felt like every time around, I’d forget half of what he told me the previous lap. I probably frustrated him a bit, but he was very patient with me. I had his services for an hour, where I drove a six-lap session. That was my second-longest session of the day. Later in the day, we had a good laugh about my off.

His instructions did help. On my next lap, my first without him, I was 9 seconds faster, and on the lap after that, an additional 7 seconds. I ran into him several times throughout the day. When I came back from those two laps, he asked how I did. I told him I did a 3:12. He asked if I thought I could do a 3:00. I wonder why he picked that time. Because it’s an even three minutes? Or what he thought a good (average? novice?) driver should do a three-minute lap in that car? I managed a 3:02. I don’t know if that’s fast or slow, but I’m happy with it. I showed consistent improvement throughout the day and was getting comfortable with the track.

He was very perceptive. I was very tentative those first laps. Rather than saying I was tentative, he described exactly how I was applying the brakes. I couldn’t have described what I did any better myself. I had a couple of moments where the car got a bit squirrely, and he diagnosed them immediately. Once, he told me not to watch the car ahead too closely, because I’ll follow them instead of going where I need to go. He was right. I realized I was doing that just a moment before Kostas pointed it out. He was very attuned to what the car was doing, what I was doing.

Almost every track day I’ve done, drivers are broken into groups, either by experience (novice, intermediate, experienced) or speed (fast, slow). Today, we had no groups. We could just go out any time we wanted. That was nice, but Ryan and I both agree that a fast/slow grouping would have made us happier. There were some very fast cars out there and some classic small sports cars, so the closing speeds were sometimes … frightening isn’t the right word – maybe unexpected is better.

One of the other big differences in operating is the way red flags work. At home, if a red flag is thrown, everybody is supposed to come to a prompt stop. Here, everyone is to proceed to the pits until whatever incident occurred is cleared up. Once cleared, the track goes green and cars can return to the track. Pretty much like F1. I suspect, with no supporting evidence, that our flaggers today also worked the F1 race.

Unfortunately, we had a lot of red flags. I lost count. I generally expect to get four sessions, 20 to 30 minutes each. I had more sessions today, but that wasn’t a good thing. There were several times I got only a couple of laps before the red flag appeared. Twice, it happened on my out lap. My lap timer recorded nine sessions: 6 laps, 3, 0, 3, 4, 9, 0, 3, and 5 laps.

My car rental was for 300km, and I had to buy my own gas. When I first registered, I thought 300km wasn’t enough. So when I got an email offering an additional two-hour session, I signed up. I wasn’t thinking, though, that it was just extra time, not extra kilometers. It might have come in handy had the weather been bad, though.

As the regular session neared completion, I knew I’d do my 300km without needing the evening session. RSR were kind enough to refund my money. They normally don’t do refunds, instead giving vouchers good for three years.

The gas pumps didn’t offer me receipts, so I don’t know how much fuel I used. Heck, until I get the credit card bill, I won’t know how much I spent. The cost works out to a bit more than $7.50 a gallon. I think I spent nearly $200 on gas. My car would have been half that, or less.

I had a short moment of panic when the fuel pump didn’t accept my Visa card. The whole trip, I’ve been trying to use my AmEx card, but many places didn’t take it. I had not been anywhere that took AmEx but not Visa, so when the pump declined my Visa, I thought I was in trouble. But the AmEX worked. A few minutes later, Ryan called me with the same complaint – his Visa wasn’t working. I offered to let him use my AmEx, but Laura had her AmEx card. I mentioned this to another driver a few minutes later, and he told me it had to do with a PIN number. If the card didn’t require a PIN, it declined the card. But… but… my AmEx card doesn’t have a PIN.

It took me a while to get used to the car. The fastest I’ve gotten my car is 121 or 122 mph. I’ve driven a Ferrari 458 and a McLaren 650S at HPR and got neither of those cars over 125 (not that they’re not easily capable of it). Today, I managed consistently to get the BMW to 138 on the Kemmel straight.

Ryan’s car was race-prepared. That is, it has a roll-cage, racing seats, and the fancy dashboard was replaced with basic gauges. It’s equipped with a 4-point harness. This is another difference between here and home. In the US, 4-point harnesses are not allowed. A 5- or 6-point harness is required if a harness is used. The 4-point does not prevent “submarining” – in an accident, the driver is not prevented from coming out of the seat below the steering wheel. You really want a harness that keeps you securely in the seat.

The seats in my rental car have substantial side bolsters. They keep you from moving very far laterally. By the end of the day, I was feeling it in my kidneys. I’m not saying I felt like I was getting kidney-punched, but I was getting pretty sore. In the Lotus, the seats have very little padding, and after a long day, I can get a little tender along my spine, but I find the seat is otherwise comfortable. And I like my CG lock. The day after Spa, I did feel a bit like I got a little worked over.

I brought the vent mounts I use in the Lotus for mounting the phone, but the vents in the BMW would not accommodate them. I like being able to see my lap timer. I think it’s an important tool. If I couldn’t mount the phone, I’d have to keep it in my pocket. I’ve done that before, and the data quality suffers. Badly. When he got in the car, Kostas put his phone in the cup holder. He said he does it all the time, no problem. I can’t see the timer, but at least I’m collecting the data. (Yet another difference – at home, we are to remove all loose articles from the car – nothing should be able to fly about the cabin in the case of an accident. I’d never leave anything like a phone unsecured.)

  • My breakfast
  • Today’s rental car – BMW M240i x-Drive
  • Me and my instructor
  • I got passed by these guys
  • F1 pit box markings

As is my habit, I try to talk to my Lotus people. Today, there was only one Lotus. I did manage to introduce myself, but it was a brief conversation. He’s Swiss, has run at Spa many times. He volunteered that it’s a six-hour drive for him. A man after my own heart – he doesn’t trailer his car, either.

All day, the car complained about low tire pressure. A warning showed up on the display – it took up most of the screen. I had to clear it every time I started the car. And I had to remember to do this before I put my gloves on. The low tire pressure is expected – at the track, we run pressures lower than appropriate on the road. The mechanics said they couldn’t configure the car to turn the warning off.

Fairly often, the dashboard would beep and flash red and tell me I needed to brake. It’s sensing cars that are a fair distance ahead of me that are in their braking zones while I’m still accelerating. (Listen for it, if you watch the video.) One time, I got a message that I had a serious drivetrain problem and should get service. I was low on gas, but I’d been lower earlier.

I completed my 300km just a few minutes before the end of the day’s session. RSR were serving champagne, beer, and snacks. Ryan and I had a beer with Kostas and a couple of guys he was chatting with. I mentioned that I’d like to go to England and visit the factory in Hethel. One of the other guys responded in a deep Scottish brogue, “Oh, a Lotus man!” He now owns his 4th Lotus, a V6 Exige not available in the US except as a track-only car.

The other guy in the conversation, Dave, a Brit, was looking for a particular one of the snacks being served. There were none at our table. He flagged down a server, who came by a few minutes later with another little basket of them. Kostas and the Scot gave him grief about liking them. They’re a Dutch treat called bitterballen. They said I should try one, so I did. They’re little deep-fried meat concoctions. After I bit into one, they told me they’re generally called “dog’s balls.” Ryan and I instantly asked if they’d tried Rocky Mountain Oysters.

