March 2018 Member Spotlight – Richard Dodds

March 2018 Member Spotlight – Richard Dodds

Name (yours not the car’s):
Richard Dodds

Car(s) presently owned (and their name?):
2001 Mazda Miata (Zura)

Years Owned:
2, or 10 – this 2001 replaced a 2001 that was lost at ORP in spring of ’15.

Modifications (i.e. interior/exterior, engine, chassis):
Holy cow. This car is heavily modified. It doesn’t look it from the outside, and it is still street legal in Oregon, but very little is stock on the car. It retains the complete interior – radio, soft top, etc. It’s not especially light as Miatas go. With me in the car I’m probably 450lbs heavier than a Spec Miata with driver.

ENGINE: The engine uses a stock alternator, waterpump, power steering, valve cover, and stock pistons. Everything else has been touched. A huge shout-out to Josh Castaldi of Curly’s Shadetree Garage, who assembled the motor in my car. It is glorious. Also AR Auto Service, they have done all my alignments and have been a great resource for the car.

• Manley rods
• Coolant re-route so coolant flows as it did originally in the BP engine. Avoids
  known overheating issues of #4 cylinder.
• ARP head studs
• ARP race bearings
• Upgraded Boundary Engineering oil pump – billet gears and higher flow
• ATI superdamper
• Blueprinted and balanced – one person commented that it felt like a rotary
• EV14 550cc injectors
• 949 Racing Supermiata CNC head
• Valvetrain good to 8k rpm, dual valve springs & Shim-Under- Bucket upgrade
• SS intake valves
• +1mm Inconel exhaust valves
• Stock Cams
• Megasquirt MS3 Basic ECU, with CAN bus / OBD2 output, from MSLabs
• European Domestic Market Square-Top intake manifold – higher top end flow.
• TrackSpeed Engineering radiator (dual core, much higher capacity than stock)
• TrackSpeed Engineering EFR 6258 Turbo kit
• Cast Stainless Steel manifold
• Inconel studs, with Resbond, hardware locking, and safety wire.
• TSE stainless steel 3″ downpipe
• Currently running a 2.5″ exhaust with a cat but will be moving to a full 3″ exhaust soon

 

SUSPENSION: The only stock suspension components left are the rear lower control arms.

• 949 Racing/Supermiata Xida coilovers, 900/500lb springs with tender springs.
• Billet coaxial upper mounts. SuperMiata rear sway bar. Racing Beat tubular front bar with sway bar mount braces.
• V8 Roadsters tubular Front Lower Control arms (stronger, and extra camber)
• V8 Roadsters tubular Front Upper Control arms (stronger, and a serviceable ball joint)
• Rear Upper Control Arms have been modified with a spherical bearing for greater load stability
• Rear Lower Control Arms are stock.
• Energy Suspension polyurethane bushings throughout with SadFab oil impregnated bronze sleeves (solves two problems with the stock steel sleeves – these will never squeak, and extremely low resistance to movement compared to the steel)

 

TRANSMISSION: The transmission is stock, for now, and I am using the stock 3.9 ratio Torsen differential, along with stock axles. The diff and axles have been proven by others to be basically bombproof until you approach 400whp.

MISCELLANEOUS: I have the FM hitch, and tow a Harbor Freight trailer to/from events. This allows me to take race tires and my full toolbox to PIR, The Ridge, and to ORP. For Laguna Seca last year I did borrow his SUV + trailer to trailer the car.
A Hard Dog rollbar provides rollover protection.

NUMBERS: The car currently sits at 251WHP/203 WTQ at 11.5 PSI. These are highly conservative numbers, for several reasons. I will be keeping the torque under 230 to save the stock 6 speed, and won’t be increasing the boost much if any until I get a real catch can setup on the car. In a year or two I may upgrade the transmission to a BMW offering that will eliminate my torque restrictions, at which point I can do another rebuild, replace the stock cast 10:1 pistons with 8.6:1 forged offerings, and go north of 300HP / 300WTQ.

TIRES: I run 225/45R15 Toyo RR take-offs for track days, on 9″ 949 Racing 6UL wheels. I currently don’t have a set of dedicated autocross tires. I would run 225/45 Hoosier A7’s if I did. I really like the RR’s for track days. They do not have the grip of a Hoosier R7 to be sure, and there is a fall-off from their initial performance as brand new sticker tires, but then they plateau and are stable in their performance basically down to the cords. They have good grip, good feedback, and they have excellent breakaway transition characteristics.

INTERIOR: The driver’s seat has been replaced with a Marrad slide-adjustable seat (no longer available, sorry) that takes 6 point harnesses.
The passenger seat is a Schwing Tillett B5 full Carbon seat (non-adjustable) that also takes full harnesses. All of the airbags are retained,
as well as stock 3-point seat belts for street use. Schroth 6-point harnesses restrain the driver and passenger for track and autocross
events.

Editors Question…: Yeah, but what valve stem caps do you have? Do you have double-bladed wipers?

How long have you been racing, and what types of racing do you do?
My first track day was in 2008, after buying Miata#1 in 2007. My first autocross was in 2011. I enjoy both activities immensely. I would love to competitively pursue autocross but until the kids are out of the house that’s not possible for me. I started instructing for
both in 2014, and I really enjoy that aspect of the sport. When somebody “gets it,” it’s very fulfilling. I have friends that run wheel to wheel with a Miata, in the Lucky Dog racing series, and I’d love to give that a try.

