Category Archives: Cars

HPR

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I went to the track Friday afternoon. I generally only go to the track with one of the clubs but do manage to get to HPR occasionally on my own. One of the reasons is that it makes me eligible to do the customer appreciation days.

Club days are different in a few key ways from open lapping days. With the clubs, it’s an all-day event where I generally get three or four sessions. Passing is restricted to two or three places. On club days, drivers often have to work corners. On open lapping days I can get three or four sessions in an afternoon, passing is unlimited, and drivers don’t have to work corners. Sure, for club days, you do a lot more waiting around, but that’s okay. It’s good to visit with other participants. And getting out on the corners is a good way to see how other drivers take the turns.

Passing is the big difference. We drivers of the slower cars have to be much more careful to watch our mirrors. Sometimes the speed differences can be immense. Friday, they divided us in two groups – street cars and race cars. There were three kinds of sessions – street cars only, race cars only, and open sessions. In the open sessions, the formula cars catch me quite quickly. They’re sometimes difficult to see. A lot of folks I talk to express some discomfort at being passed anywhere and everywhere on track. I have the feeling, sometimes, when I catch slower traffic that they don’t see me. I just don’t take chances passing people.

Most track days, there are quite a few Corvettes, Miatas, and Minis. Friday there were none of the above, at least running in the street car group. I think there were more BMWs than anything else. Three or four M models. They all sort of look alike to me unless I pay particular attention, so I don’t know the mix of 5 series versus 3 series. Scott was there with his Porsche and his friend driving a turbo Saab. There was a guy there with his Laser Blue Elise and his friends, one of whom was driving a Mercedes CL 65 AMG V-12 twin turbo.

I keep meaning to get a lap timer working on my phone, but I never seem to think of it before I get to the track. So I’m left figuring my lap times based on the video tape. Not the most accurate method, but close enough for my purposes. I haven’t broken down the tape yet, but I did manage to put together a little highlight reel. I understand YouTube is “short attention span theater” and try to keep my videos under three minutes or so. This one is more like five and a half.

I chatted quite a bit with the other Elise driver. He’s owned the car three and a half years. When he bought it, it had something like 3,700 miles on it. He has about 5,000 on it now. I don’t understand folks who buy these cars and don’t drive them. This was his first time at HPR. He was quite a bit slower than me. When he first came over to chat, he was wanting to know what kind of tires I was running. I was on my street tires, which are not well suited to the track. He was running decent tires but complaining about lack of grip. Those tires shouldn’t be exposed to cold temps and asked if it got cold in his garage. I suggested this might be the problem with his tires.

I gave him a ride for a few laps so he could learn the line. Then he got back in his car and promptly spun out. I was surprised to find out that the spin tripped the inertia switch that shuts off the fuel pump. He had to be towed back to the paddock to reset the switch. I was afraid he’d had a more serious mishap but was glad to see he was right back out on track.

Next Saturday is a day with CECA down in Pueblo. I’m really looking forward to it.

Preparations

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Three car related items today. Plans for events, rather than events themselves.

First, I just registered for the 30th Annual Colorado Concours. This is my first time entering the car in any sort of show. At this one, I had my choice of being judged or just being on display. I have no illusions that this is a winning show car, but what the heck. I’m going to be judged. Here’s how the organizers describe it:

Now in its 30th year, the Annual Colorado Concours – Exotic Sports Car Show & Concours d’Elegance is large-scale, highly-visible and well-attended. Local and regional car clubs showcase nearly 500 rare sports and exotic cars. Come take a look at these beautiful high-end, high performance vehicles. Meet the owners and exchange your favorite car stories. And, don’t forget to bring the kids as this day is filled with activities for the entire family! Mark your calendars now for a car event that has established itself as the premier auto show in its class. All proceeds from the event benefit CP of Colorado’s Children’s Programs. The featured marque for  this special anniversary edition of the car show is Porsche!

If you’re in the Denver area, come on out and see the cars. This is happening on Sunday June 9 at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton. Gates open at 9am. I believe it’s $10 to get in, and it supports a fine charity.

