December 16, 2006
ProAutoSports Track Day -- A brief report on Miata activities
Rod and Carl following Richard into the sweeping turn-eleven hairpin at Firebird Raceway.
OPMC members Richard Olsen, Kirk England, Carl Tootle, and Charlene Videen joined Rod DiMarco and Lyle Schall from the Sahuaro Miata Club as participants in the annual Firebird Raceway "Appreciation Day", a free track day for ProAutoSports members at the Firebird Main Track on December 16, 2006. OPMC member Elliot Meister attended as a spectator to scope out the "track day" scene for possible future participation. Our most experienced track day participant, Geoff Pangrac, was unfortunately unable to make it due to drive-belt issues on his very fast supercharged Miata.
All participants had a great time and returned home with their Miatae in the same condition as when they left. Actually, the ProAutoSports track days are well organized and safe driver education activities that have proven to be great fun and very educational for all who participate. These activities will definitely make you a more skilled driver on public roads. Below are some digital photos and links to short clips from a couple videos shot during the on-track sessions December 16, 2006.
These are individual frames extracted from videos shot during on-track driving sessions.
Click on the images above or links below, then use your Browser Back Button to return.
Click here to run video clip shot with camera facing to the rear on Richard's Miata.
Click here to run video clip shot with camera facing to the front on Kirk England's Miata.
Kirk drives through tire smoke from a split-second brake lock-up at about 100 mph by Richard in the turn one brake zone which leads into a fun, exciting, sweeping 70 mph left-hand corner.
The track is very wide at the entrance to turn one so the driver pulse rates didn't even go up.
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March 3, 2007 Track Day At Firebird Raceway - East Track
Recent regular track day participants Richard Olsen, Carl Tootle, and Charlene Videen from OPMC, and Rod DiMarco and another participant from the Sahuaro Miata Club, were joined by OPMC first time participant Elliot Meister at the delightfully fun East Track up at Firebird Raceway in Chandler. Of all the participants above, only Rod had previous experience on the East Track. Elliot took the New Driver Orientation Driving Class, while Richard and Carl were led around the track by Rod during the first Orange Group session to allow them to learn the corner lines and braking points. Charlene opted to run in the Novice Red Group again and had Rod along as an instructor with her for one of the first track sessions. Rod is quite an experienced driver and is a very good instructor. Charlene is showing much improvement in her driving skills and has become fully integrated into the informal Miata participants post-session debriefings following each on-track session. I believe she is having more fun now that she can see significant progress -- she passed a Corvette during one of her runs. As I had predicted to Rod and Carl, Elliot Meister was a quick learn on the track and almost immediately began running laps at an impressive speed. I think he had the most fun of any of the participants on Saturday, and he has indicated he will return.
Below is a link to an eight-minute video clip from the second Orange Group track session. The video was shot from Richard's car as Rod attempted to continue his mentoring of Richard and Carl. However, there were some pretty aggressive and very fast cars running in that session and it became difficult for the Miatae to stay together. Notice how much faster the 500 hp red Ford GT and yellow Corvette Z06 are on the straightaways compared to the 130-140 hp Miatas; but we had every bit as much fun as did those driving the expensive, high powered cars.
Click here to run the track video.
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More March 2007 Track Days
OPMC members Carl Tootle and Charlene Videen did a track day at Thunderhill in California. They had a great time and offer the two following photos. That's our favorite OPMC lady driver Charlene 'Charley' Videen driving the red Miata in the picture below. Looks like she is leading the pack. Way to go Charley.
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March 31, 2007 Track Day At Firebird Raceway
Richard and Elliot participated in a track day at Firebird Raceway near Phoenix on March 31, 2007 along with Rod DiMarco and Lyle Shall from the Sahuaro Club in Phoenix. All had great fun, and Richard and Elliot had especially exciting days (yes, they both had a spin out, but no damage except to egos). The East Track at Firebird is a wide open facility with little or no opportunity to hit anything large and immovable; making this a very safe and therefore fun track on which to hone one's driving skills without fear of bending any sheet metal should one make a mistake and spin out. Below are video clips from a couple of the street car sessions which were run on the fun and very safe East Track at Firebird.
