Happy Feelings Again!!!

Chris: some times as you get older you'll notice having some new feelings

me: in my pants?
Chris: sure
me: about cars?
Chris: um, yes?


So yeah, we took the NeoPandaS14 out for some fun in the rain and sun on Sunday! New suspension all aligned and everything:

The car was on rails. Literally. It went faster than a non-turbocharged 240sx should ever go. I'm wondering if I can get the car aligned like this without heim jointed control arms.... because with some engine work and tweaking this thing would be AWESOME in DSP. Just thinking about how well the car handled makes me feel stupid funny, like I just thought something naughty but I'm not really sure what it is but I daze out and get some silly grin on my face and stare off into nothingness with the epiphany of a handling god.

Yes.

Anyways, congrats to me, Mike, and Wiley! G-Fab season champions for NER in SM, DSP, and FSP!!! YAAAY! Next year we will sweep the region of all classes G-Fab touches. Yes. Beware the wrath of zipties and duct tape and spot welded fender flares.

-PJ
I feel so dreamy.

Top Ten Things I Learned at RAL 2007

10. Tire tread is for pansies. Real racers leave all their tread on the course.

9. It takes two men over an hour to set up a tent. It takes one man and one woman 20 minutes.
8. Braking before corners is optional.
7. Bourbon, Seagrams, Captain Morgan, several varieties of beer, and 20 drunk adults make good stories.
6. Golf carts all use the same key.
5. One can spend over 8 hours on a phone call to a foreign country for the low, low price of his dignity (plus $10 shipping and handling).

4. Jumping off a moving golf cart while drunk is a bad idea.

3. When climbing into a kart, do not touch the muffler.
2. Photos/video can and will be used for both public ridicule and blackmail.
1. Turn off the tent light.

Beefy... sort of...

So before we were working on curing cancer, there was the Hot Cross Barnes-B-Q event last week.  Massa Chef PJ did a fantastic job of organizing; not so stellar on the grill though.    



The event was great: sun, food and 5 freakin’ runs!  I had a rough day though, as the Spec was spending a bit of time on two wheels.  Contrary to
Ohio, my free wheeling fun was accompanied by nasty noises and bad weight transfer; quite evident on the front stretch: 





 And from the cutting room floor, a bit of advice from the reigning champ himself. 



I think that's all for now.

-- Scott

G-FAB CURES CANCER

Well no, not really. However, with YOUR HELP, maybe we can!


THE FOLLOWING IS NOT THE OPINION OF NER SCCA OR ANY ORGANIZATION OTHER THAN GFAB RACING. EVEN THEN, GFAB RACING IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FOLLOWING OPINION OF THE WRITER WHO IS ALSO NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HYSTERIA INDUCED HALLUCINATIONS WHICH MAY APPEAR IN THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE. IF YOU READ THIS LINE, YOU ARE WARNED. IF NOT, LEARN TO READ YOU ILLITERATE BASTARD.


Coming up is the annual RACE AGAINST LEUKEMIA.

Otherwise known as RAL weekend among New England Regional Dudes (N.E.R.D.s for short), this event is a charity event created to help racers help the fight against Leukemia, hopefully with YOUR help, too! Get ready, get set, get used to the high volume of exclamation points that I am about to use!!!!!11!!11oneone!

RAL weekend consists of 3 days of non-stop mayhem and lots of racing. Road racing, rallycrossing (I think? Those guys are cool as shit either way), time speed distance, and of course autocrossing is prevailant throughout the weekend. The base of operations is New Hampshire International Speedway, where Friday's TSD Rally will begin. This is followed by road race qualifying and the Jeff Gordon Challenge for the autocrossers! The JGC is a fun event, with runs by donations in the morning, followed by qualifying runs for a tournament style run-off! The Challenge event is done like a single course Pro event, with 2 drivers going "head to head" untill only ONE remains. Guess who holds that trophy currently? That's right, GFAB's own David White is your reigning champ, so expect ALL the GFAB members to be going at it to keep the large ass end-table decoration in the House that GFab built. We be sneaky, and have lots of cars to choose from :)

Sunday is more racing action, with road racing, and an autocrossing points event! Somewhere in there is a rally cross I think, but I'm both too lazy to check the website, and have only been to one rallycross ever so I have nfi what those guys are doing. However, since they're cool as shit, I'm sure they're doing something, mostly because they're cool as shit.