How did you get into autocross?
Autocross was one of the motorsport activities that I enjoyed the most with the Porsche Club and it really focused on skills that valuable on
and off the track. And it was much cheaper!

How do you get focused before/during an event?
Well, I take a relaxed approach. Family commitments make it impossible for me to approach a season with a goal of taking it seriously. I know I will miss numerous events, so there’s no pressure. That being said, at each autocross I take the course walk seriously. I try to picture what I will see from the car. I try to envision what the fast line will be, and then where relevant look for landmarks to help me place myself either coming out of or going into a course feature. As someone who does more track days per year than autocrosses, it is always a challenge to remember that what is fast on track is *not* necessarily what is fast on a 30 to 60 second autocross course. An autocross course affords you much less opportunity to gain time by giving time – there are no long straights where exit speed from the entry
corner is more important than the time spent getting through the corner.

What future plans do you have for your racing career (new car, new mods, new types of racing, etc.)?
Personally, my goal is to continue to have a lifestyle that allows me to do 10+ track days a year and some autocross on the weekend. For the car, it’s pretty much dialed. The only definite upgrades this year are to make sure cooling is under control. I have a wing for it from the previous car, but I’m undecided whether I want to use it or get a better offering that wasn’t available when I got this wing. But we know how this story ends, right? Who am I kidding. I’ll be buying the better wing offering and then pairing it with a front splitter. This will give me moderately balanced downforce. This car is still a dual duty street / toy car. If it were a dedicated toy I’d be running a cage, full aero, and it would be 500 lbs lighter. But until I have storage space for a tow vehicle + trailer I will continue to have a dual duty car. I have friends that run a Miata in the Lucky Dog racing series, and I’d love to be able to do some wheel-to- wheel with them.

 

Outside of racing:

Where are you from, and how did you end up in Oregon/Washington?
Born in Memphis, grew up in Kentucky. My wife is from the same home town. She ended up doing her residency at OHSU, which is how we got here. I was working in the Bay Area before that in IT.

Do you have a favorite hobby outside of racing?
I like cars, and beer. I used to be a competitive volleyball player but multiple knee surgeries have basically shut down that
activity. I also like computer games, but since we’re all adults here and many of us have children, we don’t talk about that. I once had a dog and two cats; now I have two different dogs and no cats, may they all rest in peace. I enjoy my pets. And I have two boys, that counts as a hobby, right?

What is/are your favorite food(s)?
I like a lot of foods. I enjoy a good steak. I like Indian food. I like southern cooking (cornbread, fried chicken, fried okra, etc). I like fish. I like vegetables.

The favorite car that you have owned?
By far this Miata. As a younger man, I had a ’95 Z28 with a six speed. I really liked that car, but living in an apartment in the Bay Area
didn’t lend to automotive hobbies very well, so I didn’t do anything to it. My current Miata is faster in every way than that Z28, barring ultimate top speed. Now I look at an F-body and think, “holy cow, that’s so big and heavy.”

Your dream car(s)?
I’d like to have a full-out track toy caged Miata of the same generation as the one I have now, with the same turbo kit, and full-on aerodynamics.
And an RV and trailer to tow it with. Beyond that, I’ve ridden in some GT3’s and they are glorious. I used to want a Viper ACR, but I now think it’s possible to build a miata with a BP engine that will lap faster at most tracks.

Fact(s) that you are dying to share about you?
I am actually faster than Alex Paraskevas in all forms of motorsports, but he’s always had better tires.
Editor’s Insert: Amen brother. Amen.

Beyond the obvious, I have tracked in a car (an NB Miata, in fact) in the southern hemisphere, at Bruce McLaren Motorsports Park in Taupo, New Zealand. That car was right-hand drive. I had to shift with my left hand. I have video, and you will never see it. That was also my wife’s first track day, and possibly her last, because they gave her a Miata that had brake failure out on track. She had to use the e-brake. She’s an ER doctor, so always assumes the worst case scenario. That experience, combined with my losing the first car at ORP (turn 16 isn’t over until it’s over, amirite?) means that basically every time I drive the Miata now, even to the grocery, I have to convince her it won’t end in a flaming disaster.

 

Meaning of life:

If you could be any animal in the world, what animal would you be, and why?
Leopard. They do what they want. They can jump 10′ straight up.
Editors note: Perfect for you, that way you won’t hit so many cones…

What was the best thing before sliced bread?
Being the guy that made the knife that sliced it.

We hacked into your computer and downloaded your music list. I don’t want to be the one to spill your most embarrassing song, so why don’t you tell people what we found?
Hmm. There’s nothing there that I’m ashamed of. As a young man I scoffed at artists such as Michael Jackson and Depeche Mode, but now I enjoy them, as well as the heavy metal interests I’ve retained since my youth. I do have in my closet right now a Twisted Sister concert shirt (vintage from back in the day) with a huge facial portrait of Dee Snyder on the back. I wear that with pride to 80’s cover bands in the area. I have a lot of Rush concert shirts. I went to see AC/DC in 2015, in New Zealand, on Bryan Johnson’s last tour. That was the first concert for my two boys (10 and 12 at the time).