Second, every year Lotus Colorado puts together a long weekend drive. We haven’t gone on any of these yet, but I just made reservations at the hotels for this year’s trip. They’re calling it “The LOCO Four to the 4”. We leave Denver Saturday morning, May 18, and head down toward the four corners. One night in Telluride, one night in Pagosa Springs, then back home Monday, May 20. Ross describes it thusly:

Many of you have been with us on our Colorado Good, where we do a bit less than the Colorado Grand; three days instead of four, about 800 miles instead of over a thousand miles; stay at good hotels instead of grand hotels and dine at good small yet really cool specialty restaurants with reasonable prices. This will be our fourth trip and will go to the Four Corners via Telluride and Pagosa Springs.

Finally, CECA is having their first track day of the season at Pueblo Motorsports Park on May 11 and I just sent in my registration.

CECA 2013 EVENT SCHEDULE (Tentative):
May 11                            Pueblo Motorsports Park
June 29                           High Plains Raceway
August 24                       Colorado State Patrol Track
September 28                 High Plains Raceway
October 12                      Pikes Peak International Raceway
I’m not sure how many of these I’ll attend. Last year I managed all except PPIR. I’d like to do them all, but if I miss any it will likely be one of the HPR dates.

Cars & Coffee & Pinball

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The first Saturday of every month a bunch of car lovers get together at 95th and Arapahoe in Lafayette. I try to show up every few months to see what sort of vehicles show up. Today was the biggest turnout I’ve seen there. A lot of these types of events are dominated by hot rods or muscle cars. This one gets a great turnout of exotics. I’ve never seen fewer than a half dozen Ferraris and, a wide variety of Porsches from different eras, a sampling of Corvettes, Jags, Astins, and so on.

I ordered a battery grip for the SLR, but it hasn’t arrived yet. So all these pics from the cell phone.

There always seems to be a Morgan or two. Not sure that I’ve seen the same one twice. Today it was a three wheeler.Morgan 3 WheelerThis was another surprise. Don’t see too many of these.WillysWalked by a Tesla S twice without giving it a second glance. At first, I thought it was a Porsche Panamera. Then somebody said “both trunks are empty.” Ah, yes. Something’s missing!

Boulder is full of Audis, but I don’t think I’ve seen an A7 before. I’m not a big fan of matte paints, but I like the lines.Audi A7These things start pretty early with the first people arriving about 7am. I’m not sure how long people are there, but people are coming and going all morning. Every now and then, somebody will make a rather noisy arrival or departure. About an hour after I arrived, this pulled into a spot:Corvette!

It didn’t take long to see this isn’t really a Corvette. Usually, they put the engines in the front.Corvette?He left at the same time I did. Or, he tried. Got it out of this spot and into everybody’s way before stalling it. And unable to get it going again. A bunch of people had to push him back into the spot. That’s gotta be embarrassing, with dozens of people watching.

No Ford GT’s today, but this pretty Noble showed up. I’ve seen a couple of these but I think this had the best paint – a bright, pearlescent yellow.Noble

I don’t think we’ve had Lamborghinis every time, but today I saw three or four. All driven by young guys, which I find surprising. Usually it’s the older guys who have the kind of coin it takes to own and operate one. I find them a bit over the top. But you don’t see too many purple ones, so I couldn’t resist. LamborghiniThat was this morning. This afternoon, Chris came over and we drove up to Lyons to play some pinball. I’ve been meaning to do this for quite a while but somehow never got around to inviting him.

He showed up here at 1pm and we headed north. They were closed when we got there – I didn’t bother to check first, but they don’t open until 3. So we went next door to Oskar Blues for beer and chat. It was not long after three when we finished our beers and the place was already pretty busy. At least half the machines were in play.

