Shanahan fired!!

The Broncos finally did what most fans have been asking for the last 3 years, fire Mike Shanahan, and today was the day. They made so many changes over the last 3 seasons with the same result, no playoffs and a lousy defense. In 6 of the 8 losses they gave up at least 30 points and in the other 2 they gave up more than 40. I read in the Denver Post that this years defense gave up the second most points in Bronco history (only the 1963 gave up more points in the season). So I say it's about time, he didn't have anything left in the tank.

The Broncos are a terrible football team

Should they fire Shanahan and bring in some new guy? I think so, that was worst defense I have ever seen from a Broncos team. They had no pass rush, could only stop the run for the first half of a game, and a secondary that thinks they're way better than they really are. The offense is just as terrible too!! Way too many interceptions from Cutler, no running game after the two starters were hurt and receivers that drop more passes than they caught. I think the time has come to hire a new guy and see what happens, too bad Gary Kubiak is locked in with Houston.

There's a bright spot though, the Boston Bruins are finally having a great year in hockey!! They've currently won 8 in a rowl, the last 2 coming from behind to get the win. They now have a 9-1-1 record when tied after 2 periods and are getting some outstanding goal tending from Thomas and Fernandez.

The Avs are a good team trapped into playing down to their competition instead of just dominating them, I don't understand them at all. One night the goalie will be a world beater and the next night couldn't stop a group of pee wee's from scoring.

So football season is over around here, good now we can get down to the real sport to watch, HOCKEY!!!

Mail volume down?

So far it's been rather slow, not much mail yesterday or today very light for this time of year. We're all wondering when the we'll be slammed with parcels, I'm hoping for tomorrow because I'm off. Last year at this time we were getting about 11 OTR's (over the road containers, they hold a lot of parcels) average per day but this year the most we've had in one day was 8 and that was Monday. I'm pretty sure all the bad weather around the country has held up a lot of the mail but there's no denying the economy has hurt the mail volume too.

On the plus side, Carrie has found time now to get out the Christmas cards so watch your mailbox for yours.

Snow and cold!!

We had about 6 inches of snow over the weekend and the coldest temps of the season so far. It was -16 at the airport, the thermometer in the Explorer said it was -6 when I went to work at 2:30 am. We had a heat wave today, it said it was in the low 30's but I noticed for the weekend they're calling for more very cold weather to move in.

I'll take the heat over the cold any day, I'm ready for summer to start!!

Sup

Snow

Woke up this morning to find out it had snowed over night, first measurable amount this year. It's about time too, it's been very dry so far this winter.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I know I'm going to way over eat but so what I'm just enjoying the day off and eating.

24 Years and still going

I'm a little late in posting this, but Monday the 17th marked 24 years of being married to Carrie. We were talking and remembered things a little different about the big event. I remember it that my Mom told me if we could out to Las Vegas she would pay for us to get married, and my Dad paid for my suit and the plane tickets. Carrie doesn't remember the plane tickets part, she thinks my Mom paid for those too. So how do you remember it? Either way it was awesome that my Mom did that and for that I say THANKS!

Denver Broncos

I'll tell you, it is real hard to sit here and watch them play, I just have no faith in their ability to win.
The QB, Cutler, looks petty good most of the time but that defense just refuses to stop the pass. They would get some pressure to the QB and the guy would still complete the pass due to bad coverage. I guess their philosophy is "better to be lucky than good".

Opinion needed

Is the Dish HD programing worth it? We are seriously thinking of switching to that and a DVR since we bought the new HDTV.

TV died

We have a big 35" Sony TV in the living room that's not very old and is just about to die. I know it's not HD but still it's a fairly new TV and supposedly a good brand that's just about dead on us. So, we're getting a HD TV and of course I just had to go big with it, 52 inches big to be exact, but hey at least I didn't spend a huge sum on it. Still spending anything over a $1000 for a TV is big but we saved $600 on getting from Amazon.com than buying local. I'm wondering how that will effect the waranty on it so we'll see how that works out, and we'll probably have to upgrade to HD programing too. We're supposed to get it on Tuesday so I'll have to let you know how it goes.

Foot update:

The doctor thinks it's well enough to only wear the 'boot' at home or when it starts to hurt too much. I think though I'll probably wear it around work for another week to let it heel some more. The Doctor says it'll take any where from 6 months to a year to fully heal.

