I arrived home safe and sound from Daytona last night and boy are my arms tired! I am exhausted, but it was all worth it. Friday and Saturday were just great. Sunday was very wet and provided some scary moments as I got caught on the banking as a torrential monsoon hit the track, causing me to lose visability out of my windshield and fighting to keep the car from sliding off the banking trying to get back to pit road. In the end, I got soaked, but got back to the garages in one piece. The following video is from Saturday afternoon. Enjoy!

The first day on the track is over and all of the MINIs finished the day without incident. We had four full sessions on the track today and boy was it a blast to be running around the high banks of Daytona again. We were on the track with various cars ranging from Ford GT’s to Ferrari 430’s. Silly me forgot to bring my flash card reader so I can’t post any photos from my camera until I get home. For now, all I have is this photo from the drivers’ meeting where we were told the rules of the weekend.

Tomorrow we will be on the track at 10:50am, 2:20pm and 4:35pm so if you are in the area, stop by and say hi!

Today I arrived at Daytona International Speedway for driver registration and garage check-in. The Nitto NT-01’s are now on the car and all the prep work has been completed (harness, brake pad swap, camera mount, etc, etc). The weather here in Daytona is just amazing. Temperatures are in the 60’s and the skies are clear. I hope it stays like this the rest of the weekend. If you are in the Daytona area, come on out and say hi. The MINIs will be in the blue garages in stall #60. Hope to see you there!!

If you recall, last year I was able to make a dream come true by taking part in the first ever High Performance Drivers Experience at Daytona International Speedway. Well, this weekend, I will have the privilege to once again tackle the 30 degree banking @ 140mph at the Mecca of Motorsports with a few others of my track junkie brethren. I leave Thursday to get to the track for registration and get settled into my garage stall (yes we actually get assigned garage stalls this year in the NASCAR Sprint Cup garages). It should be an absolute blast. Until I get video up from this year’s event, here is my video from last year to check out:

One thing that can ruin a track weekend is a broken belt, resulting in your tensioner slamming down on your crank pulley, etc. For this very reason, I have been testing out various tensioner stops that will keep the tensioner from slamming down if the belt were to break. I am currently running the Detroit Tuned tensioner stop, but not sure how long it will stay on due to reports from the MINIs in the Grand Am series having the stop snap upon belt failure (not a good thing). ALTA’s latest tensioner stop looks to be a promising solution (see video below).

My concern with these devices is how bad they rattle or vibrate at wide open throttle. I have had a stop make so much noise in the past that I just had to take it off due to the harmonic resonance. I will see if we can get a unit from ALTA to test with and report back.

[ ALTA Tensioner Stop ]

First off, let me say I had a blast at the recent Audi Driving Experience at Homestead-Miami Speedway. MINI USA could learn a thing or two from Audi with regards to putting on a FREE consumer test drive at the track. I’m not talking about setting up free parade laps and sticking 300 MINIs on the track at one time for a photo-op. Yes the AutoX course at MTTS was fun, but nothing compared to 30 minutes on an actual road course at speeds over 100mph.

Now, before you watch the video, I have to admit, I drove the Audi a bit “hard” . I took some turns at speed where I probably shouldn’t have, since the car in front of me was repeatedly braking in the middle of a turn, causing me to step out (sometimes off course) to avoid slamming into him. But hey - the reality is, it wasn’t my car and I wanted to see what the baby could do. Enough said?

I was very impressed with the Audi cars I drove. I started the day driving the 2009 Audi A4 on the speedway. The car handled very nice. Horsepower was “ok”, but I think my MINI had better throttle response and felt like it had more torque.
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I’ve always wondered what it would be like to take my wife on a few hot laps at a track event. After watching this video, it could prove entertaining… Here, ex-F1 driver Riccardo Patrese takes his wife round Jerez circuit in a Honda Civic Type-R. Check out her reaction around the 2 minute mark .

First off, let me apologize for the delay in posting this up. From the moment I got back from Sebring, I have been swamped. The weekend was an absolute blast. We had quite a few MINIs attend this event. Seven of them were running in the Solo / Instructor run group, which made for a fun time. In this video you will see 2 of them. Scooter handled very nice all weekend (even during a short slide through the grass at the end of the video).

I was able to heat cycle my new Nitto NT01’s in preparation for Daytona at the end of October. They definitely changed how the gearing felt due to the taller tire. It will be very interesting to get them out on the Daytona banking where I’ll be able to stretch them out a bit. Hope you enjoy the video and stay off the grass!!!

It looks as though this weekend now has some good potential for great track time at Sebring International Raceway, thanks to Hurricane Hanna’s latest shift eastward. Team Minspeed will be on the track all weekend long and if you are in the area, we invite you to stop by and say hi. There are a total of 8 MINIs registered and a few of them are even set to compete in the enduro races that will take place this weekend.

As I mentioned in my last post, I went ahead and picked up a set of 17″ Wed Sport TC005’s and Nitto NT01 rubber. The wheels are 14 pounds each! I decided to go with the 215/45ZR17 size to go slightly wider and taller than my current Toyo RA1’s. Another factor was that the Nitto NT01’s do not need to be shaved and cost about $40 less per tire. They come at 6/32 tread depth which is slightly more tread than my RA1s are shaved to. This leaves a shade bit more tread, but given the larger tread blocks, I have read that if the tires are properly heat cycled, they will outlast the Toyo RA1s hands down.

Since these are brand new, my plan is to put the Nitto’s on for the first session Saturday morning to heat cycle them and then let them sit for 24 hours to prepare them for Daytona next month. After the first session on Saturday, I plan on swapping my Toyo RA1s back on and running them for the rest of the Sebring weekend. They should have plenty of tread left for the weekend and still be a good back-up set of tires to take to Daytona in case any issues crop up with the Nitto’s. I will have more feedback after this weekend, including some video. With 4 MINIs running in the Solo group, the footage should be very entertaining!

For the most part, living in Florida is great! It means we have year-round track weekends. A benefit that I take full advantage of. However, I think I may re-think my future summer track plans. Last year, Homestead in August was just insanely hot. Sebring last October was a wash-out.

Here I sit watching the weather and see 2, possibly 3 storms with hurricane potential circling around the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, possibly threatening my next track weekend in Sebring on the 6th and 7th of September {sigh}.

I just had my pre-track preparations completed on my MINI today. Oil service was completed, Hawk HT-10’s were installed, ATE Super Blue put in, a Texas Speedwerks engine damper added, and Nitto NT-01’s mounted to my new 17″ Wedsport wheels. Now to watch the weather reports almost makes me sick to my stomach. Oh well, what can you do.

Team Minspeed will be invading Daytona International Speedway again October 31 - November 2 this year, so if Sebring is a wash-out, at least we can hope for sun in Daytona. But seriously, I am praying for sun in Sebring too! I’ll keep you posted!