Hallett - The Real Story

[Tim the Teacher]

Does anyone want to guess who this is? It ain't me so guess again...BTW, That's TrackDog in the passenger seat praying to an 8 pound 6 ounce baby Jesus.


We had an absolute blast! More pics to come.....bwahahahaha

[Treibenschnell]

[altiain]

That's why they call it "The Bitch".

So what was the off count for you and magma?

[Sharpie]

Well that's my dad in the red one

Nice Pic

Bet someone is saying Who drives that BLACK car



No spins or offs for me

[Tim the Teacher]

A big fat O for me...... I had a great instructor who taught me well and let me go by myself in the middle of the second session. I lowered my times each session and was quite confidant at the end. My best time at the end
(1.47.01) was very rewarding after starting with a 2:03. Not the fastest but it was satisfying to me to make progress. I have to admit that the s/c ran flawlessly and put out quite a whine in the straights. I believe I hit 101 on the longest part of the track before some deep braking into turn one which allowed for a higher speed entrance. Turn two gave me the most problems though and I feel I could have done better there. I also learned to stay in third and fourth and take it up to the rev limiter. Gary, Mike and others had good advice which helped me stay out of trouble and really enjoy myself.

[Tim the Teacher]

Early morning departure


Pit area for TDR


Guess which one is Ricky Bobby?


TrackDog growling up someone's ass....again!


My wife, Suzan, trying to make the fastest time on what was supposed to be "touring" laps


Kags with more numbers than any other car and the loudest damn exhaust on the planet.


Tim the Teacher driving "his" line


Click this linkie for all the pics

http://teachandtech.smugmug.com/gallery/2037026/1

[miataspeedracer]

Great event, great fun, great memories!! I'm sure all the details will be spilled in the days to come. Big congrats to all the "rookies" for some great, clean driving! I think the TOTAL number of "offs" for Timmy, Magma, and John combined was...0! Well done, lads.



I see Tim had already posted up the damning evidence of what havoc the Bitch can wreak. I won't say "I told you so" to the overly optimistic Titus...


Seriously, I had a great time with one and all, and look forward to Hallett '07. After all, I need to win me some tires next year...

Oh, yeah--I almost forgot. Big thanks to the Head Dog himself for organizing our little group and providing his leadership. Thanks, Gary! (and I'll him tell y'all the results of FM vs. TDR...)


Speed

[Sharpie]

There was an FM vs. TDR ???

The beast and it's driver are FAST, no doubt!!!!!!

[channelmaniac]

Any damage to that BLACK Miata from that sideways driving that was caught in the picture?

Hopefully it was a dent free weekend for everyone on the track!

I'll be there for the next one - sounds like you guys had a blast.

RJ

[black roadster]

F' You Tim!!!!




Yeah... the bitch bites and Gary expects perfection on my first session in well over a year on an unfamiliar track.

Seriously, Gary can attest to the fact that my first session was BAD!!! It's amazing I only spun once! I needed to get back into track mode. My steering wheel inputs were very jerky and I was having trouble with late apexing a few turns. I also realized after the fact I forgot to crank my AGX's up. I was running 4F/3R.

Second session I cranked them up to 7F/6R. I was by myself and showed good improvement but turn 4, an uphill blind turn threw me off and I did a all-four-on-track spin coming out of turn 5.

Hallett uses flag stations which I am not used to. Directly after my spin I was looking to see if they black flagged me. I turned to look at the third flag station I came to and just drove straight off the track. Well if I wasn't black flagged before i was then.

Session 3 showed even more improvement with no spins, just a few horrible lines. I did have fun hanging with a silver/tan NB few a few laps.

Session 4 was the best yet. I lowered the AGX's to 6F/4R and had my best session yet. I had the track to myself for 20 of the 25 minutes. I held a consistent line and even hung with Mike P and Michael B. for half a lap towards the end.

No spins would have been great but I certainly wasn't the only one spinning out there!

Personal observations.

My biggest hurdle is confidence. I am still not full throttle coming out of some turns and tapping the brakes when I don't need to. I have trouble with going to the edge without throwing up internal caution flags.

Normally Aspirated is still just as fun on the track and a whole hell of a lot cheaper to run with less concerns to boot.

I need/want more track time!

I had a blast and enjoyed the entire weekend!

[black roadster]

Any damage to that BLACK Miata from that sideways driving that was caught in the picture?

Hopefully it was a dent free weekend for everyone on the track!

I'll be there for the next one - sounds like you guys had a blast.

RJ

Only damage was a bruised ego.

