FSP 1st Gen Protege Project

[Chad]

not sure if i missed it just saw this thread .. do you have any installed pics of the 6ul's i love those wheels and almost purchased for my miata.. and again for my 323..

[XelderX]

Sorry for the long overdue update. I was doing a lot of work for a Chumpcar race and then went to Lincoln for the Solo Championships. Solo Nationals turned out to be another exciting trip.

We ran Tue/Wed, 2nd heat which was fine by me. With two drivers in the car the cooler morning temps meant less work to keep the front tires cool. We ran the West course first.



This course wasn't too difficult, and it allowed for some very close competition in FSP. As usual the Williams Civic and BMW 2002 checked out by over a second on everyone else, but 3rd place back to 9th was closer than I had ever seen it. I was only .001 behind 4th place and the gaps all the way back to 9th were less than a hundredth of a second in most cases. The difference between being well in the trophies and not getting anything was less than the blink of an eye...literally. It was good to see some new faces with new cars in the class. A well prepped Neon was sitting in third after day 1 which was a little disconcerting to me. The car used to be local to me and was never on pace with my times, but the new owners had it sorted out and were doing really well.

I was able to put in three solid, clean runs that left me in 5th place...the last trophy position. I was OK with that as it was very similar to where I was at two years ago and my mind was in the right place. Nationals is such a head game.

Up to that point I hadn't even looked at the Day 2 course. We took a few walks in the evening after Day 1 and man....long course.



I loved this course. Some of it looked a lot like elements we see locally and that made it much easier to process. There was a lot of debate on proper lines in several of the corners and mistakes were easy to make. My first run was OK, but I got a late entry to the slalom and it cost me almost 1/2 a second on the exit. The car understeered at the entry to the Kamikaze costing me more time. My second run I took too shallow of an entry to the slalom and it once again killed me at the exit. I also couldn't find the right braking point to the decreasing radius "Fast Eddie's Fun Center". At this point I was sitting back in 7th or so and out of the trophies. We were able to study the data in between runs so it was easy to see where I was losing time. My 3rd run was going to be an attempt to clean up those little mistakes and the time should be there. The only place I felt a slight bobble was once again in the decreasing radius, but I had carried a lot more entry speed so overall it was a better attempt. I crossed the finish knowing that that was about as good a run as I have ever done and I was rewarded by going over a second faster than my previous runs and the 3rd fastest time in the class on that course. That put me back into 4th, but a late cone call on the 3rd place car moved me up to another podium finish. Even though I finished 2 seconds back from the top two cars that is much closer than I've ever been and got me thinking about what it would take to claw even more of that back next year.

I'm hoping my codriver gets the video uploaded soon and I'll add it in to this post under the respective courses.

On to the Ladies class. Holy hell...I was more nervous about this than I was my own runs. Nikki has always been a great driver, but had a steep learning curve when it comes to processing course walks. When it comes to only getting three tries at each course this skill is extremely important. If your first run isn't within 8/10ths of where you need to be it is nearly impossible to find the time in 3 tries. We worked on that more this year and it started to pay off.

Nikki got to run in the afternoon which meant she could compare her runs to the data we already had from the morning. She put in a decent first run on the West course but was over 2 seconds slower than her competition in the BMW 2002. She knew where to make up time based off the data we had gained and took 2.5 seconds off on her 2nd run and .053 ahead. This is where the drama started and it didn't end until 24 hours later. Nikki hit the last cone in the slalom. I saw her turn in early...I heard the car hit the cone and I immediately turned away and started walking back toward the grid spot. The time was good, but we assumed dirty. We all got Nikki ready to make her third run and told her we had to have a clean run. She couldn't sit on her 1st run. I told her it didn't matter if you slow down 1/2 a second as long as it's clean. We can fight for it tomorrow with a 1/2 second deficit. We couldn't claw back 2 second gap on a faster car. Nikki did what she had to do and went 6/10ths slower, but clean.

At this point, my codriver and I had to go work leaving Nikki in impound with the car and my family to help her load it up when she was released. Working course I noticed that FSPL was being held in impound a long time, but I couldn't tell if it was an issue of if they were just chatting since no other cars needed to pull in there. Once my work assignment was over I got the news. Nikki's 2nd run was not scored dirty. She was leading, by .053, and some people were not happy. Nikki had told the Steward that she hit the cone, but couldn't confirm that it fell over. The corner audit sheet showed the run clean and that is usually what they go off of. The parties in the BMW were pretty upset by this and rightfully so...even I thought the run was dirty, but I never saw the cone go down. From my vantage point I was looking almost straight down the slalom and each cone had a pointer so it was difficult to distinguish from a distance if she knocked one down as it didn't kick it far enough out of place to be visible outside all the other cones. Some of the BMW crew said they saw it go down, but the Stewards couldn't go off the testimony of "spectators" without more evidence. Let me just go ahead and say that my car has hit cones with the front tires before and not knocked them out of the box. My codriver and I did it to the same cone on back to back runs a year or two ago. It's not impossible. They were going to research it more and talk to the corner workers at that station so the matter wasn't fully resolved when we left the site that evening. Both Nikki and the BMW driver had to sleep that night not knowing who was leading.

