I don't want to get mushy or anything, but (among her many other fine qualities), E is awesome and gave me, as a new year's present, a day of racing lessons at pacific raceways, including lessons in our dream car, a Lotus Exige. Here's a lap video.

so, E and I attended a "ladies practice" autocross yesterday. the idea of a practice event, of course, is that there's no competition, to get everyone a lot of runs, and to encourage people to have instructors ride with them, to ride with others, and even to try each others' cars and so on, all of which can be a lot more fun than an actual competitive event, and a better learning opportunity. the goal of a ladies practice is to encourage women to try autocross and get better at it an so on, in a low-pressure friendly environment. because, and this should come as no surprise, there are a lot more dudes than chicks out there racing cars, and the ladies sometimes feel intimidated.

what's great about the practice is a lot of guys show up to help out, so the ladies can spend the whole time driving without having to chase cones and so on. though the guys get some run time at lunch and afterwards, so really everyone gets a pretty full day of racing excitement. this was E's first time out -- she's been working up to it for a while but finally took the plunge and had a great time. she had to flog her poor crappy automatic daily driver around, but did well regardless -- she was naturally smooth and controlled, and improved markedly over the course of the day. it was fun to go and help out, meet some new people, and see E start down the path to speed obsession. plus I got about 8 shots at the course myself and got some good instruction in the bargain.

today we went to a regular event, and though E was nervous at first to drive in front of all those fast people (a lot faster than me), she got over it and did nicely. and everyone is super friendly to new people, especially women. so a good time was had by all. the only downside for me was that, being the usual sort of seattleish cave dweller, I am seriously sunburned, and utterly exhausted by all the standing around and working in the sun. it's not easy to find an entire weekend for racing, but when you can manage it, it's very satisfying -- lots of practice time all at once, with plenty of repetition and refinement is the best way to learn and, for me anyway, provides a more satisfying sense of understanding and improving. good times.

Yesterday was a mixed day autocross-wise. On the one hand, I got one truly inspired run where I "drove it like I stole it"; on the other, because of horrible delays, I spent a lot of time out there for very little actual driving.

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but anyway, I have that second run. it was all flow, man

Well I got a chance this weekend to test-drive one of the cars on my dream list, an Alfa Romeo GTV6. Man is that a good looking car. This particular one was being sold by a guy in his 60s who's had it for 7 years or so but is finding that the non-power steering is getting too hard to handle with a bit of arthritis. And he wasn't kidding -- I've driven cars without power steering before (my old CRX, and more recently the MR2), but this car really took some strength. Turning a corner at 25 or so I could barely get it pulled around to make the turn tight. And the clutch was having some serious issues. Even so, it felt good, and I think one in good shape, once you got used to it, would be a very nice ride. The weirdest thing though was the seat position -- I had it all the way up, with the wheel tilted down, and it was just about in the right spot. Anyone shorter than my 5'8" would be screwed. So it was fun but not an entirely positive experience; I'm not sure the GTV6 gets to stay on the list (maybe the B-list), but I need to drive one in better shape to know for sure.

Friday I had my second high performance driving school at pacific raceways. There's a lot to say about it, but I wanted to try and write down my "track map" while it was still fresh in my mind. See, one of the parts of learning to drive a course is figuring out the best racing line through it for your car. And in order to be consistent, you should make a map in your head of all your braking zones and turn-in points and apexes, with whatever landmarks you can find (trees, light poles, lines on the pavement) to help you find the same point every time. For the school, they put out cones to help you find your way, but they encourage you to find permanent landmarks for the future. I've driven the course enough times now that I can go through it in my head, and I spent a part of my attention friday trying to find good landmarks. So here's my current track map...

