Grassroots Motorsports: The Hardcore Sports Car Magazine

Our GRM crew out at SOLO Nationals in Topeka, Kan. finished up today. Per dropped a spot and finished up 18 overall with a total time of 95.467. His fastest run today was a 45.164. Kim managed to move up to 28 with a total time of 98.404 with a fast run of 46.164 on today’s course.

As a reference, Ron Williams finished the day off in the top spot overall with a total time of 93.710. His fast run of the day was a 44.596. However Ron didn’t have the fastest time out there, runner up Craig Wilcox ran a 44.381.

We are proud of our GRM family!

Several members of the extended GRM family struck gold while in Topeka.

- Mike King, who has helped us sort and evaluate several GRM project cars, most recently our STS Civic Si, finally scored an SCCA national championship with his STS2 win.

- Regular Challenge driver Ian Stewart also made us proud, winning the Super Stock title. It’s also his first title. (Truth be told, if he didn’t win it this time, a certain editorial director was going to throttle him for coming so close once again.)

- Mark Daddio, who helped campaign our Dodge SRT4 project car, won his ninth title this week with a first-place finish in Street Modified.

- Jack Burns, who regularly helps Per with Solo matters, took the H Stock title. He now has a pair of Solo titles to his credit.

The second set of classes wrap up tomorrow. At the moment, recent GRM cover model and former GRM intern Bryce Merideth is sitting third in STX. Andy Hollis, builder of our STS2 Miata project car, is currently fourth in STS. Look for more final results late on Friday.

When it comes to music, metal is my thing. Anthrax, Maiden, Priest and Metallic all share space on my iPod. However, I’m also a huge jazz fan. It’s what we usually have playing in the house, and it provided the soundtrack to our wedding.

Sadly, a lot of the greats are no longer with us, victims of age, drugs or just a tough lifestyle. A few jazz greats are still out there, and it’s neat to see that some maintain Web pages. If you’re also a student of jazz, here are some acts you can still catch live:

Clark Terry
Dave Brubeck
Tierney Sutton

Oh yeah, a P.S. to my last blog about flying through Atlanta. Despite the delay and long wait in Atlanta, my luggage didn’t make it to my final destination. It arrived the following day. Broken.

Chris is right, I was stalking him yesterday. I kind of expected to see him at Best Buy, actually, but I also expected to see the Dethklok CD there. If there had only been one copy at Hot Topic, it would have gone to Chris, for his devotion to the cause was great. While we were there I picked up a Metalocalypse sticker for Project Spec E30 to make it more brutal, and they had a Gir hoodie that exclaimed “WAFFLES!” so I had to get that for Ashley. To think, Hot Topic used to be the place to get bright red hair dye. Remember kids, Manic Panic may be more old school, but Special Effects is black-light reactive so you look even more wild at the club.

We’ve had too much rain here lately, my driveway is kind of furry. Also, it’s been nigh impossible to play tennis, and I finally got the new new keys to the court in my housing community. They repaved the surface and everything, it’s kind of nice. I can’t wait until the high temps get below the mid-90s. Florida weather is screwed up. I long to wear a jacket.

Ashley got her first round of papers back from her students, and she’s really not keen on grading them. I can’t blame her.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was a bit short but very sweet. I think my next big thrill on that front will be the long anticipated Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Also, the Harvey Birdman game coming out looks like fun. And Guitar Hero III should have my fingers begging for mercy soon.

The Nismo 350Z is my favorite 350Z so far: I actually liked it a good bit. Gobs of grip, fun at the autocross, sounded great and although its looks were ridiculous I was never a fan of the regular 350Z’s looks so the JGTC-inspired body is fine with me.

And that’s pretty much what I’ve got going on. $2007 Challenge looms, so that should be fun. Hopefully we’ll get good weather and some wild creations.

Yesterday, I joined an estimated 1.5 Million nerds in celebrating Halo day. I recieved a copy of the newly released Halo 3 for my birthday from my kids (who aren’t allowed to play…I’m such a mean Dad.) and got completely caught up in the story. I finally went to bed somewhere around 3 o’clock in the morning, and am feeling the effects of sleep deprivation and acute eye strain this morning. I’m too old and slow to be much of a threat on Xbox Live, but I’m really enjoying Campaign mode. For those of you who may be on the fence for this game, I give it a thumbs up.

In other news, progress on my quest to be an Autocross champion has been suspended for a few days. Look for an update on last weekend’s event when I get my hands on a couple of the pictures that David took.

Kim and I picked up our newest addition to the Schroeder fleet on Friday, an Xterra with the Off Road package, which comes with Bilsteins, better BFGoodrich tires and a few electronic gizmos, skidplates and whatnot. I had a hard time deciding between a six-speed and an automatic and finally chose the automatic. It’s the first new car that I’ve bought with a slushbox and I’m pretty happy with it. Honestly, I was thinking that a nice relaxing car that I didn’t have to work on would be friggin’ awesome and a new Camry came to mind more than once. I figure that with the automatic ,this thing is like a really butch Camry. Well, not really, as it’s also pretty stout, can tow a race car and haul our gear/dogs/life pretty well.

it looks like this product shot, but it’s dark blue….yea, the same color as the company’s Pathfinder loaner. That’s a bummer, but there weren’t many rebate-friendly 2007 Off Roads left.

After 20 hours in a car, no matter how comfortable the car, you’re ready for a break, a walk or even a beer or two. We held off on the refreshments until we had walked both of the courses that we’ll be running on Thursday and Friday. They appeared to be a lot less sweeper-intensive than last year, with quite a few more slaloms and wiggly transitions. We like how the MINI handles wiglets like this, so we’re looking forward to driving the courses.

The MINI got about 34 mpg on its way up here, averaging, well, a little over the national speed limit. It’s now outside resting in the hotel parking lot, as this hotel doesn’t allow pets in the rooms, even if they’re small ones like the MINI. We’ve got a few days to set up our booth, get registered, teched before we pick up our co-driver Kim at the airport on Wednesday evening.

Are you going to the 2007 SCCA SOLO National Championships or the Runoffs? Do you want to enter our contingency program to win money?

Here is what you have to:

Registration:

– You must be registered in the program before the date of the event. (No awards will be paid if you are not enrolled prior to the event.)
– Please call 1-800-520-8292 and ask for Carrie to register or email carrie@grassrootsmotorsports.com with your name, class, address and phone number.
– It is the entrant’s responsibility to neatly apply decals.

Requirements:

– One GRM decal placed on each side of vehicle
– Competitor must be a current subscriber to Grassroots Motorsports magazine

Award Information:

– Cash awards in the amount of $100 will be paid to the 1st place winner of each eligible class
– To claim award, winner must send name, car number, class, address and a photo of car of suitable quality for marketing purposes to GRM NO LATER THAN NOVEMBER 1, 2007 for Solo Nationals and NO LATER THAN NOVEMBER 15, 2007 for Runoffs.

Grassroots Motorsports magazine
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