Joust

We played Banzai Run, Black Knight, Captain Fantastic, Joust, Space Time, Strikes and Spares, and Wizard. I had played Banzai Run before in Lyons and enjoyed it. Joust I’d never seen before, and the others I’ve played many times at other places. Joust is an odd one. Although it can be played solo, the idea is two players compete. The players stand facing each other and the table is peaked in the middle – balls can pass from one side to the other. The idea is to hit your targets but not the other player’s. It’s loosely based on the video game of the same name. One annoying feature is that every time you press a flipper button, it makes a little dragon noise from the video game.

Another Post About Cars

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I went to Connecticut on business the last three weeks. The first week I rented a Dodge Avenger. This was not the first time I’ve driven one – on both my trips last year to Everett I drove an orange one. I found it amusing that on those two trips I ended up renting the same car. What are the chances? The most interesting thing about the Avenger is the name. In every other respect it is nondescript. I think I can say there was absolutely nothing interesting about the car.

My second car in CT was a Ford Focus. Not a bad little car. It can’t really be compared to the Avenger – anybody thinking about buying one won’t really be considering the other. I’ll compare them anyway. I found the Focus better looking and more comfortable. It seems car designers have fun moving the controls for lights and wipers from place to place in different cars. I found them quicker in the Focus than in the Avenger. Although I found the Focus more stylish, I never confused any other car for the Avenger. Somebody parked their Mazda 3 a couple spots away from the Focus and I nearly got them confused.

On my third trip I got to drive a Fiat 500. I don’t think I’d ever be interested in owning any of these cars, but I was curious to drive the Fiat. A few things jumped right out at me when I got behind the wheel.

First, the instrument cluster is a circle about six inches in diameter. The speedometer goes to 140mph, although the car probably doesn’t do much more than half that. With the seat adjusted for my comfort, I could see only the bottom part of the speedo. On the left side, I could see 0-20 and on the right 120-140. That meant that while driving, I could almost never see how fast I was going without ducking my head down or peering over the top of the wheel. If I drove with one hand on the wheel, in the 12 o’clock position, the entire thing was obscured by my hand – all I could see was the faint orange glow.

Second, I found it odd how high you sit in the thing considering how tiny it is. It felt almost like driving a truck. With the seat adjusted so my legs were comfortable on the pedals and my arms comfortable on the wheel, I was quite upright. Driving next to much larger cars I found myself looking down on the other drivers.

2013-02-06 08.13.43Finally, or perhaps it was really first, is how big and heavy the keys are. This is probably exacerbated by the fact the rental company felt it necessary to give me two keys on a key ring that doesn’t allow them to be separated. Even if I’d had somebody else on the rental contract as a driver, there would have been no way to share the keys. Where one was going, the other couldn’t be more than a few inches away. And these things are big.

None of these three cars had handling worth mentioning. Anybody buying any of them probably isn’t the least bit interested in how they perform. As to fuel economy, the Fiat got the best and the Avenger got the worst, which is pretty much what you’d expect based on their relative sizes.

On a completely different note, I went to Ferrari of Denver today to pick up the Lotus. While I was working in CT, it was in the shop for a minor repair and a manufacturer recall. I paid the bill and they called for somebody to bring the car around. He said it probably hadn’t been washed and asked if I’d wait 10 minutes for him to do that. While I waited, I checked out what was on the showroom floor and took a peek into the shop.

2013-02-09 11.57.41It must have been Testarossa week. In addition to the two in the photo, there was another one on the other side of the aisle. These two both had their engines out. I couldn’t help but notice the engine for the yellow one is on a yellow cart. Do you suppose the engine for the red one is on a red cart? Looks expensive in any case.

I dropped the car off on a Saturday and didn’t get a chance to walk the showroom floor. But I did peek in the window. A pretty silver Exige caught my eye. They move the cars around quite a bit so today I had to search for it. Turns out it’s an Exige-S and is one of fifteen in the USA. Looks like it’s a track toy – full cage, no passenger seat, no headlights. I doubt there are too many folks able to put $109k into a car they can’t drive on the street.

