Thursday, August 30, 2012

Up, Up, and Away!

G-Fab's PotaTOW Edition rolls 5 + 1 deep, heading to summer camp!

Todd and Jojo (the +1) are in Grand Potato, which is getting fantastically better gas mileage than the mighty Armada, currently housing Nate, Dave, PJ, and yours truly. We are getting 8.3 mpg, and were just warned that Indiana gas prices are $0.40 more expensive than in Ohio, and I just paid $4.18/gal. Yay.

Somewhere behind us is the Big Bear and Queen Kong camp, followed by the Thursbymobile. Wiley will come in on Saturday, BreakingTheLau will follow on Monday, as will Stiff and Grant. I hear Newman and #35 are en route as well....eventually.

We're somewhere in Ohio, the sun is coming up, and I've gotten 3 hours of sleep. I love the road trip. Of course, all my "stuff to do while smushed against the door and having a head using my leg as a pillow prop" is in Grand Potato, but at least there's a pretty sunrise.


More later. I need to tell the "head in lap" person that my leg is falling asleep.

Thursday, August 02, 2012

Back To The Future

Wow, it's already August. Obviously you don't care what we've been up to, nor do we care enough to tell you when it's happening.

Dave, PJ, and I did the arrive-and-drive thing for Spring Nats at the end of May. Yes, it was expensive. No, I did not win anything. Yes, I drove/spun a C5 Z06. Yes, I will absolutely be going to this event again next year.  I will say, however, arrive-and-drive makes me feel helpless, and like a girl. No more of this girly shit. 
Photo by Chang Ho Kim
Mobil 1's The Grid was there. They missed most of the good stuff though, like Tornado Party, Heat 3 at Lazlo's, FJA getting ready to gang up on Newman (SUCK IT, F125 finally beat you!), me trying to collapse a kart stand, Sam "just coming down here to tell me something," and all the new Facebook friends I made from that weekend. I watched the broadcast, and for some reason they decided to film a bunch of GP cars, and ignore SS, SM, SSM....obviously they missed the memo that slow sucks and fast is fun.

June saw my return to Panda, which at first went badly, then went awesomely. I used back-to-back Renegade Miata events to practice before I made a fool of myself in SSM at the mid-month Devens Tour. It was actually the best battle weekend of the season, with Brian Kuehl and I fighting for the top spot. In 7 runs, I hit 22 cones. On my only clean run, I managed to take the top spot in SSM by .1. The next day, I managed to hit fewer, and still win the class. Yay.

The Devens Tour also saw my debut in the timing trailer. I think I'll stick to being scanner. Due to all the superstar drivers, the top of SSM was rough. I was in the 4th and last trophy spot at the end of Day 1, and managed to move up to 3rd on Day 2, beating my codriver by a bit over a second (which no one expected, least of all me). I suppose we shouldn't count those results, since the Kuehls added a wing that takes up more of the allowable area than we have, and their bigger budget means they could purchase and install it. 
Photo by Ed Savage
I was unable to attend the Dover Evolution Super Shootout, so I can't comment on it. I was exceptionally sad, however. I did speak to some people on the phone, and they said blah blah AIRWOLF blah blah course is bad blah blah AIRWOLF. I think I missed something - apparently it's some show that debuted and ended before I was born. All these old people in autocross.

We just finished up the Toledo Pro, and it was a hot mess. Bad run/work order, bad schedule, bad courses (sorry Alex). There was some good, too, though. Good to see friends and hang out, good competition in L2 (6/8, again. I need to stop going so slow), and good that Newman finally manned up and found his big boy pants. He drove Panda in SSM. I think he had fun. Good new game too. Battle Pitchers. I will most likely lose this game, but I will put up a good fight.

Photo by James Newman
RAL is this weekend, and somehow we've managed to suck at fundraising. Too bad, PJ was going to shave his head if we got $2,000. Given only 26 people are going into this, it should be easy to solidify another GFab Jeff Gordon Challenge win. At least I hope so. 

Nationals is next...the Big Show....the whole Shebang...let's hope I don't completely choke this time.