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we're over-fastidious about the word "perfect". To often we save it for, you know, big perfections, when there are so many little ones. There are several pop songs that, every time I hear them, I think "that song is a perfect what-it-is"; it may not be a perfect, or even a great, song, but it's perfectly what it is. whatever that means. anyway, today was a perfect day. I had a great day of high performance driving school, where for 8-9 hours I didn't think about anything but cars and turn-in points and throttle control and trying not to get too wet... and not one thought about all the various stresses and excitements (good and bad) that usually make a hubbub in my head.

oddly enough, the point when I said to myself "today was perfect" wasn't a during or at the end of driving school but when, once I was home, I decided I would get a pizza from my favorite pizza place. I can't convey exactly why racing + relaxing with a movie and pizza makes for a little perfect day, but maybe you understand.

for the last eleven days I've been driving a Kia Rio while my M Coupe was getting some work done. this is pretty much a punishment of a car, or, if you prefer, a simple utensil intended to get you from point A to point B. its one presumed advantage is that it gets good mileage and is cheap to operate. so what kind of mileage did I get, going about my daily rounds? 20, maybe 25 mpg. what do I get in my gas-guzzling BMW sports car with twice the horsepower? 19-20. weak. totally weak.

and by the way, this silver Kia has to be the most invisible car ever. repeatedly, pedestrians would walk right out in front of it, SUVs would almost change lanes into it.. I mean, if there's anything more generic than a silver economy car, I ain't seen it.

I admit it, I like the tron civic commercial.

In honor of the fact that I'm going to speed racer school this weekend, I thought I would share one of the awesomest episodes of Dexter's Laboratory ever: dexter as speed racer.

"The first thing any successful racer needs is a car all the top racers drive cars and that's what makes them go, but cars don't grow on trees. except for this one because it's made of wood! behold, the mark 5! the mark 5 is a marvel of engineering! it's equipped with the most modern driving equipment -- wheels!"

An epic and hilarious segment of Top Gear where the boys have 1500 pounds to spend on a sports coupe and battle it out (Mitsubishi Starion vs BMW 635 vs Jaguar XJS) to see which is supreme.

I'm #3! After today's race, I moved into #3 in my class (the set of people who have cars comparable to mine). If I just show up at the next event, I should finish the season in third, which might even be good for a trophy. How did I do this, you ask? Well it's not by my excellent driving, though I have been improving and doing well by my standards. Unfortunately, I'm in a tough class, and the regulars are all still 2-3 seconds faster than me. however! I have better attendance. at the end of the season, your best finishes in 7 out of 9 events will be added up to determine your final score. At this point, I'm the slowest of the three people who haven't missed more than two events. Here we go adequate attendance!

Other than that, not much to say about today's race. It's this event called "Enduro" -- unlike regular autocross, where you get 4-5 runs through the course, spread out over an hour or two as people take turns, in Enduro you get one shot at the course, you run four laps, and your best lap is your final time. It's kind of fun, and a change of pace, but with no time to really reflect on your run, it's hard to improve. especially for a relative beginner like me. So I had three runs, all around the same time (whereas usually these days I improve significantly from run to run), and wasn't very impressive.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, drifting is all the rage among the kids these days. Aside from its street-racing associations, it has grown up into a motorsport of sorts, with an American championship series (though it originated in Japan and many of the top drifters are Japanese). I say "of sorts" because drifting is to autoracing as figure skating is to speed skating -- there's no objective measure of who won, and tournaments are decided on style.

Drifting involves making your car go sideways. The more sideways it goes, the longer you hold it that way, and the closer you come to crashing into something without doing so, the more points you get for style. It wouldn't work as a race, because drifting is rarely the fastest way through any course; but it sure looks cool.

Peter and I went to check out the formula drift event in Seattle today, #5 of the 7-event formula drift series. Our expectations were pretty low, but we figured it would be entertaining, with plenty of people watching for good measure. The drifting itself was a blast. It's pretty easy to get into it and see what the judges are looking for, and get into the audience cheering the fanciest drifts (audience excitement is one factor in the scores). The best guys can drift around an entire 180-degree track oval, then carry it into several turns without losing too much momentum, with smoke billowing out of the tires the whole way. it's also great to see super powerful cars like dodge vipers and hopped-up nissan 350zs along side the venerable hachi-roku corolla, each car and driver having a different approach.

weird detail of the day: they were giving away, as souvenirs, tires used by the drifters (this sport goes through tires like mad, you can imagine), and the whole afternoon we saw young guys walking around with tires slung over their shoulders. the hell? what do you do with it when you get home? anyway, we weren't able to stay for the whole thing and didn't get to see much of the exciting tandem racing (two cars go at once, right next to each other, and the one judged the winner moves on in competition), but I'd definitely go again.