Eiskhana

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Georgetown was founded in 1859, during the silver boom. At one time, the population was near 10,000 and there was a local movement to relocate the state capital here from Denver but the bust soon followed. It is now not much more than a small tourist town, where skiers stop on their way home. Interstate 70 runs along the slope on the west side of the deep valley on the eastern approach to the Eisenhower tunnel and the old Loveland pass. Drivers there overlook the town and the reservoir just north of it. Today, many of them stopped to watch people drive their cars through a course laid out with traffic cones on the ice.

I picked Jerry up a few minutes before 6 and we headed up I-70. We got there quite early; were the first to arrive at the designated meeting point, in fact. There was some miscommunication on the schedule. After visiting with some of the other participants, getting registered and signing the usual waivers, we headed off to the lake. It looked to be a fine day, cloudless and crisp. The valley there runs north-south with high mountains on each side, so the sun doesn’t hit the lake this time of year until 9:30 or so. It was quite chilly until then, but by noon was in the mid-40’s. We neglected to bring sun screen and even the brims of our hats didn’t help as the sun reflected off what snow was on the surface of the ice. We all stood on the western shore or the ice along it, so I managed to sunburn the right side of my face.

Thick ice

Thick ice

The email I received about the event said the ice was 12-15 inches thick. It is hard to tell standing on it, but I’d venture it was more like two feet where we were. The ice is criss-crossed with cracks, most of them quite small and not even going all the way from top to bottom. There are also lots of bubbles, often stacked up in columns. Some places the ice was quite smooth and the men, being boys at heart, often ran and slid to see who could slide the farthest. Here and there fishing holes had been drilled, but today all the fishermen were congregated at the southern end of the lake. (Movies and TV show these holes being big enough to drop a body through, but these were only about six inches across.) When we arrived a pickup truck towing a small trailer was navigating the course of traffic cones and many of us found that amusing.

I quickly found out that the battery for my camera was dead. When I checked it last night, it indicated a full charge but such is my luck lately with camera batteries. I took a few with the cell phone, but I find them unsatisfying. I did strike up a conversation with a guy who brought his 600mm lens and tripod. I hope to get copies of any shots he took during my runs. When I get them, I’ll share them in a subsequent post.

We were divided into four groups – two wheel drive Porsche, four wheel drive Porsche, 2wd other, and 4wd other. Did I mention this was a Porsche club event? The first group moved onto the ice and lined up for their runs. Cars were released a bit over a minute apart, depending on how fast the car ahead was going. The faster drivers were managing the course in a bit over two minutes. The slower ones took quite a bit longer, many spinning at the north east corner where the ice was particularly smooth and there was no snow.

I asked one of the event stewards how many cars had registered. He didn’t have the number and said he thought it was about 50, but I think it was more like 75. Chatting with other folks it seems most were, like me, doing this for the first time. Only a few people had studded snow tires. Some had snow or ice tires, most had all-season. I have “ultra high performance summer tires”, meaning I’d have very little traction. A few folks pointed at my tires and laughed. Good naturedly, of course.

So most of the day was spent standing around, waiting our turn. Prestige Imports brought a trailer with propane heaters so we could get warm. I took advantage early in the morning but it wasn’t necessary once the sun climbed over Saxon Mtn. Also in the trailer were free t-shirts, granola bars, and glove warmers.

Other 2WD staged up

Other 2WD staged up

At 11:30 the “other 2wd” group staged on the ice. This group was further split and we were in the second half, so more waiting around. The photo shows most of my group, including all three Lotuses. I didn’t know any of the Porsche folks but was acquainted with quite a few of my group, so while the first half was making their runs I was chatting with those in line and milling around with the rest of my group.The Porsche folks had made their runs in a fairly serious fashion, perhaps actually trying to get good times. Our group was a bit more free spirited. John managed to put his Miata though one gate sideways and the next gate backwards to hearty applause.

Finally, at 1:30, we got to make our first run. I was joking with Jerry, asking what he thought the chances were I’d be able to get through the course on the first run without spinning. He said “Zero!” I surprised everyone by putting together a perfect run, no spins, finishing in 2:30 according to Jerry’s stopwatch. Now, of course, I had to see how much time I could carve off that. I should be able to do better, now that I had some experience, right? On the second run I tried a hand-brake turn where we had all seen everybody have the most difficulty. I learned not to attempt hand-brake turns. I spun twice on that run and once on the third run.

