Mazda2 on $100 a week

From a fellow Mazda 2 owner and somewhat local to you, very cool thread. I'd like to get involved in some of these events pretty soon.

There's a rallycross in NOLA on the 28th. You should come out and ride along at least.

mazdeuce wrote: There's a rallycross in NOLA on the 28th. You should come out and ride along at least.

I might try to do that. It's the 28th? The Delta SCCA site shows the 14th and I'll be out of town that day.

Sent you a message Daniel.

A while ago I put ARP studs on the front of the car. Changing wheels is nicer with good round nosed studs. I dropped the $54 and ordered studs for the rear as well. This is the part number that works for anyone that is interested.
Here is the new stud next to an old one.
This is the downside of the operation. I had to pull the shoes and unbolt the hub to make it work. Not a huge deal, but I HATE having to take apart and reassemble drum brakes. I've done it once now so it should be faster in the future. I still hate it. I got done and the wheels went on oh so nice and the brakes still work and I'm happy as a clam.

I'll also be at the RallyCross National Championship in Stock FWD, look forward to seeing you there!

I also agree wholeheartedly with your hatred of drum brakes, they're the bane of my existence!

What are you driving? I'm driving the 2 and a friend should be in a brand new Fiesta ST (assuming it's delivered on the 23rd like ford says it will be) both in stock F. I know several people that will be there in the AWD classes, one in mod front and one in prepared rear maybe? Should be a good time.

I have the 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R - The Mazda2 you're driving is perfect as a National Competitor car and I'm really excited to see how that ST handles at a RallyCross! It'll be my first time at the National Championship as well, really looking forward to it!

Is that the SE-R with the viscous LSD? I keep thinking that if car might be really good. It should be a fun time.

mazdeuce wrote: Is that the SE-R with the viscous LSD? I keep thinking that if car might be really good. It should be a fun time.

It is! I've loved the car - The really cool thing is that both my car and your Mazda2 have serious potential - a SE-R won in 2011 and a Mazda2 last year!

My wife had a business trip the later part of this week so I decided to do something that I haven't done in years, work on a car at night. I figured I could spend an hour a night and get the car ready for rallycross nationals. The rules say that I need to put back on my stock bumpstops and motor mount and take out the camber bolts and then realign the car. This is the pile of parts. It's 10:00 on Wednesday night and I've been poking around and have pulled the rear shocks and the struts off the car. I feel like it's a good nights work when my wife calls. Her connecting flight out of chicago was cancelled. They can't get her on a matching flight until Friday afternoon. That means that she'd miss ALL of the meetings she was supposed to go to. She decided to pack in in and come home on the morning flight. I feel bad for her because that means that she has to sleep on an airport bench for the night. However, it also means that I get to attend the rallycross that I was going to miss on Saturday. And my car is currently on jackstands with no suspension!
AHHHH!
Later night in the garage than I expected and I got the car mostly together but I neglected to take puctures. The next morning I did decide to be super baller with my alignments and bought a matched pair of tape measures for $2.77 each.
Set the toe to just over 1/16 in and took if for a test drive. It's great. Initial bite might actually be a bit better than my old settings but there is a clear lack of ultimate grip when the car is all tipped over. Stupid struts.
Rallycross in Texas this Saturday and autocross on Sunday. Next weekend in a rallycross in Louisiana and then an autocross in the 911 on Sunday. The weekend after that is the three day rallycross nationals in Tulsa. Three rallycrosses in three states in three weekends. I'm stoked.

I need to catch up with the shenanigans that have been going on with the two. Last weekend I headed out to Maxwell Texas for another Texas Rally Sport rallycross. It had been raining a lot and on Friday afternoon it wasn't clear whether we were going to have an event or not. We got the go ahead late on Friday and were told the event would start late to give things a chance to dry. Somehow this scared people away and we only had 26 drivers.
The first 10 cars got hosed as they were the ones that really packed down the line. It went from a gooey mess to hard packed clay pretty quickly. Unfortunately I was second car out and lost about 6 seconds by going so early. I never really recovered. At least that's my story. A nice sticky line formed and rewarded tidy driving. After 10 runs for everyone we were done and I'd claimed third out of 9 in S2. Not my best, but not terrible.
After things wrapped up, we had a pow wow and decided that we had enough time to run another mini-event for those that wanted to stay. Loud cheers all around and a quick course reset and we ran another 5 laps. My main competition had gone home to spend time with his wife who he hadn't hardly seen in a week and I was left to battle it out with a Civic Si with twice the power and a factory LSD. I pulled out the win, but he was a faster driver, and I won because of cones. A long day.
So what did I do the next day? Autocross with the BMWCCA. I drove, it was fun. More seat time is always good.

I have finally read this thread. Next time i visit you i have to (plz?) drive that car. 3rd time's the charm?

Great thread, i'll be watching it.

You'd have more fun coming out to a rallycross and co-driving it. It's quite fun on the dirt. It's rather underwhelming on the street. One of these times though, yes, take it for a spin.

Ok, just about caught up. Friday night my son and I headed the 400 miles to New Orleans for another rallycross. The drive was pretty insane but we had a very good time and I had a chance to get in some runs on a surface that's closer to what we'll be running at nationals in Tulsa than what I usually run on here in Texas.
Saturday morning we woke up at the hotel and after a quick breakfast headed over to the track to change tires. It's good to have help.

Amazingly, one of the fastest cars in the region is the Mazda GLC that's parked behind my car. It doesn't have much power, but he's on rally tires and has a total weight of something like 1700 lbs. I did not beat him.

I did ok though. At the break I was second in SF and sixth overall. At the end of the day I finished first in SF and third overall out of 20 or so drivers. Drive quick and clean and don't knock stuff over. The course had a bit of a Safari Rally vibe going on from a certain angle.

The best part of the weekend was hanging out with my son. This is the first time he's ever been in a car properly driven in anger and he was amazed. By the end he was offering up pointers in how I could clean up certain corners to gain time. He's an amazingly competitive kid and he's excited to be able to drive in a couple of years. If you look carefully, you can just see his helmet poking up in the passenger seat. It was a good weekend.

Awesome! That last pic needs to be a poster in your son's room.

This will be my last post in this thread.
The Mazda2 is no longer with me. It is sitting at a Copart in Tulsa. I don't wish to go into the details, but I'm pretty bummed about it. The 2 was a great car for me. It got me back into autocross, and hauled the kids around, which were the two reasons I bought it. It also introduced me to rallycross and all of the wonderful people that I have met along the way. I wouldn't change a thing even if I could. I did a quick back of the envelope calculation and including depreciation, parts cost, and autocross/rallycross expenses, the car cost me almost exactly $100 a week during it's ownership. All in all, the project was a smashing success.
Having said all of that, I probably won't be getting another 2. I'm in a slightly different place than I was almost two years ago when I made the decision to buy the car, and I'm not sure it's the perfect car in the same way that it was then. When I get something new, I'm sure I'll start another build thread and explain my reasoning.
Thanks for following along on my adventure. If you have any other questions about this car, I'll answer them in the general Mazda2 thread in the main forum or over PM.
It's been a fun ride.

Mazdeuce.

as long as you and the kids were fine, everything else is just stuff.

hate to see the thread end on such a down note.

Time for a new thread: "Rallycross C5 Corvette on $100 a week."

I enjoyed your writing - I hope it all works out well for you.

Sorry to hear things went sour somehow...

Sorry to hear it's dead.

Bummer. This thread was inspiring for my own upcoming econobox racer. Thanks for the ride!

Bryce

Sorry to hear the news, you did a great job of documenting your adventures with the 2. Can't wait for your next thread...

What?! What happened?!