Aaron Jongbloedt's site dedicated to promoting of amateur motorsports (particularly in the Midwest), high performance drivers' education, the prevention of street racing, and general automotive enthusiasm.
Darn it Shane Lee! 
1st in class, 3rd overall. We ran a clean race, and everything ran like clock work. I went out first, had a great start, and put distance on many competitors. I went into fuel conservation mode for much of the race; shifting at 6500rpms, and short shifted into 4th gear between turn 6 and 7 and kept it there all the way until turn 12. This allowed my stint to get us to the two hour mark, which put on the 3 pit stop strategy. I had a great battle w/ Craig Silver from Silver Martini, in their NB Miata, which should have more power. I lead him for dozen laps, he eventually got past me, and I chased him hard for another 10 laps, then got around him eventually, and we both ended up going in for fuel. We did have the rare occurrence where the entire race was red-flagged due to lightning in the area. We finished 1st in class and14 seconds away from 2nd overall. The 2nd place car with five minutes left on the clock broke, during that fine minutes we closed the gap and finished on the same lap. During the nightly mechanic checkup we found out we had a broken lug stud! A rear wheel bearing started giving signs it was time to go. We also burnt through an entire set of front Hawk "Endurance" brake pads! :O
Day two we were not so lucky. We knew no matter what we would not be able to make the 3 pit stop strategy, so we figured might as well run harder and faster, knowing we would be doing 1 hour 30 to 1 hour 40 minute pits. I started again, and had a relatively uneventful hour forty five in the car, ran pretty consistent 1.51 and 1.52 lap times. One driver went out and start saying the brakes and handeling where very weired. Turns out that same rear wheel bearing we swapped out the night before, that axle busted right at point of the axle nut! We swapped the axle and got the car back out in 30 minutes. Another driver said the windshield was getting hard to see out of, which turned out happened to be because the car ejected the oil fill cap!!! Even with those two unfortunate visits into the pit we finished 4th place in class, 7th over all.
$2,500 was raised for Brainerd's local Sharing Bread Soup Kitchen.
Official results can be found: here.
My rebuilt motor arrived from X-Factor as part of a group buy. I decided it would be a good idea to run a Mazda Motorsports baffle. It is a steel sheet that sits in the bottom of the oil pan to help oil stay down at the oil pick up. It doesn't add any power, it simply helps prevent oil starvation. Seems like decent insurance to me. I ordered one from Mazda, except it never showed up. Turns out the person taking the order messed up the credit card order and never bothered to communicate that. Well by the time I figured this out, I couldn't wait any longer. I remembered having something in my original motor, and thought fine, I will pull it from the non-leaking motor and transplant it. So the refurbished motor had the oil pan pulled off. The old motor had its oil pan pulled off, then only to find out this was all for not, as it did not have the baffle! Ugg…clean, re-RTV, new gasket, and re-assemble, kick myself for burning up an entire Saturday afternoon.
The motor gets installed, and the very first time it gets fired up and sounded HORRIBLE! So much so, for a few seconds I thought it might be a rod knock. I have dealt with a number of cars over the years that have had bad lifters, I’ve installed fresh lifters before. I have heard lifter tick many times, and usually it goes away in short order. Not this time. I had two friends come by and give it a listen and confirm that after a 2nd heat cycle that it didn’t sound good. Oil pressure using 5w-30 with a water temp of 180 degrees was about 13psi (oil pressure gauge goes from “0” to a halfway mark, then 25psi so, not the most accurate.
We pulled the entire subframe to get the oil pan off. FYI with a Miata to get at the oil pan one has to pretty much remove the motor from the car, or remove the oil pan to get the oil pan off. Everything looked fine; the pickup tube was clear, the pick-up tube gasket was indeed there. Ugg…clean, re-RTV, new gasket, and re-assemble. Pulled off the valve cover, check that all of the hydraulic lifters seemed fine and had good spring tension. No issues found, add assembly lube to all the cam lobes, fill with 10w-30. Let it run for a bit, the noise is better, but not great. The following day, it sounded perfect! I have never owned a Miata that was quiet and smooth.
Come back the following weekend to find a puddle of oil on the floor. <sigh> Pull the transmission out, replace the rear main seal and the rear “half-moon” oil pan gasket. Reassemble, let the RTV cure for six hours, let it do a heat cycle, a short test drive, and all seems well!
The following week load it up on the trailer, and let it idle, and notice oil drops on the trailer. <sigh> Get to HiTech in Elk River for dyno tuning. Their tailpipe sniffer wide band oxygen sensor was being all sorts of wacky, and my AEM wideband was also doing its own thing. So I have invalid air/fuel numbers to go by. The dyno operation was either having a bad day, is generally just cranky, or hates Miatas? I got four runs, and settled on 14ish degrees of timing and 40lbs of fuel pressure. Resulting in 122whp and 119tq, which is 8 more HP than the previous motor, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but percentage wise is a decent chunk.
