Wow! Busy holiday season in the rear view mirror. Not much driving, unless you count trips to the mall and retail stores as racing. From what I’ve seen on the street, some folks certainly think that way.
The car is dirty, and the weather is miserable. Mother Nature gives us tantalizing, beautiful sunny days followed by rain and more rain.
Looking at the season for 07, and the first Austin Spin Doctors event may be March at TWS. There’s a Feb. event, but not sure how wet it’ll be.
The Austin Spin Doctors is a group that just sort of acreted. We’re not centered around one sort of car, nor around one sort of driving, save that we all do HPDEs. We’ve got auto crossers, road racers, SCCA folks, and so on. The main reason to be in it is to get together and talk track stories, and to get a discount at the TDE events (as a car club). It’s a nice bunch of people.
The car is at a crossroads. I’ve ordered a trailer and hitch that will fit a C5. Just after that purchase ($400 or so of parts and trailer), an inexpensive truck became available. It’s a 3/4 ton vehicle that would easily pull a C5 and trailer. It’s a 91 with 63K miles, for $3000. Going to test drive it this weekend, and if it works out, we’ll sell the van and buy this vehicle. Then we have to think about a trailer for the car, which will set us back another $2000 or so. It’ll be worth it though. Very nice to be able to load up the car if it breaks and get it home. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll set up my little tire trailer and hitch and go to the next event that way. Either way, I won’t be asking folks to carry my tires anymore.
I’ve also closed the deal on a racing seat, so I’ll have to get brackets fabbed up for that soon (or buy them). It’s a Kirkey and it’s quite nice for an old seat. I’ll likely get it mounted at LG’s place. That means I’ll have to sell the Corbeau seats I own now, but they have never been out of the box, so no big deal.
I’ve decided that messing around with the car is something that I love to do, but not something that you NEED to do in excess. The folks I know that tinker all the time tend to break the car. Those that leave well enough alone tend to run stronger. I want to be part of the latter crowd, not the other. The car runs very well, and it plenty fast for me at the moment. The next serious mod for it will be sway bars and links, but that’s some time off, if we get the trailer.
Looks like a decent year so far!