I'm at 9:00. See you there.

 

10/8 at 9. See ya there, Beachdog. :D

 

I signed up for Sunday too. Not sure what time but it's either 9 or 10. I'll check the time tomorrow at work. Anyhoo, I'm good for a mini meet.


***EDIT: I'm scheduled for 10/9 @ 930

 

I'm registered on 10/15 at 9:00, but I guess I'll stay there a while after I finish so I'll see some of you there!!

 

i will be there on Sat at 12

 

I'll be there with Rotorgeek at 12:00 Noon !!!!!!

Also any body going to the Washington DC Event on November 15th and 16th???? I'll be up there doing it again with some member of the Subaru and Mitsu EVO clubs of the NJ/NY.


See ya all there.

 

Miami - 15th @ 11am

 

Miami, Saturday 15th:

wedge357
rotorgeek
otrovago
FX-RX8
Mauroavella
SpaYllwS2K
hppwdn

Seems like the earliest one is Mauroavella at 9am and the latest one is Chris at 2pm.
Anybody else?

 

anyone have any idea how long this lasts? my guess is only an hour since thats how far the appointments are spaced :-/

 

If it's like rev it up its all day. They just spread out the start times so they don't get too jammed at any one time of day. Other parts of the country are reporting long lines later in the day.

 

cool, i was thinking of getting some chow at the dennys just down the street from the event, around 8am.

 

BUMP

anyone want to meet an dennys? Its about 10 mins from the even, I plan to park and be there at 830a, so maby around 730a meet for food?

This would be on Sunday, my time is for 9am.

Anyway, everyone have fun!

Happy Motoring

 

Hey guys. I just got done with the Saturday event. Some tips:

-Get there as early as possible. They don't seem to care about what time you signed up for. I got there a bit before 8:30 or so and they let me in. I was scheduled for 9. The lines get real bad, real fast.
-Get the racing school thing done first
-Hit the performance track as many times as you can stand (or until the line gets too long) next.
-Do the Matched Time thing
-The smoothness test thing is kind of boring and frustrating, I'd say it's an optional run.

 

rhawb how was the rx8 thing, and how did the miata drive.

what was your time for the event, how was the course layout?

 

RX8 thing was awesome. The pro drivers tell you how you could be going faster through all the sections. You get two laps with them so you can try and fix up your errors. They're surprisingly helpful.

I thought the Miata drove like a dream. It does everything you tell it to do (even if you don't intend to), so it's very much a drivers car. It kind of demands you know what you're doing or it will under/oversteer. Even if it does do something unsavory, you can always tell exactly what you did wrong. It never feels like the car starts doing its own thing. Oh, it also makes a pretty great noise, so I want one now!

Course layout is interesting enough. Fairly basic turns except for the long decreasing radius left that seemed to chew up a lot of drivers. When you go into that, brake way through the turn, and only accelerate out when you know you're ALL the way around it. It's very tempting to want to get on it about half way through.

As for my time, I ran a 26.343 w/ a passenger :D Good luck, folks!

 

It was fun in Orlando, but it was very hot and the lines were long, especially if you were driving the manual transmission cars. The lines for the automatics was much shorter. The RX-8s all had the air conditioning on.

The MX-5 (Miata) looks MUCH better in person, than in photographs, and they had a nice display (as you entered) of a new MX-5 body (just the shell), the Engine, drivetrain and suspension, and then separate suspension pieces (control arms, sway bars, etc..) from the 2005 model mad of steel, to the 2006, made of aluminum and hollow sway bars to compare weight.

All in all lots of fun

 

Missed you all yesterday. Just got back late Friday from traveling all week and woke up very under the weather. Figured that I could go over later but saw that the lines were long so I didn't bother. Oh well...

