03/11/06 Here we go again. When the old Meanie and I parted ways I said that I'll have another one someday. I meant it. The Box, my main ride for the past year, is definitely a great little car. Fun, practical, cheap and capable of harassing some pricey machinery in the corners. But... on the straights at PIR it just doesn't have the power. Owning the Box concurrently with the Elise and the M5 did make me realize that a small, fun hatchback is the most car that I'd want to drive on the street. I like the anonymity and the harmless appearance. Practicality is a plus too. I never felt comfortable driving either the 'Lis or the Monster on the street. It's just not me - too much attention, too much hassle. So, wanting a bit more punch than the Box but not departing too far from it in essense left but one choice in my mind - another MINI. That settled, the order was placed and now that the new car is in California awaiting shipment up to Portland it's time to start its own page. I don't have a name for it yet. M2 jumps to mind but I'm not sure. I guess the naming will have to await its actual arrival in my driveway. In keeping with tradition, what does not await the arrival of the car is purchasing wheels and tires. So once again even before the car is in town I have a new set of shoes for it. Tirerack loves me.

This will be the track set which will eventually be handed down to the Atom when it's here, but the MINI will wear the shoes until then. The wheels are WedsSport TC-005 with Kumho V710 track tires in 215/40-16 size. The combined wheel and tire weight is just 32 lbs (compared to 41 lbs for stock Mini 16" items) so it'll make a big difference in performance. In daily use the newcomer will inherit the current 17" wheels from the Box which just got brand-new BFG KDW2 tires. Those are unfortunately heavy and together with tires weigh 6 lbs more than stock 16" combo but look and work much better. For the street, that'll do. So now I have a garage full of wheels and no car to put them on yet. How typical. That should change in a week or two at the most. Can't wait.

03/16/06 The Mini is here. Picked it up late this afternoon. Before leaving the dealer I made sure to buy black grilles for hood and bumper - that will be a project for the weekend. Then I took the usual route home, via my favorite twisty road (just like with the first Mini and the M5). This little thing has a bit of punch to it, even keeping under 5K rpm! Since the roads were wet the limited slip diff got to do its thing, too. Handling is responsive, predictable and neutral. Overall a better drive than I remember the previous car to be. Sliding through turns is almost casual. Very cool. As much fun as the Box is, the Mini is much more so. A step in the right direction then. On arrival home, a few obligatory shots before the daylight fades.

The tack-on cupholder was the first thing to go. Ugh. Interestingly, there is now a yellow light at the end of the windshield washer stalk. In the original Minis this is the location for the turn indicator which is actually quite clever and neat. In this case, I think it's just trying too hard. Oh well.

Then the Box came out of the garage so I can wash it and swap the wheels.

As I messed with all that the daylight was disappearing quickly so the last few shots were taken in the dark. I'll have to get better ones later. The wheels look pretty cool on the Mini, with the offsets pushing them out to the very edges. Hopefully they won't rub (doesn't look like they would). Oh, and of course I'll have to name this little machine. Hmm....

03/17/06 Took some daylight pictures with the street wheels. It might not be the 'optimal' look for the car but I think it works overall. It'll get better once I put on the black grille this weekend and move the front license plate. Somewhere.

Haven't driven it much yet (will go to the coast this weekend to put on some miles) but just sitting in the car I've noticed that the interior now has a lot more silver-painted bits of plastic. To the point where they're distracting, the ones on the steering wheel particularly so. The old wheel was much better. Of course being the tinkerer I've started thinking about how to solve this problem and photoshopped a possible solution - painting most of those bits satin black.

I think it should look pretty cool. Too bad Miini doesn't offer it as an option. Before I tackle such a project though I'd like to see if there are any online guides to taking the interior apart. Seems like a lot of opportunity to screw things up. So if you know of any such info, please let me know.

03/19/06 Well, an eventful weekend (and btw thanks to all who responded with info on the interior bits - I'll have to decide what I'm going to do, if anything, and then maybe just do it). Saturday started by going to MotoCorsa with Tracy to place the order for her Sport 1000 - yes, I'll have someone to do the Ducati break-in with and trackdays, too. Weather is getting nicer and the first bike day at PIR is April 17. Something to look forward to. While there, checked out the Exige they have parked in the showroom. Nice. If it weren't for the Atom I'd be signing the papers right now. As it is - I've moved on. So it goes. Very nice toy regardless. Good color, too ;)

Once the Ducati stuff was squared away, a backroads run in the Mini. Went up by the falls, to one of my favorite hidden play roads. The Mini is a lot of fun here. Actually, it's a lot of fun everywhere... more on that later. After the run, stopped off at the touristy spot in Columbia River Gorge, to take in the view and the smell of cooling brakes....