Foot Problems

So I've come down with a nasty foot problem called Plantar Fascittis which can be pretty painful. So what is it?
Well it's a swelling or tearing of the fascittis, in english that's the sheath on the bottom of your foot that covers a tendon that runs from your heel to your toe across the arch. Well I can tell you it can swell up and hurt pretty bad so I've had to wear a hard boot, or cast on it to immobilize it and try to get it to heal. I was supposed to wear it at work too but they gave me a hard time about so I wasn't wearing it and that set me back a couple of weeks. Let's just say the Doctor wasn't happy when I told him they wouldn't let me wear it. So then he tells me it's wear the boot and hope it works or 4-6 weeks off for surgery on it. I chose the boot. The surgery is rather goofy too, they cut it to finish the tear and you heal and your fine, so they say, no thanks. So I must say wearing the boot all the time is tiring on my leg, mainly my left knee (it's the left foot with the problem). It must be working though it doesn't hurt hardly at all now. Oh yeah, the doctor is the same ine Carrie uses for her foot problems, good doctor I must say. I'll have to let you know how it goes when I go back to him on Monday.

It's over for 2008

The season has come and gone and I saved my best effort for last. Saturday was the last race of the year and I managed to make it to the 4th round this time. The car was running very quick, I set a new personal best with a 11.86 in the first time run, the weather was perfect. By the time first round of eliminations came around it had warmed up so I thought the car might go a 11.95 and it did, 11.955 with me hitting the brakes hard so I didn't break out. For the second round it was a little warmer but I left the 11.95 anyways thinking the car would slow down a little, which it didn't, and went a 11.93. The third round it was cooler but I left that number on still sure the car would slow down a little, but it didn't, and it went 11.936 with me on the brakes hard again but hey I'm still winning. Now to the fourth round, it's dark now and much cooler so I drop it down to a 11.91 and yes it went quicker, 11.86 with me on the brakes very hard too and I lost this time. So I finally went a few rounds and have to be a little optimistic for 2009.

Upon further review.....

Well after I looked at the video, frame by frame it looked to me like I might have by the slightest of margins. Then it was pointed out to me that my pre-stage and stage lights were still lit when the starter moved. This would indicate that I did not jump before he moved or the lights would have been out. It appears I should have said something to them but at the time I wasn't sure if I did or not and the starter had said he didn't want any "whiners" complaining about their race. So I didn't but it would appear I should have, learned a lesson the hard way I guess.

Blog picture

The new picture I've posted for you to see is from last weeks race. If you look real close you can see a very very small bit of daylight under the drivers side front tire.

So far in the fall series the car has been running great, the driver still needs more practice though.

So did you watch Pinks All Out Thursday night?

I did and was disappointed to see that I did indeed jump the start by the tiniest of margins. I had to slow it down and do a frame by frame but you could see I left before the starter dropped their arms.

The other disappointing part was not seeing any of us in our "sea level is for sissies" t-shirts. There were a couple of times you could see us in the staging lanes if you looked really fast but other than that not at all. Also when we were in the "war" room you can only see me in a really quick shot right after we're congratulated for making it to the final 32.

Now I've had my 3 seconds of fame, any body you know want an autograph? LOL

Meddling co-workers

So the person that had the late hours, 9:15am - 5:30pm, retired a couple of weeks ago leaving no clerk to do his job. Management was/is adamant about not re-posting his job for bidding so I offered to change my schedule and work his hours. My reasons for doing this were to get his days off, Sat/Sun, so it would be much easier for me to go racing.

So last week I started working these hours only to hear a couple of my co-workers complaining about it. Now before I took over the hours all of the clerks senior to me were given the chance to take these hours/days off and turned it down. So I start working them and suddenly I'm getting over time like crazy and they're complaining and then the union gets involved. I'll tell you this, I hate this stinking union!! They had no business getting involved here, the situation was handled, no rules broken, but no they have to step in and I get screwed for it.

So now I go back to my regular hours/days off thanks to two worthless co-workers whose petty actions have really pissed me off (that means no more nice guy to them and doing all the work).

Race results

The air was much worse than last week and the car started off the day running a 12.04 @110 mph but it did get a little better as the day went on. The second run was a 11.97 @112 mph and left me wondering what to dial in at. So after a sprinkle delay we get to do first round and I went with a 11.96, had a horrible light but the other car lit the red light so I won and the car ran a 11.96 (good call on that dial in eh). So I won first round now what number do I put on the window for the second round? After too much thinking about it I put a 11.94 on, had another bad light, went 11.97 and lost by .0028 of a second. So there's only one weekend of racing left in the 2008 season and I'm both sad and glad. Sad racing is coming to a close but glad the terrible year is almost done and I can look to next season and do better.

