Badasses punch lemons into lemonade

Following on the last post, I wanted to talk about something that isn't go as well as I had anticipated, namely race car driving. So there have been a few pivots in the extreme transportation portion of badassery. First of all, 3 months ago, I was a hair's breadth away from purchasing a highly modified Lotus Elise (S2). What does that mean exactly? It means I offered a $22k check to the owner, and he refused because he thought he could do better. He texted me later that day offering $23k (after seeing 3 other potential buyers), but I stuck to my original offer. He ended up selling it 4 weeks later, probably for not much more than the $22k I offered him.


The Elise has for some time sat atop my "most wanted car that is not fiscally irresponsible" list. I love the way it looks, and most of all, its automotive purity. It basically feels like driving an aluminum go-kart, but man, what a wonderful feeling. After that close call, I reevaluated my options, and determined another path that would be cheaper, but possibly garner the same thrill - turbocharging a Mazda Miata. The only CARB legal turbo kit was the one I found with Begi (S3), and it only worked with cars from '99 and before. My car at the time was a '01 Miata LS. So I found a '99 Miata with a roll bar already installed. It's the 10th Anniversary Edition, and had everything a budding racer could want: Bilstein shocks, Limited Slip Differential, 6-speed manual, and lowered to boot. I was ready to go, and I did just that with my first track day at Thunderhill on June 9th, just two weeks after purchasing the car.

That went swimmingly. My instructors gave glowing feedback, and I was beginning to heel-toe turns (albeit poorly). The primary feedback was to work on the downshift, so I worked on that on the road, constantly shifting down and up, much to the chagrin of my wife, Mayui. But she put up with my silliness, understanding that I was preparing for my next track day, July 19th. I noticed that I was getting a substantially decreased fuel mileage (from 27 to 20), but I just attributed it to my constant revving. This oversight would come back to bite me very soon.

Thunderhill round 2 had everything going for it. I was familiar with the track, knew exactly what I wanted to work on, and had the chance to introduce my friend Chris Burchhardt to the crack that is performance driving! Traffic delays notwithstanding, we had fun radio'ing each other on the trek to Willows, CA, and settled into a nearby (nicely renovated) Motel 6.

Track day finally comes. I can't wait to start. Have a quick chat with my instructor, Walter Feyling, who is racing on that day as well, so he heads off to the A group (beginners were the C group). When it was my turn to drive, I was ready to show the track who's boss. And then it started. A continuous monologue being piped directly into the headphone, with a string of instructions coming from Walter, which were completely independently of how I was actually driving. At first, I tried to take it as it came, but it was simply too much. He even included 5 instructions per lap to wave at the flag stations. I'm not sure about Walter, but I'm no Ayrton Senna, and at my level of skill, I frankly need both hands (and the entirety of my attention) focused on driving. I politely asked him for a silent lap and got one at the end of session 1. That one felt good. Session more or less wasted.

Session 2 actually went a lot better, after I told Walter to share exactly 1/10th of what he wanted to. That worked out just fine. And then my car began to lose power. I could only manage a measly 70 mph on the front straight. That's almost Prius speed. After the session, I went to get the car dyno'd and found it was running at 72 whp (or roughly half of what it should be).

Tried to do some diagnostics on the car, and the closest we could get was the catalytic converter (there are two in the car). To cut a long story short, I tried to drive the car back in "limp home mode," Masoud from Bay Area Miata Drivers was kind enough to caravan with me, and I ended up towing the thing 125 miles to be on the safe side. It only cost $200 thankfully, because a regular tow without AAA Plus would've cost around $500.

After Mike Muscara, Mr. Mazda himself, checked out the car this week, he confirmed our diagnostic. Turns out the pre-cat was breaking apart, and was blowing pieces into the back cat. That was not good news, because catalytic converters are expensive. But on the very bright side, I had the opportunity to make a performance mod and simply replace the pre cat with a 01+ exhaust manifold, which should get me roughly 5 additional whp at a lower cost than actually replacing the part. This was what I meant by lemonade!

And as for the racing skills, I actually regressed from my last 2 sessions at my first track day, vs. the 1.5 sessions I did this time around. That was sour. However, the point I wanted to make here is this. Things don't always turn out the way you expect them to, but badasses don't let such things deter them. You simply keep punching those lemons until they yield lemonade, and that's exactly what I intend to do.