I had a great time today at Laguna Seca. It is truly a special track and I can see why it is so revered by so many people. It is definitely my favorite that I have been to so far. While it cost 3x as much as last weekend at Buttonwillow (5x as much per seat time really) it was totally worth it just for the experience.
The car did have an issue but I think I have narrowed it down to a bad fuel filter or something like that. Second session under a half tank, the Andretti turn (turn 2) going from 90 in the braking zone down to second gear and powering out, I got some hesitation. After some insight from other Miata guys at the track, I added more gas and the problem went away 100%. So I just need to sort out why my Miata needs a half tank or more to function properly on track. Fun fun sorting out problems on cars with 245k miles! It didn’t hamper the day at all though, it just worried me for a bit during the lunch break.
Anyways, my fastest lap of 2:03. I was looking at the recorded data and found it neat how it was segmented into sections and predicted my theoretical fastest time based on the fastest time in all sections from all laps.
I have no idea why it’s giving me a 0-50 in 12 seconds but that statistics thing never seems to work right. But anyways 2:02.6 is the fastest theoretical time which is neat, that means I had another half second without changing anything.
I started the day with a best time of 2:08 in the first session so I grew quite a bit by the end of it. The corkscrew still tripped me up constantly but it was fun the few times I really felt like I got it right. I know in Grand turismo I rarely stay on the pavement there so it was nice to take it easy. I could have taken a few turns way more aggressively considering my tires but I care more about not hitting walls than I do about lap times!
And now the car is tucked away nicely in our airbnb in San Jose. I'm able to leave the tires and all of my tools here tomorrow for the trip to Napa for the day. Should be some great weather to enjoy the top down life with the car now in "Street mode".