Mountain Madness this weekend at Summit Point

Everyone still in I hope? I am still tired from last weekend, I don't recommend doing back to back weekends....takes a lot of time prepping, unpacking, prepping agian..


Unless you have a Nascar crew to do all this stuff for you...


Rick, you should come down and play in my group this weekend....we would have fun for sure.


Ken

My new numbers are in and on the car

NEW NUMBERS THAT WON'T BLOW OFF!! (echo...echo...echo...)

April NASA at SP MAIN

Getting stoked now, plan on being there when the gates open and will set up camp at the Chapel as we hae done in the past.


Did not get the Motorhome, long story....maybe next year we are thinking.

Well, I got a new Tow Vehicle

Not sure how or why I am doing these things, but they are all geared towards making the driving events we do much more fun.

There is a good story to go with this and I don;t have time for many details at this time, just got back from Ohio.

What did we get?

2006 E-450/V10 with tow package, 26' Maverick by Geogie Boy with one slide unit. Sleeps 6, fully loaded with shower/micro/covection/stove/bathroom/master bedroom etc....

Has Sonic Blue Strips, only 20K on the clock, has been owned and driven by a lil ole 76 year old lady. Never towed anything with it so that is good news.


it looks like brand new in and out, fully self contained if needed and can easily last a weekend.

On board 4000KW generator, LP gas, yada yada yada


Now, the storage is simply huge... enough space for two or three sets of tires, gear, what ever we could need.

Dirves like a dream, going up to pick it up Tuesday and will have at the track this weekend.


Cheers,


Ken

45th Mustang Anniversary

Pics from Barber for the Mustang Anniversary.

Autocross on the new skid pad at Summit Point

I have a friend named Gonz, with a red Mustang GT. He's very fast in Open Track with his somewhat older car. I have been talking with him through the winter, and it turns out he is also one of the guys who run a group called Capitol Driving Club, a club that puts on autocrosses. They have had them at Harry Grove Stadium in Frederick, and Bowie Baysox Stadium in...umm...Bowie I guess.

Anyway, he told me they were having their first one ever at Summit Point this Saturday, and asked if I wanted to come up.

Yes, of course.

They were using the brand-spanking new Skid Pad area built near the tactical section (guns) that's like a bunch of skid pads put together. It's still pretty raw, but they'll be putting in grass and curbs soon.

I didn't run, I didn't even take my Cobra up. I just wanted to see the new place, and what Gonz's group was like. There were more cars than I expected. Some real fast, and some I think I could have taken with my Camry. I'll have to be sure to go to their next autocross, they look very well run, and it's really good practice.

Of course, I didn't even think of taking my camera, I don't know why. So I had to use my crappy cell phone. SORRY!

These shots are from the grandstands, and you can see more in them. It's real flat there!

I also made a map showing where the skid pad area is, and roughly what its shaped like. There's a big parking lot next to it. Don't worry, you're not falling.

Sitting in the grandstands, you can turn right and see part of the Shenandoah circuit, turn left and you can see the building for the Jefferson circuit, and behind you can see the chute and T5 of the main track.

Speaking of which, I wandered over to the main track after watching the autocross for a while (I was having trouble just watching), and they were having an SCCA MARRS (MidAtlantic Road Racing Series) race, one of SCCA's BIG DEALS! I would have had to pay at the gate to get in and spectate except that when I went in I was just there to go to the autocross, and then once I was in the complex...well...I had to go to OG racing to get something, so it's not like I was going there JUST to spectate.

The pits were PACKED! Trailers everywhere. And just race cars. No HPDE or PDX. I saw a familiar car while there (Dave Rankin) and took a picture of his Trans Am. I got to watch him race right after lunch in the ITE (Improved Touring) class. They ran with all the other IT classes, as well as AS (A Sedan) and GT1. LORD, those GT1 cars are fast. Dave seemed to do OK, it was hard to tell where everyone finished in class.

I watched 2 races, but had to go before Spec Miata came out. Too bad. I counted about 13,740 Miatas in the pits. It must have been an interesting race.

In The News....Mustang Times

Mustang Times is the member magazine for the Mustang Club of America.