Oh yes, I also forgot to mention the best part: Unlike Devens, NHIS is a NASCAR track. Do you know what NASCAR fans like to do? No, they don't decorate the interiors of their winnebagos at races, THEY FUCKING DRINK. Yes, that's right, alcohol (occasionally alchohol) is allowed on the premesis, and gets brought out at the end of each day!! Expect Friday and Saturday nights to be tons of fun!!!!! This year, we may have MORE tricks up our sleeve. We aren't the wannabe rockstars of autocrossing for nothing!!

Join us (and donate loads of monies) for the fun, the weekend of August 24 - 26, 2007, at NHIS!!!

-PJ
"Because I said so."

THESE MAGIC MOMENTS

"OMG!! I, like, totally can't believe he wrote that on your Facebook wall!" - Chris
Photo Courtesy of Dan Cernese


We drove at Toledo. Almost rolled the Sentra. Someone else was inspired enough to actually roll their car. Chris won Hankook monies as Mike's car DNS'ed. Despite a valiant 2-wheeled effort, Dave and I were out of the trophies. I blame a heavy MySpace/ Facebook addiction. I'm totally starting up a clinic for that.

-PJ

HOLY TOLEDO

Fear the crispy white potatoe that IS the 2002 NISSAN SENTRA SPEC V GFAB EDITION MODEL. We're in your base killing your mans.

Chris is riding with KC and Nate somewhere an hour or two behind us, as we fly down I-80. Oh, and have I ever mentioned how much I do not happy am in the New York? Got lost TWICE and had to backtrack, but no biggie, there was an hour of traffic at like 11pm anyways. LAME.

Well, 4 hours later and Dave is now at the wheel, which means we're re-enacting Smokey and the Bandit, so KC if you're reading this, put the pedal to the metal. We've got them durn smokeys on our tail whippin' it down the ol' I-80 like a hog-tie-fest from the mid-south-west, so you're likely all set since it's a safe bet that them Police Interceptors haven't caught up to us yet.

One too many Redbulls....

PJ

HIT EM UP GANGSTA'

Because I was too lazy to subtitle:

1. Spot insurance
2. Be assertive in "persuasion"
3. Get paid
4. Get the girl

How Pandas Deal:

Big pimpin' spendin g's. Almost. STILL working it out but they gave a final number which completely BLOWS and I have to do a ton of work just to break even, but oh well.... at least I can get to work on it. MIGHTY MORPHIN WELDING TIME YEA.

-PJ drunk on MS Visual Basic code

Tripping Home

OTW back and it's nothing but fail city for the team. Quag's car is showing its age with a weak bladder, pissing oil intermittently. Mike's truck has been showing electrical issues on his way to Michigan. The Sentra... well it's fine. FINE I TELL YOU. Chris is returning home from his "family reunion". Yay driving. Yay highways. Yaaay.

BTW Scott Thursby is a fucking maniac. Rock on you red lighting blue light 153mph on our lazerjammingsignalssettostun DS Pro Solo winnar. If the dime wasn't complaining about how it used to drive uphill both ways to the body shop to do its own oil change not like the kids these days having all their stuff done by the confusing mangled web of tubes called the internet.... we'd probably attempt to keep up with you. I hope you're jamming as well... cause we're picking up "the man" on scan.

-Pii Jaee

Fingah Laikes PRO (Day ONE)

We raced. Yada yada. I drove something awful. It's Coor's Light Time, baby.

Captain Alex Shipkov leads DSP, followed by Mike My Fucking Nickname For Him Isn't Fucking Good ENough. White boy Dave Whitey somehow reached deep into his ass and found 3rd. I'm last because I sucked. And I can't defend it. QUag is a fucking douche and also sucked, and can't defend it. Fucking Datsun might run fine if it was a real car. WTB 50 MORE HP. kthx.

Scott THursby is leading DS due to his highly illegal lack of rear headrests, and is thankful the afternoon was slower than morning, and also slow enough to not realize his car is highly illegal.
Keith forgot swaybar mounts so he and Nate are not winning. I think they're getting beat by a girl.
Chang is winning HS. I'm sure his pack of women are having his monies made. Rob is sleeping at the light and almost pulling Dave-like R/T's.

Currently, a bunch of us are fucking around outside our ghetto hotel room. Dave is convinced a horror movie was filmed here. It's ghetto. The neighbors are almost louder than we are. Fucking Geneva ROCKS. Bar life is like some kid on a laptop playing shit off of his iTunes. Yay. It got quiet. I think they're on to me. This fucking blog. It will rule you all.

No pics yet cause Chris isn't here. Apparently his "family" is more important.

-PJ

"Chris paid me to do it."

After realizing his driving was not up to snuff, Christopher Franson lashed out violently upon Mike Shields in an effort to win DSP.

Saved by a concrete barrier and the ridiculously stock ride height of the Sentra SpecGFab, Mike attempted to flee the scene, but was unable to enter his Titan in order to enact his escape.

