Grassroots Motorsports: The Hardcore Sports Car Magazine

As Per mentioned in his earlier update, he took the terrestrial route to Milwaukee in a MINI while his better half got the “Rock Star Treatment” with a posh airline flight to the same.

Naturally, Rock Stars do not dirty their hands dialing any phone number that ends in 8294; a taxi cab to the airport would be far too pedestrian. It was, therefore, my honor to chauffeur the PAX Princess to her departing flight in no less than the brand-new $85,000 Jaguar XJR that just so happens to be in our press fleet at the moment. Anything less would be uncivilized!

Good luck Kim & Per, and don’t let ‘em give you any green M&M’s.

So, my wife and I recently sold some investment property and did pretty well on the deal. As a result of the profits, she got her student loans paid for, I got an early start on my midlife crisis. Yep, that’s right, I’m currently holed up in a Holiday Inn in Columbus, GA, on my way home from Auburn, AL with my newest car: A 1999 Corvette Fixed Roof Coupe. I always knew when we sold the rental I’d buy a “dream car” type vehicle. I wanted something cool, and also something with some editorial value, since it’s fun to write about what you’re driving. There were a few cars on my short list, but basically I always sort of knew a Vette would find it’s way into may driveway. Essentially it boils down to three reasons:

1. I’ve alwys wanted one
2. Corvettes rule
3. I have a little weiner.

You know, you can certainly nitpick Corvettes, even C5s and C6s, but at the end of the day, a screaming V8 and a waving American flag are just plain cool.

This particular one comes to me by way of the Autotrader online edition. I had originally been looking for a late C4—and LT4 powered car preferrably—but when I started realizing I could get a C5 for the same money I set my sights there. My target car was a pewter, silver, blue or red FRC (in that preferrential order), with under 50,000 miles, unmodified and near a major airport. Of course, I started looking weeks before the closing on the house, and found what appeared to be my dream car in Alabama. Pewter FRC, 36,500 miles, no mods and a $22,000 asking price. I waited as long as I could to call, knowing that the car would probably disappear before I got my money in my hands.

Finally, a couple of Fridays ago, I couldn’t stand it anymore. We were due to close the following Tuesday. It was 4:45pm Friday. I called the title company and the buyer’s mortgage company. Everything checked out. The closing would go Tuesday as scheduled, no problems. I called the number in the ad, and to my delight, the car was still available, and between the extensive pictures in the advertisement, and the conversation with the only owner the car had ever had, I figured this was the right one. We settled on $21,000, and I dropped a $500 deposit check in the mail with the intent of flying to Alabama the following weekend to pick up my prize.

When I returned from the mailbox, my cell phone rang. It was now 5:05 pm. It was the mortgage broker informing me that there was an unforseen problem with the paperwork and we wouldn’t be closing Tuesday. In fact we’d be closing the following Tuesday. My hubris and impatience had now bitten me square on the ass, and a plate of crow awaited on the other end of the phone in Alabama.

But luck smiled when the phone rang again a few minutes later. It was the seller informing me that he had forgotten he’d be out of town the following weekend,and wouldn’t be available to complete the transaction. “No problem” I assured him. “You know, the following weekend may be better for me, too.” Crisis averted.

Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy. Cashier’s Check in hand, I arrived in Birmingham at 3:30pm today—almost 2 hours after my scheduled arival due to a flight delay. I had arranged for a one-way rental to Auburn, where the Enterprise rental car office closed at 6pm. For those of you not familiar with Alabama geography, Birmingham and Auburn are about 3 hours apart on a good day. It all worked out okay, though, after pushing a Suzuki Forenza far beyond its typical cruising speed, I was able to convince the Enterprise office to stay open an extra 20 minutes so I could turn in my car and be able to get onthe road with my new toy. Of couse, the case of beer I offered the Enterprise guy went a long way in my favor.

The Vette owner—a retired Auburn U professor—met me at the Enterprise office and we went back to his house to settle up. On the way I heard about his prior Corvettes, and we shared some stories aboout our other hobbies, notably firearms. He builds custom works of art that can barely be called “guns” since thay’re just so damn pretty, and I shoot holes in cardboard and steel against the clock (I also stay up ’til all hours playing World of Warcraft, but I wasn’t about to tell him that). But whatever end of the hobby you’re in, though, stuff that goes bang is cool.

Anyway, maybe he just liked me, or maybe he actually felt bad about the three tiny, almost imperceptible scratches in the car, but he insisted on handing back my deposit check. A few minutes later we shook hands and I drove away in my new 1999 FRC—which, in all honesty, was in far nicer condition than I expected it to be in—only $20,500 lighter for my troubles.

So, look for some C5 stuff in the magazine before long. Not right away—probably into the 2007 schedule as my plate is still pretty full of MR2 right now—but I’m certainly open to any correspondence regarding the car in the meantime.

One more thing. If you ever happen to be driving through Opelika, Alabama—new Corvette or not—do yourself a favor and stop at Papa Joe’s Pit BBQ. Get a variety plate with hot sauce. It really isn’t “hot” as such, just very peppery. You’ll thank me.

Here’s some quick snapshots:

We watch some people get so wrapped up in the competition that they forget to have fun at an autocross. This weekend was definitely fun, as we again got to run against Super Dave at a local SCCA event in nearby DeLand, Fla. Our editor started the competition with the faster time–by about a second–but then Dave made it equal. With rain starting to fall, Dave then pulled out an awesome run and took home first-place points. Yeah, he got us, but so what, we had fun. Once the cats and dogs started falling, we both high-tailed it out of there.