I just received the April 2009 issue in the mail, and a couple photos I had sent in got published.

Click on the page to enlarge it, unless you have a gargantuan monitor.

VIR SpinFest '09

What is a sure sign that spring has arrived? Virginia International Raceway and rain. Two years in a row now a bunch of us have gone to VIR in March and gotten dumped on. This year it rained on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We were there for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Well, even Mother Nature needs a break.



My friends Paul (BMW) and Chris (Mustang Cobra) came down on Thursday with me. Paul and I were taking the NASA Instructors Clinic, and Chris was registered for Open Practice. Then Ken & Diane (SVT Focus), Doug (Mustang Cobra), and Rick Jr/Rick SR and Terry (Mustang Cobra) were joining us on Friday afternoon.

The clinic had a Thursday night session, which was very well handled, and there were some Instructor drills as well as open track time on Friday. Here's a video of the first session we went out in on Friday morning, on a very slippery track.

Now, things went pretty well on Friday and Saturday. I managed to stay on track and had a good time. And the forecast for Sunday was bright and clear. So then I took off my rain tires and put on my slicks. I should have known better.

I don't know why, but when I went out on a drying track Sunday morning, I forgot to hit record on my camera. Which is a shame, because I went for the wildest ride I've ever had in my car. On the second lap I just gave it a bit too much gas coming out of turn 2, and the rear end came around and made me go sailing off the track sideways at over 50 mph. As I went flying (skimming?) through the mud, it just came washing into my car and over me...wave after wave, until I thought it was never going to stop. But it did finally, and I had managed to not hit anything. Of course having had my top down, a club requirement, I was covered with mud inside and out. I then realized that getting out of there was going to be another challenge. Slicks in a mud bog are not the best option to have on the car. But by rocking it, I was able to work my way up onto some high ground, where I could get back to the pits. I went straight to a hose, and had the forethought to shoot this video before I started hosing it off.

I was able to get the car hosed of a bit, and managed to make it out in the next session, where it was mostly dry and I managed to make it to the checkered flag with no more drama.

Most of us had a good time, except Ken had an issue where he was trying to lubricate his suspension joints with engine oil. Once that was fixed, his intake electrics succumbed to the wet, and he had to trailer the car with only a couple sessions on it. But he scored big on great motel rooms for the gang, and we had as good a time off track as on.

In car camera thread

This is where we talk cameras. Greg, I knew you had mentioned your camera set up in an email chain, and of course it is buried somewhere.


Does yours have a metal screw mount on the bottom? I buggered up my camera mount because it is plastic. I need to make sure the next one is true metal...thanks..


Rick, can you post about the nice little deal you have as well. Anyone else, jump on in.

Looks like I'm doing a number on my car.....

Car numbers, that is. I blew apart one of my magnetic numbers at VIR (I swear I didn't go over 200), and am in the market for new, more durable numbers. My current numbers looked nice and were real cheap (err....inexpensive). I just stuck vinyl 10" numbers from OG Racing on magnetic material, and they have worked fine for a long time. But I guess the cold, damp environment at VIR was too much for the magnetic force, and one of them gave up. Since I had also put duct tape top and bottom to prevent them from flying off and into someones windshield, the poor number plate beat itself into a ragged stump of it's former self, fortunately not hurting the car in the process.

My friend Simon Oakley has been running with the same number on his car for years without any problems, so I asked him what it was and where he got it. It turns out its a removable vinyl adhesive number from this source: http://www.soloperformance.com/

I'm going to order some from them, but am having a hard time choosing which to get. With the old numbers there was no choice; black numbers on a white background. And it was strikingly effective and quite good looking, though part of that credit has to go to the beautiful car they were on. But the choices for the new numbers are overwhelming. I narrowed it down to block slanted style type, in white. But I can't decide on a drop shadow or not, and if so, what color?

My wife suggested that since I work in PhotoShop some, I should try a couple mock-ups there. So I made a couple versions with no shadow, a black shadow, and a silver shadow. I think I like the silver shadow best.

Here are a couple pictures showing my old numbers (may they rest in piece), and the different versions I'm considering. You can click on them to see the numbers in better detail.

Greg's Vid and pics