After the day I had at work ... me too.

Give someone a donut for me, eh?

I guess that means that I really do know someone and Chris got in.

The oil cooler is in, the plumbing is done and the damn Moroso adaptor plate (that replaces the filter) is leaking at the attachment bolt holes. I'm going to take another shot at it in the morning (it was getting too late to run the car) and decide if it's coming with me or not. It seems to idle ok and the mixture seems reasonable after I reset the computer, but I didn't get a chance to drive it so I really can't say.

Yeah you do.

Thanks again.. Andy and I have been having a blast.

Some dude with two first names is shooting a video here. I'm sick of the song and I've only heard it about 6 times in a row. I can't imagine the crew that has been here since 6am, and it's amost 1am... One of the members told be that they will be here 'till 2:30.

I'm *not* a country music fan myself.. aparently most of the crew aren't either. Nobody could tell me the guys name.

Andy tells me Brent Keith/Keith Brent... sounds about right. I took a bunch of pics.

TB: you better not puss out on us.. car or not.. we could use a good tool bisch!

edit: wait, if you DO puss out, I have a better place to sleep....

If I left now, I would be there by midnight ...

Grab a flight to nashville, we'll pick you up....

so how was the first day guys!?

Hey it's 6:30pm here, I'm heading over that way in about an hour. Hopefully I can find you guys! Won't be racing, just visiting...

John,

We are very much in evidence in the RV area inside the track -- last session for Open track is 8:50 local so come on!

Glenn,

We are actually finishing up the second day. I had some issues on the ORR car with a very unpredictable suspension. I think I have sorted it out by going back to the 19mm rear bar and laying the rear spoiler down some. Several off road events for me as the sorting proceeded. The sideskirts took a beating and the inside of the car is full of dust and grass. Kevin took the ORR car out for a session and saw 125mph at the end of the front straight.

Chris (CJ-TA) had a monster of a car--easily the fastest out here and I will let him update you on what happened. He is on his way back to the Valley as I type this.

Kevin is dealing with some overheating issues that I think are purely related to wide open areas around his radiator that need to be closed up. I am sure he will update as well.

Doesn't sound good.

Hope he makes it back OK and the "issue" is an easy fix.

The car was not just fast -- it was brutally fast.

He rode a session with me later last night and helped out a bunch on my lines. I made him talk like Homer Simpson---- DOH!

Good meeting everybody!

Whew those GT cars were fast.

Andy - DOH! I'm sure you have at least 30 of those on tape

[turbo recap]

My 'issue' - Toasted my C5R motor 10 minutes into the second session on the first day. My money is on a spun cam bearing... (theory is) broke the double roller timing chain when it seized, bent a bunch of valves, probably destroyed a couple pistons... my PTV clearance was already super tight. TONS of metal in the oil. Big chunks. Not bad for a motor that my brother and I built in my garage ~6 years ago... thats *6* race years on that engine. I'm not sad that it went.. just sad that it went when it did. If it was at my local track... would have been even better. I had a bunch (6 to 6.5qts) of oil in there. It was checked just before the session started.

I'll type up a novel sometime later... Riding with Andy, Meeting TB & everyone else... Being a 'pace car' driver in the Foose Mustangs, etc

Total mileage for this excursion was just over 2600 miles.

Thank you Andy for all your hospitality.

I pulled a good samaritan act on the way home... ends up that I'm still an (unintentional) dirty old man. This might explain a lot if you look on the right hand side - I was thankful for all that I had this past week, I figured that I'd share it around.



Total mileage for this excursion was just over 2600 miles.

Chris... so when you became a good samaritan, why didn't you spin around and haul ass back to the track with your cargo? It was great to meet you and I hope you get that motor sorted out soon.

It was great to meet everyone. That and it was a grand old time down in Nashville. I have a hell of a lot of respect for Kevin's battle tank now after pulling through the tow from hell on the way home. At the same time, I thoroughly lost respect for his GPS. I'll leave it at that and let Kevin fill in the details.

Andy - I greatly appreciated the hospitality. That's one awesome car you've got and I can't wait to hear how it does up in Nebraska.

JohnD, Bock, Dusty - Great to meet you all and I'm looking forward to seeing y'all at the next big track event!

