I flew back home to Texas for another crazy weekend behind the wheel of the #81 Winding Road Racing Spec Miata. Throughout the year, I have grown to really look forward to race weekends in Spec Miata, despite being admittedly terrified at first, I have grown to be much more comfortable in the car in the four race weekends I have shared with it.
Fun Fact: MSR Houston was the first track I EVER drove, back in December of 2014, when the Z was bone stock and it poured rain all weekend. I was excited to be back at a track that had some cool sentiment for me, and to speed another weekend working on myself as a driver and experiencing wheel to wheel race craft.
I spent the test day on Friday reacquainting myself with the track in its CCW direction, as well as remembering the quirks of the #81 WRR SM. Friday was pretty uneventful, I got some good feed back from my coach and the data, and felt pretty confident heading into qualifying on Saturday. As a developing driver in my first season racing, my goal was to improve my lap times each race, and finish the race better than I qualified. We were able to do that in both races Saturday, despite me spinning early on in Race 1 trying to gain a position, and flat spotting three tires in Race 2 trying to avoid an incident (oops).
On Sunday, I started the 55 minute race from the 19th position. After a long race, my fastest laps of the weekend, a few close calls and some luck I ended up finishing 10th! As my last race in the #81 WRR SM this season, I was very happy with the way the weekend ended. I can't thank the Winding Road Racing Team enough for an awesome rookie season, and I look forward to what is in store!