All done at the track, Ryan, Laura, and I went in search of dinner. The first place we tried was closed. The second was open and looked to have many empty tables, but we were turned away because we didn’t have reservations. We ended up at a fast-food joint called Canadian Burger and Pizza. Outside stood an old Bob’s Big Boy statue. I had a BBQ burger. It was much like the BBQ burger I had in Brussels – not at all BBQ.

So that’s my Spa experience. I had a blast.

Spring Refresh

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After a long hiatus, I finally have something to say.

Regular readers will recall that my spring trip last year began on a sour note when my car was backed into in the motel parking lot. After much back-and-forth with the insurance company, they cut me a check. Actually, it was two checks. Even though I got photos of the license and insurance cards of the other party, it took AllState nearly seven months to get my deductible back.

They paid “enough” to have my front clam replaced with new. It’s never that simple, though. I understand that replacement clams require a fair amount of work to make them fit properly. I have little doubt that, if I had gone that route, it would have cost more than AllState’s estimate, no doubt requiring additional months for payment. It would have all worked out in the end, no doubt. But I went another way.

I discussed it with Mike G., and he made me a proposal. He had recently purchased an Elise that needed repairs to its front clam. He said that if I bought all the supplies and materials to repair both clams, he’d do all the work. This would save me a considerable amount of money.

He knew, too, that I was having third gear syncro issues (again). He offered to do the transmission swap for me. The plan was to replace the transmission and repair and repaint the clam, have it done by autumn and maybe have a few hundred dollars of the insurance money left over. It’s spring, not autumn, and the table below shows that I blew through the budget. That’s due to the bits Mike and I didn’t talk about: PPF and the yellow stripe. And, frankly, it’s a killer deal. For less than a thousand dollars, my 111,000 mile, 75 track day car looks better than it has in a decade.

I picked up a rebuilt transmission with the Celica sixth gear. It’s a Toyota C64 transmission. Lotus uses a different sixth gear than Toyota used in the Celica. With the Celica sixth gear, I’d get improved fuel economy on the highway. While we were swapping out the transmission, I took the opportunity to upgrade the shifter cables and replace the clutch.

Mike also kindly let me borrow a spare front clam that he had. This allowed me to continue driving the car while he repaired and repainted the clam. So I drove around for a couple of months with an orange front end. It was not pretty, but it beats leaving it parked in the garage.

The car had a paint protection film (PPF). I believe it was applied at the Lotus factory, but I’m not certain. It’s not mentioned on the price sticker. I can’t imagine that, if it was done by the selling dealer, it wouldn’t have shown up as a dealer-installed option, but I’d also expect it to be called out on the list of standard features. In any event, it had PPF. After Mike repaired the clam, I’d have to get PPF applied to it. This sort of led me down a rabbit hole.

One of Michael’s high school friends, Loren, is a car detailer and has applied PPF to all sorts of exotic cars, including Ferraris and Lamborghinis. After chatting with him a couple of times, I decided to redo the PPF for the whole car (not just the front clam) and get the windows tinted. He also recommended a protective film for the windshield. This film isn’t a magic bullet that will prevent all damage – big stones will still cause some damage – but the normal, run-of-the-mill damage we get driving Colorado’s roads in the winter will be prevented. The last of Loren’s jobs was to replace my yellow stripe. It was impossible to match the color and just do the bit of stripe on the clam, so we redid the whole stripe.

In addition to these three big jobs – clam repair, transmission swap, and PPF application – I took the opportunity to make some minor changes. The black body parts – grill pieces and louvers – were looking tired and needed some attention. The car is so low, I often scrape the nose entering or leaving parking lots, so Loren found a product that may protect the fiberglass. The rear-view mirror is too big, so I finally found a smaller replacement. And, finally, even though the car is brightly colored and somewhat loud, I find myself having to use my horn to let people know I’m there. The stock horn isn’t very loud. Rather than replacing it with a louder one, I left the stock one in and added a louder one (Harley-Davidson’s “Loud” horn). I often joked I wanted an air horn from a railroad locomotive. This one isn’t that loud, but it’s loud.

When I brought the car home from Mike’s, we didn’t put it all together right away. It was easier for Loren to apply the PPF without the headlights, turn signals, and trim pieces installed.

The transmission swap was last summer, before my trip to LOG. There I had overheating problems. It was fine on the roads, but after about twenty minutes on the track, I’d sometimes be unable to get it into any gear. After asking around, one of the suggestions was to use a different gear oil. So, while the car was out of commission waiting for the PPF to get done, I replaced the gear oil.

The expected life of PPF is five to ten years. The original PPF was going on twenty. The old film came off pretty easily with steam. I’ve heard horror stories of removing old film, but the car has been garaged its whole life and I think that made a big difference. The film was pretty beat up – scratched, pitted, and discolored – with the worst damage on the sills just in front of the rear wheels.

Applying the PPF, Loren got detailed look at the paint. It was still near perfect. Given what I subjected my poor car to, it says volumes about the value of the PPF. Loren also said Mike did an excellent job, especially considering he did the paint in his garage. The paint isn’t a perfect match, but pretty damn close.

New, the car had PPF on the front clam only covered the front half. I now have it over the entire clam, including the removable panels. This is 8 mil film. On the sills, we went with 10 mil for better protection.

We did a ceramic coating on the PPF. Loren wanted to do a side-by-side comparison of two different products, but that didn’t work out. The film, made by Stek, only accepted their ceramic coating. Loren’s usual brand wouldn’t go on properly.

Before applying the bumper scrape guard, by Sliplo, Loren added another layer of PPF on the bottom of the clam. The Sliplo product is attached with a provided two-sided tape, which comes with an adhesive promoter. This allows it to stick quite nicely to the PPF.

I had to restripe the whole car. It was pretty much impossible for us to match the color. The new yellow is a tad brighter, but you can only tell the difference side-by-side. It, too, came off fairly easily with steam.

Replacing the rear-view mirror gave me a bit of heartburn. It’s quite common for people to break their windshields trying to get the stock mirror off the plinth, which is attached to the windshield. In my case, the whole thing came free. I replaced the windshield last year; no doubt the adhesive was a bit different than stock. The mirror was quite reluctant to come free from the plinth. They had used some sort of adhesive, which seems unnecessary to me. We had to clamp the plinth in the vise and persuade the mirror gently with a mallet. If you couldn’t get the whole assembly off the windshield, it’s no wonder people were breaking their windshields. The smaller mirror blocks much less of my forward vision and is plenty big enough to see out the back window. I didn’t weigh them to compare, but the MicroMirror felt a few ounces heavier.

The whole process took a bit longer than I’d hoped, but I’m quite happy overall. Both Mike G. and Loren did a great job. I still need to figure out the shifting problem, but I have no doubt I’ll get it figured out eventually. The car has over 111,000 miles on it and looks as good as it did when I bought it. And, as a bonus, I expect to get over 40mpg on road trips (I’ve already had one at 39.5).

I’m looking forward to the next hundred thousand miles!