It was a lot of fun, even though we were there something like seven hours and were only actually driving on the ice eight minutes. I’ll gladly try it again next year.

Video from Sunday

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I just posted the video from Sunday’s track day. Rather than posting my fastest lap of the day, this time I made a montage of all the times I passed somebody or was passed. Well, almost every pass – I left out a couple of duplicates and one or two where you didn’t get much of a view of the other car. I’m guessing this is about two thirds of the cars that were there that day. I didn’t run in the fast group until the last session and a number of the faster cars left before then. And it’s a long track, so if somebody is running lap times comparable to mine, we may not encounter each other.

HPR Free Day

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Happy New Year.

High Plains Raceway held their annual Customer Appreciation Day for 2012 yesterday. It was originally scheduled for last week, but was postponed due to the weather.

Scott and I met at the park and ride and drove out together. I think we first met at last year’s free day. The video I posted from that day has him waving me by at the end of the lap. He was quicker on the straights, but I had him in the turns. Since then he’s replaced worn brake parts and is now turning lap times a couple of seconds faster than me when I’m on my street tires.

Yesterday was a later start than usual – track opened at nine with a drivers meeting at 9:40 and hot track at ten. Two sessions were run each hour with the “slow” group for the first half hour and the “fast” group for the second half hour. I always run in the slow group on these open lapping days as there are quite a few race prepared cars. Yesterday I ran in four sessions, with the last session in the fast group. There were quite a few more cars in the slow group than the fast group, so I switched groups hoping to get a little more open space. I haven’t put a video together yet. Perhaps I’ll do a montage of all the times I got passed in that last session.

The weather was fairly nice for the first week of January. Sunny and in the low 40’s, but with a bit of a breeze that made things uncomfortable. Most folks were sitting in their cars to stay warm when they weren’t on the track. In the noon hour I took my picnic to the lunch area but retreated back to the car after a few bites of my sandwich. Too blustery for me.

There was quite a good turnout. I didn’t even try to count the cars. There might have been as many as 80. A fairly good variety with only a few familiar cars and faces. I was the only Elise but two Exiges showed up after a while so I wasn’t the only Lotus. There were several BMW’s, Porsches, and Corvettes. I don’t normally see any Honda S-2000’s but there were two yesterday – a black one with a giant wing on the back and one with a matte purple paint job and red wheels. A Ferrari showed up, but I don’t think he ever went on the track.

There was snow on the ground but the track was clear. There were quite a few places where the snow was right next to the track and occasionally somebody would cut a corner a bit and pull snow onto the racing surface. I had to modify my line all day through turn 1 as some snow kept melting on the inside of the turn. Hitting that little bit of water at speed in the turn was a real thrill; got a big wiggle there once, so I steered clear of it after that. Snow or water was in a few other places as well, so each time out started with a slow lap to make sure I knew where the danger spots were.

Everybody I talked to seemed to have a good time. But I guess that’s to be expected – every track rat will smile if you give him free lapping.

I hope to put a short video together in the next day or three and will post it here.

LoCo Christmas Party

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Lotus Colorado held their 2012 Christmas party Saturday night at Club Auto. It was a pot luck, lots of good food, lots of good conversation, not much more to add about that.

Club Auto bills itself as the premier collector car storage and clubhouse facility in the Denver metro area. They have what I’d have to call a showroom area and a warehouse area. Also in the facility is a high-end car detailing business and perhaps an exotic car rental business.

The more notable cars are in the showroom area. On one end are the older cars – mid-20’s Buicks and Rolls Royces. At the other end are a few Indy cars. In between is a variety of cars – Lotuses, Porsches, a Lamborghini, and so on. The most notable here is a Porsche Spyder 550 I’m told has a serial number only one off from James Dean’s car. Moving from the showroom to the warehouse you find a couple Ferraris and some classic Fiats and Fords and a gull-wing Mercedes.