Friday was a test day at Brainerd International Raceway. I ran the first session, short shifting at 6500 rpms. Came in and checked the car over to find the bottom of the car covered in oil. <sigh> The transmission was pulled again! A fellow Miata racer pointed out that sometimes there can be a ridge on the crankshaft where the main seal rides from wear. The proposed solution was to install the main seal 1/16 of an inch proud (or sticking out) vs. having it flush. Thus the seal will ride on a part of the crank that is not worn down.
The next morning we finished the reassembly, ran the practice session. Everything seemed fine. Changed out the oil used for “break-in” for a mix of Schaeffer's 10w30 & 20w50 Series 9000 racing oil. My qualifying session was cut short as on the 4th lap the exhaust separated where the down pipe meets the exhaust. I used up my last spare gasket, and borrowed one from Jenkins Racing. FYI the 1.6l and 1.8l gasket are not the same, but I made it work anyways.
Twice I had the igniter wire fall off of the starter. I can tell you getting all buckled in to the car, all the accessories hooked up, then the calls to grid come over the PA, then the car doesn't start; it doesn't do any good for ones mental state!
The first race I had a phenomenal start and finished okay. Oil pressure at wide open even towards the end of the race was always around 30psi. However when back in the pit, the motor had a horrible lifter tick even after letting the it idle for a few minutes with the radiator fan running and the water temp sitting at 180 degrees.
Sunday, practice, qualifying, and the race went okay. The best lap time I could do was a 1 minute 50, which is good for me, but still a second off of my best lap time. The wind was quite strong all weekend, but I still would have expected to best previous lap times with the extra power.
I struggled with putting the power down coming out of turn 13. I still chronically over break for turns 3 and 7. Turn 12 still continues to be a pucker factor for me. After each session I would wipe off a couple of drops of oil from the bell housing of the transmission. So I am unclear if that is residual from the previous leakage, despite cleaning it pretty good or if it is still leaking.
HUGE thankyous to Geoff, George, Jenkins Racing for helping and not letting me throw the towel in (SEVERAL TIMES!). Also to my wife and Andy Nash.
More photos and videos to come...
I was walking the pits being all social like at my last event and about tripped when I saw this sitting. My buddy Shane did a great photo shoot and write-up about the car and it's owner.
scca-feature-peter-jankoviskis-and-his-lola-t70
Back from a great weekend racing at Brainerd with Lucky Dog Racing.
I'm sure they classed us wrong last year and this year. A '94 Miata with a '94 Miata engine in the fastest class? How does that happen. But since we finished 2nd overall both days it was pretty hard to argue...)
So that's the short form: 2nd in class A (and overall) both days.
We ran 17 hours with zero errors. Not one extra moment in the pits - even when we ran out at pit-in and had to push the car 100 yards.
Day 1 started with lots of rain, and a bit of drama. I decided to test the splitter integrity by going off one lap 1, turn 3, and scooping up about 15 pounds of mud. I put in a very solid 2 hours with non-stop rain, and turned the car over to the next driver in 6th over all; who moved us up into 3rd or so. Last driver went next and ran like clock-work - zero drama and rock steady lap times. The care owner went in last, 5 laps out of 3rd place, and just looked to bring it home safely. But with 12 minutes to go, I saw the 2nd place car - 45th Parallel - pull off track with a mechanical. 12 minutes to make 5 laps - should be easy. Then we saw the getting towed, and realized that if they get pulled over the timing loop I'd need one more lap. Hammer down he wanted to squeeze in the extra part lap after the 5pm finish. And it JUST worked. Never stop pushing.
Day 2, we figured it was going to be tougher. We needed to make one more stop than the fast BMWs, the Corvette was running strong, and Finndurance was coming for us too. All we could do was run a fast clean race and hope for the best.
Same order: Aaron did great, but our power deficit meant we were 5th overall, behind 4 other cars in our class. Gordon next ripped a 1.49 but we were still stuck in 4th. Eric went 3rd, and handed the car over to me in 3rd place. I went out 2 laps down on the 2 lead BMWs (Dirty 30 and Gorilla Sticker). I had a few laps hanging with Gorilla Sticker, and when we hit some traffic, I got past while Glenn got hung up. I thought he must have stopped for fuel or something, but some laps later I passed him again. And one more time before the end of my stint. They had developed a bad miss, and were just trying to finish ahead of us.
We stopped with 40 minutes left having put the car in 2nd, but our fuel stop put us back in 3rd, 2 laps down with 40 minutes to go. Time for Gordon to put on a show. He as taking 7-10 seconds a lap out of the BMW, but math said it wasn't quite enough. With 7 minutes left he was 70 seconds down. We needed something to happen, and we let Gordon know. But he had the good sense to keep the leader's car behind him, meaning one more lap after the checker's flew.
