The long video:
Monthly Archive for May, 2007
ugh
Yesterday was a bad day for me.
My stereo in the MINI had been cutting out intermittently for months. I knew it was some sort of loose connection in an in-line fuse (not the one in the fuse panel, an additional one right up by the head unit) for the unswitched power. The fuse wasn’t blown, but something was messed up with it. So, I finally figured out that the fuse itself was broken, not blown. One of the metal end caps was loose. So, I bought a new fuse and swapped it in. After that, no power to the stereo at all. 
Next stop, lunch. Driving through the parking lot at Burger King, I grazed a yellow pole coming around a corner. No damage, just some yellow marks on the black pastic wheel arch trim for the rear wheel and a little yellow scuff on the tire. No wheel or body damage. the Mr Clean magic eraser cleaned that up well, so no big deal. But a sign that I was just having a bad day.
Then, a friend and I did a little brake bleeding. He’s going to the track tomorrow in a newly finished car, so it needed a fluid flush. And I needed to bleed my brakes after NHIS. We started with mine. I forgot to keep an eye on the fluid level, and when going for “one more” on the last wheel, the pedal went to the floor and didn’t come back. And, I had left my extra bottle of brake fluid at home - we were at his place. So, we made a trip back across town to pick up some more fluid and topped off the resevoir. The brake pedal came back, but the bleed job wasn’t great. The pedal feels about as soft as it did before we started. And, I’m starting to run low on brake pad already, and these pads have only been used for three track days (and daily driving all winter).Â
In the evening, I decided to figure out what was up with the stereo. So I checked the fuses in the fuse panel. There are two for the stereo. I pulled out the first one, it slipped out of my hand and disappeared. It must have fallen somewhere into the depths behind the plastic panels. Luckily MINI gave us some extra fuses in the fuse panel.
Checked the second fuse, and it was blown. Replaced that one, and the radio was back to functioning. But now I had to head to Wal-Mart to pick up some more fuses so I’d have spares again.
Bad day.
Early morning mishap:
Fast(ish) lap:
I hate the day before a track event. Thoughts of my car ending up crunched against a wall keep running through my head.
Once I get out on the track, those thoughts are long gone. But, the day before…
I was finally bested by a MINI Cooper S at one of our local autocrosses. Ryan in his MCS with his new, light, sticky wheels beat my time by 1/100th of a second. I guess I need to step it up, now.
Today’s autocross went pretty well. It was my first time being co-chair for an autocross. That part almost went well. We were short on “regulars” so some things went slow in the morning. There were two people signed up to do tech inspection of the cars: one didn’t show up, and the other sort wound up having to take on other responsibilities. So, I wound up having to do tech also (along with the other chair duties).
Had to wake up at 5:00am so I could make it down to the site by 7:00 to get things set up. So, between that and the rainy forecast, I decided not to bother brining the track / autocross wheels and just ran on my daily driver tires (BFGoodrich G-Force Sport - pretty “eh” tires). The morning session was rainy, and there was extremely little grip. I managed to spin a 90° going into a chicago box.
The afternoon was dry, and I actually felt like I was driving well for the first time in a while. I didn’t bother to check my times, though, so I don’t know how well I placed. I’m fairly certain I came out in front of the two MCSes that were there - but I have much more experience than the drivers of those two cars.
The big problem of the day was that nobody knew how to generate the final standings / results list off of our excel spreadsheet. There was a “generate results” button on it, so we clicked and and gave the results it created a quick glance and assumed they were right. Then, when I started announcing the results, someone mentioned that the time I gave as their best was not their best. They were right, and the results I had were wrong. All the times were recorded, so results can be generated. But it was embarrassing to not have results at the end of the event.
NHIS on Thrusday!
http://boston-bmwcca.org/events/ultimate-calendarView.aspx?EventID=316
NHIS with the Boston BMWCCA
The Sports Car Club of Vermont held their first autocross of the season May 5 and 6. Saturday’s event was a standard autocross and Sunday’s was a team competition where three drivers drove two different cars.
Here’s some video from Saturday in my MINI:
I wound up taking third in class, even though my afternoon runs were less the good. I wound up almost spinning in all of my afternoon runs because I was trying to slow down in a decreasing radius, off camber turn.
During the team competition on Sunday, I got to take 5 runs in a very well sorted Miata, so I finally got some more rear wheel drive experience. The Miata was so very easy to drive, probably easier than my Cooper.
I also took a couple of “fun runs” in some other cars. A 2-door hatch Yaris on R-compound tires that was undoubtedly the hit of the weekend. That car was so fun to watch it was silly. Massive amounts of body roll, but the little car was actually pretty quick! Especially for a “cheap” car.
I also got to take a run in an MR2 Spyder. So now I’m lusting after a mid engine car.