Perfect day for the f-body racer! Options

[CMC #37]

Ok I did not get on track myself....that was the only thing missing. On with the tale.....

Yesterday AM I set out with my '97 Trans-Am, the black car I have posted about with the alignment problem. Since the front tires were so badly worn and cord was showing on one, I trailered it on my open trailer behind the 2004 Duramax. I gotta say a black TA and truck look GOOD! I am the original owner of the '97 and it still looks like only a clean black TA can look! (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/cool2.gif) BTW towing with the Bilsteins was much improved! (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/2thumbs.gif)

This was my first trip with the Magellan 4050 GPS I got from Costco. I was going to CMCer Sam Stowell's shop, BAF Automotive, which is in San Pablo (San Francisco bay area), about 50 miles from my house. The GPS is a "talking" GPS and it did a nice job of updating me every two miles. When a major interchange came up it told me to stay on the freeway I was on if I was to continue on it. Nice! The screen is big enough so that I did not have any trouble seeing it. Some other features I like are that you can give it verbal commands, and when you are not in a route it shows how fast you are going. The sucker has a ton of nice features including being integrated to AAA, I would recommend it.

Once I got to Sam's it did not take long to figure out I had a bent spindle and we replaced that (I had brought straight spares), aligned the car and had it back on the trailer in a couple hours after the standard racer's lunch and bench racing to some great Italian food. That left me just enough time to stop by Sears Point (Infineon) and pick up a new driving suit and shoes from Wine Country Motorsports. As I signed in I could hear the sound of something fast going around the track and they told me Marco Andretti was out testing his IRL car!

After picking out a new suit and shoes (Puma shoes, thanks for the recommendations on the CMC board guys!), I headed over to watch the IRL testing. Turns out the spot I picked to hang out was a good one, right above Dario Franchitti and Danica Patrick's pitboxes! I gotta say when Danica appears, cameras and people appear out of the woodwork! It was very quiet there at the track and there were maybe 15 people watching where I was. I watched them for nearly an hour and 1/2 and really enjoyed seeing the teams work so close up. They appeared to be scrubbing in a couple of sets of new tires, making wing adjustments and Dario's engine cover kept coming off for what looked to be minor adjustments.

I had a decent view of a good part of the track also - they do not have the standard club road racer config. I am used to. They have essentially the same config. from the parts of the track I could see, except they go left at T8 instead of right into traditional T9. Once they go left they go straight for a bit then into a very SEVERE chicane! That seemed to be the trouble spot for the testing crowd of about 8-10 IRL cars. Danica and a couple others went off there.

Dario looked really fast. When I first recognized him he was close enough for me to say something to, I resisted the suggestion that he stay upright! (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) The Patron and Joost cars were also out getting a lot of laps in. Danica was out maybe an hour and they took her car in the garages to work on it, which I had fun watching all the teams out there too. When I left Danica was watching video with her team in the pitbox.

The IRL Honda powered cars run on ethanol - it was really hard to smell it. Refueling was interesting to watch, they have a pretty skinny hose set-up and purged the tank each time they refueled. That was quite noisy that close up.

I went home in a bit of traffic but did not care! (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/thumbup.gif)

[firehawkclone]

That sounds like a great day Julie, now the only thing to top it of is a foot rub and dinner by the hubbie (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)