I don’t want to survive…

Posted on October 11, 2018 by plutoe — 2 Comments

This was written yesterday sitting in YYZ waiting for my flight to Las Vegas.  I’m now sitting in LAS awaiting my flight to New Orleans (through Houston).  The only error below is that I didn’t have time to make it to Caesar’s last night sadly…

After a little bit of a delay at YXU and YYZ, I’m off on my last big trip of the year.  The first destination is Las Vegas, where the company that does our fitting has a shop.  In addition to just seeing the facility and get a better understanding of their business, they’ve got some new equipment for us that needs to be outfitted and setup.  But more than that, I’m hoping to get a couple of hours on the blackjack tables at Caesar’s tonight!
Tomorrow I fly to New Orleans, there is a race track on the south side of the city where F3 is running this weekend.  I’ve never been to this track before, but I am under the impression that it’s not too hard a track, so it should be a fairly low key weekend.  Any recommendations on place to eat?  I would like to find some good gumbo I think.
On Sunday I fly to Denver for a few ‘work from Denver’ days for which I’m really excited.  It will be great to catch up with some friends, and I will get a day of doing my brewery crawl, and a day of driving up into and around the mountains.  I’m going to have to dig out my Denver to do list…
From there I fly to Austin next Thursday for the F1 weekend, where I will be supporting F3 and F4.  I love Austin and am looking forward to some live music, plus the beer and food scene is pretty good.
The following Monday I fly to San Francisco, where there is an 8 hour endurance race at Laguna Seca.  I am really looking forward to this weekend, as Monterey is just about my favourite place in the world, and I haven’t been there for far too long.  I’m hoping to have a little bit of free time for a Fish Hopper breakfast, a lap around 17 mile drive, maybe get down to Big Sur or Carmel for lunch.  And obviously a visit to the aquarium and Bubba Gumps!
The Monday after that I will fly from San Francisco to Milan, where the Ferrari Challenge Finale will be held at Monza.  To be honest, I’m not really looking forward to this trip, I just don’t want to do another trip that long right now.  Plus I was supposed to have another (better) weekend in Austin…. But it will be alright, I know of at least one really great restaurant close by, and the Ferrari Challenge Finale experience could be interesting.  I think I started to develop a rapport with them the last event I did (Road Atlanta) so maybe a chance to build on that isn’t the worst thing.
Then I will fly back home for only a couple of days, before heading to Daytona for the Trans Am finale.  After which I’m pondering a little Florida road trip, I would really like to see Cape Canaveral, go to the Nascar race at Homestead (the FRR send off) and maybe spend a couple of days in Key West.  Anyone done Cape Canaveral, or anything else fun around there?
And then it will be the off season!  By which I mean, I get some time to work on the Chump Car and get ready for the Chili Bowl…
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They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets…

Posted on September 19, 2018 by plutoe — 2 Comments

The last time I wrote, which was in July, I set a goal with myself to write once a month.  I guess now that it’s September, I have kind of failed that objective already….drat!

It’s been a busy summer, but nothing that really seems to stand out, at least since the 24 Hours of Spa.  I was in Pittsburgh (F3/F4/Trans Am), Virginia (Lamborghini Super Trofeo), Road Atlanta (Ferrari Challenge, Road America (Trans Am) and Watkins Glen (Pirelli World Challenge).  That’s a busy, if somewhat unremarkable month.  Definitely some cool tracks to visit, though not as exciting since I didn’t get to drive any laps…
I’m currently waiting to fly to Atlanta for F3 at Road Atlanta, my last event of this month.  So far it’s included a road trip from Watkins Glen to Summit Point (West Virginia) for an F3 tire test.  From there I flew straight to Indianapolis for the Midget race in the infield of Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Last weekend I was in Road Atlanta for the Ferrari Challenge race, and now I’m headed back.  Seems like it’s been a lot of Road Atlanta the last little while…
I guess the midget race is the only other thing I really want to touch on.  Blake’s Dad, Dan, ran two cars at the event, which was a nice break from the 4 he normally runs at the Chili Bowl.  We had two of his ‘regular’ drivers, so it was an entirely familiar group, which was good because the event was a bit of a different format, and that along with the timing and the weather resulted in it being rather chaotic.  It had been a long time since I ‘worked’ outside at night at a dirt track, it felt rather familiar if a little strange after all the other stuff I’ve done the past few years.  We didn’t get the result that we wanted, we might have had the weather cooperated a little more, but I guess we will never know.  But we learned a few things for the Chili Bowl, sorted a few gremlins, and generally I think moved the program another step or two.  Fingers crossed it pays off in January!
Which I guess brings me to the last thing I want to write about, and one that has rather occupied my mind the past week or two.  I found out the week of the Indy Midget race that FRR would cease operations at the end of the 2018 season.  No more 78 car.  It generally left me speechless, and rather sad.  That has been such a big part of my life the past few years, and I have a lot of friends who will be significantly impacted by that news.  It was a two year period of my life that, for better and worse, win and learn, I will always remember fondly.  I had always thought/hoped that I’d end up back out there in some fashion, and I guess now I will have to come up with another scheme.  I’m trying to work a Denver trip into my fall schedule, and now it seems that much more important to make it happen sooner rather than later.
Life continues…
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