Best Weekend in a while.

[volksdragon]

Saturday

• EDITED 'cause I forgot: A nice woman from Craigslist (not like that!) came by and took our old entertainment center! Luckily she brought a large male friend to help heft this 300lb item out of the house and up into her pickup truck. I was actually surprised I was able to lift half of it entirely myself, I haven't felt like my usual strong self, but apparently "I still gots it!"


• Widget's Birthday Party - Days of siercia and I cleaning and prepping (more her than me) paid off with a fabulous party, kids mingling, parents mingling, and a lot of sugar consumed. All were happy. They partied, and ran around, and danced, and played princess games, and the girl guests brought Widget some nice gifts.


• Following Party, In-laws absconded with Widget to CT. Siercia and I drove down to Millis, where we exchanged my VW for a huge truck covered in logos and full of racing supplies.


• Returned truck to our place, took other car out to dinner in Hingham (Stars) where they had Raison D'etre Dogfish Head Beer and good foods. Dinner only slightly marred by owner of car I was supposed to race Sunday calling to tell me the car (1974 Datsun 510) was out of commission and I needed to find a drive.... in 8 hours.... Eek.


• Went home, emailed racing list to beg for ride, and an hour later, I had a drive for the next day in a.... 1967 Dodge Dart GT. hehehe


• watched some TV, packed my stuff for racing, made a lunch, went to bed around 11am.


• Due to stupid cold acting up, tossed and turned all night, woke up 3-4 times (which I never do). Finally woke up for good when alarm went off at 4:30am (planned!) Packed rest of stuff, hopped in race truck, and headed up to NHIS (New Hampshire International Speedway) for NER Event #1 and "Dodge Dart Day"

Sunday

• Day started off well. I arrived 6:45am at NHIS, got in, and unloaded truck. Met "Mr. Dodge Dart" and then went back to setting up the truck for racin'. Morning slowed down CONSIDERABLY when we discovered 15 minutes before race time that our entire timing box (the thing that times all the cars) has FAILED entirely. OMG.


• EVERYONE PANIC!


• A call to the Rally Chairman who lives nearby to NHIS procures a new timing box for use (thanks Scott!) and our day starts late, but DOES start.


• It's WAY too hot for New Hampshire in APRIL. Sheesh. No one strokes out, but it is hot!


• 1967 Dodge Dart? Not as slow as you might think, at least in a Street Mod Class. With totally re-done suspension, rims and tires, and a 273ci V8 engine, it gets out of its own decently well, and sounds AWESOME. There were probably 5 times I thought I'd run over cones simply because they vanish under the HUGE FRONT HOOD of the car a good second before the front wheel reaches the cone, and by that time, the front end has steered you out of the way. The first 1/2 turn of steering does NOTHING, but after that, it steers surprisingly well! I can see how these used to be pretty hot road-racing cars! Final standing? 7th (out of 8). LOLZ. Still, I got to drive a V8 RWD car, and that's not something I get to do very often.


• FUN RUNS at the end of the day! Timed runs on the course, but they don't count against your points times from earlier in the day. I drove Adam Randazzo's car (in the class I was supposed to be in with the Datsun 510, FSP) and scored more than a second faster than everyone else's timed runs in the same class. HA HA, PHEAR ME when the Datsun is finished! I SHALL CRUSH YOU ALLLLLLL. (ahem, Sorry)
  
  Anyway, the day was busy. I did a little bit of everything. I cleaned up some spilled clutch fluid (twice). I talked a new guy through prep and getting ready to race, and he did MUCH better than he thought he would! Hooray! I did some announcing for a heat. I rescued a windblown runaway EZ-UP tent thing from blowing away ONTO the course while people were driving. (oops!) Best of all, I was approved to be an NER instructor! What does that mean? That means I can now ride along with people who request instructors, and give them pointers on how they're driving and how to get better times! That means a lot, because it means that the officers and experienced folks in the group think I drive well enough to be trusted with passing on that information to other people. It may sound silly to those of you who don't race, but it's an honor to me. :)
  
  The day went REAAAALLLY late, we didn't end up leaving NHIS until probably 6:15pm, and since the race-truck was staying up in New Hampster, I caught a ride down with Shawn and David Collins, and father-and-son racing team that drives a Mazda RX-7 Turbo. They lived near to where the Golf was parked, so I was able to finagle a ride down. We picked up some dinner on the way back to Massachusetts, and so with the drive back from Millis to Weymouth, I got back to home about 10pm, tired, with very little voice left, but very very happy to have had such a great weekend.
  
  It's funny, I wasn't THAT psyched for race event #1. After I got there, though, I remembered all the fun that goes into an event, and I was hooked all over again. BRING ON EVENT #2!
  

Comments

[scirocco.livejournal.com]

New Hampster (north) got snow two weeks ago, and I was snowboarding. :) However, the past three days have been 65+, and boston hit 86 (!) yesterday. I saw three little plowed-up piles of snow left coming up to loudon the access road, and plenty of puddles in the mud/grass from all the rain, but the parking lot was nice and dry and clean. :)

Yes, 1974 Datsun 510. Currently having the head replaced (had a little valve issue last week) and so first event for it should be on 5/6