Cost BreakdownAmount
Clam repair/repaint$2,568
PPF1,100
Window Tint150
Lip Protection150
Windshield Film300
Stripe200
Ceramic coat100
Badge110
Transmission3,849
Cables686
Clutch470
Gear Oil (Motul)41
Horn71
Black spray paint7
Gear Oil (Red Line)22
Total Cost$9,824
Insurance Claim$9,043
Out-of-Pocket Cost$781
  • Franken Lotus
  • Underside of clam where I scrape the ground
  • Under lip protection
  • Old mirror vs new mirror
  • The old PPF. Did its job well.
  • Applying the PPF
  • Done! Affixing the Roundel

Naturally, I made videos of Loren working his magic.

LOG 43: Harris Hill Raceway

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Harris Hill Raceway (H2R) is a private track in San Marcos, TX, not far from Austin. The track is 1.8 miles long and can be run in either direction. In addition to always being given numbers, race track turns are generally given names as well. Not all of H2R’s turns have names, but turn 4 is named for the patron saint of impossible tasks: Santa Rita. In the drivers’ meeting, they said there’s something like 180′ of elevation change. I like elevation change. Looking at the maps, the lowest part of the track is at 645′ above sea level and the highest point is 703′.

It’s the site for the LOG 43 track day.

Monday, September 30

I didn’t get a car count, but it was about thirty. We ran in two groups. Scott ran the drivers’ meeting. He clearly had some experience participating in GGLC track days, as he said anybody who spun or put four off would get to display a “Bozo” sign for the rest of the day.

We had a short lead/follow session and I was right behind Scott. We did four or five laps. I had decided to exit the track and let the next guy follow Scott when the session ended.

On my out lap for the first session, that is, my first lap not in the lead/follow session, I overcooked it into turn 4, Santa Rita. I went right off. When I reported, the track manager said, “Cold tires?” That’s a poor driver’s excuse. It wouldn’t have mattered what temperature my tires were, I was never going to make it.

I said, “I’m Bozo.”

He said, “I’m not going to put that on your car.”

After the session, I talked to Kevin and Ryan. I pointed over at the hill. “See those birds circling over that turn? My confidence died up there. I went off on my out lap.” I didn’t disclose my error to Scott. Then we had a debriefing session. Scott asked how things went and if there were any incidents. I did not admit it to the group, and Kevin and Ryan kept my sordid secret. At the end of the day, when I said my goodbyes, I finally confessed to Scott that I’m a bozo. “Now you tell me!” he said, laughing.

Our speaker from last night, Sam Smith, was in attendance. I introduced myself and we had a nice conversation. I told him I always tell people I’m the idiot who drives his Lotus across the country for track days but that I learned this weekend that I’m just an idiot who does that. He said driving cross country for track days sounded reasonable to him. We also discussed dream jobs, reprogramming our brains (for example, because I don’t want to hit the curbs on the track, I have difficulty making myself hit the rumble strips), and the modern lack of love for the written word.

We were scheduled to run four sessions, but because we had a leisurely morning, the last ended at five. I wanted to minimize my night driving, and it is four hours to Abilene, so I skipped the last session. Ryan skipped it, too, and was already loading his car into the trailer when I started swapping back to my road wheels. Half an hour of sweaty work later, I was road-ready and headed into the setting sun.

Later, when I was putting together the videos I saw that none of the car’s data was recorded. I have a dongle on the OBD port that sends data to the phone. Over the weekend, I’ve had to reboot the phone several times due to flakey behavior. Evidently, one of these reboots disconnected my device. So it goes.

  • The track as seen from the clubhouse
  • Paddock
  • The fast cars
  • Paddock

I have more information about my shifter overheating. It was hot, and the sessions were half an hour long. I never had problems downshifting today. However, when attempting to back into my spot in the paddock, I’d grind trying to get into reverse. A couple of those and I quit using reverse and just pushed the car back.

I didn’t meet KFennel until I was saying my goodbyes. He has the very fast Exige. We ran in the same group and he passed me more than once. When I introduced myself, he asked which car I drove. He didn’t remember seeing me on the track. If he never noticed me, I guess that means I never held him up.

Over the three sessions, I passed exactly one car: Kevin, in his McLaren. He caught me, I pointed him by, then a couple of laps later, he returned the favor. On a short track like this, horsepower is overrated. There were two other cars that I thought I’d pass, but each time I got close, they left the track. (Correlation is not causation.)

If I had run the final session, I think I could have improved my time by as much as 2 seconds. My best time improved by 2 seconds from session 1 to session 2, and 3 more seconds from session 2 to session 3. Watching the video, I see many places I can improve.

It’s a fun little track. It’s good for my car. It’s on the short side, but because it can be run in either direction, it’s like two tracks in one. If I lived in the area, I’d enjoy multiple visits.

LOG 43: Circuit of the Americas

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Sunday, September 29

I had to get up early. The drivers meeting was at seven and the track is forty-five minutes from the hotel. It was dark when I pulled into the paddock. It looked nothing like it did last time. They’re preparing for the Formula 1 race. It’s one of the bigger paddocks I’ve been in, and it was jam-packed. Ryan brought my track wheels, so I needed to find him. I got lucky and found him almost immediately, and was doubly lucky that there was room for me.

We were parked east of the east end of the garages. The rest of the LOG people were clear at the other end, just about as long of a walk as is possible in the paddock. I made that walk several times. It was a lot of walking, but it did mean I saw just about every car that was there.

For F1, they’re building a bunch of two-story buildings behind the garages. They do this every year: put up all these buildings before the race and take them all down afterward. I wonder where they put all the materials between races. We were told to keep clear of the work areas. If anybody walked through without a hard hat, work would stop. I wondered if a helmet was a substitute for a hard hat, but didn’t really want to find out.

It’s important to have goals. Because Ryan brought my track wheels, I didn’t have to run on the hard street tires. I ran a 2:51 last time and with the stickier tires, I expected to knock ten seconds off that time. An ambitious goal, but one’s reach should exceed one’s grasp.

Chin always starts the day with a yellow-flag session. Get familiarized with the track but no passing. I ran with the street tires. Even at relatively low speeds, they were singing a little protest. I was glad I didn’t have to run with these tires.

But even with the much better tires, I never came close to ten seconds faster. In fact, I was never better than two seconds slower. It was hot and windy. They’ve repaved much of the track since my last visit. I don’t know how much either of those affected me, but I pushed pretty hard. There’s no way I’d have done a 3:00 on the hard tires.

I was the slowest Lotus in my group. I may have one too many words in that sentence. I only passed two or three cars all day. As at Barber back in March, I was trying to figure out which cars I had to get off the throttle for when I waved them by. I kept my foot in it most of the time. The corner workers wave a blue flag at you if you’re holding somebody up; I only saw a blue flag once, so I was doing a good job of getting out of peoples’ way.

In the first session, the car behind me on the grid was an old Subaru Forester station wagon. We line up in two rows and they alternate, so he entered the track two cars behind me. Not only did he pass me, he lapped me. Kevin was parked near him in the paddock. He said he didn’t outrun him by much on the straights with his McLaren, and he was topping 160. That Subaru was fast, a race car, running on slicks. But, damn, it’s a bit of an ego crusher getting lapped by a Forester.

  • The Start/Finish straight, 6am
  • Formula 1, under construction
  • Ridiculous track toy
  • Sublime track toy
  • A bug hit my camera
  • The bug, 1/30th of a second before its demise
  • “Yep, that’s expensive.”