On a different note, we just placed an order with Majestic Honda for some needed bits: assorted seals and gaskets, fresh cap and rotor and the parts needed to fix the rear hatch struts.

Per and Kim will be competing at the Milwaukee National Tour this weekend in the MINI. Per will be leaving tomorrow morning, while Kim gets to play rockstar and just fly in Friday afternoon.

Not that it really matters as far as magazine production goes, but it’s been raining a lot here. At least our lawns are looking good.

No, sadly I didn’t get to drive it. Wayne Taylor took me a few laps, however. Was it fast? Well, duh. (By the way, thank you Grand American Road Racing for the photography.)

The Brumos Porsche 250, Grand-Am’s summertime visit to Daytona international Speedway, takes place this Thursday evening. They held a media day today that went beyond the usual press conference served along with fattening foods: Laps with Wayne Taylor. In a Daytona Prototype. And not just any DP car, but the No. 10 Pontiac Riley that he drove to the overall victory at last year’s Rolex 24 At Daytona. Seriously. They put a second seat in the car.

And yeah, it was pretty cool.

Max Angelelli also took us for some laps in one of the series’ Pontiac GTO pace cars. He does a pretty mean Rhy Millen impersonation, as he ran most of the infield opposite-lock.

If you’re going to be in the Daytona Beach area this Thursday and are looking for something to do, go watch these guys. The Brumos Porsche 250 starts at 7:00 p.m. Should be a fun evening, and look for GRMers in the grandstands.

On a related note, we have also started talks regarding another GRM party at next year’s Rolex. Can’t wait for that one.

I’m not shy about my fondness for fried food, and fried chicken in particular, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that when J.G. told me a new chicken joint had opened in Daytona, I made immediate plans to go get some of its through-the-window goodness.

I had my own special reasons for wanting to visit this particular house of fry: It’s a Maryland Fried Chicken, the very same little chain where I saw my first employment, in high school. So I loaded my kids in the car and headed down US1 today at lunchtime in anticipation of a treat and a little nostalgia.

The kids asked me, as I pulled into the drive-through, if I planned to announce that I used to work at a Maryland Fried Chicken. “Of course not,” I answered, “that would be kind of dorky: ‘Hi, I used to do your job 30 years ago!’”

I’d been at the window less than a minute before I did just that. But hey, the lady at the register did lean out and ask me if I’d ever had MFC, and even offered me a menu—what’d you expect me to do? I probably didn’t have to go into detail about how yellow our polyester uniforms were “back in the day” and start reminiscing about the cute cartoon chickens that were on the boxes we had to fold, but I did. Okay, so I’m a dork. (By the way, you can see both the chickens and the exact shade of yellow here at this ad I found for a MFC in Tampa.)

This lady gave me that wide-side-glance nod that means they think you’re crazy and ducked back into the window (rather quickly, it seemed) and I had another minute or so to feel truly idiotic before the window popped open again, not with my food, but with another lady who asked me where I had worked, and for whom. Long story short (or not so short), this second lady was married to the great-grandson of the guy I worked for, and the chain is still in the same family.

She called over her husband and we talked a bit about Mr. Albert, my former employer and his great grandfather, and they seemed genuinely interested to hear how he used to take us all out on Friday nights, after the store closed, for a late dinner at Sambo’s restaurant (really). “Order anything you want, girls,” he used to say as he lit a cigarette and leaned back expansively on the big vinyl booth, “it’s on me.” Mr. Albert used to pay us well below minimum wage, but he also gave us all sound advice using examples from his long and colorful life, and presented each of us with little gold bracelets for high school graduation as well as a little going-away-to-college bonus. He generally treated all of us somewhere between indentured servants and fondly regarded children, which was probably the right note to strike with his young employees. He was well into his 60s when I worked for him, so I was not surprised to hear he was long dead. For a moment, though, he flared back to life as we talked about him.

Then a fragrant bag of steaming chicken was handed to me with waves and goodbyes, and I turned toward home feeling quite satisfied and full of anticipation for the meal to come. Until Tommy broke the silence with an eye-rolling “I can’t believe you just did that.”

I gave him some chicken anyway. And yes, it was as good as I remember.

Here are some links to other pictures that we’ve found on the ‘net from RallyWV.

NASA RallySport Media

SWVRCCA.Org

Art Part Photo

We rolled into (or up to) the Snowshoe resort after 13.5 hours on the road. Behind Gary is an amazing vista, we were at 4800+ feet at this point.

After tech (which was pretty painless) we parked the car and hung out, looking at a bunch of really cool cars.

One cool car that we lusted after was this Saab 99, which had an Electromotive injected 900 Turbo engine in it. It was super badass. We wouldn’t be surprised if Per drags home a Saab 99 in the future.

Another cool car was this 1995 VW Golf Sport. What makes this car cool is that it came new with a delete option on the sunroof. They only made a handful of Sports like this, and Per actually had one when they were new and wouldn’t mind finding another. Sports are the same thing as the 1994 Limited Edition Golf or the 96-98 four-cylinder GTi.

Here’s most of the crew. Gary (on the left) came up with Per from Florida, while our navigator, Brian Johnson (in center) and Tom Pinkham (on right) drove down from Connecticut.

Tom helped Gary get our stuff together for the service areas. Like Rally NY, it was pretty rainy at the event.

Here are some static shots of the event..action to come later.

Kim ran the MINI this weekend with the Central Florida Region of the SCCA. She finished 6th on index. Not too bad! Per missed out, as he was on the way back from the Rally in WV.

DeLand Results