Thus, he turned towards his trusty BMW in order to flee the scene, barely getting away thanks to his trusty soft PAX (*cough* bsp *cough*), but not before obtaining a hostage.

Attempts at communicating with the hostage have proven futile.

News to come as it unfolds.....

-PJ
http://www.gfabracing.com, but you already knew....

Chris Franson is not my hero.

Waiting for pictures before the weekend updates begin. I have video but I refuse to share at the moment. Basically I learned how not to shift into 3rd.

Event summary:
Me - 7th of 12
Everyone else- Trophies all around yay.

Being merciful, I enacted vengance by being the only person not sunburnt. I figured setting everyone's couch on fire would be a bit much, and I don't have that many matches.

"PJ the Mercifur"

DC Pro update

Well despite limited G-Fab (but lots of NER) representation here in DC, we're having lots of fun. Having fun, however, doesn't quite correlate with going fast, but there's still two more runs on each course tomorrow morning to redeem myself.

Mike is doing better, in 2nd, while I'm languishing in 6th, though I'd have been 3rd in SM with the same times... DSP is a tough class. We've been fooling around with car setup a bit today and I think I found something I like, but just have to get some confidence to stay in the power around the faster corners.

I have a few pics to post but not tonight.

For those who haven't done a Pro Solo, this is fun! I'll update again once we get things wrapped up tomorrow.

-Chris

Tour update, like you still care...

But I wanted to get the vids up anyway.  I would have done so sooner, but karma got me and has given me boiling coolant problems for the last few days.  I'm sitting here waiting for the Honda to cool before throwing some more parts at her.  Anyone interested in changing a headgasket on a Civic?

Sunday was at least dry.  Panda had a few issues, the 510 got faster, and I seriously cooked some tires.  Katie was the only one to trophy, taking second in STXL and showed us all up.  And onto the vids:

Pauls 2nd run:


 Dave's second run:


My second run:


And yeah, I suck at HTML.  I copied the tag right from photobucket, and it just wasn't working.  I'll edit it later when I'm done with the damn car...

- Scott

Edit:
PJ is my daddy.

First of all, Scott lacks html embedding skills.



Booya. Scott's run, without nasty links.

Second of all, the diehard crew ran NNJR this Saturday. Chris, Paul, Dave, and I went down to Jersey. That's right, we went to fucking JERSEY to autocross. Knee deep in the armpit of GOD BLESS AMERICA surroundedby vicious jerseyites and risking life and limb in foreign territory.

Good news: panda didn't break

Bad news: we didn't win, but our excuse is that we didn't want to set off the locals or anything. We were scared. We can admit it.

Anyways, here's us vying for RAW FTD because panda is now that fast.

Me:


Dave:


More detailed update later,but right now i'm beat like a red-headed stepchild. Not like the fire-crotch-blazing-hot girls that distract Chris at BMW events, but the ones that make you realize that yes, there is a thing called the "ugly stick" and it is indeed real.

-PJ

Tour update 2

Friday, for the first time since G-Fab has made the tour, didn't require standing in knee deep water in order to register.  A very good thing, which didn't last long.  Got into the site a little after 5:00 and went to set up registration, but the national folks with the forms weren't there yet.  Quag made it to the site little later (which we were a bit worried about) with no sign of Paul or the Panda (which we were also worried about) although everyone made it eventually.   

Reg finally opened a bit after 6:00, and we were straight out until 7:30 when things calmed down.  After everything was said and done, Quag and Paul took off to finish working on the 510.  Dave was long gone working on his pre-race ritual.  Oh, and there were shirts being sold.   Can’t forget about the shirts... not that anyone could with that crazy woman working the booth.   

Saturday: wet, very wet.  What else would you expect from Devens?  Quag and Paul showed up a bit weary, as they hadn’t been to bed.  Dave was pretty much in the same shape, but that was to be expected.  There were about 1.5 runs in the morning when it was misting.  Then it poured.  Then there was lightning.  The race was called until sometime around 1:00 (which was good for some nap time).  It was still raining, but we were racing anyway; cause that’s how we do. 

I was the first to run in heat 2 in the fab-oo-lus Spec-V (as I gave up on the Honda this year: you can suck it H).  It was starting to dry out a bit, but my third run didn’t go so well, as I was cooking the tires and regretting not getting new ones for the weekend.  I got faster in a couple spots, but lost a lot to traction in others.  It’s all right there in the vid.   