We had very little paddock space. Last time I was here, the paddock was a vast open space. Everybody had room to spread out, and acres of it were pretty much empty. Today, there wasn’t any open space. Also last year, the cafe was open. It was nice to have an air-conditioned space to eat lunch. Today the cafe was closed; we had a food truck burger at a table under a canopy.

I’m having an issue with the shifter. When the car gets hot, I have trouble selecting a gear. This first happened to me last month at Ticket to Ride. I was on the track for an hour. I’d get a passenger, take an out lap, a hot lap, and an in lap, then get a new passenger. I was stopped, idling, for a few minutes at each passenger change. After about half an hour, I started having difficulty shifting. I’d be braking into turn 4, trying to shift from fifth to fourth. I can’t get second or third, but I can get back to fifth. After a few seconds, I could get the lower gear. It only affected downshifts; I could run up through the gears without a problem. It has never happened on the street.

I don’t know what to do about it, but I reckoned I wouldn’t have a problem for regular track sessions. It was a hot day but sessions never last more than thirty minutes, and I wouldn’t be idling without air flowing over the car. My first session was over forty minutes and it didn’t happen, so I thought I’d be in the clear. But the day got warmer and the car didn’t cool off so much between sessions. and it happened a couple of times in the afternoon.

The last session of the day is “happy hour”, where all groups run. At Barber this spring, I ran a few laps each happy hour. They were the most crowded sessions of the event. Today, I skipped happy hour thinking it would be crowded. Also, there wasn’t much of a break between my last session and happy hour, so the car didn’t get as much time to cool down. As it turned out, I’d probably have been okay to run: the session got black flagged and cut short.

Some reflections:

  • I’m surprised at how poorly I remembered the track.
  • I would be faster here with a top on. My head gets moved around quite a bit by the wind.
  • My lap timer recorded 33 laps. I ran another 4 laps in the yellow flag session.

I know I can improve my lap time by quite a lot. I need to use the rumble strips in the turns, but I have to overcome my reluctance to hit the curbs. The rumble strips aren’t curbs, but I struggle with my programming. At least once a session, hitting a rumble strip moved my rearview mirror and I had to readjust it to see anything. And I haven’t figured out the esses yet. I start in fourth gear, but not on the high cam, then it slows down. I’m still working on where to downshift. At most tracks, I’m almost always on the high cam when I’m in fourth. Here, there are two places where I’m in fourth but not on cam. And I know I can brake later into turn 12.

I enjoyed it, but I’m not likely to return. (Yeah, I’ve said that before.) It’s a fun track. The facilities are top-notch. There’s an appeal to driving on an F1 track. I’d love another crack at setting a faster lap time: I know I can still improve quite a bit. But the track is not well suited to my car. These are the most expensive laps I’ve ever run, about $26 a lap just for the event fee. It’s not just a high cost in dollars – I have to drive across West Texas to get here.

LOG 43

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Lotus Ltd. is the national Lotus owners club. Each year, a local chapter hosts the Lotus Owners Gathering, or LOG. LOGs often include autocross or track days. There is a Concours d’Elegance, technical sessions, organized scenic drives in the area, and dinners with notable and interesting guest speakers. LOG 43 was held in Austin, TX.

We made a left turn off the main road and went up a narrow lane. This was the end of one map segment and the start of another. My phone, mounted at arm’s length, displayed a dialog box: end trip or continue? I can’t take my eyes off the road, and working from memory as much as sight, stabbed at what I thought was “Continue”. After a few seconds, the phone went dark. Dang.

I was second to last in the train. I hadn’t seen the front of the line in quite some time. The M100 Elan was behind me, and I was following two Esprits, one red, one black. The M100 had been tail-end Charlie all day, not always able to comfortably keep up with the crowd. The two Esprits are generally more interested in viewing the scenery than ripping through it. Still, they accelerated up and over a small hill. I lagged a bit, hoping to see the Elan make the turn. But I had to either keep up, or find a place to stop and reset navigation. So I caught the Esprits.

This is the second day of our drive, and yesterday we drove 550 miles. It was warm, and I have no A/C. I’d really like to relax. I never got the route book. On the first morning, I got the route for the phone, but I didn’t have time to preview it. I have been over many of the roads we’d be taking, but not all. I didn’t know we were taking a “spirited” detour. I would have skipped it and just gone to the hotel.

I followed the Esprits for quite a while. The road was narrow, bumpy, twisty, and had many driveways for the large properties. The road dropped precipitously for stream crossings, then rose abruptly, then repeated in the next little valley. These crossings are designed to allow water to flow over them in high water conditions. They’re concrete culverts, crenellated, and not high above the creekbeds. Crossing these carrying any speed compresses the suspension, and the surface changes from rough road to smoother concrete. You have to be careful.

I wasn’t comfortable running fast on this road and I was surprised the Esprits both kept it up. We weren’t going super fast – we caught a pickup truck, but he was moving pretty quickly himself. About when I decided to pull over and plot navigation directly to the hotel, we came to a T-intersection. The red Esprit went left, black went right, then pulled over. I followed black, who waved me by. Instead, I parked behind them and worked the phone.

When I looked up, black was gone. I caught up a couple of minutes later. We ran at a sensible speed for some minutes and came to another T-intersection. We parted ways there, them to the left, me to the right. I laughed when I saw them right behind me a couple of miles from the hotel.

We learned later that there were two incidents that we missed. One was our friend the red Esprit. Crossing one of these streams, they hit one of the crenellations and bent a wheel. The other was more serious, I am told. At the same place, a yellow Evora met with disaster. No injuries, but scuttlebutt suggests the car was totalled.

I’ve never organized a club drive, at least not for more than three cars. I have participated in dozens of club drives – one day drives, weekend drives. We’ve had our share of mechanical issues but never any accidents. I’d be mortified if anything like this happened on a drive I led. I think that back road was a poor route choice, given how long everybody had been driving.

I was at the back of the pack, going a bit faster than I wanted to go. I enjoy the back roads. I drive them all the time. I enjoy the scenery, I drive down the main streets of dozens of small towns. I see the sights. I’m fine going 5-7 mph over the posted limit. I don’t want to be that guy in the sports car. I like driving my car fast, but I know what “fast” is and I know I can’t do it on the highway.

They were washing cars in the hotel garage. I got in line. A couple of other LoCos were there too. I “brag” all the time that my car is always the dirtiest in the group, so I caught a little grief for getting it washed. Later, I went up to the restaurant on the top floor for drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and conversation. I generally try to meet folks who haven’t heard all my stories, but I was with other LoCos. This is when I heard about the day’s unfortunate incidents.

Saturday morning was the Concours d’Elegance and group photo. These are always an exercise in cat herding to some degree. Organizing the movements of over a hundred vehicles is never simple, but this one involved a 32 mile drive from the hotel to a park on the banks of the Colorado River in Marble Falls. There was some attempt at getting photographs from a Tesla mounted with robots and using a drone to shoot us crossing over a bridge. We were given lots of instructions about hand signals from the Tesla, but I’m guessing only the first few cars in the train were involved in that.

When we got to the park, they sorted us by model. I got a lot of questions about the damage to the clam. For quite a while, until some stragglers arrived, I was the only BRG Elise there. There are always other green Elises. In the end, there were three: two BRG and one metallic. They guy I was parked next to, David, has 178,000 miles on his. His was pristine compared to mine. There were several cars there with stickers for as many tracks as I’ve been to. Even without the giant tape-covered hole in my front clam, my car has the most “patina”. It is very much the beater of the show.

