Larry Cahall got his Regional and then National SCCA Club Racing licenses last year and competed in the Mid-Atlantic Road Racing Series (MARRS) with Ted.  Ted has been racing competitively (or not so competitively depending on who you ask) for two years now and raced in the SCCA Club Racing National Championships last September.  Ted also finished 10th in net points and 8th in raw points for the MARRS series last year.

If shear lack of fear and injury make a great racer, Bob will be beating Ted fairly soon.  Since skill matters, it may take a few races.  This is why Ted will not lend Bob one of his cars. Lack of fear plus lack of skill often equals bent metal.  Judging from his childhood, Bob can take a good hit though and still keep ticking.

More to come as Bob completes racing school and the Cahall Brothers Racing team joins the field in April for MARRS 1.  My parents are likely rolling in their graves (very near the Nelson Ledges track in Ohio btw).  At least we are getting along and working as a team now.

Ted Cahall

By the time I was really ready to begin racing with the SCCA in early 2009, I had moved to “the other” Washington – DC – and still had not modified my Z06 to meet the SCCA Club Racing requirements.  Therefore, I needed to rent a car for the drivers school required to get my license.  It was a reasonable idea, I thought, since I was not sure just how terrible I really would be at this “sport”.  Also the thought of destroying a perfectly good Z06 Corvette by welding a roll cage to the frame, etc. seemed wasteful if my adventure ended up being short lived.

In checking with some really nice folks at the SCCA office, I determined that I basically had two choices to rent for driver’s school: a Mazda Miata or a Ford Pinto. The Pinto had the bigger engine – but those rear-end fire death lawsuits of the 70’s and 80’s brought back a few grim memories.  Plus, whoever thought a Pinto was a race car?  At least the Miata was the Japanese version of the MG or the Triumph or something…

I knew some future teasing was coming when even the Miata drivers referred to their cars as “a woman’s commuter car”.  Actually, the term was a little more colorful, but I try to keep this blog as PC as possible…  Oh, and BTW, almost every guy I race with wishes more women would join the sport.  Just men being men to say something “cute” with low HP belongs to a woman…  But I digress…

I rented three different Spec Miatas from Meathead Racing over the next few weeks.  I finished driver school and some non-competition driving events and decided to buy a Miata from them.  It was fairly cheap ($8k-$15k for a fairly good setup) and it meant I did not need to commit my Z06 to the welding machine just yet.

Well it has been two years of racing Miatas now and I am totally committed to them and the sport.  There is a very simple reason: GREAT competition.  In Summit Point, WV where I race, there are about 80 Miatas split into two major groups of 40 each race weekend.  That is a lot of cars on the track – and a lot of wheel-to-wheel competition.  When I raced in the SCCA National Championship for Spec Miatas this past September, there were 63 cars in the race!  That was really intense competition.

To put it into better perspective, if I had converted my Z06 Corvette into a T-1 race car, most weekends I would have been one of only 2-3 cars in my class.  Not a lot of competition.  Sure I would get a trophy each weekend – but would it really mean anything?  Would I really be learning and getting better?  There were only 16 T-1 cars at the National Championships – and only 9 finished the race.  A pittance!

Looking at the bigger picture, for the SCCA, the Spec Miata (SM) class is the largest class with the most participants in 7 out of 9 regions for National races and 8 out of 9 regions for Regional races.  Only the “Spec Racer Ford” (SRF) group even comes close to the participation of the Miatas, and those are purpose built cars that are really closer to go-carts than real cars (just my opinion). For SCCA Regional races, 3043 Spec Miatas raced in 2010 while in the second largest class, SRF, only 2006 cars entered the same amount of races.

The Spec Miata is one of the least expensive automobiles available for organized racing.  Mazda still manufactures most of the engines and parts – for cars that are over 10 years old. There are more Miatas racing every weekend in the United States than any other type of car – period.

So if you want some good, cheap, high-intensity fun, rent a Spec Miata and head out to the track for a high speed driving instruction lesson.  You will be in some great company – and you may even decide to race them competitively.  You can see some photos of many of the Meathead Racing drivers in the last regional race of the year as well as the SCCA National Championships on Facebook thanks to Karen Dildei’s expert photography!

