My son races quarter midgets here in Northern California, and this weekend was the Battle of the Buckle at Tri-Valley Quarter Midget Association in Livermore - a two-day event that went about as well as we could have hoped.

Day 1 was two heats, with the second heat gridded in inverted order from the first. He won heat 1 and drove back to P2 in the inverted heat 2.

Then came the fun part: the main event grid is set by spinning the "wheel of misfortune." Full field inversion was on the wheel, but he got away with only the top two positions flipping. So he started P2, on the outside line, which is a tough place to start in quarter midgets.

The 9-car field took a while to get going with a few failed double-file starts (think NASCAR style) before they finally went green in single file. He battled into the lead and held it to the end to win.

What made it extra satisfying: we'd put a lot of time into the setup leading up to this one, and it finally all came together after a few frustrating races.

I trimmed the video to the 7 minutes that matter for the race. Full onboard video with telemetry (it's a touch out of sync on this video because of a bug that I've now fixed) is here if anyone wants to take a look to help inform any advice they'd have:

https://www.racingpace.com/s/a4608fde-385e-4b9c-a9ce-65b80dca1148

If anyone has observations to share on his racing he'd (we'd) love to hear it. Thanks!

https://reddit.com/link/1v36eqd/video/4ddpi08zrpeh1/player

So, this was my third track day. I went from 1:49.3 to 1:46.9 between my first and most recent track day. The car's a 100% stock 2017 Camaro 2SS with MagneRide, running two-year-old Yokohama Advan Apex V601s.

I'm wondering: if I keep improving and upgrade my tires, what can I realistically expect?

My first android app is live on the app store.

A combination of things that I did at the track manually and I'd prefer to automate so I did and others might find it useful.

Tire temps — OUT / MID / IN across all four corners from my custom open source PyroTC BLE pyrometer, turned into camber and pressure advice from the spread, the code is public along with the STL.

Tire pressures — cold and hot PSI from cheap BLE TPMS sensors (Zeepin and DJTPMS), plus an all-day background monitor that logs pressure and temperature and auto-counts heat cycles.

Corner balance — cross-weight from ProForm wireless scale pads streamed live over Bluetooth, with “move this much onto the diagonal” recommendations.

Tire inventory with heat-cycle tracking, resettable packing checklists, CSV export, and full JSON backup. Everything is on-device — no accounts, no cloud.

Now I have no excuses on tracking tire cycles, I still need to make a screen to manage tires and track how long they last with the data it collects

https://mrblahhhh.github.io/car/tech/2026/07/22/trackday-pyrometer-helper-play-store.html

Found a solution to my “I can’t lift the tires onto my fancy tire rack” problem. God bless America and harbor freight.

Tomorrow’s problem will be managing the tongue weight. Today is not tomorrow.

On May 23, 2021, this crash left me with 35% third- and fourth-degree burns, four months in the burn ICU, 27 surgeries, and three years of therapy.

Five years later, I’m finally comfortable sharing the complete footage—from the initial crash through the response that ultimately got me out of the car alive.

There are important lessons here about fire suppression, driver extraction, track response, and what happens when every safety plan suddenly becomes real. The footage and audio are intense, but I hope people watch through the end.

YouTube version for easier sharing: https://youtu.be/pikTnIMFlME

I replaced a cracked rotor , and when I was trying to bed in the new rotors with the new pad , I saw I was not getting the outer edge of the rotor, I saw the pad had a chunk missing , I don't think it would of ever fixed itself with enough bedding , I swapped in fresh pads and got full contact ...

A lot of fun on a new track to me, running on new Falken 660+s on the fronts and a worn set on the rears, playing with new coilovers and figuring out softness/stiffness as I went. New tune, still having some PCV issues, so a lot of blowby when pushing, sorting that out before the next track weekend. Was figuring out braking points as I went, a bit wide here and there, I know I have homework to do but any pointers, happy to take them. Also, the rest of the competition running on the Bridgestone RZs in the wet were proving this new compound is able to handle the wet and keep it on track without concern, love to see it for my next season!

ViR north last weekend with my r53 mini

Unfortunately it might be the last because of attendance. Everybody wants to run full. I don't think they know what they're missing..

Car has all the bolt ons and hoosier sm7.5. I did break cords in 3 tires, all were takoffs I got from a local scca team

https://youtu.be/ro8xmLvv-bk?is=aYB1sBXpGEXhGUdE

Hey everyone,

I've been using RaceRender for overlays but recently upgraded to a GoPro Hero 12 and realized RaceRender can't handle H.265/HEVC footage without manual codec hacks. Plus it hasn't been updated in years and doesn't officially support Windows 11.

Before I switch tools, I'm curious about your current workflow:

1. What are you using for telemetry overlays?

2. How painful is the sync process between video and GPS data?

3. Are you exporting to vertical format (9:16) for TikTok/Reels/Shorts?

4. What's your post-processing workflow? (Do you chroma key in Premiere/Final Cut or use the output directly?)

I'm considering building a modern web-based alternative if there's enough pain, but I want to understand the real problems before committing to anything.

Would love to hear what's working and what's broken in your setup.

Thanks!

Tires filed a formal complaint after this lap

Pocono was an interesting track and I certainly left some time on the table trying to learn it but I had a great weekend, hit some new top speeds, and took 3rd in the Max 4 class!

I bought a set of Continental ExtremeContact Sport 02 for rain tires. 245/40 r17

Will be doing some destination events over the next few years and if I’m going to haul my ass (and my car) 12 hours I’m getting on track rain or shine.

The car (track prepped ND2) won’t see much street use. That means these tires are going to age out long before they wear out. Do I simply not worry about it? Or do I maybe get three years out of them and then sell them used to somebody who would street drive them for a few years and actually use them? Thoughts! TIA.