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More speed, more problems: NASA-SE Sinko De Mayo at Carolina Motorsports Park, May 4-5, 2019

/ Ann Morey
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Here I am, keeping up with the pack, oblivious to my transmission’s plans to self destruct.  
Photo credit: Bill Land

First, the good news: I’m actually faster! I was able to repeat my performance from Roebling the prior month and beat my personal best time by 2.2 seconds at CMP, too! It wasn’t just a fluke.

Getting faster solves so many problems. It makes it easier to manage traffic. It makes racing more fun. It’s kind of the whole point of racing. But getting faster also brings up new problems. It’s harder on equipment. There’s less margin before I hit the limits of the tires. I have to figure out how to get around slower drivers in faster cars.

This event was all about learning what new problems I need to solve. We had 17 Spec Miatas at this event, and both Saturday and Sunday I could have been 12th if it weren’t for these new problems. On Saturday, I clearly had the pace over the car in 12th place, but I made a mistake going around a backmarker BMW E30 and was never able to make up the time I lost. Then, on the second to the second to last  lap of the race, my tires decided they would no longer carry me through the kink at wide open throttle, and I spun off the track, losing another position. On Sunday, I had a better race and was running in 12th place when my transmission blew up. I have the pace to run with the mid-pack, but now I have new problems to solve to get the results I’m after.

That said, I firmly believe that you’re always going to have problems, and the best you can do is choose which problems you want to have. Right now I’m deeply grateful to have the problems of a faster driver!

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Broken curses and breakthroughs: NASA-SE Spring Brake at Roebling Road, April 5-7, 2019

/ Ann Morey
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You can’t slip on Porsche 944 oil when the 944s are behind you!

Exactly a year ago, I started writing an article titled, “How to trust your learning process when it seems different from everyone else’s.” It was a post about trusting the process when the process doesn’t seem to be working. (By “the process” I mean the process of slowly working away at something over time and eventually seeing results.) I never finished it because I didn’t have any proof that the process did work. Lots of things happened in the year since I started that piece, but one thing that didn’t happen was getting faster at Roebling. No matter what I did, my lap times were stuck in the 1:31s, which was perpetually about eight seconds slower than the front of the pack.

Until this event, where I ran a 1:28.7, which was 2.3 seconds faster than I’d ever gone before. In racing, that’s an eternity. The curse of Robleing was broken, and somehow I unlocked a year’s worth of progress in a day. Aside from that progress, it was just a good weekend. The weather was finally warmer, and I spent less time huddled by the heater in the trailer and more time outside laughing with friends. I finally had the kind of weekend I imagined I’d have when I first decided to become a race car driver.  Continue reading →