First video clip below shows Richard following Elliot -- both in stock engine 2001 Miatas. Richard was running with very sticky and grippy Hoosier R6 racing tires which provide substantially higher cornering speeds than the high performance street tires Elliot was running. The second video was shot with the video camera on the front of Elliot's Miata and the mic in the engine compartment near the air intake. Elliot had a little excitement involving a close encounter with an aggressively driven Mini Cooper S on the track (the driver was reprimanded for the minor incident to assure there would not be a repeat of his overly aggressive driving).
Click Here to Run Video Clip Shot From Richard's Car.
Click Here to Run Video Clip Shot From Elliot's Car.
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November 24, 2007 Track Day - Firebird Raceway, Main Track
Richard Olsen, Carl Tootle, Charlene Videen, and Geoff Pangrac from OPMC, and a few Miata folks from the Phoenix area participated in the High Performance Driving Event at Firebird Raceway on Saturday, November 24, 2007. We were all anxious to see how Geoff's recently modified '01 Miata would perform on the track. Geoff's car has a number of engine modifications that produce an amazing 300+ hp at the rear wheels compared to a stock '01 Miata with about 105-110 hp at the rear wheels.
All of the OPMC Miata drivers had a very fun and safe day at the track. But one of the Phoenix Miata drivers had a major problem with his modified engine that required he head home early, and although Geoff's hotrod performed well, it had an engine computer software programming issue that prevented the car from achieving maximum turbo boost. However, Geoff was still able to show the incredible acceleration that a high hp Miata can generate, and he easily reached a top speed on the main straight of 125 mph. Once the boost issue is taken care of, Geoff's Miata should have performance approaching that of a 400 hp C6 Corvette. Richard's stock engine '01 Miata was running especially well and he was able to hit a respectable 110 mph on the main straight, a good top speed on that track for a stock engine Miata. Below is a 4.5 min video clip from the last track session of the day with the video camera installed on Richard's car.
In-car video from Richard's Miata
Below is a several minute video clip shot from Geoff's car during the third track session. Note how easily Geoff is able to turn in faster laps than Richard; his engine is not even working hard. Even with the engine computer problem he was having, Geoff's car was still making over twice the hp of Richard's and had far quicker acceleration.
In-car video from Geoff's Miata
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March First 2008 Track Day at Firebird International Raceway (West
Track) And A Recent Track Day at Phoenix International Raceway
Richard Olsen and Carl Tootle from OPMC and a few members from the
Sahuaro Club in Phoenix participated in a track-day driving event at
Firebird Raceway on March 1st, 2008. This event was held on the
fun but technical West Track at Firebird and was heavily attended by
ProAutoSports members. The driving was a bit crowded on the track
at times, but it was a safe and fun day.
Here's a short video clip showing Richard following Carl, with a few of
the many other participants also featured in the video.
Click Here For West Track Video Clip
Richard and Carl also participated (both for the first time) in a
non-competitive track-day driving event on the professional road circuit
at Phoenix International Raceway which is mostly within the infield of
this NASCAR racing facility, but which also uses about two thirds of the
banked oval of the Main track for the road course. Lyle Shall from
the Sahuaro Miata Club had run this track a number of times before and
he served as a driving instructor for Richard and Carl. Carl went
along for the first session with Lyle as a passenger in Lyle's car, and
later Richard was a passenger in his own car as Lyle drove for a few
laps to show Richard the correct corner lines. It was quite
exciting running for the first time through the wide banked turns of
this famous one mile oval track. Speed for our Miatas through
NASCAR turns 3 and 4 was a little over 80 mph before accelerating out of
turn 4 and heading down the Main straightaway (getting up to a little
over 100 mph there) before diving down off the banking and into the
first turn of the infield part of the road circuit. This track was
a little intimidating at first due to all the walls around the track; a
fact that was emphasized by an accident in one of the BMW club racing
class events that was run there on the same day. A BMW race car
was destroyed when the driver lost control during a pre-race qualifying session
and hit the wall coming off the Main straight banking (driver was not
injured but the race car was a write-off). Here are a few pictures taken
by Rod DiMarco of the Sahuaro Miata Club, and Richard Olsen of OPMC.
From left to right: Lyle with Carl "Darth
Vader" Tootle as passenger, Carl, Carl, Richard, Richard, a BMW running
in the non-competitive track session with us, and a Panoz race car in
one of the club races held the same day.
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Contact Richard Olsen for more information on the ProAutoSports driver education and track-day programs, or log onto the OPMC website 'Performance Driving' page ( Performance Driving ), or the ProAutoSports website at: http://www.proautosports.com/ .