Guests to the party who chose to drive their Lotuses were invited to park in the warehouse. There were only two of us brave enough to do so. The weather forecast was for snow. None had fallen yet, and the weather guy I watched said none was likely to fall before the wee hours of the morning. He was wrong – I drove the Elise home in the snow. It wasn’t cold enough yet to stack up on the streets, though, so it wasn’t a problem.

The warehouse was full of an odd assortment of vehicles. There was a nice early 70’s Lincoln Continental with a panorama roof, a couple of older Porsche 911’s, a Mazda RX-7 with very wide fenders and a huge wing on the back. There were also a surprisingly large number of trucks – Ford F-350’s and such. Not what I think of when I think “collector car storage”.

Sorry for the crappy photos, these were taken with the cell phone.

High Plains Raceway

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Had another track day with CECA at HPR. The first CECA event at HPR this year was the “official” LOCO track day but we had a good turnout of Lotuses today as well – if I didn’t miscount, it was seven Elises (BRG, LRG, blue, black, Storm Titanium, red, orange), an Exige (orange), an Elan, and two Caterhams. I was mildly surprised and happy to see three Ferraris out as well. Plus the usual CECA participants – a couple of Corvettes, a handful of Mustangs, some Porsches, a Viper, and so on.

I invited Scott out for a ride and he brought Nicole. They both had a ride with me and managed to get rides in other cars as well. I think they had a good time – they stayed a bit longer than their original plan. I assume that’s a good sign.

Michael was kind enough to be my support crew. We loaded the gear into his truck last night and hit the road by 6:15 this morning so I could get the slicks mounted up in time for tech inspection. On the drive to the track, we drove into a pretty sunrise, with the sun right over the highway. Once we got the slicks on, I headed to the tech inspection line and Michael crawled into the truck for a nap.

Scott rode with me for the first session. I cut it a couple of laps short because I started hearing a noise in right-hand turns. I couldn’t see anything amiss, so went back out for the second session with Nicole as a passenger. She had arranged a ride in a Viper, so I dropped her off after a few laps. The noise was still there, but not as bad, and I shortly decided I was just getting a bit of rubbing.

Third session was after lunch. Michael rode with me for that one, and about six laps in he was wanting out. This is twice now he’s been getting queasy on the track. I blamed the last time on the big bumps at the CSP track. No such excuse this time.

Michael had to leave the track early to make is evening plans, so after three sessions we put the street wheels back on. For the fourth session, I had Jason (LRG Elise) ride with me. He was driving in the blue group, so I then rode with him. It was quite interesting noting the differences in how we get around the track. For the most part, we get on the brakes and throttle at about the same spots and for most turns we follow the same line. But I’m a gear higher in almost every turn than he is. And with our fairly comparable street tires, we’re running pretty much the same lap times. My biggest take away is that I need to learn turns 4 and 10 better. He carries much more speed through both.

In the three sessions with slicks, my fast time was 2:12.64 according to the video tape. I also managed two laps in the 2:13’s and two in the 2:15’s. On street tires, I ran eight laps, six of which were less than 2:21.

Over all, it was perhaps my most enjoyable day at the track.

Here’s my fast lap:

Colorado English Motoring Conclave

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Today Genae and I went to the 29th annual edition of the Colorado English Motoring Conclave. It is held every year at Oak Park in Arvada. Lotus Colorado had a good turn out, as usual, with a variety of years and models. We briefly said “hi” to a few of the LOCOs before wandering around to look at all the other marques. Everybody asked me where my car was. It was parked on the street, next to another LOCO member who didn’t enter his car.

I think Genae talked me in to entering my car next year. I’m sure it won’t win any awards, but it will look nice parked with all the other Lotuses and if the weather is as good as it has been the last two years it will be a dandy way to spend a day.

Organizers expected more than 500 cars there, representing most English marques – Rolls Royce, Bentley, Lotus, Caterham, MG, Austin-Healey, Jaguar, Rover, Mini, Triumph. There was even a Hillman Minx! (There are at least two Minxes in the area; Michael and I saw a different one here last year.)