May 20th – Laguna Race

After qualifying 12th, Andrew drove to a good 5th place finish at the 3rd round of the MX-5 Cup series at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

The race went caution free and while we still did not have the car handling great is was consistent and after a great start that showed Andrew moving up to 7th place, he then drove past a couple more competitors befroe settling into 5th at about the halfway mark.

Team MER teamate Jason Saini won for his second win in the 3 races ran so far in the 8 race series.

The weekend was not without drama however as just as the final practice started on Friday, Andrew’s engine expired and we needed to put in a spare overnight.

The car is in great shape and we are looking forward to visiting a track that Andrew has raced on before as we travel to Portland, OR for round 4 in 3 weeks.

Laguna Test Day

Andrews first time at Laguna went pretty well as he learned the track quickly but we did struggle with getting him a car that would turn well.

We tried a number of adjustments that just did not get the car as good as he would like but we do have a plan for some more changes that Team MER thinks will help a lot!

Andrew was 9th in yesterdays practice.

1 Matt Cross 1:43.047
2 Jason Saini 1:44.107
3 Bob Michaelian 1:44.441
4 Pratt Cole 1:44.803
5 Ara Malkhassian 1:45.051
6 Donna Gilio 1:45.052
7 Barry A. Fromberg 1:45.106
8 Jesse Combs 1:45.184
9 Andrew Caddell 1:45.317
10 Todd Buras 1:45.410
11 Patrick Barrett 1: 45.689
12 Kim Ouye 1:45.887
13 John C. Kuitwaard 1:46.108
14 Rick Bellew 1:46.174
15 Steven Bernheim 1:46.194
16 Forest Barber 1:46.456
17 Brad McAllister 1:46.567
18 Bill Sweedler 1:46.790
19 Dr. Carlos Tesler-Mabe 1: 46.930
20 Carlos Garcia 1:46.978
21 Harrison Williams 1:47.153
22 Andrew Carbonell 1:47.211
23 Steve Bottom 1:47.340
24 Laura Olson 1:47.381
25 Randy Hale III 1:47.507
26 Donnie Barnes 1:48.641
27 Chris Sarian 1: 52.733
28 Dale Alexander 1:53.083
29 Tim Probert 0:00.000

Todays practices will have live timing and they will be at 11:40am and 4:30pm pacific time. The live timing will be at:

 http://www.world-challenge.com/events/pitboard/mx5.php?ID=42&group=mx5cup&session=Practice1

and http://www.world-challenge.com/events/pitboard/mx5.php?ID=42&group=mx5cup&session=Practice2 

or at:

http://leaderboard.vfx.com/SCCA/MX5/LiveTiming.asp?width=800 

More later tonight!

May 16th, 2007 – Laguna Seca

We are now in Laguna Seca and the car is ready for tomorrows Promoters test day and already at the track. 

Here is the schedule for the weekend:

Thurs, May 17th – Promoters Test Day – 9am is our first practice

Fri, May 18th – Practice: 11:40am – Noon
                         – Practice: 4:30pm – 5:00pm

Sat, May 19th – Qualifying: 8:00am – 8:20am

Sun, May 20th – Race: 4:00pm – 4:45pm

All times are Pacific time.

We think we have learned more about the car and are more prepared. Andrew has been studying up on shock adjustments and I have added suspension travel sensors and a steering sensor to try to help us get the car to Andrews liking quicker.

I think we will only be able to post on this blog in the evenings but we will try to have images as well.

Time for bed as it will be a early morning!

Roger

May 1st, 2007 – Road Atlanta Review

Sorry for the delay as we did not have any internet in Atlanta.

Andrew had a great time at Road Atlanta last week where he qualified 3rd and raced to a 4th place finish.

The car was pretty good but we did suffer from a general overall lack of grip. Team MER did finish with 3 cars in the top 4 so it was a great team weekend with Jason Saini leading the championship points.

After 2 rounds of racing, Andrew sits 8th in points.

We are all learning a lot about the Mazda MX5 Cup cars and especially the area of the ZF Sachs adjustable shock absorbers. This is an area that we (Andrew!) still need to learn more about so we can get our car fine tuned for the track and Andrews driving style.

The next race is at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in California, another classic road course that we have been looking forward to racing at!

Here is the tentative schedule for the event:

Thurs, May 17th – Promoters Test Day

Fri, May 18th – Practice: 11:40am – Noon
                         – Practice: 4:30pm – 5:00pm

Sat, May 19th – Qualifying: 8:00am – 8:20am

Sun, May 20th – Race: 4:00pm – 4:45pm

All times are Pacific time

Sat, April 21st – Race Day!

Here is what has happened to Andrew today.We were fighting a loose car for the last 2 days and taking small steps to help the car. In qualifying the car was still just too loose and the best we could get was 4th on the grid. For our last 3 or 4 laps we tried a large change for the team and it did not work well so Andrew slowed down just a little bit but it was great to have the knowledge. After qualifying we made a rather large change and it worked well for the race. Great call by Eric Foss! In the race, Andrew was able to drive fairly easily and run behind his teamate Saini and was happy to ride along there when he got wide exiting turn 10 and hit the tires.The hit bent up the door and rear fender pretty good but the worse thing was it disabled the latch and his passenger door would open on every left hand turn. He did tag the exits of a couple of corners with the door to try to get it to close and stay closed but it would not.