*ALL* I could think of (honestly) is, here I am, loading 15 *bareley legal* (mostly) Mexican girls (cheerleaders FTW!) into my (locked) trailer and hauling them a couple miles to the nearest gas station with my generator running full tilt to make that AC unit COLD... so that when they all got out, they could cut glass...

Ok, cut the last part about the glass - that was pure fantasy through the honest fear.

I could tell that the sponsor was slightly uneasy when I had to latch the door.. *totaly* understanding of the situation, I gave her a radio and my cell phone number, made sure that they both worked.

They were very thankful when they got out, and when they all saw that they were 'safe' in public, the questions about the car came flying out. That was - what is it, do you race, how fast is (was) it, can I give them a ride, can I park it at their house, etc...

Garrett: Sorry bud, I was already well south of San Antonio... the drive to Ohio would have sucked.

My GPS decided to run us home on "127". It picked 100+ (closer to 150 or so) miles of out of the way two lane twisty stuff. At one point Garrett asked me if we could unload the car and drive it down that road. It would have been much more fun. We were running through tripple "S" curves that were tagged 35 mph with a trailer (at better than 35 mph). Up hills, down hills, over a dam (really, a pretty good sized dam) and who knows where else. Anyway, we took forever to get home due to our little sight seeing trip. And, on two occasions I was forced to pull out and pass trucks that were towing trailers. Both of them were towing lighter trailers than I was and going far slower. So, we waited for a downhill, looked far ahead, pulled out and motored by. I've never had to pass a vehicle towing a trailer while I was towing a trailer, much less twice in one day.

I think we ran my poor truck to death, but it really didn't seem to care. I just wanted to get home.

Damn the gas mileage, full steam ahead!!!!

It was great meeting everyone. Thanks again Andy for the hospitality, we really appreciate it.

Kevin isn't joking about the dam... Here's a pic or two:

Kevin it is so sad the don't sell that book of maps thing in Ohio called a ROAD ATLAS.

Most major cities are connected via big, wide roads. I think Columbus and Nashville are included in the major city category.

You are supposed to use a GPS to tell you how much faster you are going than the speedo registers -- nothing else.

Guys,

I made it home about 11pm and just now got everything situated. It sure was nice matching folks up in person. Don't forget Bock and Little Bock drove all the way from NC just to visit!

I was gloating about having the only car that survived mostly intact all the way home but you know the old saying Pride Goeth Before A Fall?

I backed it into my smoker coming out of the trailer and banged up the rear quarter. This is not the Wal Mart type smoker -- it has wheels and a hitch to tow it behind your truck. Damn the luck!

Hey Garrett, can you resize those to something that's not 2 megs? (please?)

Hey Andy, mine survived in tact. It wasn't running fully right when I arrived, and it's still not. No real change there.

Fixed Kevin. It was after 12 am... cut me some slack, heh...

Andy, I now have a lovely 13 dollar road atlas after we both about reached the point of throwing the GPS out the damn window. Instead of taking 65 up through Louisville, we wound up going all the way over to 75 and taking it up to Cinci. Talk about a painful day. Heh.

How bad is the damage to the quarter panel? That sucks man... it now sounds like the tragically teal camaro is the only one that made it back from the track in basically the same condition it left in (lots of work still left on it... heh)...

Garrett,

I forgot that I had the oil temp sensor before the cooler. So, the 300 degree oil temps were what was leaving the pan, not what was leaving the cooler to feed the engine. I guess I have to figure out how to install a second sensor in the oil system now.

Caution: Hijack

Kevin, which GPS do you have? I just bought one and still have time to return it if its the same one!! FYI, they have a setting that avoids toll roads and major highways...

Andy!

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...iendid=71842197

click the song 'Looking for a Road'

Sound painfully familiar?

So THAT'S who was playing there? Never heard of him...

You know, he is from Ohio... I wonder if they were routed back through 127 like we were....

Just wait till the video comes out. You know, you should have convinced them to get your cars in the video. heh.

Mine is a 5 year old Magellan Meridian Gold. It was a great GPS, but sometimes it gets "creative" in its routing. I usually use it with my laptop, but we were lazy and that was not a good thing.....

