07/28/03 Corvette club day at PIR and second track day for the Mini. A very hot day, with afternoon temperatures getting over 95F. Definitely an American-themed flavor to the day, with lots of 'Vettes and a few other musclecars. Even my highschool dream car - a 1972 Pontiac TransAm.

The Mini ran quite well, even in the heat. I upped the front tire pressures to 34 psi cold (42 hot) and left rears at 30 cold (38 hot) which worked better than original 30 cold all around. Started the first session with some 1:41 laps and quickly got down to 1:39. So I was right, the car CAN do it :). Second session ran with a passenger and was consistently a couple seconds slower, with a half-dozen 1:42 laps one after the other. Also it was getting hotter. The sessions were quite long, 25 minutes each compared to 15-20 minutes at most other track days. After the second one they removed the chicane by demand of all the horsepower car drivers, so I thought the Mini would be at a disadvantage - not so. Just ask the driver of this track-prepped Porsche on Hoosier tires - he couldn't shake me no matter how hard he tried, and I probably would have passed him given enough time...

I don't think he was very happy about that :) A single other Mini was in attendance, but ran in the novice group (I ran advanced). I'm definitely happy with my color choice.

After lunch I went home and got the Elise, mostly just to exercise it. Was hesitant to do it because of the extreme heat but lunch break was long so I decided to go for it. Yes, it was hot. Ran just one session. About 20 minutes into it, I accelerated onto the back 'straight' only to see clouds of dust and smoke everywhere. A Corvette Z06 went into the concrete wall at 90mph, much like my friend Roy did last year in his MCoupe. Everyone else managed to avoid him, some by going in the grass. I was about 15 seconds behind the incident and so simply drove around it. Fortunately the driver and the passenger were OK but the car was done, and so was the track day. Just as well for me - I don't think I would have run another session in this heat anyway. But it was fun to run the Mini and the Elise back to back. Very different experiences. Yes, the Elise is obviously faster, by about 10 seconds - but the Mini is quite a bit of fun in its own way. In fact when I was playing around with trail-braking and four-wheel drifts around turns I got the black flag shaken at me telling me to back off. I guess it looked as fun as it felt :)

08/29/03 Lotus track day. This was supposed to be the Westie's day in the sun. Alas, it didn't quite work out that way (see Westie page). So after fixing the oil leak and refilling a full gallon of oil (dry sump has its benefits) the Westie went back to the garage and the Mini got track duty for the rest of the day. It looked big amongst varied Loti...

.... But acquitted itself quite well out on the track. I ran it in both Intermediate and Advanced sessions. In Intermediate I was passing pretty much everyone, right and left. The cool thing about Lotus track days is that passing rules are far more liberal than at other events. So they didn't mind my three and four abreast passing maneuvers, or outbraking a particularly impolite Pontiac Firebird into the chicane. The Pontiac (I think the highest performance 300+ hp one, judging by the hood scoops) was painfully slow in the corners but refused to let me pass on the straights. No problem - I just pulled to the right on the front straight knowing he's going to wimp out way before the 400 foot marker which is the end of the passing zone. And he did - zoom, I blasted by like he's standing still. I hope he learned a lesson there. Well, OK, I don't really care - he was no longer in my way and that's what mattered. Passing others in the Advanced group was more difficult, and a number of people were faster than me - I courteously let them by. I did catch up to and pass a yellow Esprit V8 in the Advanced group though. These cars must be tough to drive - why else would one get blown away by a bone-stock Mini? ;)

Quite a number of Loti were present, along with a 160 hp Elise 111S brought by Lotus USA. I got to drive the new Lotus around the parking lot and was gratified to note that it was much more refined and pleasant than the one I rented in Europe recently. It is definitely a step in the right direction. Supposedly the US car will be more refined still (and more powerful, which is sorely needed). Perhaps all these years of waiting will have paid off for American enthusiasts... Let's hope so.

In the final session they ran the new Elise and I held back and waited for it to be behind me to see if it could keep up with the Mini. Nope. To be fair though, the driver had only been to this track once before and probably wasn't pushing TOO hard. But still...

Besides the Loti, a number of great vintage racecars were in attendance - including this Lola F5000.

So despite the Westie's oil spitting fit the track day ended up being a lot of fun. I got 4.5 sessions in the Mini (I was running low on fuel and so could only run a couple laps of the 1-hour final open session). Of course my video camera was misbehaving again and so I got neither video nor lap times. Lacking hard evidence, it felt like I went a little faster still in the Mini - perhaps 1:38 or so. Some of the passing maneuvers would have made for entertaining viewing. Oh well. No complaints in all - fun was had, expenses were minimal and all the toys are back in the garage under their own power. Even washed and waxed the Mini afterwards.

09/23/03 BMW track day. Once again instructing, so took the MINI as it's the most user-friendly of my cars. When instructing I spend nearly the whole day in cars and it's nice to be able to play without worrying too much when I'm driving mine. Had one student in Novice and two in Intermediate. Busy but gratifying, as everyone made good progress and as usual I improved a little bit myself.

The MINI behaved well, although the brakes are really going away now. The car now has 1,850 miles on it and this was its 4th track day. Meaning that around 500 of those miles are on the track. And this was supposed to be my daily driver... I guess this is what happens when one develops a distaste for driving on public roads :). No video today and didn't get times for my first two solo sessions (I think the second was the fastest). The later two sessions were with passengers and I got a best lap time of low 1:40. From past experience a passenger is worth about 2 seconds in the MINI so it's about right. I wonder if the brakes will be covered by warranty?

10/01/03 Took the car to the dealer who promptly confirmed my suspicions - all four brake rotors are warped, and pads are coming apart. Not bad for 1,900 miles. Of course they refused to cover it under warranty (can't really blame them). Since it was around $600 to replace the stock parts, I opted to go aftermarket. The brake vibration was getting pretty dangerous, shaking the steering wheel even under light braking, so to expedite things I went with a local Portland company, Mini Madness. Dropped by and picked up a nice set of slotted rotors and Ferodo racing pads. A bit spendy but not that much more than stock and will hopefully work better... Taking apart the original brakes I took what is becoming my trademark picture, that of old destroyed pads next to new ones, as well as a couple of the damaged rotors.

The new parts went on without issues, although the new pads do not have the metal backing plates, and the old ones are riveted on and so cannot be transfered to the new ones. So I applied liberal amounts of anti-squeal and hopefully that will do the trick. A nice feature of the new rotors is the fact that they are plated so they won't turn all ugly and rusty. Or that's the theory anyway.

With the install complete, went and bedded in the pads. My neighbors must really wonder why I drive like that (accelerate-brake-repeat) in all the different cars. But hopefully they already have written me off as a nutcase and don't give it much thought anymore.

The new brakes seem to work quite well so far, and don't even squeal (yet, although I'm sure that will come). The real test will be on the track though.

One neat thing I discovered while working on the rear brakes is that the BMW calipers are very light alloy design with integral parking brake (departing from BMW tradition of using disk-and-drum combo for the back). The caliper even looks quite cool. I think this would be perfect for use on lighweight kit cars which so far I've only seen use heavy iron rear calipers. Installing the BMW parts would save at least a couple pounds per side in the Westie... I might even incorporate these in a future evolution of the dp1.