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JohnRW1621
JohnRW1621 MegaDork
5/1/16 5:30 p.m.

I think I missed an opportunity. I had not looked at the schedule earlier. What was this Harley Davidson stop in Avon, OH which happens to be 30 minutes from my house?

In other questions, I see there are lots of classes. In what class would a 1990 Infiniti Q45 fall?
What's the age cut-off for Foreign Vintage?
Does a $900 Infiniti count as lux sedan, mid priced sedan, low priced sedan?

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/1/16 7:15 p.m.

Lake Erie Harley Davidson in Avon OH, so yes, you missed it.
It would be pretty hard to argue your car out of anything other than Luxury Sedan. It's insanely hard to really compete your first year no matter how you're classed, so it's best to just enter and go with the flow. It's one hell of a good time.

gamby
gamby UltimaDork
5/1/16 11:28 p.m.

In reply to sleepyhead:

A real-deal Shogun?! Wow-wee. WTF is with that exhaust exit? Doesn't appear to have efficient flow in mind with those 90 degree angles.

WonkoTheSane
WonkoTheSane GRM+ Memberand HalfDork
5/2/16 12:12 a.m.

Who all from GRM land will be at Palmer tomorrow? I'll be stopping by to visit friend and run track night there, so stop me if you see me next to my blue rx8, my name is Aaron.

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/2/16 10:43 a.m.

Let's catch up.
The boys drove in funny shaped circles yesterday, some wet, some dry, they survived and drove faster than some other cars did. Something about a navigation error last night and the last I heard from them they were just finishing up sitting with the GTO crew that spit out an axle on I-90 and needed a flatbed. That was something like 3:00 AM Eastern time. Did they make it Palmer? Excellent question, I have no idea, but I hope so because I'm at the airport waiting to get on a plane.
I dropped the kids at school and figured I'd do just as well sitting at the airport for an extra two hours as I would sitting on the couch at home. Good thing too because the usual 35 minute drive took two hours when someone decided that burning a semi to the ground on the freeway was a lovely way to spend their morning and the drive took two hours. Security was quick and here I sit. Oh, and the fire alarm is currently going off. I've never seen a group of adults ignore a fire alarm so thoroughly. We're pretending like we can't hear it. My assumption is that bursting through the exit doors and walking out onto the tarmac would actually make my day worse. I'm going to wait until I smell smoke.
One Lap, always and adventure.

Sonic
Sonic SuperDork
5/2/16 1:12 p.m.

They did make it to the track today and through the first run group, in some of the heaviest rain I've seen at a track.

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/2/16 2:56 p.m.

Awesome. Thanks for the update. Plane just landed. Ready to get to a track!

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/2/16 5:56 p.m.

The boys survived again and now I get to play! I was picked up at the airport in a Mini convertible with the top down and enjoyed a lovely sunny 75 degree drive to the hotel. Contrast that to Palmer which was reported as 42 and raining the whole day. Yuck.
I found a motorsports themed cafe, the 0-60 Energy Cafe, within walking distance and had a Hamburghini for dinner. Now I'm just waiting for everyone to start rolling in. The ETA of the #58 car is somewhere around midnight, so I would bet I'll see the early cars somewhere after 10:00. Tomorrow is Summit Point. I think I'm just track walking and hanging out as both of the teammates will be there, but my firesuit and helmet are ready, just in case.

Sonic
Sonic SuperDork
5/2/16 6:10 p.m.

You can take the Mercedes out for lunchtime parade laps tomorrow if you'd like.

sleepyhead
sleepyhead GRM+ Memberand New Reader
5/3/16 7:57 a.m.

Alright, quick phone update.

Mazdeuce and the co-driver are at the track doing a track walk and i got a sleep-in in prep of the long transit tonight.

But, back tracking. i haven't posted because loading this page on my "pay-as-you-go" phone plan was going to get expensive quick (hooray pictures!). Then, when we hopped in the car after Pitt, I fired up my laptop and plugged my usb drive... the computer threw a "device power spike" warning and the drive wiuldn' "power-on".