What did you buy?

I bought my dad a Garmin Quest 2 a few years ago and have only yelled "No... I'm not off course" a handful of times. So I chocked it up to user error since that is the only issue we've ever had with it.

I over thought this purchase much like the first and decided I had to have text to speech, so it says the actual street names. Not really important BTW. I wound up with a Garmin Nuvi 350 because it is very small, has the speaker built in (most do now but my dad's has it in the power cable), 6 to 8 hour battery, touchscreen, and you don't have to upload any maps if you stay in North America. Other dopey features include an MP3 player, audiobook reader, SD slot, you can add a custom picture to your startup screen, translate a few different languages, it has a calculator and currency converter.

You can also add a remote antenna for concealed installation and FM traffic reports (with purchase of antenna adapter and a $60 yearly fee.) I wound getting it from Beach Camera, they have good prices and are local.

Jeez Chris,

He finished 6th on Nashville Star--whatever that is. He must be good, huh?

I looked at your picture album--you got some great pics of my car! Thanks!






I am working on that video.

Yeah, even at ~380mm, I still should have brought the big lens. Oh well. Most of them will need to be cropped.

Nice glowing rotor

Holy crap! I didn't even notice that!

Man, I wish you would get the Bird back together and come out to Ft Stockton in October.

Chris,

I wish you'd have stuck around and taken pictures of my car.....

Texas isn't THAT far!

Chris

He would never find Texas with that GPS of his.

Says the man who drove 2,600 miles....



That's also a distinct possibility.

It's 650 miles from Brownsville, Tx to Texarkana, Tx and 500 miles from Texarkana, Tx to Nashville Tn.

So a person can travel for several "days" and never cross the border.

Yeah, direct route FTW..

Brownsville/Harlingen to Ft. Worth ~550, Ft. Worth to Nashville SS, 720... and back the same way.

Or, home to ft worth to texarcana ~760 + 500 from texarcana to nashville

Wow... thats a LOT more driving in Texas than I thought

Arkansas was *brutal* hauling that trailer, I swear that the wheels fell off more than a dozen times... I had to pull over twice to check!

The next FRRAX event needs to be in Tx... that way we can get left and right coast people to the event.

Chris,

If we do that someone will have to get all these yankees their Texas Visas so they can enter the state.

We need to get together at TWS. How far is College Station from you? I have A&M hats we can wear and we will just say 'Howdy' to everyone we meet.

TWS Aug 4/5 ... I'll be there

Sandhills ORR Aug 9/11 -- I'll be there

Yes!! TWS would be awesome, especially since I live about 5 miles from the track. If we talk nice enough to Misty, I bet we can arrange something...

Since there seem to be more Texas people here, I definitely vote for a Texas gathering next time.

Chad,

If you are that close, you have to let everyone use your shower.

Luckily, TWS has showers, so you don't even have to leave the pits.

That is good. My poor RV plumbing could use a break.

Hey, we were gentle! And Kevin did his best to not blow the bus up...

I don't know about a Texas get together, but Bob Denton (MW CMC #67) told me about an idea about running at Hallett (Tulsa, OK) after he got back from MAM. Hallett is 10 hours from Chicago (NASA Midwest), 10 hours from Colorado Springs (NASA Rocky Mountain), and closer (Dallas) or further (holy crap is Harlingen far south!) for you Texas guys.

The idea sounded cool to me. Never been to Hallett, but the idea of 3 region racing and the car counts it could bring? Totally sweet.

Discuss

I think little bock took that one.... Pretty cool.

Nice meeting Andy & Chris. Kevin & crew showed up right as we had to leave but the car is looking good.

Those night photos look really cool too.

Sorry for blown motor Chris, I always look at this as a kind of bassackward opportunity!

You guys need to put NFME 2008 on your calendar for next May. (dates to be finalized soon)

Bock

I've got a gig out here in October after the right coast has gone into hibernation - a bit of a drive but I guarantee no snow ;-)
10/27-28 at Thunderhill - Sessions for beginners, intermediate and advanced drivers, plus real racing. Instruction and coaching available.

http://ncracing.org/th071027.html