Megan the Merlot M edition

[Senor_Taylor]

The brakes did okay on the ride down. Definitely a little hotter on that wheel, but I'm sure it'll all even out.

I ran it at Danville airport today with BRR-SCCA and it was such a blast. I've never done an autocross that wasn't a special one like the College Solo or the one after the show, so hearing that we would have 8 runs today was such a surprise. Going that many times really lets you get a feel for things and it was nice to have that much seat time. The one thing that become very apparent today is the need for new tires and nice brakes. They definitely need to be bled WAY better than they were and I'd like to rebuild the calipers/get rebuilt calipers, but they did the job today. I even felt the ABS kick in once or twice, which was pretty cool in an NA Miata. The car ran great and it was nice to have more torque and a little more power than my NA6 did.

The track was insanely fast. I found myself almost hitting the rev limiter in second gear a few times on good laps and it definitely put a strain on my tires considering I beat this car like it owed me money. Sitting in the car this much also helped me get comfortable and get a feel for the car's quirks, like I figured out that it only hunts for idle when the brake is pushed in. That narrows down the vacuum leak hopefully to one of the lines running to the brake booster. Not sure if those can be replaced like regular vacuum hoses, though.

My times got better and better as the day went on. We did 2 sessions of 4 runs each, one in the morning, and one later in the afternoon. The track heating up really affected things and I could turn much better laps later on. I was VERY consistent which made me happy. Every time I turned today was 71 seconds except for one or two in the morning and I improved basically every time. I ended up placing 3rd in the Novice class so I finally got a trophy. I feel very confident I can place higher if I had better tires. I kicked the rear out way too easily considering the lack of power this thing has, and the front pushed REALLY hard in every turn. Check out the shoulder on the front left tire in the picture below. Overall, I'm super happy about this car and with just a few improvements, it can be a really competitive car in E Street. I can't wait to see what I can do with tires made this decade. Seriously, these tires were made in 2007.



Warming up food on my engine is a tradition.



R.I.P. Mirada whatever-whatevers





Video coming soon.