 

I thought the 'school of zoom' with the RX8 was a great idea. Once I actualy did it I was very disapointed. The class-room part was cool, mostly stuff ive heard before in driver meeting and schools, but always good to have a refresher, esp at 845am, LOL. Also the guy Jeff that did the class was nice. When we got out in the car, I was glad I could turn the DSC off and really let loose in the car, but I was upset that my instructor wouldnt let me open the windows or sunroof, it was such a nice cool morning. Also he had to have the AC on, and didnt seem to care much that the check engine light was on. Also he didnt give me ANY input, just sat there, the only words he said to me were "stop here, ok you can go" didnt give me any instruction, no helpful hints, nothing, even when I asked him how was that....he just looked at me. My girlfriend went after me, in the same car, with the same driver. She was nervious as she hasnt ever done anything like that. The instructor didnt give her any help and he actualy told her "are you gonna drive any faster than this...if not Im gonna take a nap". Very rude!

The next part (where I spent most of the day) was the Performance Challenge with the mx5. It was a blast. The target time was 25.5, most of the times of the day were 26-27 range, with a fair ammount of 25-26 and a few 24-25. The fastest time of the day was buy a guy who did a 24.2, There was also a pass by the 2000 Champion of the Star Mazda sires at 23.2 I think. Very fast.

My first Lap was a 26.8, then a 26.5 (slight drizzle that run, but the ground was dry) my 3rd run was a 26.1, then 25.9 and then 25.7, I did another 25.7 then as the cars tires were getting more and more worn I did my last 3 runs at 26, 26.2 and 27 flat (that last 27 was more of a fun run). It was harder to gauge the actual change in times cause almost every run was done with a differnt car, other than my 2 fastest that were in the same car. The cars were all even but some had better/worse tires. Still a blast.

The next was the 'smoothness' test, done in the MX5, you have a bowl full of 3 golf ***** on the hood, that bowl is in another bowl, and then that outter bowl is in a box. The goal is to try and get as close to the laptime (21.8) without spilling any golf *****. 2 secs added for each ball that go into the outside bowl and 15 secs for each that goes in the box. I ran this 3 times, each with out losing any *****, I got a 28.7, 26.5 and 23.4. I thought it was a neat idea.

Last was the 'match time' the goal was to get as close as possible (or match) the lap time of 32 secs. You got to pick the Mazda 3, Mazda 6 or MX5 (the mazda 5 wasnt out there ???) I did the Mazda 3 first, since I havent driven one yet. It was fun, I got a 31.7, so I was .3 off the target. Then I did the MX5 and got a 32.3, again .3 off....very very fun. All the cars could run faster or slower than the target, so it was all about finding a rythym.

All in all the event was a total blast! I got a free pretzel, tshirt, cd and some books. I also had a friend working the event, and he got me some of the partialy used tires of one of the RX8's so Ill have some used autox rubber!

Good Times!

 

Had a great time this weekend at ZoomZoom. I think Mazda did an awesome job with almost everything. THe lines were a little long, but it was awesome that they had tents for all of us to be under. All in all a GREAT experience.
And I scored on all the events.

Here is a link to some pictures:
LINK

 

I wanted to give my thoughts. First of all ARRIVE EARLY!! We got there at 8:15 on sunday I got to park my car in the enthuiast parking (up front by the place where you signed the waivers) I did the autocross event first and got 29.2 seconds for my first time. Then I went to the school of zoom with the 8's that was awesome. After I did my 2 laps there we asked if I could go on a ride with an instructor driving to see how it should be done. They said yes and put me in the car with Linda Probst driving (do a google search she is very very good) all I can say is that was awesome and SHE CAN DRIVE!!!!! Then I went back to the autocross track and got 27.1 seconds on my second try. Then I went to the one with the golfballs and did that a number of times to practice "being smooth" my best time was 23.1 seconds but I lost 1 golfball and was penalized 1 second. Then we went to the "timed test" where you were suppose to get 32 seconds I got a 33.8 Then back one more time to the autocross track where I broke the 26's! I really enjoyed it and I left about 11:45 when it started to get really busy and lines were really long. Oh and that new Miata is a really nice car.