Then, as mazdeuce related, we happened across the #28 GTO, that had spat out the left axle, and twisted the cup in the process so that the axle wouldn't go back in. We waited until the rollback came by... trying to provide some-levelheaded advice. Eventually the Toyota Production Engineers (running the Avalon & FR-S; and separate from the "marketing group" running the Siennas) stopped and eventually gave the GTO guys a ride from the car shop dropoff to their hotel.

So, we got in to our hotel at 3am. Checking the weather showed rain, so we planned for me to run the track sessions... and u decided an extra hour if sleep would give better track-performance than gettingup in time to walk the track. Alright, ride is here.. time ti leave wifi and get to summit.

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/3/16 11:16 a.m.

I just want to post this picture from under the bridge at Summit Point from the track walk this morning. It was pretty phenomenal just to be here. Driving this afternoon. I got 15 miles of driving from the hotel to the track this morning. That should be enough, right?

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/4/16 12:30 a.m.

Summit is fantastic. It's like taking a lovely country drive as fast as you can, which in my case wasn't terribly fast.
Knocked off a 10 hour transit to NCM and now it's time for sleep. Sleepyhead gets both sessions here tomorrow as I drove it last year and am not terribly interested in doing it again. It's kind of a neat track but lack of runoff in someone else's car isn't something I care to do tomorrow. Maybe I'll take some pictures.

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/4/16 10:12 a.m.

Hanging out at NCM hoping to get a dry session in. We can see the rain coming. Miles of ARMCO here. At least there are more tires out this year to soften the blow.
The lovely wife of Sonic riding her scooter down into the toilet bowl. She's in the picture, I swear. Andy Hollis's McClaren. This car deserves to be on posters.
The 918 that is being driven by the same super cool guys who drive the Carerra GT last year. I like how they roll.

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/4/16 5:11 p.m.

This is a real SHOgun. #2 of the six or seven they built. About half and hour after I took this it fairly gently hit the ARMCO backwards. Messed up the exhaust but the body looked good. Obviously I need to find evern rarer cars to drive around.

Spoolpigeon
Spoolpigeon UberDork
5/4/16 5:14 p.m.

Bummed I couldn't go to NCM today to see the cars first hand again, but I did see about a dozen one lap cars in the commute home from work. That was a nice surprise.

CyberEric
CyberEric Reader
5/4/16 5:47 p.m.

That SHOgun is fantastic!

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/4/16 5:49 p.m.

In reply to Spoolpigeon:

You missed a cool day. There was some kind of pro-touring autocross going on too with maybe 100 very interesting high horsepower cars driving around the parking lot all day. It was neat.

4Msfam
4Msfam Reader
5/4/16 6:43 p.m.

I love these updates!

Hal
Hal UltraDork
5/4/16 9:37 p.m.
mazdeuce wrote: Summit is fantastic. It's like taking a lovely country drive as fast as you can, which in my case wasn't terribly fast.

Just watch out for the deer, groundhogs, and cows. I have seen all of them on the track at various times.

JohnRW1621
JohnRW1621 MegaDork
5/4/16 10:37 p.m.

McClaren!
Wasn't he campaigning a CRX last year?
How does one go from a CRX to McClaren in 1 year?

Very cool.

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/5/16 11:14 a.m.

Look who else is hanging out wrenching on cars at Road America today.
And yes, they're as cool as you think.

TRoglodyte
TRoglodyte UltraDork
5/5/16 11:30 a.m.

Whole Lotta awesome right there, Thanx for sharing

KyAllroad
KyAllroad UltraDork
5/5/16 11:56 a.m.

Is it dry today? You guys deserve a break in the weather!!

mazdeuce
mazdeuce UltimaDork
5/5/16 1:04 p.m.

It is dry. Beautiful day. We only walked 1/2 the track before we were informed of the 'no track walks at RA' policy. Biggest fastest course of the week and I get to learn it on the sighting lap. Awesome. At least the autocross went well. The fast guys were absurdly faster but I did beat a fair number of people which is something we don't ever do in the Mini.

bluej
bluej UltraDork
5/5/16 1:18 p.m.

wait, what are you driving that's not the Mini? I'm confused...

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