My first outing with Lucky Dog Racing League also happened to be my first time on track at Atlanta Motorsports Park. Add to that a freshly rebuilt 1.6L Miata making its endurance debut, and you’ve got a recipe for chaos. What could possibly go wrong?
What is Lucky Dog Racing League?
But first, what is Lucky Dog Racing League? In short, LDRL is another entry in US amateur endurance racing. Most are familiar with 24 Hours of Lemons and Champ Car Endurance Series. Lemons embraces absurdity and theatrics. Champ Car leans serious, almost club-level competitive. Lucky Dog finds a sweet spot between the two: fun, accessible, but still focused on real racing.
The Team and The Car
Our entry: a 1991 NA Miata with a 1.6L heart, prepped by Total-D in Crossville, TN. The driver roster included me, Daniel Madamba (Total-D owner), Jonas Hannah (Time Trialer with serious pace), and Tyler Christian (rookie racer with natural talent).
Test Day
The weekend format would be testing Friday, 7 hour enduro Saturday, and 8 hour enduro Sunday. I would miss the entire test day, arriving at the track late Friday afternoon. This was not ideal, seeing as I have never driven Atlanta Motorsports Park. But work is a little bit of a pickle right now so it is what it is. That said, I did spend a little bit of time studying the track online. What I found is that there is very little useful video of this track. Like surprising little. I will write a track guide in the near future as AMP is a lot of fun to drive.
Here are links to the two videos I used to study:
- Spec Miata – Atlanta Motorsports Park Personal Fast Lap – Spring 2022
- Spec Miata Lap Record Atlanta Motorsports Park
Saturday – The 7-hour Enduro
Saturday started with a 40 minute test session and I would run 15 minutes to get a feel for the track. Then Jonas Hannah, the fastest from the test day, took the car out for a qualifying lap. I honestly don’t remember where we started on grid but Daniel Madamba would run the first stint of the 7-hours. Then Tyler, myself, and Jonas. Daniel would run for 1:45 with no issues. Tyler would take over and the car immediately started having electrical issues. Blowing the ignition fuse under the dash. Tyler was towed in early and Daniel and I quickly diagnosed the issue, replaced the fuse, and sent Tyler on his way. A while later it would happen again. Thinking there was a fuse further down stream, we bypassed the fuse and Tyler completed his session. (We would pay for this decision later.)
Third in was me and the car ran great for over an hour. I was able to quikly find pace on the track and lap fastest overall for the day. And then, towards the end of the session, smoke would shoot out from the dash and the car would die. I had the pressence of mind to wait a moment before pulling the fire extinguisher. Fortunately, the smoke subsided and the wires associated with the fuse earlier had buned through. We had to retire the car and rewire the ignition for Sunday.
Saturday Notes
I have a race note before moving on to Sunday. Namely, the field at Lucky Dog is composed of all skill levels and mindsets. Although that can make for a fun, accessible group, it can also cause issues without understood boundaries and guidelines. For instance, there was one car in particular that was notably slower and actively blocking me. The onus is on me to pass so I enjoyed the extra challenge and unpredictability. However, car #55 blatently ran me into the grass when I passed him going around 90 mph. I radio’d the team to report it and the response I got back from the officals was, ‘he has a reputation.’ Understood, I was much less nice when I lapped him later in the session. But my point is, dangerous drivers should be dealt with and not allowed to ‘develop a reputation’ in the first place.
(Unfortunately, the camera had cutoff early in this session, I would run my own camera to get footage on Sunday)
Sunday – The 8-Hour Enduro
One thing I like about the Lucky Dog format is Sunday is a new day and we started the race with a clean slate. That means we had another chance to win. And that is what we set out to do. Jonas Hannah would start the day and bring us from the back of the field to P2. I would run second and bring us into P1 and then some. I was able to lap the P2 car and give us a bit of a cushion. (Our pitstops were comically bad so needed all the time we could get.)
Which brings up something I am not a huge fan of. We were running fast so consistently that we were temporarily bumped into a higher class. One we would be unable to win. Lucklily, we won the protest when we explained we were in a stock powered 1.6 Miata. However, moving forward I was forced to run to a delta to lower our average speed. Basically, we were punished for running too well.
Tyler would take over for stint 3 and bring the car in with a blown wheel bearing. Forcing an early retirement. However, seeing that we could have won our first time out is a great sign of things to come for the Total-D Enduro team. Below is an hour plus video of lapping AMP before my video cut out.
Improving the Pitstops
What we didn’t lack in pace and good drivers, we made up for in comically long pitstops. Our biggest issue was refueling. Namely, the ridiculously long time it took to dump ten gallons of fuel into the Miata’s tank. Using the standard 5 gallon racing fuel jugs, the flow rate was so slow it would be 5 minutes to refuel. For context, the minimum pitstop is 5 minutes so anything over 5 is time lost. And you can’t swap drivers while refueling.
We eventually figured out we could increase the flow significantly by drilling the air vent larger on the jugs. We tested this on the last pitstop and were refueled by minute 3. Sending the car on its way with a new driver in 6 minutes instead of the 7 to 11 minutes of the previous stops. Progress.
Comparing Data
Another cool data point when endurance racing is that you can compare data between drivers. My AIM Solo held enough charge to run for 5 hours. Meaning I was able to gather data from Jonas, Tyler, and Myself on Sunday. Looking at the overlay below, red being my trace and blue being Jonas’. You can easily tell who is the Time Trialer and who is the racer. I will probably do a deep dive into data analysis in a followup, but needless to say, we both drove the track very differently to near identical lap times.
And I am Hooked on Endurance Racing
Just maybe not Lucky Dog. Total-D Enduro Team is a solid group that can easily grow to a front running team. Myself and others would like to race in a series that is a little more structured, like Champ Car, so that subjective rulesets don’t come into play. But running in Lucky Dog was still a blast so who knows.
What I particularly enjoyed was the format though. Compared to sprint racing where you warmup, quallify, and then race, oftentimes twiddling your thumbs for hours between sessions, endurance racing feels more respectful of my time. You drive your session and then you support the team. Which resulted in more track time than I usually get as well. And the best thing, if something broke, it is a team effort to fix. Way less frustrating than 944 Spec.