Pinks all out

I was notified by the production crew that my car will be in the show when it airs so be sure to set your timers so you can watch the show. It's scheduled to air Oct. 9 @ 7pm our time on Speed channel (channel 150 or just use the guide to find it).

Don't forget Oct 9th 7pm on Speed.

No more jumping through hoops!!

Sorry for the layoff just didn't think I you'd be very interested in all this racing junk I've been doing.

So I've been busy trying to get Carrie's 1968 Mustang back on the road and I was making great progress, but, there's always a 'but'. The last problem has been the stupid cooling fan for the radiator, it's either hitting the radiator or the lower radiator hose and I can't figure out why. So I'm going to have to buy a new fan blade for it that' s smaller so it doesn't hit anything and then it's done!!! It runs very well, the exhaust sounds great and the paint job looks pretty good in the sun.

Now for some racing news:

We had our first race in 3 weeks last weekend and the air was awesome!! The Mustang ran it's best time of the year, 11.91@114 mph, it's best E.T. and MPH. But, there's always a 'but' remember, in the first round I had a 11.99 on the window and the car went 11.985 and I lost by .005 of a second. The season is now almost over, seems to have gone by pretty fast and now down to just 3 races. We have one this Saturday and then the following Saturday and Sunday, then the car gets put away for the winter (much sadness will ensue).

Mystique is doing just fine she gets to walk every day now and just loves it, but she's still a handful on the leash.

I seemed to have developed some kind of problem with my left foot and will be getting it checked out by Carrie's foot doctor. It started with what felt like a heel spur, has moved to the arch area and now back to the heel. I'm clueless what the problem is but I do know it hurts pretty bad most of the time and training is difficult at best.

My job has changed just a little for the time being, I'm now going in at 9am instead of 3am and I get off at 5:30pm. I hope it lasts for good because I get weekends off and that will make it real easy to get to the track earlier next season. I'm not going to hold my breath however, a couple of the other clerks are already complaining about it even though they had the first shot at getting the hours. We'll see I suppose.

That's about all really, no more jumping through hoops.

Jumping through hoops

It's what I had to do to plate the new (to me) trailer, jump through some hoops. This trailer was originally first titled here in Colorado then the person I bought it from took it to Minnesota when they moved there back in 2005. I was thinking that perhaps DMV could just use all the previous information from then but I was told they "purged" that when it was titled in Minnesota.

So now I have to get the trailer, have it weighed empty and then get the vin # verified so it could be registered here. I don't know if you've heard this or not but there's this book of yellow pages that is supposed to list businesses so you can find one an visit it. So I'm looking for a certified scale in Denver and what do I find, yup, nothing. Then I heard about this thing called the internet and decided to give it a try. I used this search tool called google and typed in certified scales in Colorado and what happened, yup nothing. The results come up with anything certified, anything scales and lots of Colorado but no places to get a certified weight. With each attempt I tried all kinds of phrases, public scales (you get reptile results), public scales in Colorado (you get CDOT scales), and so on until I sent up the white flag and stopped. My last attempt was to search for truck stops with no luck, I even called the state troopers office where they directed me to another web site that actually has a list of certified public scales for me to call. So I called one and sure enough they do certified weights, it's $8 and come on down we can get it done for you. So now I'm off with the trailer, still with inadequate mirrors to get the thing weighed but it's not too far of a drive, sweet. As I'm driving down to the truck stop I drive by a certified scale on the other side of the road, note it and continue on to the truck stop.

Now I'm at the intersection where the truck stop is and there are 7 semi's waiting to get into the truck stop for what ever reason with a line of traffic behind them waiting to get in as well. Remember that certified scale I told you about, now I'm thinking I should just go there, only one vehicle there to get weighed. But I'm thinking, can I do a U-turn with this truck and trailer? I look and think, and look again at traffic, none coming so I give it a shot. Wow!! I can do a U-turn in this thing and I'm off to the other scale.

I get there and only one vehicle being weighed, a camper trailer, and it took the guy about 30 minutes to do this (I'm thinking newbie here). I pulled in behind him and waited, then a semi pulled up, then another and yet another. I let one of the trucks go on next then the weigher waved me on. I had to drop the trailer, pull the truck off the scale wait for the signal then hook back up to the trailer and I have my weight, 4240# (heavier than I thought).

Now with weight ticket in hand I head off to DMV to get the vin verified and get my plates which actually went pretty quickly and cheaply all things considered. There was an interesting moment while the clerk was inputting the data where she had a puzzled look. She then confirmed that the trailer was coming from Minnesota, yes it was, then asked "was it originally from Colorado?". You'll remember that it was, so that information now shows up on the computer (purged remember). Well all this made a difference in the cost because when that information showed up it was now cheaper for the plates.