Dent free yes. Sadly two guys weren't driving home due to blown motors. I don't know the cause but EVERYONE needs to check their oil often at track events. I was a quart down when I checked. I don't use oil otherwise.

[Sharpie]

Two guys blew engines, If you do a track event CHECK your OIL and check it often. BR was a quart low on the way home even though he checked it inbetween sessions.

[channelmaniac]

Sadly two guys weren't driving home due to blown motors.

Ouch.

Was it any of the MME crowd?

[Tim the Teacher]

Damn BR..that was a lot of excuses. If I spin out the next time, I gotta pick one of those.

[CraiginTX]

The event was a BLAST!! It was my first time on the track, and needless to say - I'll be back. The novice group was a lot of fun, there were 10 or 11 cars in the group, including Tim, Magma, JohnWag, Paul H. (BRG) and me.

Like Tim, I learned a lot and steadily improved my lap times throughout the day. I'll second William on 6F/4R on the shocks - my car seemed happiest there, too. No offs for me, either - though I did have a lovely spin in turn 2 during the first session. Right in front of Tim, who thankfully managed not to run into me. Clean for the rest of the day, ending up with a best lap of 1:42.

Enjoyed watching Gary run rings around EVERYONE (down into the 1:28's IIRC ), and it was great listening to all the Track Dog equipped cars screaming their way around the track.

There were something like 130 people at dinner Saturday night, and 82 cars running the track. BIG fun for everyone! It was great getting to know more of the folks on the board, and I look forward to doing it again.

Thanks for posting the pictures, Tim and Suzan!

Craig

[CraiginTX]

Ouch.

Was it any of the MME crowd?

Nope. One of the guys was from Kansas City. '95 montego blue
with R-package skirts and brand new Tein Flex with the electronic damper controls. Lost the motor in session 2 - think it was rod.

The FM guys offered to trailer his car back to the hotel, so the owner put the hardtop back on it and helped push it onto the trailer. They got on the freeway headed back to Sand Springs...

...and the hardtop blew off the car and demolished itself on the turnpike!!!

I know he hated to make the call home: "Um, honey..."

Talk about a rough weekend!

[blackzx3_13]

3.14159 is an interesting number to run. It took me a second to figure out what is was.

[altiain]

3.14159 is an interesting number to run. It took me a second to figure out what is was.

There's that mathematical incompetence thing again...

[miataspeedracer]

Damn BR..that was a lot of excuses. If I spin out the next time, I gotta pick one of those.

[trackdog]

Always too busy to take pictures, thanks Tim. Weather held out as far as the rain that was forecasted, but man, it got cold! Last remembered it was around 46F in mid afternoon, made it tough to get the tires to warm up initially.

As far as the track the pavement had been freshly sealed which we were concerned it might be slippery, but it was not, great grip. There were a few bumps, but not bad enough to cause your car to shift lanes, overall still one of my favorite tracks. You really should come next year which will be in September instead and should be a little warmer!

The Arkansas Club really went out of their way to make this another great event; it was well organized. Every participant got a gift at the really good BBQ banquet dinner. The guys in our group that came out on top were Michael who got a $250 gift certificate for an intake kit and William who got a $500 exhaust setup from Magnaflow. Out of the $150 entrance fee, probably $40 went towards your dinner and gifts. We will be back next year.

There is no doubt in my mine that the DFW people had the most fun and were the fastest cars in their group. You could rent a transponder to record your track sessions and most of us did; you got to know right? The average time was around 1:39 to 1:49 in the intermediate group and 1:28 to 1:40 for the Experienced group. OK, can you guess who was in the 28's?

We met a lot of new people including Bill Cardell from Flying Miata and of course Turbo Dog, their famous mascot. What a sweet dog, he got a lot of attention. Bill is a gentleman and enjoyed talk to him. We saw their new turbo manifold and it definitely looks to be a nice improvement. It has been tough on FM not having a product to sell and I know he is looking forward to getting sells again on their turbo system.

I will be nice here and just say SUPERCHARGERS RULE! By a BIG margin (OK Sharpie, you can say something now). The Dog was 5-6 sec. faster than the next car in this group. Until somebody points out or takes a picture and you see your car in action you don't necessarily know how much your car leans! It did not seem like it from the seat, but it sure did. We run 375/335 lb. springs which are great for the street and track use, but now I see why the SPEC Miatas run 700/500 lb. springs. Question, do we keep it street civilized or track spec'd; I will have to think on that.

Next year you really should try to come, you won't be disappointed. Did I mention that SUPERCHARGERS RULE?

Gary