I would be driving mine like a Grand ma too!
Dan didn't drive it like a Grandma.... to the contrary, he was OVERDRIVING the car which ends up having the car drive Dan. :tongue:
The problem he had is that the car had so much torque that the back end would break loose on turn exit any time he tried to get on the gas. My solution, which he finally listened to and tried to success, was leaving it in 4th and work on a good line and keeping momentum up in the turns and not worrying about rocketing out of the exit and on to the next turn.
There is a reason why those little pesky Spec Miatas can cruise around the track - momentum. I usually make my students in low hp cars do the track in 4th for the same, but different reason, learn to keep the momentum up. In a low hp car if you aren't smooth and keep the momentum going the car will bog down and it's obvious. As well, if you overdrive the turn entry it will scrub speed and bog down. Usually after about 10 laps doing this, a light goes off in their head about how to smoothly cary speed through out the corners.
Another trick is too run the whole track with minimal braking like a cool down lap and go faster each lap not worrying about flooring it between turns - concentrate solely on keeping what speed you have through the turn.
The biggest obstacle for novices is over braking and then flooring it coming out of the turns. They think that the need to threshold brake, but the problem is they brake too much. In the video following Dan in the CGT you can see where I keep almost rear ending him because he is braking so hard.
Dan, if you bring it out next year I'd like you to try keeping it in 4th and follow me. Just keep a constant 70 mph around the whole track - every turn (except 7). Don't worry about the straights between turns, just a constant 70 mph like driving on the highway and
no braking between turns. Just keep the speed up and steer through the turns. It's actually fun doing this sort of thing and then you increase it a little bit each lap and you will definitely learn a thing or two.