Like I said, jumping through hoops, call me the circus pony.

New trailer

Carrie and I went on a road trip last weekend to Lincoln Nebraska to trade trailer with my friend Mark. He had told me he was thinking of getting rid of his enclosed trailer for an open one so I suggested why don't we trade. He thought it was a good idea but he lives in Minnesota so we met half way, Lincoln Neb.

So off we went right in the middle of a serious down pour that started Friday and didn't end until Saturday some time. Once we got out past Fort Morgan the rain had stopped and didn't run into any at all in Nebraska. So Sunday morning over cereal at the hotel we signed over the titles, swapped trailers and headed back home.

Now I have never towed an enclosed trailer so it was an eye opening experience for me, to say the least. For one I didn't have the proper length receiver so the ball hung down to far and that let the trailer sway pretty bad. The best speed I could do was about 64 mph, over that and the trailer would sway to bad and I'd have to slow down.

Then an interesting thing happened, a semi truck passed me, and I thought I was about crash for sure! I wasn't warned that when they pass you the air pressure tends to push away from them and then tries to suck you back into them.
Scared the crap out of me!!

So having to slow down like that it seemed to take forever to get home but in reality it only added about an hour and a half. I've since installed the correct receiver and I think the trailer will tow just fine. I'll get to find out over labor day weekend that's when the next race is scheduled, The High Altitude Bracket Nationals. I'll have to post some photos when I take some.

Pinks air date

I've seen it twice now as going to be on October 9th, not sure of what time though. It will be on Speed channel which on Dish is channel 150 probably at 7pm. I hope I'm not left on the cutting room floor, I'd like to see how close it really was.

...and Pinks is now over, the result?

It was a pretty big success for the track, they had a huge turn out of racers (over 450) and fans as the stands were packed full.

It was very interesting to be in a race where they start it by a guy dropping his arms, a first for me that's for sure.

So we were all sitting around speculating what cars they would be picking for the 16 cars that would get to race for the $10,000 and the NAPA tools. All of us thought they would pick cars in the 11.0-11.3 second range, and we were wrong!

They decided to throw every one a curve ball and they chose a 32 car field!!! The way it worked was they had 16 cars that were all around 12.0 and then they had 16 more that were between 12.1 and 12.2. So they had the 16 slower cars race the 16 faster cars for a spot in the final 16 car field to race for the money.

I was one of the 16 slower cars!!!!!! That's right I made it on to Pinks!!! It was so awesome to pull out there with that huge crowd, all the TV cameras on you and all your friends right there pulling like crazy for you to win. So with the cameras on me I decided I'd do a longer, smokier burnout for them which went perfect. So now we stage and the starter gives us the arm drop and they say I left too soon and was out of Pinks after the first round. Bummer, let down, sadness my 15 seconds of fame was over before it began. I had a blast though, should have my mug on TV once or twice and I'd do it again if they ever come back.

On a side note we were all wearing T-shirts that said 'sea level is for sissies' and they were a big hit. If we had made up 200 of them we could have made a small fortune on them, a lot of people wanted one.

Here is a photo of me jumping the start:

Pinks update

Well I got the car up to the track last night so it would be in line to get into Pinks later today, I was told we were about 150th in line!

Maybe I'm whinnying a little bit here but you tell me.

We had been told that if you were in line for Pinks and wanted to go into the track for the Wednesday test & tune you would lose your place in line. There would be no saving your spot in line!! So what happens, a whole bunch of trailers put out a ton of cones to save their spot and went inside to test & tune. So I go over and ask one of the security personal about and what did they say? "If you want to go in and test go ahead, we won't say anything just mark your spot in line" So it makes me wonder what other 'rules' are going to be broken tonight as they park the vehicles in line.

I also heard a rumor about another group of racers that have intentionally slowed their cars down so they could all get in the field of 16 (they normally run mid to high 9 second times but have slowed them down to low 10 second times). They call this Pinks All-Out for a reason, they want you to go All-Out not sand bag it so you can get in the race and we are thinking of mentioning it to the producers and get them thrown out. The producers have done this in the past at other Pinks All-Out shows so they're not afraid to take action. We'll see.

Pinks!!

This weekend the TV show Pinks comes to Bandimere Speedway offering $10,000 and over $8,000 worth of tools from NAPA. There will be over 400 cars that they'll trim down to the 16 closest in time to race for the tools and money. I doubt they'll pick a slow car like mine but I'm going to give a shot anyways, besides I want my 15 seconds of TV time!!