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v253/jettaboy20/?action=view¤t=ScottSatRun3.flv

By the later heats it was getting pretty fast out there.  Quag and Wiley were working out the bugs in the 510s handling and were hovering around 6^th -8^th place depending on the run.  Paul and Dave were hanging pretty well with the SM crowd when the Panda lost an oil line to the turbo.  Dave hopped in another 240 on loan from one of the fantastic guys from Mo-Hud and Paul slapped the SM magnets onto the 510.  They both broke the co-drive rule pretty bad with some spanking runs.   Unfortunately, I didn’t see what places they were running (due to the oil line and all) and I got no vids of any of it.     

The other half of the G-Fab Mack division joined the darkside for the tour.  Katie ran with FunHondas as one of Chang’s Hoes (there were 5 altogether) because she apparently values the chance at contingency money and a trophy.  She was trading 1^st and 2^nd back and forth while Cara was way back with very dirty runs.  Cara was apparently sandbagging, because her last run put her in first by two seconds or so with Katie in third by a few thousandths.   

So that was day 1.  I’d continue on to Sunday but I’ve been uploading the vids to photobucket for about 5 hours now.  So it’s late Friday night, and I have to go party with some interns.  Day 2 coming soon...

- Scott

Friday night... one car seems to be done and ready to run. Quag and Paul went back to CT to complete work on the 510; Mike and his dad went to try and extract one last exhaust stud and broken drill bit on the BMW; Dave is somewhere in Boston doing event preparation; Scott and Katie are somewhere around here. With luck all will come together in time for the event.

Weather is shaping up to be that of the typical Devens tour: mosquitoes, with a chance of rain.

Reports indicate that the 510 runs very well, with just some final assembly work and additional spring cutting left... as well as driving it to Devens in the dark and rain in the morning.

Found today on Quag's engine hoist as we were once again removing the 510 engine.
Seems as though everyone's car is breaking these days.

Yay for sunshine!! Beautiful day, good course, fun times. Too bad the front shocks on the 240 were sucking so bad that the car was barely on the ground due to bouncing!! Still, first event in a while back on R-compounds. Somehow, we were lucky to even be at the event. The previous day the Panda blew an oil line on the way up. After a 5 hour ordeal involving driving back and forth to Pepboys, I found a brake line that worked and we somehow got everything back together. We even met a really nice cop that raced SCCA IT!

After all that, I took first, Dave took second, but still way behind Chris and Mike in DSP. Damn their ability to keep tires touching the ground! Anyways, more updates to come later.

Panda hugging cones:

-PJ

It's been one week....

One week from today is the first NER event of the season!! I reeeaaally hope the car is ready for co-driver Dave White, who is sure to put a massive beating on the car with no remorse or thoughts of the consequences of spinning out multiple times with the throttle registering 100% on the datalogger. Because of this, I've set the ignition map a bit lower and hopefully will have larger injectors for detonation insurance. Besides that, the new headgasket and head studs are in, everything is buttoned up, and maybe I'll even make my front splitter and extend my rear fender flares....

Other than that, Quag's been getting the 510 ready. I'll let him post his update. FSP looks to be shaping up as a pretty big class this year, though!! Makes me wish I had my own underpowered car to toss around in a sort of "misfit" class :p

-PJ

The first FCSCC points event took place last weekend, and it took this long to bother to write an update for it. I'm sure many of you are disappointed in the GFab Press Room, but hey, we have other crap to worry about like HOW THERE'S A NON-RUNNING DATSUN THAT HASN'T UPDATED YET.

So, three members of the G-Fab unit partook in the second to last NVCC event for FCSCC for the 2k7 AX season. I could abbreviate more, I'm sure, but WTF. FWIW and AFAIK, IMHO there's no better way to communicate over the internets. However, Quag, Chris, and I brought RWD mayhem to the sandy terrain known as NVCC. Chris did his thing in the Miata, with Quag co-driving. Run after run the racing line started to wear in, but lo-and-behold, Chris couldn't beat a measly 280hp AWD STi with his little roadster. He did pretty much obliterate his class, though, while Quag tentatively tried to keep up. Did a good job at getting sideways, but alas you can't accelerate forward while sliding....

I myself had the 240 on street tires, with my Autocross suspension still on the car. Had I had time earlier I might've swapped to something that could've kept a tire on the ground, but off-roading plus stiff springs = floating car. Then again, loss of traction can be fun....

It did lead to a somewhat large amount of cones killed... on straight-a-ways no less.

Next event coming is NNJ down at e-town, brown clown. Panda gets back on r-compound, and Paul will be there with his shifter kart on the ground. It's bound to be a fun round of racing.... umm.... oooww..nnnndddd?

-PJ
(This update brought to you by the number: March. And the letter: 29)