Funny thing is he resumed turning good laptimes and reported back that the car was still driving great!

After 4 laps, the officials brought him into the hotpit and the Team MER folks taped the door closed and sent him back out.

About 1/2 lap later the trans broke 3rd gear and we were done.

Great time and met a lot of great people.

We should not have any real trouble getting the car ready for Atlanta but we will have to do more work than I hoped for! Should be able to post some pictures tomorrow or Monday.

Fri, April 20th

Well we made it through our first practice without a scratch! 2 penalties though…

First off we started the session with a 5 minute penalty for our part in giving rides to some of the important folks that worked hard to setup the event here in Houston. We were asked a month or so if we could help out and said yes, but it seems that some felt it could have been a advantage for us and the 6 or 7 other cars that participated.

Then Andrew decided to give some room for a car that had just came out of the pits and was close as they came through the chicane and Andrew skipped part of the chicane and had to serve a drive thru penalty.

Both were not that big of a deal and the “penalties” seemed fair.

Here are a few images of the car I took on my cell phone:

     

Andrew ended up 4th and there were 3 Team MER cars in the top 4!

We will be looking to make a few adjustments for tomorrows qualifying and race and looking to move up a few spots!

Thur, April 19th

We are in Houston and the pits are all setup. We have gone through tech and all is well.

This afternoon we all walked around the street circuit and it is actually very wide in most spots. The chicane after the start line will be very tight and a area to worry about for the first couple of laps.

Tomorrow we finish a few more graphics on the car and some onboard video items so we can have some good video for all our friends!

The car is great and we cannot thank all of our sponsors enough for helping us make all this happen especially Mazda because without their great grassroots program we would not have been able to be here for our first Pro weekend! Great company and a great bunch of folks to work with.

We met many old friends and quite a few new ones today as they have all the MX-5 cars in the same area.

Time for bed and a big day tomorrow! Read yesterdays post for links to live timing and other websites that will keep you informed of what is happening down here.

Wed, April 18th – (3 Days)

Tons of laps with no problems today!

Andrew did probably over 125 laps on the tricky track outside the Team MER race shop and with only 1 small 2 wheels off into the grass it was drama free.

Andrew was very happy with the way the car handled as we spent the bulk of the day working on tire pressures and shock settings. Both are from new suppliers this year.

We are currently cleaning up the car and doing a few small prep items. Graphics are also being applied to the car.

We expect to leave for the short trip to Houston early in the morning to setup our pits and get the cars teched and registered.

Tomorrow is a organizational day with no track time.

Friday we practice later in the evening and qualify and race on Saturday.

Lets start to give you a few links that will make it easier to “watch” the race on the internet.

The MX-5 Cup series website

MX-5 Houston Race Page

Practice Live Timing – Friday, April 20th - 6:15pm Pacific

Qualifying Live Timing - Saturday, April 21st – 2:20pm Pacific

Race Live Timing – Saturday, April 21st – 6:45pm Pacific

More details as we know them!

Tue, April 17th – (4 Days)

** Testing Update **

The latest testing update is there is no testing today! The track opened at 9am and it started raining right at that time.

We certainly have considered some wet weather practice but decided against it as it looks like tomorrow will have decent weather.

So today, we are spending our time tinkering with things we had planned on doing on Thursday at the track and helping finish up a couple of other cars the Team MER folks are working on.

Tomorrow I should be able to get several updates up here on the blog as we fine tune the car and driver!

Thur, April 12th – (9 Days)

The car has been at Team MER for 7 days now and they are almost complete with the build!

Robert says summer has finally arrived and he really likes it in Cresson, Texas… hope we get him back!!

He has been spending lots of time working on not only Andrew’s car but also helping out when he can with other team cars.

They have fully painted the interior and mounted the interior panels, fit and mounted the Racetech seat and seatbelts. The racing steering wheel and quick release hub has been installed. All of the nets have been finished up.

The Aimsports MXL, GPS, and DaVid video systems are installed and ready to go.

Here are 3 images from Roberts cell phone to let you see what the car looks like now.

     

As you can see, Robert, Julieann, Jason, and crew are doing a great job!

In the past week we have had 3 new marketing partners come on board as well!! They are:

SafeRacer
SpecMiata.com
ChaseCam

Saferacer is a great company that supports racers (especially Spec Miata and MX-5 racers!) through great service and prices on not only racing safety gear but many other parts as well.

Andrew first met the owner, Charlie James at the SCCA Runoffs last year and thought he was a great guy and we had always heard great things about the company and their service. We are honored to work together with Saferacer in 2007!

SpecMiata.com is a fantastic site that no Spec Miata racer should do without. We have learned so much visiting this site that we are pleased to help promote the site.

ChaseCam is a perfect fit for our Victory Lane Data car. They are quickly becoming everybodies choice for digital recorders for racing video.  They are a great standalone solution for your onboard video or a perfect compliment to the AimSports DaVid video system that we are running.

Things are getting close to the first race, Andrew will be flying down to Texas on Monday to put in 2 full days of testing to get him and the car ready for Houston and the opening event.