Target: June 15th Fathers Day Autocross

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

G Street 2 entries

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

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

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

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

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

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Technical Difficulties

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

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

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

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Congrats, Marussia!

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

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

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

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Back in Black

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

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

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

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

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

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Anatomy of an Autocross

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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