New trailer (to me anyways)

So it looks like I'm finally going to get an enclosed trailer to haul my car around in. My friend Mark, who I bought the Mach 1 from, is looking to get rid of the one he has and e-mailed me to see if I was interested. He had mentioned while he was out here for the Mustang roundup that he was thinking of getting rid of his enclosed trailer and getting an open trailer to haul his car to the track. Well he sent me an e-mail saying he was seriously thinking of getting rid of it so I suggested trading my open for his enclosed. After getting him all the information on mine I could find it turns out mine is a heavy duty trailer, capable of hauling much more than I thought. It looked like the deal breaker was going to be whether it had 2 wheel brakes of 4 and after contacting the manufacturer it happens to be 4 and we have a deal. Now comes the fun part of figuring out how to make the swap, he lives in Minnesota just about 13 hrs from here. It looks like Lincoln Nebraska is a half way point between the two of us and hopefully we can meet there and make the swap.

The reason I wanted is it gives me an extra garage space where I can keep the race car and not have it sitting outside. This is even more important during the winter, I don't want it in the driveway with snow and cold, it'll kill the race tires on the car. I can also keep all the race stuff in the trailer and not in my garage freeing up a little more space.

On another car note, I have painted the engine compartment in Carrie's 68 and can now install the engine and transmission so she can finally drive it around. Needless to say she's pretty excited about that.

The latest

Is that there's not much going around here this weekend. I did get the 68 out to the curb so I could pressure wash the engine compartment and under the body. I had borrowed one from a friend but it was broken so I went and bought one from Lowes and it works pretty good. Now I get to sand the entire engine compartment and paint it then the engine and transmission can be put in and it'll be a running car again.

We'll be racing this weekend, last weekend I finally won another first round race but as the norm for this season I had a bad light and lost the second round. I might have to buy new slicks, I keep having a problem with the right side slick going flat all the time now. It has a tube in it that some how keeps getting pin holes in them causing it to lose air. I had the tire place check it to see if I could run it with out the tube and it can but there are 2 small pin holes in the side wall that allows the air to escape, but it's an option if this new tube fails.

Wish me luck, I need it.

It's been a while

Well it's been a while since I've blogged, no real reason just didn't feel like putting anything into words I guess.

Well the last time I raced was a couple of weeks ago and it didn't go so well. I raced for three days and lost in the first round all three days and I'll tell you was I frustrated after the last one. At the beginning of the season I had a red light problem, but lately I've been very late on the starting line. I would have good reaction times during time trials then first round comes around and I have a terrible reaction time.

I hope to redeem myself this Saturday by at least going a couple of rounds. I'm thinking of taking the car up to test & tune to get some practice, I made a couple of changes to see if the car will go quicker.

On a positive note, the 66 Mustang is ready to be put up for sale. The motors have been switched and it actually runs pretty good, I almost hate to sell it, almost that is.

Not much else going on around here.

....and the result is.......

The Mach received an award of excellence!! It was nice that all the hard work I put into cleaning the car payed off with the judges liking it enough to get that.

The round up doesn't award a first place as such, they do an award of excellence instead. So what that means is the judges liked your car enough to give it an award.

Now to work on my auto cross skills so I can win an award there too.

My RMMR adventures

So I've been on vacation since Wednesday trying to get the Mach 1 ready for the RMMR show in Steamboat Springs and now it's almost over. The weather started out cold and windy on Thursday but has since turned beautiful and I have the sunburn to prove it.

Thursday was the scenic cruise and while I didn't sign up for it the person I bought the Mach from needed a car for the cruise so I said I'd do it. We traveled about 30 miles total and he even won a door prize for the trip.

Friday was the Autocross which I was in the last group of the day, PM 2. This was my first time at this so I was little nervous and said so to one of the course workers. He told me to "relax, don't try to over do it just yet, take your time and learn the course". Good advice which I guess I didn't listen to. I did a smoky burn out all the way to turn 1 and was too aggressive into turn 2 and spun the car out. So my first run as timed at 51 seconds and the the women that gave me my time said, "that Mach 1 can do better than that". She was right so long as I got serious about it that is. So my next run I made a point of not doing a burn out and being sure to shift into second gear before the first turn which made a big difference. I ran a 46.xx on the second run, a 43.xx on the third with the last run being the best. I got some advice on how to take a couple of the corners, used it and ended the day with a 42.661 time, shaved off 9 seconds from the first run. Still wasn't quick enough to win a trophy but it was fun and I learned a lot.