  • Two rows of sports cars
    Emiras and Elises
  • A row of sports cars
    All in a row
  • A man and a woman looking at a race car
    “We can put a passenger seat in it, but it won’t carry many groceries.”
  • Classic sports cars
    Elans

Afterwards, Kevin and I had lunch with a couple of the other guys at the River City Grill, a short walk from the park. While eating I watched the occasional jet-skier stooging around on the river. It was a warm day, and I was happy drinking an iced tea in the air conditioning.

Back at the hotel, I dealt with a couple of errors and omissions. Every trip, I play a game of “what did I forget?” This time it was my tech sheets for the track days. Michael scanned and emailed them to me. I got them printed out, then met Kevin upstairs for drinks.

For dinner, I had the $63 chicken. Tonight’s speaker was automotive journalist Sam Smith. He’s been writing about cars for twenty years, was executive editor at Road & Track for a while. He’s driven just about every interesting car over that time, has done some racing, some television, and so on. It’s not surprising that he owned a Lotus for a while, an Elan. His talk was pretty well-suited to the audience. Preaching to the choir, you might say.

Sunday was a day running laps at Circuit of the Americas. This was put on by Chin Track Days and was not the official LOG 43 track day. A number of us couldn’t resist the pull of driving on a Formula One track.

Sunday night’s dinner was pork. Both dinners included cheesecake for dessert. It’s strictly off the diet, but I enjoyed both of them anyway. Sunday’s speaker was Russell Carr, head of design for Lotus for the last decade or so. After he gave his talk, he took questions from the audience. He worked on the Emira, Evija, Eletre, and Emeya. I’d never heard of the last one. The Emira is out of my price range, the Evija is out of nearly everyone’s price range, and the Eletre is an SUV and so does not interest me. The Emeya is a 4-door. There are many design elements common across the line, and he went through the design decisions behind them. I found it quite interesting.

On Monday, we went to Harris Hill Raceway for the LOG 43 track day.

For the trip back home, I was concerned about time, so I let the phone pick my route. I knew I wouldn’t be spending a ton of time on Interstates, so didn’t select the “no highways” option. I needed to get as far down the road as possible to make Tuesday a reasonable day, so I knew I’d be driving at night, violating another of my rules. On top of that, I’m running with only one headlight now, so I wanted to be as close as possible to my overnight destination. Last time I drove home from Austin, I stayed in Snyder. This time I opted for Abilene, about an hour closer to Austin. Still, if I stayed for my last track session at 4:30, I’d be driving until after 10. So I did what I seldom do: skipped some track time.

I ended up driving in the dark for an hour and a quarter. In that time, my windshield collected more bugs than the entire drive to Austin. I don’t know why so many bugs, but by the time I got to the hotel, vision was a real problem.

There are a few trees around the entrance to the hotel. I don’t know anything about birds. Birds in my yard get quiet after dark, except for owls, which aren’t in my yard very often. The birds in these trees weren’t owls, and they weren’t quiet. I wasn’t getting the full Alfred Hitchcock The Birds vibe, but I thought it was strange. I asked the desk clerk what kind of birds they are. She didn’t know. When I park, I prefer end spots. I nearly made the big mistake of parking in the end spot under one of the trees. Somebody parked their pickup truck there. I don’t know how clean it was when they parked it, but it was covered with birdshit in the morning.

Much of the drive home was on four-lane divided highways, some Interstate, some US routes. I found the Interstate parts fairly miserable. Way too much traffic. On these four-lane stretches, I kept coming across what I call “left-laniacs”, people who can’t seem to see the signs that say, “Keep right except to pass” or the Texas version, “Left lane for passing only”. They cruise for mile after mile in the left lane. Half a dozen times, I’d slowly reel one of these in only to have them switch to the right lane just as I catch them, making me change lanes to go around them. They’ve been in the left lane all day, why move out just when I catch up to them?

Texas isn’t my favorite state to drive through. Parts of west Texas make Kansas and Nebraska downright scenic in comparison.

When I got to Dumas, I had the choice of going straight north on US 287 (through Oklahoma and eastern Colorado) or heading west on US 87 (into New Mexico and up I-25). I prefer the latter, even though it’s more Interstate. But it would have taken me about half an hour longer, and I was past ready to get home. US 287 gets quite a bit of truck traffic. More truck traffic, I think, than any non-Interstate highway I’ve been on. Luckily, the road is fundamentally straight and flat and has a fair number of passing lanes, so it’s easy to pass.

Before I left home on this trip, I was telling people that I expected to get as much as 42 miles per gallon at some point. The drive down wasn’t exactly an economy run. On the way back, I set my pace to be about 5 mph over the limit, and speed limits in Texas are higher, so my revs were up a bit. The closest I got was 39.7 mpg. I still think 42 mpg is possible.

Over the six days of this trip, I drove 2,080 miles on streets, roads, and highways and 234 on the track for a grand total of 2,314 miles.

Lemons BFE 2024

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Saturday and Sunday, June 15-16

It is time for the 24 Hours of Lemons race at HPR. Lemons is an endurance car racing series on dedicated road courses for $500 cars. There are two Lemons races at HPR this year, this one is an actual 24-hour race (as opposed to, say, racing 8 hours on Saturday and 8 more on Sunday).

We did this last year but had problems with the car and I never got to drive. Driving in the dark will be a new challenge for me

The team was out at the track on Friday working on the car. I figured the best way to help would be to stay well out of their way, so I didn’t show up at the track until early Saturday. Gates opened at 7:30 and I arrived not long after.

They had some excitement yesterday, losing a wheel on the track. The brake disc kept that corner of the car off the ground, sort of. The disk wasn’t terribly damaged, but the oil pan may have been in worse shape. I’m told they put part of a battery bracket on the oil pan, along with a bunch of JB Weld.

After a few minutes, Mike came out of his motor home and suggested we take the car for a spin. He hopped into the passenger seat and I got behind the wheel. “Are we buckling up for a trip around the paddock?” “No, we’re going to take it out on the highway.”

So we did. Keep in mind that we’re in a car that’s not quite street-legal, and isn’t registered, licensed, or insured. It has a roll cage and we’re not wearing helmets, which means, if we do get into an accident, our heads are likely to impact the only slightly padded steel tubes of the roll cage. But we’ll only go a couple of miles to test our repairs, so I figured there’s such a small risk of getting arrested or killed that I’m willing to proceed.

The car ran, drove straight, and braked in a straight line, unless you went really hard on the brakes, in which case the tail got a bit happy and wanted to swing around to the front. I don’t expect our cheap race car to handle like the Lotus. I reckoned I’d be okay in the car, so I gave it a clean bill of health.

When we got back to the entry gate at the track, Glen, the track manager was waiting for us. “I need to see your license, registration, and proof of insurance!” He was pretty pissed. I said, “I’ll have to go fetch them,” knowing full well that there was nothing to fetch. Glen said, “Okay, I need to see them in thirty minutes. If you don’t have them, you’re going home.” That’s a great way to start the day!