Ted Cahall

The truth as shown in the videos below (unlike some fishing stories) is that I was in 3rd Place with a half lap to go when I blew a shift and the #72 Blue Miata slid past me.  I was a half lap short of a dual trophy day.

The race was actually even more exciting than that (at least for me).  I started out in 5th place and by turn 4 of the fist lap I had dropped down all the way to 9th (last) place.  The race starts have the highest incidence of crashes and I see from my videos that I have a tendency to let the cars sort themselves out a bit (definitely a bit too much).

I have included the whole race as posted in three segments on YouTube.  You can see by watching the first minute of part 1 how I drop off to last place when the red #14 car passes me.

Over the course of the 18 lap race, I pass all of the SM Miatas except those in 2nd and 1st place.  I race in 3rd place ahead of the blue Miata for several laps after passing him.  It is on lap 18 that the #72 blue Miata passes me back to take 3rd place back. This part can be seen towards the end of part 3 posted below.

Note, there are other race classes mixed in with my Spec Miata SM class.  You can see the little yellow formula cars as well as an occasional Volvo!  These are not in my class but still were in my way from time to time.

Part 1 – The Start of the race – where I immediately fall behind to 9th place.

Part 2 – Where I continue to chase down the Blue #72 Miata.

Part 3 – Where I finally catch Blue #72 Miata and move into 3rd place until missing a shift on the last lap.

Ted Cahall

Here is a photo of the trophy.
Ted Cahall

Ted Cahall

You can see the red #14 car sneak up my right side in turn 5 as we stack up into a line of cars.  He stays inside me for turn 6.  Instead of falling in behind him, I keep my line off his left bumper – and run out of track.  This is the old, “watch the track – and not the guy in front of you” lesson.

Ted Cahall

The video is a short, 10 second, clip of two cars spinning out in front of me in turn 10.  I added it again here to avoid chasing the link.

Ted Cahall

I really learned a lot and set new personal best lap records almost every week.  I started the year with my best lap in the MARRS 1 qualifier being a 1:37.908 and 8 of the 10 laps being slower than 1:40.  I finished this year in the MARRS 11 final race with a 1:31.826.  Six seconds faster in a single lap is a great improvement.  More telling was the consistency of the laps in each race with many of them clustering in the 1:32 range at the end of the year.

I met a lot of really great people as well.  I could not have even come close to making this happen with my busy schedule if it were not for Mike Collins and his fantastic program at Meathead Racing.  A huge shout out to Wendy, Sherise, Glen, and Jimmy who helped me though a huge learning curve.

The other racers were also fantastic (aside from some early “rookie bumps” out on the track to initiate me to Spec Miatas).  Some of these people are very accomplished racers that turn laps in the 1:27 range.  Yet they will still spend time and talk with the slow pokes like me to help me learn and grow with this sport.  Many of the Meathead Racing teammates also took time to help me get buckled in and ready out on the grid as well.  Such an outstanding group of people to spend a weekend with!  If you have ever considered learning how to race in wheel-to-wheel competition, I would highly recommend contacting Mike Collins at Meathead Racing.  Even for a busy person such as myself, they make the words, “arrive and drive” a reality.

Ted Cahall

I saw that the blog was down this morning, figured out what was wrong,  and edited the wp-config file to point to the new database.  Things are seemingly back to normal.  It could have been MUCH worse.  I have seen total disasters in migrations such as these (none under my management of course). 

Now I need to jump in my car and high-tail it to Summit Point, WV for my last SCCA Club Race of the season.  I am shooting for a new personal best lap record after setting one in the qualifying race yesterday.

We were allowed to pass in one specific zone if we were given the flag indicating it was OK.  I am happy to say I passed a lot of people – but no one ever passed me.  That is the way it is supposed to be (aside from real racers at SCCA Club Racing – where getting passed was a reality for me this year).

You can click on the photo below to see a couple of more images on Webshots.

Ted Cahall