Saturday was the Car show that takes up all of downtown Steamboat Springs and there were 550 cars in attendance for this years show. There were at least 20 Mach 1's in my class, but most in attendance think my car was outstanding and should win an award. Will I? I won't know until Sunday so you won't know until then either.

It's been a pretty fun time but also a bit stressful trying to keep the car spotless for the car show, wiping every square inch every 5 minutes so it shines for the judges. This year the judges asked me how many miles were on my car, I've never had a judge ask that before. One of the cars near me only had 905 miles on it and they said they "held it to a higher standard" than the others.
My opinion, I'm not going to win but I know I gave the best effort I could and the car has never looked better.

So after tomorrow it's "wait til next year" time again. The plan is for Carrie to have her 68 ready and she'll bring that and I'll bring my Mach 1, that should be fun.

Last race tomorrow

It's the last race of the three in a row and it would be nice to go more than one round of racing. I finally won a first round at last weeks race with a perfect reaction time, my first ever round win with a .000 reaction time. Unfortunately I red lit in the second round and I knew when I let go of the trans brake button I was leaving too early. With that I think I know where to leave at on the tree and the car has been very consistent so maybe this is the weekend I go past the second round, cross your fingers.

Next weekend is the Rocky Mountain Mustang Roundup in Steamboat Springs where there will over 500 Mustangs in attendance. There will be a auto cross race on Friday, it will be my first, a car show on Saturday that takes up the whole downtown strip and awards on Sunday. As a Mustang fan this is very big event to attend in this area and will be only my second time attending it.

So that will put a cap on four weeks of automotive action for me, we'll get a week off after RMMR then All Ford Day at Bandimere. After all that we don't race very much in July, but August looks to be another busy month, looking forward to it.

I'd rather be racing than working any day.

New race, same story

So another ET race has come and gone and the results were the same, lost in the first round. I don't really know what my problem was but I was really "chasing the tree" all day. What that means is I couldn't find where on the tree to leave to get a good light. My first reaction time was a .357 and remember .000 is perfect so your looking to get a light in the .020 to .050 range. To say I was slow on the tree is an understatement and my next light was only slightly better, .179, so I have a lot to improve before first round. The times for each run were a little more consistent, 12.18, 12.10 so I put a 12.09 on the window and knew I had to have a pretty good light and I should win. Well my first round light was terrible, a red light in fact -.059 so I wasn't even close on that light and my opponent was handed an easy win. My day was now over, time to pack up and cheer on the every one else, whoopie.

How's this for irony too, my friend Mike whom I race with had the same opponent I for his second round race and what do you think happened? Yup he had a red light too!! His was a lot closer though, -.008 so the guy was given another gift and ran out of luck in the next round when he red lit and finally lost.

The one good thing about the weekend was there was very little wind, no rain or snow, and I actually got sunburned.

There's another chance to do better next Saturday so I'm looking to start doing better.

Definition of stupid

That would be going up to the race track with a bad cold and trying to race when the weather was horrible. It was cold, windy and even snowed some all day long. The hardest to deal with though was the wind, it was gusting up over 20mph most of the day so I had to wear my hood up on my hoodie all day long but it must have helped because I don't think I have pneumonia any ways.

So how did the day go with the race car?

Disappointing, but it didn't go to bad over all. The car was working just fine but the driver wasn't so sharp (bad cold remember). For my first round race I said the car would run a 12.11 and the car went 12.103 so I lost by .007 of a sec! The sad part is I was way ahead of the other car and I lost track of where the finish line was. They re-did the track over the winter and the finish line looked different so I didn't take my foot off the gas in time to slow down enough to not break out. It was kind of funny really, the car was running so well I just sat there and checked out all the gauges, made sure all was good when I realized my opponent was no where around. I looked around a bit for him then looked up and saw the finish line and pulled my foot off the gas.

My racing buddy, Mike, made it all the way to the quarter finals and had a great day. The guy was winning everything from races to coin flips for lane choice until the car got quicker unexpectedly. The person he lost ended up winning the race so at leas the lost to the best that time.

No racing this Saturday so we'll try again the following Saturday and see if I can do better.

The big race weekend

So it has come and gone, kind of like the snow flurries we had that canceled todays racing.

We went up Friday night and raced in the Trophy/Jackpot series and I also had a friend come up and tune my car for me. He did a great job and has the car running great.

My opponent in my first round race had a red light against me so I got the automatic win to go to the second round. In the second round I lit the red light and lost so my night was over but my friend I race with went all the way to the 4th round before he lost.