After a few minutes of wild speculation (someone suggested, “We could photoshop the documents!” Really?) we tracked Glen down, ready to take our medicine. Glen sat us down and lectured us. “There’s a big yellow sign on the gate that says race cars aren’t to go out on US 36. A while back, some SCCA tube frame car got on the highway and was stopped right outside the track. The county commissioners came out to talk to us and said if race cars keep going on the highway, they’ll close the track down.” We told him we understood and we’d start packing up our stuff and leave. Then he said, “Why don’t you wait a while. I hate to kick somebody else’s customer out. Let me talk to the Lemons people and see what they say.”

A bit later we met Glen again. He gave us the choice of packing up and leaving or making a $250 donation to Lemons of Love, a charity supporting cancer sufferers. “I think I already know the answer.” We said we’d make the donation. Glen had us hold out our hands, whereupon he slapped our wrists. To be precise, he slapped the back of our hands, but it’s close enough to a literal slap on the wrist.

I think we got off very lightly. This is one of those cases where our actions could have impacts greater than are obvious. I’m perfectly willing to take the (very small) risk of getting a ticket, but I hadn’t considered the possible result of my actions had we been stopped by the police. I’d hate to be responsible for the track getting closed down.

Oh, and the “big yellow sign”? It exists, and it’s yellow. But I wouldn’t call it big. I’ve been through that gate dozens of times and couldn’t tell you how long the sign has been there. It’s not much bigger than a sheet of notebook paper.

Anyway, we dodged the bullet and were going racing.

The object of the race is to run more laps in 24 hours than anybody else. That means you have to keep the car running laps for as many of those 24 hours as possible. It is not the object to go as fast as you can. Just drive the car around, stay out of trouble, and don’t get black-flagged.

Each black flag you get has a bigger penalty than the one before it. If you get 5 black flags, you’re disqualified. But they reset the counter every eight hours, so it’s pretty lenient. I’ve been black-flagged twice in three races, and I think I had the most black flags. I wasn’t too worried about getting disqualified.

I was scheduled to drive from 4 pm to 6 pm, then again for two hours starting at 2 am.

But we had problems with the car. The brake situation must have been worse than I thought. The other drivers kept spinning under heavy braking. We quickly got two penalties. For our third penalty, the judges showed us pictures of the Warner duck and the Disney duck and had us pick one. We had to replicate the picture on the side of the car using duct tape. The “Don’t Be a Duck” penalty. Mike knocked this out of the park, but it did keep us parked for quite a while.

After the penalty, we switched drivers and rejoined the race. I was not even back to the motor homes when I saw the car heading to the judge’s stand. We couldn’t even make it a lap without getting penalty number four. They parked us for an hour.

Facing the real threat of disqualification, we put our least experienced driver in the car. He ran an error-free stint to get us to the reset at 8 hours. He wasn’t trying to set any records and he didn’t spin the car. Kudos to Dan.

  • Mike’s duct tape duck
  • Yours truly behind the wheel
  • Yeah, that hole doesn’t belong there

I finally got into the car at about 10 pm. I ran my out lap and was on my first running lap when the car started having trouble. I radioed that I was losing power. I had had no high cam, but I didn’t have any revs, either. I didn’t make it back to the pits and had to be towed in.

The alternator had died. One of the guys thought the warning light on the dash was on when I left the pits but wasn’t sure. Mike had to go home to get a spare, so we were out of action for about three hours. I rested for about an hour, but only slept for about ten minutes.

There was some spitballing on what to do about the brakes. Three or four possible remedies were discussed. I told them not to do anything, I’d just drive it.

It took me a few laps to adjust to running in the dark, but once I got used to it, I thought it was fun. I couldn’t resist trying to go fast, but I wasn’t trying to break any lap records, so I didn’t feel the need to do any heavy braking, and if I did, to be sure to do it in a straight line. But, really, I didn’t have any difficulties keeping the car under control. My only wobble was under acceleration – torque steer – while I was making a pass. We weren’t the fastest car on the track, but I had no trouble consistently turning 2:20s and 2:21s. For an hour and twenty minutes.

I’m not really sure I have the sequence correct. This is for sure: I went four off exiting turn 2, and the car started acting like it did when the alternator was bad. I can’t say for sure whether the engine was failing before I went off, but I think it was. I don’t think it contributed to the off, but I don’t know why I went off. I radioed in, “I have no power again,” I tried to get it back to the pits but in turn 11 it grenaded.

Here’s where my lack of preparation nearly causes problems. I’m that guy that just wants to drive the car. I love driving a car fast. I’m fully engaged, very much in the here and now. My heart races. Put me in the car and I’ll go, go, go!

Had this happened in the daylight, I’d have had no problem. But it’s dark in the car. And I don’t know where the fire extinguisher pull was.

The car wasn’t on fire. That is to say, I saw a lot of smoke but no flames, so I remained harnessed in the car. The smoke cleared and after a while, the tow truck showed up.

Game over.

I don’t think we know yet what the cause was. Catastrophic oil loss, but why? The way the oil was sprayed in the engine compartment didn’t fit with an oil pan failure, so we don’t think losing a wheel had anything to do with it. It may have been something to do with a bargain sandwich plate we were using. That’s racing.

We had an oil temperature gauge, but it failed in the early hours. Something to do with a plastic part. In any event, without an oil pressure gauge, I have no way of knowing when it failed. I wonder if I’d have seen smoke if it had happened in daylight. Did I spread oil over half the track?

I’ve ticked a lot of boxes on my racing resume. I’ve raced in the rain and the dark. I drove on a team that won one of the biggest prizes. I raced at an historic race track. I’ve done autocross in a parking lot, on an airfield, and on a frozen lake. And now I’ve blown an engine.

Colorado Good 2024

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Last weekend was Lotus Colorado’s spring drive. Genae hasn’t been a fan of riding in the Elise since I “upgraded” to solid motor mounts a few years ago. Even though I downgraded half the mounts to stock, she hasn’t been in the car yet, so we drove the land barge Lexus. This allowed us to carry whatever creature comforts we desired, and the Lexus has A/C while the Lotus doesn’t, so there are some advantages. But it’s give-and-take. Having excess cargo and passenger capacity, we were told we’d be the “sweep” car. A few of the cars are quite old; one is older than I am. So if somebody has mechanical issues, we can make sure they’re not abandoned by the side of the road, left to their own devices.

I’m not likely to do this again. The entry list for the weekend had 17 cars on it. I didn’t bother to count how many actually appeared, but 17 was about right. Every time we hit the road, I’d wait until everybody else got going and join the end of the line. As it’s almost impossible to get 17 cars through the same green light, or get on a highway with all 17 cars together, it typically meant that the head of the line was a mile or two down the road before we even got rolling.

On most of our other club drives, whoever was leading the pack would pull over for the occasional scenic spot for a group photo, or even just pull over to get the group back together. That wasn’t how it went on this drive. The leading cars were all in a race to the destination. Even with us exceeding the speed limit by 20 or 25 mph we still lost ground. The worst case was the last day of the drive when we arrived at the restaurant for lunch about 20 minutes after everybody else. We very much felt like we weren’t part of the group. So it goes.

Another difference between this trip and most of the others is that this one was pretty much just driving and eating at restaurants. In the past, we’d stop at various points of interest. We’ve been to the Sand Dunes, the Black Canyon, the Colorado Monument, the Royal Gorge Bridge, and so on. There may have been other trips where we didn’t visit any attractions, but none come immediately to mind.