Then the BMW slowed WAY down. With 1 lap to go, Gordon passed him 50 feet before the finish line to put us in 2nd! About as close as it could be.
<draft>...more videos and pics to come....
Full gallery from Shane (Digital Displacement), FYI I am in Group 3.
Full gallery from Jerry Winker
I was an honored guest of the Garage Heroes - In Training podcast...we spend over an hour discussing dozens of topics surrounding High Performance Driving and amature racing. Find it on any podcast player of your choosing, by searching for "Garage Heros In Trainging" or the direct link here: https://tinyurl.com/AaronJongbloedt
If/When their is a next time I will get a real microphone, consintrate on using less "umms and ahhhs", and remember that even though this was a Zoom call, when it gets turned into an audio podcast, one doesn't see body language! LOL.
Shoutouts to: Land O' Lakes Region SCCA-racing.com, Heyward Wagner, Burnt Ends Endurance Racing, NASA Central Region, Dave Royce, Joey Todd, Brainerd International Raceway, BIR Performance Driving School, and Charlie Laing
Aaron Jongbloedt from Jungle Motorsports joins us for this episode and we discuss all things racing, even ice boating. Aaron seems to race in all series and all types of racing, we may even be able to make it to an ice racing event with him post plague. Since he has such a wide range of experiences, we try to cover many of them as possible to show how each series and club can vary and each offers a different blend of driving and racing flavor. The best thing you can do to start is try as many as you can and you will undoubtedly find one that matches your interests and maximizes the fun. Plus an impromptu race car intervention, lol.
volunteering as an avenue to start getting into racing and saving on the amount of money needed.
A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/AaronJongbloedt
If you would like to help grow our sport and this podcast:
You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, and YouTube etc. Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that would be greatly appreciated. Even better, a podcast review, would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would greatly appreciate it.
For instance, leaving an Apple Podcast rating is very easy. If you go to your podcast library, look under shows. Then click on this podcast. Here you can leave a (5?) star rating and enter your review.
We hope you enjoy this episode!
PS Please don’t forget that if you are looking to add an Apex Pro to your driving telemetry system, don’t forget to use our discount code for all Apex Pro systems you will receive a free Windshield Suction Cup Mount for the system, a savings of $40. Just enter the code “ghitlikesapex!” when you order. They are a great system and truly invaluable in safely increasing your speed on track and/or autocross etc. The recently released second generation systems and app increases the capability of the system greatly.
Best regards,
Vicki, Jennifer, Alan, and Bill
Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training Podcast and Garage Heroes In Training racing team drivers
Highlights for this episode include:
1) Why he selected Spec Miata as a primary racing class and why he also includes and enjoys other types of racing.
2) Aaron opens up the trap door to a quick summary of our racing cars and HPDE cars. We need to get a bit more focus. Time for a garage sale. We may have a race car (or truck) for you, lol
3) Vicki is not familiar with the track at Brainerd, but after our discussion it sounds like we will be soon, lol. Top tip: Also obey the team CFO.
4) Some of the plusses and minuses of racing Spec Miata and how it has influenced hos racing approach and philosophy.
5) Are there significant differences between instructing in autocross and instructing on a race track? Also a discussion of the potential benefits of autocross before driving on track. The skills are complimentary but the approach can be quite different in some ways.
6) Aaron discusses his experience with almost all of the amateur endurance racing series and some of the new ones starting this season.
7) As expected, we also discuss Spec Miata and Vicki is still intimidated with the concept of bump drafting. This will likely change with time. We have a NB Spec Miata car that needs a bit of love to race this season, but we are hopeful. Bilstein shocks may be in our future.
8) Why does Aaron seem to prefer arrive and drive (Seat Rentals) for endurance racing events. Bill has always had concerns and questions that has prevented him from doing many arrive and drives. We discuss several of them.
9) Money saving tips and insight into what is required and what is avoidable to be competitive in the series, locally and nationally.
10) Somehow we return to the topic of our cars. It appears we are in the midst of an informal race car intervention. lol. (Probably long overdue)
11) We also have a discussion of the storage required for a racing car and team. Aaron is curious about the hangar that we use as our teams primary hub.
12) How volunteering at events can minimize or potentially eliminate the cost of racing.
13) How our "press" claim was received by a racing series. (as you would expect)
14) Just when you thought it was over, we get into a discussion of some of the local midwestern tracks that Aaron suggest we try. As always, the answer is "yes"
To follow Aaron further:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aaron.jongbloedt
His blog: https://junglemotorsports.blogspot.com
IIRA (International Ice Racing Association) was racing in Lindsrtom lake. I got out late to turn a few laps and socialize.
Early Christmas present for me! I commissioned https://164custom.com/ take a Miata Hotwheels and paint it up like my racecar! Feel free to reach out to him have him do other custom cars!
Took sometime off of volunteer to be a corner worker at SCCA's Track Night In America held at Dakota Country Technical College.
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