We left the race cars at the track over night so we could take our time getting up there and considering we didn't get home until after 1am sleeping in was a good idea (didn't happen though).

We got up there around 9:45, got the cars warmed up and put the tech line and got our first time trial in around 11am. My car ran the same numbers it did on Friday so I was looking forward to winning some rounds, and then the snow came. They called the race around 12:15 as the snow was starting to come down pretty good at this point. I must say this is a first for me, I've never been up there and had it snow, plenty of rain, but no snow.

So the race season is under way and the first race is a snow out, I hope this isn't going to become a trend this year.

Baseball

It was a pretty good day to go to a Rockies game, and the Rockies came back and beat the Cubs 4-2.

Carrie's mom and dad got us the tickets, they were in the upper deck but not bad seats right behind home plate. We got there for batting practice but only the Rockies were hitting and none came where we standing at the time.

Good day for a baseball game.

Race Ready?

I'm not sure if it is or not. I made some changes that seemed to work then I got cute with it. This car has a alternator cut off switch in it so I decided to try it out and see if it made a difference. It did, the car died at the end of the track because it ran out of battery juice. This car has a high energy ignition that requires a lot of juice to keep it running and turning off the alternator killed the battery. So after trying this out the car wouldn't stay running any more so I loaded it on the trailer and brought it home. I've charged the battery and did some tuning on the carburetor that has the car running pretty good now, at least in the garage any ways.

So I'm going to the race track on Friday and do some test & tune for the race on Saturday, wish me luck.

Round 2

Sunday will be round 2 for test & tune for the race season, which begins a week from tomorrow. I put in some new plugs to see if it will run any better and I bumped the ignition timing up a couple of degrees. I might put the timing back to where it was because there's a rule in testing, change only 1 thing at a time to see if it's effective or not.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh yeah, the weather should be great this weekend!!

Sonic Blue Coupe

Some photos of the race car sitting in the pits at yesterdays test & tune.
















The wind was very cold and blowing pretty hard too.

Bandimere is now open!!

That new concrete was slick for most of the day, so much so that they shut the right lane down to "rough up" the starting line so you could get some traction.

My car was disappointing to me because it was a 1/10th slower than last October and I haven't done anything to either speed the car up or slow it down. On the bright side it was consistent:

Run 1: No time, bone head me forgot to hit the trans brake button and the car slid through the lights for an instant red light and no time.

Run 2: 12.31 @ 109, down 1 mph and 1/10th slower than last year.

Run 3: 12.37 @109, slower and I raised the shift point from 6400 rpm to 6800 rpm and it didn't run well at all.

Run 4: 12.31 @108, slower than the other 12.31 because we had huge head wind at the time.

That was all the runs I made even though I could have made more but I thought what was the point it's going to run in the 12.30's which is consistent just not quick enough for me.

My racing buddy Mike had a pretty good time of it but I'll let him tell it, and if the stupid wind would have stopped it wouldn't have been a half bad day either.

So for this week I'll probably replace the spark plugs and try to get a few other things tuned up for next weeks test & tune to see if it will go quicker.

Colorado weather

So how's this for typical Colorado weather, they're calling for 3-6 inches of wet blowing snow tonight into tomorrow and 62 by Saturday. They are so frequently wrong I'll believe it when I see it but I hope the 62 and sunny for Saturday is right that's the first test & tune of the year.

Saturday!!

This Saturday will be the first test & tune for the new season, and it looks like I'm ready. The only thing left to do is set the toe-in after installing the new steering rack. The oil has been changed, didn't notice anything bad in it, new seat belts installed, all it should need now is some gas. The long range forecast is very unsettled until Friday but we'll have to see how it goes. If the weather turns sour the following weekend they'll have test & tune for both Saturday and Sunday.

I'll let you know how it goes.

On a baseball note, I know it's early but the Rockies look pretty bad, like they're trying too hard to live up to last year. The Padres are so-so right now, they lost a close game today to the Dodgers when the closer Trevor Hoffman gave up a run in the 8th. On the bright side, they look better than the Rockies do.

Opening day!!

It's opening day in baseball, yea!! I've been watching all the games that are on since getting home from work, a lot of postponed games though. The Rockies were getting beat up by St. Louis 5-1 when it was rained out after 3 innings and the Yankees/Blue Jays never even got started. The Padres are on at 8pm but I'll be in bed by then so I won't get to see it but I'll check to see how they did before I go to work. So now we have another over lapping of sports, Hockey and Baseball which makes it hard to want to go and do anything because there's always some game on to watch.

Will you be watching?