I’ve never put together one of these drives. I know that it’s not easy, and the organizers put quite a bit of effort into it. I appreciate it. I really do. But I will always retain the right to go our own way for a meal. Apparently, we gave great offense to some when we let them know we’d be skipping the second BBQ meal of the day for an alternative. I like BBQ, but having had it for lunch, I didn’t really want it for dinner, too. We were told that the restaurant had non-BBQ options, but we didn’t really want $40 steaks. Being tail-end Charlie all weekend, then getting grief over not wanting BBQ twice a day detracted a bit from our joy.

It was a beautiful drive. We went over a long list of mountain passes: Cottonwood, Slumgullion, Wolf Creek, Coal Bank/Molas/Red Mountain, McClure, and Independence with the group and Fremont Pass after we peeled off and headed home. The snow on Cottonwood and Independence (which just opened the day before) was eight or ten feet deep.

Sorry I don’t have many photos to include, but these things happen when you can’t stop and smell the roses. (We would have stopped at the top of Independence Pass, but what little of the parking lot got plowed was jam-packed when we got there and there was nowhere to park.)

  • At Wolf Creek Pass
  • Looking south at the west side of Wolf Creek

Spring Repairs

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I won’t bore anybody with the details of the insurance claim for the damage incurred when my car got backed into in the motel parking lot in March. In summary, they said they’d pay for me to have the front clam replaced, then they sent me a check for less than they said and it took some back-and-forth to get that explained. I’m still waiting for them to deal with the other party’s insurance, so I should be getting another $600 from them to cover my deductible.

Of course, that money started burning a hole in my pocket right away. Before I even had the check, I was exploring the possibilities.

A new clam would use up all the money, plus some (which, theoretically I’d get reimbursed). But I’d have a nice, shiny clam installed and painted by a professional. I might be without the car for six or eight weeks (or more?) while the work was done.

But I have a list of other work I’d like to do to the car. I replaced the transmission not long ago. The third gear synchro was going out and it was cheaper to replace than to have repaired. Supposedly. I don’t know if the transmission I bought (online, from an individual rather than a company) was bad when I bought it or went bad very quickly. Same issue: third-gear synchro. For a while, it was okay when everything was warmed up, but when still cold, third would grind. So for the last year or more, I often skipped third gear and went straight from second to fourth.

On the second day at Barber, though, third gear was crunchy all day, even when well warmed up. I need to either repair or replace the transmission. Again. Sigh.

If I’m going to go to the trouble to replace the transmission, I should also replace the clutch. We replaced the clutch when we did the last transmission, so it only has about 25,000 miles on it.

When we installed the previous transmission, we had to make some adjustments to the shifter cables. It seemed to me that we had reached the limit of the adjustments we could make, but I could be in error. I found there are cables I can get that are upgrades – they have heim joints on each end. While we’re in there doing the transmission and clutch, we may as well replace the cables, too.

Finally, I’ve decided that my solid motor mounts are the cause of my electrical issues on last spring’s trip to Atlanta. With the solid mounts, the entire car vibrates and buzzes and I’m blaming this vibration for the electrical short.

I decided to return to stock motor mounts for the left and right sides and leave the solid mounts in for the front and rear.

I discussed all this with Mike and the guys on my LeMons racing team. Mike seems to get his jollies by working on cars with Toyota engines and transmissions. It turns out that he also has some experience with fiberglass repairs.

Not long ago, Mike bought himself an Elise. It needs some work on the front clam. So Mike and I came to an agreement: If I bought a replacement transmission, clutch, cables, and motor mounts, he’d do the work in exchange for keeping my old, bad transmission. Also, if I buy all the materials and supplies needed to repair both clams, he would do the bodywork. He would also show me how to do fiberglass repairs if I wanted to learn. When it was all said and done, I should have a few dollars left over from the insurance settlement. What’s not to like?

Two weeks ago, I took the car over to Mike’s place. We He worked on it all day Saturday (from about 10am to after midnight) and for a few hours on Sunday. Driving it home, I noticed two problems. First, I had to use the reverse lockout to get the car into first or second gears and second, the parking brake indicator light is always on now.

The first problem was relatively easy to fix. This involves adjusting the cables. I started in the back, on the transmission, but that wasn’t working. Adjustments can also be made to the shifter mechanism. This was the solution.

  • Kevin’s Elise, my Elise, the Lemons car, Mike’s Elise
  • Mike, slaving away
  • The missing piece

The brake light is another story. Somewhere along the line, we lost a part. When you release the parking brake, the handle comes down on a little part that is then pushed forward to press a button. We’ve looked everywhere, but can’t find it. If the part was a little bigger, I’d suggest I’ll find it as soon as I buy a replacement.

It’s been two weeks since the repairs were complete, but today was the first time I’ve had the car on the highway. The transmission is a straight swap for the original equipment: Toyota C64 transmission with LSD. Except that this one has the Toyota Celica sixth gear, which is a little taller. In sixth gear, the engine is revving 11% less. It will have no effect on the track, as I’ve never used sixth on track. Heck, some tracks I don’t even get into fifth. I’m expecting that on my next road trip, I may be able to top 40 miles to the gallon of gas.

The motor mounts also make a big difference. I still have the stiffness I want under acceleration, but the car is a lot more civilized. You can hold a conversation without yelling and your fillings don’t want to vibrate right out of your teeth. I’m pretty happy about that.

We don’t have a definite schedule for the bodywork yet. My only request is that we get it completed before LOG, which is late September. Mike’s car currently has an orange front clam on it. That’s not the bad one. When we do the bodywork, we’ll put his orange clam on my car so I can still drive it while. I’m sure it’ll look fairly hideous, but all-in-all, I’m happier driving a hideous-looking Elise than not driving an Elise at all.

Them’s the Brakes

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I’m quite tardy with this post.

Last Saturday was another Emich sponsored day at HPR. Usually I sign up for just the afternoon. You get four sessions, with fewer cars each session. And you can sleep in. This time, though, I signed up for the whole day. It would be a “maximum” day: seven sessions.

Tires

I used up the slicks a year ago and since then I’ve been pondering what tires to put on the track wheels. Not slicks again, as I can’t drive to and from the track on them. And slicks are so much harder on the car. Anyway, I’ve been looking at the various alternatives and haven’t come to a decision. Because I loaned the wheels to Kevin for use on the Lemons car, I didn’t need to come up with a decision yet.

Kevin has solved the problem for me. He just bought another set of wheels for his Lemons car, so he returned mine. “Have fun with the tires,” he said. We didn’t use them in the Noah’s Ark race in June and our overheating issues in the September race resulted in running only 40 laps on them. Thanks, Kevin. Much appreciated.

They’re Advan Neova AD07 LTS2. The LTS2 means made for Lotus. The fronts are smaller than I normally use, 175s instead of 195s. I was thinking they were 200 treadwear tires, but they’re 180s.

These tires come with a few questions: How fast can I go on these tires? How will the narrower front tires affect me? How long will they last?

Only time will tell as to how long they’ll last. If I only do two or three days a year, they could last a couple of years.

As to expected lap times, I pulled a number out my ass: 2:10.

