I walked the north track with him, trying not to sound like too much of a "limited experience, walking the track, giving advice of limited value." I haven't had a lot of experience walking a track and then driving it... so I can only give so much insight from doing that. I also have a hard time keeping the track picture in my head. I drive, on the street and track, by winding through a "visual movie" of where I'm going in my mind's eye. And it's hard to construct that movie while walking. Interestingly, we found out that Robert best learns a track using the track map... and making annotations to it.
Robert then downloaded and watched some spec miata videos of the north track while I unpacked the car. I checked the car over, and added air to the tires (the morning was a cold one)... after borrowing a portable airpump from Jim/Francis. Then it was time to stand around, check the GoPro, and wait for the last run group to go out. I made a deal with Robert, that if he spun the car during the North track, that'd drive the South track in the afternoon. Robert didn't, and slowly began to figure out what the car could do at the track. It can be very tough to be at a new track that you haven't driven before... which is a large part of the challenge of the OneLap. It is considerably more difficult to learn a new track from cold when you're still a Novice HPDE driver. It doesn't matter if you've got a lifetime of "driving quick on the street" and/or good car handling skills. Driving on the track requires all that, plus being able to judge how much braking is required and at what speed/gear each corner should be taken at. And with the miata, we don't have an excess of power to make up for braking early (or too late), taking a corner too slow, etc.
Robert didn't spin, so we started to prepare him for the North track in the afternoon, downloading some video. Then Tracy (from the VW TDI) came over and gave Robert some pointers based on his experience driving the track in the Spec Miata series (which our car is very similar to). Meanwhile B96 radio setup their tent and started broadcasting from the paddock. It was the usual "pop radio" shock jock inanity. The hilarity of it all was that we were originally told there would be "thousands" of spectators milling around because of B96 and them raffling away a new Mazda 2. Well, it was friday, in the boonies of chicago, the car raffle lasts for two months(?), and the track was charging $5/head of visitors. So, to no large surprise, a very limited number of spectators showed up. I can't complain about B96 too much though, because they and Autobarn dealership paid for our lunch... and they were a nice change from the regular track food.
After lunch Robert walked the track... well, half the track. As Brock came around while he was walking to boot him off the track because the first run group was about to head out. So, then it was a wait until we were to line up. We checked the oil and added about half a quart... well, since I was doing the maint (while robert prepped) it meant that half a quart came out of the bottle with most of it going in the fill hole. It looks like we've been burning a consistent 1/2 a quart a day... which, considering the age of the engine, isn't too surprising. After gridding up, I was surprised to see Howard LeFevre's Dodge Challenger lined up around our run group... since he and his car are usually considerably faster. Talking to him revealed that he had had his power steering go out. They'd flushed the fluid, and added new fluid in, but were still running essentially depowered. His codriver was asleep in the passenger seat, and Howard was also trying to buy a t-shirt (I assume from the track)... so he told me "the keys are in the car, can you pull it up if the grid moves?" Sure, why not. So, then I got to have a nice converstation with his codriver when I popped in to move the car. :) One Lap really is a unique environment to be around.
Robert went out at the tail end of the second to last group and did a good job of keeping the car on the track. His time was a bit down the charts... but he was still quicker than I was in a similar situation with the Fit two years ago. So I can't complain about his performance. Robert than took some seat time with JC in the RX-350, getting to see the line at speed. After that they pulled in, hopped in the miata, and swung out to the pits to get "conditional" approval to go out with my car. They spent a number of laps out there in the car, while I chatted up the people on pit road. Then he pulled back in to the paddock. No stopping in the pits to offer me the car (and my helmet), just
Then it was a matter of packing up, and fighting Chicago traffic back to South Bend. We got there a little after 8pm, and then procedded to get absolutely lost trying to find the watering hole all the OneLappers were congregating at to relish the accomplishment of successfully getting back to South Bend. After some food, and a couple of barley-hops-waters and some good conversations w/ Tracy & Mattias (of the TDI) we decided to head back to the Quality Inn and turn-in. The last week had definitely caught up to us... despite the potential for continued carrousing back at The Gipper. This year's one lap definitely took a lot out of both of us... in part because of the later/longer transits (compared to '09), plus I picked up a fair bit of sun (unexpectedly) on friday.
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