Top 10 List of Things to Bring to SCCA Solo Nationals

10. Bike - Lincoln is big. This isn't some dinky little plot of land like Rhode Island. There should be highways between paddock and the pits, with rest stops along the way. Walking sucks. Bring a bike.

9. Sunglasses - Forget these and you might miss a mortgage payment, or go blind. Either way, you don't want people knowing that you're looking at them, ever. Bring some sunglasses for some incognito action, and wear them at night while walking the course with a stick in your hand like a blind guy trying to slalom. That'll really psych out the competition.

8. Energy Drinks - Red Bull, Monster, or Chernobly. Don't fall asleep, ever.

7. A stack of $1 dollar bills - Hey, you never know. Crazy things happen with that much caffeine.

6. Umbrella - Let's face it. This is the single most important event for Autocrossers. Someone is going to get screwed by massive amounts of rain. If it's not you, at least don't get wet. If it's you, feel free to claim the tears are just raindrops hitting your eyes.

5. Eyedrops - You'll need an excuse if it's not raining during your heat, and to keep your eyes from drying out since you've forgotten your sunglasses already.

4. Paint scraper and heat gun - The surface at Lincoln is like a cheese grater to your tires. All the grated tire sticks to hot tires when you go fast, and the grated gum beads up and acts like a bearing for your tires, preventing you from having something called traction. Anyways, you're probably not going to be going fast enough to need these, but that doesn't mean you can't make some money scraping tires for relevant competitors. If you can't beat 'em, make money off 'em! Use those $1 dollar bills to make change since you don't want to show your tears of defeat to the strippers, and thus won't be using them otherwise.

3. A Smartphone - Smartphones have all sorts of uses, like being able to tell your friends about how bored you are at work while bored at work, and then updating it when you're bored at home! You'll also be able to watch the rain as it slowly comes in right in time for the second half of first runs in your heat, and dries out right as you come through the finish. You'll also be able to look up the top 10 list of things you've already forgot! Finally, you'll be able to look up the nearest establishment to drink away your sorrows.

2. Golf clubs - You're going to be out there a while, and you'll need a break from the constant exposure to high octane fuels. Why not play some golf where you can lie about how well you did to everyone who was too busy changing tires? Timing and scoring can't reach you on the course, so Mulligan away those drives that DNF (Did Not Fairway).

1. A car - Because I only had 9 things to think of before getting bored of making this list. Guess I should update FB to reflect that....

Trust me. I'm a professional.

Racing Against Leukemia!

RAL 2010 comes to an end. Well, 5 days ago, but who's counting?

ME, THAT'S WHO.

• $285 raised by G-Fab.
• 30 runs taken by 8 different people. Only 2 did not spin epically.
• 1 set of eBay LCA's came undone.
• 2 bike tires that are too big for my bike (and are therefore really funny to look at).
• $30 worth of raffle tickets (we did not win a damn thing).
• 4 corded tires between the 3 and the 240.

• 7 games of beer pong. One team of champions.
• 1 money shot.

• 2 incidents of getting Shhhhhhhhhhhed! (yes again)
• 1 bag of chocolate chip cookies from Lara Shields. Thanks Lara :)
• $3500 raised by Solo
• LOTS of extremely noticeably absent G-Fab members and associates. We missed you. (That means you, Thurz, Eric, Todd, Steph, Charlie, Nate....)

All in all, the event was a great success. Yay to next year!

I Give Up

Dear Self:

Saw your driving on Sunday. Not too bad. Even Bud Collins said you are a pretty good driver. However. I did notice a few things and wanted to offer you a few pointers:

• STOP HITTING CONES.
• When you hit cones, DO NOT look in your mirror to see how many people are running after them. Even for a second.
• Safe and slow sucks. Drive fast, take chances.

Thanks for listening.

Yeah. I suck.

Due to my less-than-stellar performance this past Sunday (results are here), I think I will hang up my driving shoes and get some pedaling shoes:

At least I won't have to walk to the porta-potties anymore.

Why does my Flickr get so many hits???


Hmmmmmmmmmm...................

Time for CHANGE

But only if CHANGE means MOD. Street Mod is back with more go-fast. We updated the rear end with beefier beefyness. It's beefy. 18mm of it. Big, long, and black. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Raise the roll-center like the roof, and bring the CoG down to the floor. Re-welded motor mounts drop the weight down like the times.

Hacked motor mounts for a lowered engine, along with some bling. Jenna and Paul put a good spitshine on the tranny while I was playing with fire:

Hooked up with a direct clutch line. No more funky pedal play for us!

Theere's more, but we'll keep that a sekrit until next time.

I'm not bored enough to entertain you right now.

Late Toledo Recap

Forgot to copy this over to the blog like a month ago. Here it is in all its glory: Toledo FAIL

Too frustrated to really post much now, but we're on the way home having pretty much rode the failboat into a rock. Saturday started off well enough, with Dave positioning himself in 2nd with lots of room for improvement. I got a clean first run in, but on my next run the tranny popped out of gear and made lots of noise. I coasted it in and we checked it out.

Put it in 1st gear and tried to roll it: OK
Put it in 2nd gear and tried to roll it: FAIL

After lots of noise we did a little more testing to make sure it wasn't the clutch, and also tried pushing it around with the engine off and in gear. You're not supposed to be able to freely push the car around with it in second gear....

After about an hour of phone calls, we found a transmission, but it was 3 hours away and they were closing in: 3 hours. Dave went to get it while I pulled the old tranny. Drained a lot of fluid and gear bits, showing fully that the tranny was toast.

Dave eventually got back and we got the tranny in within an hour from then, but in order to do so we had to jack the engine all sorts of angles. This would bite us in the ass later. I also pretty much forced the tranny in, so I think it may be slightly off, as the clutch is stuttering a bit. Grrreaaat.

Anyways, Sunday rolls around and we eventually get to our heat. Dave starts off fine but looks slow. He comes in complaining the clutch is slipping or something, and I check the fork and it seems to be fine. The pedal throw is all weird from the clutch stop no longer being at the correct height, but other than that it looks fine. He swears we're burning up clutches but says he can't get it past 4500rpm, which confuses the **** out of me. All he can really say is the clutch doesn't feel right.

I get up for my runs and instantly find out that I've got no boost. Turbo is spinning and I can hear it, and figure out it's a blown intercooler coupler (just pulled off from jacking the engine around). By then it's too late, and we can't fix it. My runs are over and we're sitting 4th and 5th, without enough points to be able to do any damage at this year's Pro Finale.

So, our year is pretty much shot. We're still debating on if we'll be at Nationals or not. I want to go still, but we'll see if the team as a whole wants to head out.

So I lied, that was pretty long. I might post some vids later, but I'm shot right now.

FML.

-PJ