Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/634989
have to teach it what closed and wide-open throttle looks like each time you turn the master-switch on. It goes like this: switch master on, hold throttle wide open, turn ignition on and off three times, turn ignition back to on position and hold throttle wide open for a 15-count, release throttle for another 15-count, apply slight throttle and press the starter button. It usually barks right to life if it's warm, but takes a bit of cranking if it's cold or hasn't been run in a while. Once you're underway, make sure to get the tires thoroughly warm. With the short wheelbase, it'll swap ends on you in the blink of an eye on cold tires, and with very limited steering lock, it's all-but impossible to catch it. Once the tires are warm, you can start pushing, and the grip levels are huge. It's a dog-ring gearbox, so you just lift about halfway off the throttle to change up through the gears, no clutch. With first gear offset to the left, second through fifth are in what would usually be the standard 1-4 H-pattern, meaning it's hard to miss the gears you use most. I don't use first on the track, because all it does is spin the rear wheels. I use the clutch on the way down the box — I never skip gears — mostly as a matter of timing. You still have to match revs to get it in gear though. This is no shrinking violet of a racecar. Either you're in charge, or it is. The car doesn't really mind being told what to do, but it's equally happy telling you what it's going to do next. All in, it's an incredible car to drive. I was a corner worker in the '80s and '90s, and remember watching this car race at Del Mar (Calif.). It is one of the reasons I'm such a fan today, and one of the reasons I started racing back in the late '90s. It's a pleasure and an honor to drive it every time the opportunity comes up. Q You've raced the 25 Hours of Thunderhill 12 times. What is the most valuable piece of advice you can give a new team that will be taking on that race? A It's simply the best single race weekend of the year. There's just something about racing at night, and there's something about the magic of endurance racing. In sprint racing, it's all about absolute lap times, and about doing everything flat-out and right now. In endurance racing, you have a responsibility to turn over the car to your teammate with brakes, tires and everything else still in great condition. I'm incredibly lucky to have run the 25 with a giant, near- Jeremy Barnes (right) working with a journalist at the MX-5 Cup media day. pro outfit like Robert Davis Racing, where we run four or five cars and have 60-plus crewmembers, and with smaller teams where we had six people, including the crew and drivers! I will say, the camaraderie of a group of like-minded people can't be beaten, and it's a lot easier to do stuff like the 25 — when it's cold, raining, snowing, foggy and just generally miserable — with the right number of people. My one word of advice for a 25-hour newbie is this: preparation. You can't do too much. You can't start too early. That said, you can absolutely be too cocky, and your results will be colored by the amount of effort you put in. Q Your car number is 14. Is there any meaning or personal significance to that? A As a corner worker, I always found it easier to remember the brightly colored cars, and I always appreciated the cars with numbers that were easy to jot down if I needed to remember them. So, with the number 14 being made up of a bunch of straight lines, that would have been what I'd have considered an easy-to-jot-down number My racecars have always been yellow too, to cover that bit about racecars being a reflection of their owners. Not that I'm yellow, but, well, OK, next question? Oh, and Roger Mandeville, one of my Mazda heroes, always had yellow racecars with blue numbers — although his number was always 38 — and he was one of the pioneers of Mazda racing in the US in the 1970s. SN 26