Audiobooks

So what do you think of Audio books? I've been listening to some podcasts (internet talk radio more or less) and the main sponsor is a company called Audible. So I finally broke down and gave it a shot to see how it is and the first one I downloaded is Charlie Wilson's War. The people recommending it said it's way better than the movie and since it was free why not. I must say the book's pretty good, the person speaking is pretty good too but it does have some language in it so if your easily offended don't get it. So, how about audio books, I'm going to try another one.

What do you think of audio books, yea or nay?

Dentist visit

For the last four years I've been super consistent in my visits to the dentist. It only took the nightmare of a infected tooth that led to a deep root cleaning but it's been all good ever since. The lady that does the cleaning is the best too, she's very thorough about doing a full cleaning. Well today was my six month visit and she said every thing looks great, my gums are a world apart from when she first worked on them. So now my teeth are all clean feeling ready for another six months of abuse.

Politics: need a little help here

I got a letter in the mail today from my local APWU, American Postal Workers Union, who I know supports Obama (they sent a letter previous stating such).

The letter was about John McCain, specifically "what do we know about him?"

First there's this, "McCain's record does not match up to his image as an independent thinker". It says he supported Bush's position 95 percent of the time in 2007, supports Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and supported the failed plan to privatize social security. In my opinion this doesn't make him an independent thinker but a Bush supporter who will continue the current process of war in Iraq and letting the country go down the tubes.

Next is "McCain said he doesn't really understand the economy and the he doesn't believe we're headed into a recession". That doesn't make sense, it appears to me our economy is in big trouble no end in sight either. An interesting thing I read today about how the price of oil has gone from $25 a barrel to $108 with no end in sight and yet Bush says "nothing to worry about" and it would seem McCain would agree with him.

Then, "McCain also has a very troublesome record on trade and outsourcing". It says he voted for NAFTA, CAFTA and to allow China into the WTO dspite evidence that the U.S. has lost more than 1 million jobs because of NAFTA and 1.8 million jobs since China entered the WTO. He also supports tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and voted to weaken Buy American laws that keep jobs at home. It would seem to me that right there's a reason for a weakened economy, no way to keep people employed if the jobs are going over seas.

Lastly there's this, "McCains proposal will jeopardize our health care". They don't give any specifics just some statements. "McCain's plan undermines existing employer based health care and pushes workers into the private market to fight big insurance companies on their own. It will reduce benefits, increase costs and leave many with no health care at all. I don't know much about his health care policy so I'm in the dark on this but it doesn't sound very good.

So like I said at the beginning, they are for Obama and against McCain but is any of this true?

Snow? Yeah right

So the weather people around were getting people all excited about 5-10 inches of snow but they forgot to tell the snow to show up. Actually that's pretty typical of the weather forecasting around here. They get all excited and start spouting how we're going to get all this snow and it never shows up. They seem to get it right in the mountains, but I think even a blind man could do that, it snows just about any time it gets cloudy up there. Not all is lost though, they were right at one thing, it's cold only in the 30's so all that does is keep me from working on the race car. I looked at the long range forecast and it's supposed to be in the 50's the rest of the week but that will probably change in 15 minutes.

Spring, yes spring is just around the corner.

Spring

Ahhh, spring in Colorado is a fickle thing indeed. Yesterday it was in the 50's and now they're calling for 5-10 inches of snow here in town, it's even raining a little right now. I'm sitting here watching drag racing from Gainesville Florida where it's sunny and the weather looks great. At least we're not having the bad weather they had down in the south. I saw some photos of a small town in South Carolina that was hit pretty hard, the person that took just missed having his house taken out by the tornado. So today was a rather lazy day napping most of the time and taking it easy.

It's almost here

The racing season is about a month away so nows the time to get the car ready. I had to put in a new racing harness the one that came with the car had long ago expired. It's a safety thing they make you either replace or re-web them every 2 years, I don't quite understand why. Your every day street car can go 10 or 15 years without needing them replaced why not racing belts?

The only other maintenance I'm going to do is replacing the steering rack. The car had power steering that had been disconnected and the lines crimped closed. The problem was the car was very hard to steer and to back the car up it takes a lot of effort and you only have one arm to steer with. The reason is you have to hold the transmission brake button held down while in reverse to get it back up and that button is on the shifter. So a friend of mine just happened to have a manual steering rack for sale at a great price and now I'm installing it. So far it hasn't been too bad of a job, getting the old one off was a small pain but not as hard as I thought it would be. However getting the new one on will require a second set of hands so I'm going to have to wait for the weekend to get some help.

Hope all is well

Nothing to blog about

That is all.