Day 2...The steward comes by and said that they couldn't find any evidence not to trust the audit sheet and Nikki was in first place. now we just have to concentrate on the much longer and harder East course. Judging by our times in the morning I felt Nikki needed to be in the 72 second range on her first run to stay in the lead and she came in with a 76 second run. The BMW did a 72.9. Something was very wrong. I was concerned she had fallen back into her old habits of going too slow on the first run because she couldn't remember the course. Going this slow meant the data wasn't much help as there was time to be picked up everywhere. It also meant that she had no idea what the course looked like at "actual" speed. I had little hope she would be able to pick up enough speed everywhere on her 2nd run and not over shoot something or cone due to the added velocity. Run #2 went worse. She DNFed bad turning too early for the decreasing radius sweeper and basically missed a whole set of transitions. Panic mode set in. Luckily the BMW went slower. Nikki went from the lead at the beginning of the day to 4 seconds back at the end of 2nd runs. She got out of the car and we immediately went to studying the map and watching our earlier in-car video. Nikki was visibly upset, but holding it together...barely. She seemed to understand where she had lost the course, but how do you coach someone to immediately go at least 4 seconds faster on a course where they got lost the run before....and the National Championship is on the line? I have never been so nervous. Nikki went to the starting line and we all walked from the grid to the bleachers to watch. She was visibly faster everywhere and she made it through the spot where she got lost without losing too much momentum. She crossed the finish line and the timer showed a 72.4. Almost 4.5 seconds faster than her only timed run. and once again leading by .5 seconds. She pulled the car back into grid crying and sat there for a long time as the BMW still had to make it's final run. She was able to compose herself and get out of the car to watch the BMW make it's final run. It came in with a 72.566 and Nikki was officially the National Champion by .207 seconds. She started crying again and I think most of the people sitting in the bleachers around her shared in that moment a little. I know I did. That was about as far away as you could be after 2 runs and still find a way to pull it together. Nationals is a head game and Nikki didn't let the drama of the first day's results, nor the hole she put herself in on day 2 affect the outcome.

I couldn't be more proud of what we've been able to achieve with this little car...and we are nowhere near finished with it.

[FE3-323]

wish i could have witnessed this event series. sure sounds fun

[ot81to]

Doh! I didn't even realize Nikki won FSPL or I would have said something at the banquet. Tell her congrats!

Either CSP PAX is soft or FSP PAX is hard, because the Final Pax results has you at 263 out of 1115 and me at 230. I'm certain you drove much better than I did. PAX can't be trusted.

Hopefully next year there will be like 10 Justin's driving FSP Mazdas.

[XelderX]

Either CSP PAX is soft or FSP PAX is hard, because the Final Pax results has you at 263 out of 1115 and me at 230. I'm certain you drove much better than I did. PAX can't be trusted.

Hopefully next year there will be like 10 Justin's driving FSP Mazdas.

I think the courses picked up at least a second on Thur/Fri. There wasn't much rubber laid down when we ran. That surface will pick up a bunch of grip once the prepared cars start laying down some of their slick tires.

[ot81to]

Have you started your 323 search yet? Looks like the proposal is just about a done deal! Now I just have to decide how far I'm willing to travel for a clean, rust-free chassis. (Certainly won't fine one in Minnesota.)

[XelderX]

Have you started your 323 search yet? Looks like the proposal is just about a done deal! Now I just have to decide how far I'm willing to travel for a clean, rust-free chassis. (Certainly won't fine one in Minnesota.)

If I read it right the changes don't take effect until 2014. So yes...I've started my search, but I'm not in a big hurry.

[crazycanadian]

Uh oh... what changes are these???

[XelderX]

Uh oh... what changes are these???

The new Fasttrack is out (updated rules). They are going to put the '90-94 323, Protege, and MX3 on the same line for FSP. That will allow the BP motor as found in the Protege LX to be swapped in the 323 or MX3. Up until this change if you had a BP swapped 323 or MX-3 you got bumped to Street Modified. It opens up the ability for me to take my whole setup and swap it into a 323 hatchback and save some weight/wheelbase. The only drawback is it doesn't take effect until 2014 so there is still one more year of racing a 4 door in my future.

[XelderX]

Here are the videos....I would suggest watching them from the Youtube page so you can change the quality. They are recorded in 720p.

Day1 3rd run

[XelderX]

Day 2 3rd run

[XelderX]

Well guys and girls. Here is a new update and its a big one. Reading the fine print is not my forte. Somewhere in the fine print the 323 chassis was put on the same line as the Protege for this year, not 2014. I picked up a '91 323 from Louisville, KY a few months ago. I am currently in the middle of a complete chassis swap. I've got 90% of the front half of the car swapped to the 323 chassis and will hopefully have the rear half swapped in the next day or two.



The first event for the new car won't be until the middle of May. I've got to work out a new rear spoiler since I don't have a decklid to mount to anymore. The new spoiler will be on the roof.

[crazycanadian]

Great to see you are still working on this car... I how much weight do you think you will save??

[XelderX]

According to factory specs the 323 is 123lbs lighter, but I'm not sure how accurate that is. We'll get it on the scales as soon as we are done.

[MazdaNoob]

Day 2 3rd run

wow you can really see the results of all the weight removal you've done .. car is quick