In the movie Rush, Niki Lauda says, “God gave me an okay mind, but a really good ass, which can feel everything in a car.” I’m pretty sure God didn’t give me a really good ass. By putting these tires on the car, I’m changing two things: the grip of the rubber, and the width of the front tires. Which means I’m changing the grip in the front a different amount than I’m changing the grip in the rear. Is my ass good enough to sort that all out?

On the way to the track, I’m not in any hurry. I’ll drive fast at the track, I don’t feel the need to go fast on the Interstate. The first guy who passed me who was clearly going the same place I was, zipped by at about 130 in a Porsche. A few minutes later, a string of BMW M3s, followed by a McLaren and an Audi R8. I caught all but the Porsche at the gas station. I finally picked up a decent gas can, a Kawasaki green 5-gallon one. About four gallons went into the car, and I filled the new can. Depending on the day, I can get 4 sessions on a tank, so with the can I will get 6 and probably 7, if I cut a session or two short by a couple of laps.

The Laps

When I got my wristband, I asked about the car count. Fred said he limits the day to 75, but we had less than 40. I’m guessing that’s really 60 cars – something like 20 morning, 20 afternoon, and 20 all-day. Good for me, my group wouldn’t be more than 20 cars.

I didn’t get out right away for my first session. I took it easy on the out lap, as the car was cold. I was cold, too. It was probably only 50 degrees F (10 C). I had my t-shirt and flannel on under my driving suit and a hoodie over it. It’s chilly at 110mph with the top off.

The first session, I caught up to a black R8. He pointed me by, then managed to keep up to me. That’s a much faster car than mine, and I reeled him in pretty quickly, so I was a little surprised to kept up with me. I was faster in the turns, but he could always catch me on the straights. He was about the only interesting traffic I dealt with.

After the first session, my wheels were dirtier than I expected. I’ve been spoiled with the CL RC5+ pads I’ve been using for the last seven or eight years. They’re relatively dust-free, and the dust is more gray than black.

I really enjoyed the second session. Because of the low car count, I was able to run quite a few laps without any traffic. I was consistently running in the 2:11s, thinking I could easily manage a 2:10 by the end of the day.

When a session is ended, the worker at turn 1 picks a car to be the first to get the checker flag. The lights at each bunker will display the checker as this car approaches it. I’m pretty sure they picked me to be the first car to get the checker for the first two sessions. Woo hoo! I won!

I try to treat my in lap as a cool-down lap, and never use the brakes. So it wasn’t until I pulled into my spot in the paddock that I heard the noise my front brakes were now making. I’d used them up completely.

The brakes

Regular readers may recall that I just put these pads on after my Atlanta trip. I used OEM pads rather than my usual CL RC5+, which nobody had in stock at the time. I had used the OEM pads for years before I switched to the RC5+s and never had any abnormal wear. They weren’t as good as the Carbon Lorraine pads, but they weren’t bad.

I have less than a thousand street miles on these pads, and no track miles before this morning. The fronts are completely gone. I’m lucky they didn’t score the rotors.

Halfway through the session, I was passed by a BMW race car. The owner came over and chatted with me. He said he was sorry he didn’t have a camera on his car, because he had a nice view of the smoke coming off my brakes when I was under heavy braking. He thought at first I was bedding in new pads. He asked if I had changed rotors when I changed the pad compound. I hadn’t. He suggested that this was the cause of my abnormal wear. That there’s some transfer from the pads to the rotor and if the new pad doesn’t play well with whatever the old pad put on the rotor, this could be the result.

When I last ran the OEM pads, my front rotors were drilled. My current rotors are slotted. Other than driving faster now than I did then, that’s the only change that comes to mind. Perhaps that’s part of the story? I doubt it.

So that was a disappointing end to my day.

Now, about the tires.

Turn 7 is a right-hand uphill sweeper. On my hard street tires, I take this in third gear, shifting into fourth as it levels off. On slicks, I’m in fourth at the bottom of the hill, well onto the high cam. In the second session, I was trying to figure out which was better with these tires. In fourth, I was barely onto the high cam and couldn’t really accelerate up the hill. If I could have entered the turn just a little bit faster, just a few more RPMs, I’d have been able to accelerate. Here’s where I think I felt the narrower front tire. I was getting a bit of understeer, and maybe the wider tire would have made a difference.

In any event, I’m quite happy with the tires. I have no doubt I’ll be able to get under 2:10 with them.

Chat with Pettiford

My day done mid-morning, I took a tour of the paddock. Mike Pettiford was there – he’s always there on Emich days – so I chatted with him a bit. He’s a driving instructor/coach.

Naturally, we talked tires.

He says he drives to and from the track on slicks all the time, even on thousand mile trips. I’m skeptical. I might believe he doesn’t get too much wear on the streets to and from HPR. But a thousand miles of highway driving? The original equipment tires for my car were 60 treadwear with giant tread blocks. They were good for about 2,500 street miles for the rears and not a lot more for the fronts. I can’t imagine that slicks would last as long.

When I mentioned rain, he shrugged it off. “I just go slow.” I got caught in a nasty storm on my way home on my street tires. Twenty miles an hour was too fast. Slicks would have put me in a ditch, or worse.

He doesn’t think much of me and my 460 tires. “What’s the point of having slow tires?” Not his exact words, but close enough. The other two guys in the discussion nodded. Different strokes. For me, the enjoyment is in driving the car as close to the limit as I can. With soft, sticky tires, the limit is a lot faster and with faster speeds are higher consequences. So I can get at least as much enjoyment out of hard tires as soft.

One other exchange got me shaking my head a bit, too. I’d mentioned that my top speed wasn’t any better on slicks than on other tires. One might think that having a higher speed on the exit of the turn before the straight would allow for higher speed at the end of the straight. That was his thinking. It’s not my experience. He didn’t say he doubted my statement, but he wasn’t convinced. The fact of the matter, though, is that top speed is related to horsepower. Slicks don’t give me any more power, so they don’t increase my top speed.

I ran three cameras on the car for the second session, but none for the first. I was thinking I’d rather have video of later sessions than early ones and didn’t think I’d be able to keep them all charged, so missing the first session was no big deal. First time with three cameras running. It’s probably better for a highlight reel than a lap.

I drove home trying not to use the brakes at all. Like a 70-mile cool-down lap. I didn’t need the brakes until I was a couple of blocks from the house, so I’ll call it a success. I found a set of pads (both axles) at Blackwatch and ordered them. I got a call from Fred at Blackwatch on Monday. “Your name is good and your phone number is good, we were just concerned about the email address. We didn’t want to send your order to Russian hackers.” He bumped me up to 2-day shipping.

I told Fred the story of my 18 lap brakes. He says the material transfer theory doesn’t work as the RC5+ are sintered and don’t transfer material the way other pads do. He said, “Maybe you’re driving faster now.”

I did the front passenger on Wednesday and the front driver on Thursday. I set a personal best on the time. Not a high bar, for sure.

The car is driveable now, but I can do the rears at my leisure.

It took me about an hour to clean the wheels. They’re much easier to clean when they’re not on the car, but they were the dirtiest they’ve ever been, not even close. And the dust was a deep black and didn’t always come off easily.

And, finally, the obligatory video. Sorry, I didn’t realize the OBD dongle in the car quit talking to my phone, so no data from the car.