Another good day of autocross yesterday. At the practice a couple of weeks ago, I felt like I was getting better at understanding a course, figuring out how to navigate it, and getting it done with the car. At the autocross the next day, I found the course tough on the first couple of runs, but then figuring out how to smooth things out and improved a lot. Yesterday was similar. The course was extremely tight (even tighter than the usual courses they shoehorn into that parking lot) and on my first couple of runs I felt like I was thrashing against the impossible, unable to put any of the car's power to any use.

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John Frankenheimer fucking rules! He makes great movies, and you can tell from his director's commentaries that he just loves movies and he really loves cars. Grand Prix doesn't have a commentary but you don't need it to see his love of speed -- it's obvious in every shot of the cars and races. The story follows four formula one drivers through the 1966 grand prix season, on track and off, and the whole thing was filmed at the actual races, with additional footage on and around cars to fill in details. Most of the actors did their own driving -- Frankenheimer said (in the "making of" featurette) James Garner could have been a pro, after a couple months of lessons. Frankenheimer always insists on realism (same thing in Ronin, thirty years later), and it works. The racing shots in this movie still look amazing today and I don't think could be topped with all the technical wizardry we have now (and when he made Ronin, he did it the same way, without computers).

One of the best car movies ever. and you can't see one of Frankenheimer's movies or see a documentary about him or listen to one of his commentaries without thinking how damn cool he is.

Awesome. One of the best days of racing I've had. Today's event was a practice -- no championship points, no complicated recordkeeping, no restrictions on passengers and car-swapping -- and ended up being a great learning experience. For one thing, turnout was low and we got lots of runs -- six in the morning and twelve in the afternoon. The course changed a bit from one to the other, due to a boat that had been left parked in the middle of the course but was moved away by lunchtime. but a lot of it was the same, giving us lots and lots of tries at getting it right.

Lots more racing stuff below the cut!


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This may have been my best weekend of racing yet. Saturday was especially fun because not only did J come along, but Tom and Michele came as well, and they all seemed to have a good time. I've been trying to get J to ride along with me when I run the course, but she's been chicken. But once Tom jumped in and had a great time, she and Michele had to try it too. They all looked cute in their borrowed red helmets too.

Anyway, that's not the only reason it was a good weekend. On both days (especially in contrast to last week!) I felt in control of the car, like I knew what I was doing and how to approach the course. More importantly, I felt like I was learning how to use the car and how to choose a strategy. I was generally smoother and faster than I've been before, and my times were generally not bad. I specifically asked J to watch and tell me where I looked slow or unsmooth and report back to me -- it's amazing how obvious it can be from the outside where someone's driving wrong, even when it's hard to tell from inside the car (or hard to process that information while you're driving and hard to recall it when you're done). Anyway, she was able to point out where I could go faster and drive better, and in most cases I could already tell, a sign that I'm getting better at learning as I drive.


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I have not (to some people's relief) been posting much about racing lately, mostly because I haven't been racing much (see previous annoyed posts regarding brake problems) but also because I just didn't feel like it. After a couple months of non-racing, I went to one today, just got home. It was in Packwood (huh huh packwood), which is south of Mt. Rainier. I don't go to many Packwood events because it's a longer drive, but on the other hand it's very scenic and interesting enough to not get dull. I went a different route this time which involved about 25 miles on a narrow, twisty forestry road alongside a river.

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if any of you, my wonderful friends, has been thinking about how much you wanted to try autocross, you should go tomorrow (it's only 20 minutes away in Everett!) and let me share your car ;)

According to this Detroit News article (tip: Autoblog), Honda (they're Japanese, remember) are turning to Gwen Stefani (not Japanese) for advice on how to make their cars more "J-cool" to young people. I guess it makes sense -- no one would argue that Honda knows more about style than Gwen Stefani -- but it's kind of weird on its face. Does Honda really want Gwen's cheesy Americanized version of Harajuku cool to be the face of Honda in America? And is this going to result in an Acura that looks like little Bo Peep? On the other hand, Honda could use a little flash lately.