In the afternoon, finalized the sale of the Box and went over to the shop to change the grille on the Mini. The grille change is still a 3-hour job, even the second time through. Much cutting, trimming, swearing, etc. The result is worth it though. I also applied a layer of gaffer tape to the nose in anticipation of driving some gravel-covered roads the next day. 3M film is on the way, until then the tape will do.

Sunday entailed heading out towards the coast, by way of as many twisty roads as possible. Which is to say quite a few. Having a passenger who not only tolerates but actually enjoys the pace really adds to the fun. One road in particular was worthy of taking some video. The clip below is quite large (44M) but it demonstrates the key thing about the road - it's relentless. The turns just keep coming and there's hardly any traffic... The pace is what I'd call 'active' - notice that the tires only make noise once :) Love the supercharger whine. And no complaints from the right seat.

I must say I love the Mini. It is the perfect street vehicle for me on countless levels. Compared to the old one, the new car has a limited slip diff (BIG difference, the way I drive) and the gear ratios are much better. I actually use 6th gear, a lot. It can do the tight turn leading up to my house in 3rd without complaining (the Box wanted 1st). The handling is tight and responsive. And it's soooo damned CUTE. What harm can one possibly do with such a CUTE car? ;) I'm innocent, officer!

The day's travels over, with some 430 miles on the clock to date, I'm a third of the way to being ready for the trackday on Friday. Hope it doesn't rain so I can test out the R tires....

03/24/06 Mini's first trackday, a BMW event at PIR. The forecast has been gloomy all along so I had pretty low expectations. As of yesterday evening, the hour-by-hour prognosis was 'RAIN'. 100% chance of rain. Every hour. Oh well - I had signed up to instruct and besides the wet weather would save the brakes and tires... Naturally I woke up due to sun shining in my window although some clouds lingered nearby. PIR weather gods hard at work, again. Cool. The day actually turned out to be a mix of sun and rain so I got both dry and wet sessions in, which was quite educational (see below). The X-Pel paint protection film came in yesterday afternoon and I had installed it same day (did an OK but imperfect job - so it goes). The Mini (still un-named) was looking pretty neat minus the tape on its nose...

It more than lives up to its looks. In the dry sessions it ran a best of 1:36.17 which is about two seconds faster than the old Meanie had managed. The limited slip diff, the gearing changes and the slight power boost all add up to a noticeably faster and more satisfying car. It still cries out for more tire so I can't wait to try the Kumhos on a dry day! In the meantime, the shifting weather provided a useful wet vs dry comparison:

There are a few interesting things to note here. First, the most obvious, is that in the wet I'm a full 20 seconds slower. PIR gets unusually slick when wet, much more so than normal street surfaces. Theories for why that is vary but the result remains - wet pavement is an ice rink at this track. The bottom trace, vector g, is the combined g load (cornering+braking/acceleration) around the track and it's obvious how much less grip there is in the wet. The place least affected, oddly enough, is the concrete-paved chicane. Notice that it's the only spot where wet vector g is relatively close to the dry trace. Everywhere else it's roughly half. This goes contrary to the popular opinion that the chicane is 'slicker' in the wet (some clubs even go as far as not to run the chicane when it rains). I was sliding the car the entire way around so I'm pretty confident I was close to the max available in the wet cornering-wise, although I could definitely brake later and harder to gain maybe a second or so - I just chose to err on the side of keeping the car on the track. The video below illustrates the difference in pace between the two conditions. It's easy to see where the 20 second difference comes from.

In the dry, the 'best theoretical lap' according to the software is 1:35.64 so if I did everything perfectly there's almost a full second to be gained there as well. Perhaps another day.... Here's a video of a complete dry lap, just for amusement. It's a little faster than what I do on the street ;)

In subjective terms, the Mini rocks. I love it! A very fun and satisfying car to drive. A full 8 seconds faster than the Box, on the same wheels and tires (literally). Surprised quite a few people by passing some of them and keeping up with others. It'll only get better on sticky tires :) The only weak spot is the brakes. I pretty much cooked them even on street rubber so if the pace were upped from here the brakes would need to be replaced. I might try starting with just pads (need to dig through the Meanie archive to see what worked), then when the rotors are shot I might just go to a big-brake kit. Shouldn't be long. We'll see.