The Oak Tree at VIR...

Earlier this fine morning I had met two hot orange MINI cabrios on the highway to come to the track for some laps.I had one in front and one in back of me. Both pals of mine from the Tar Heel MINI Club. If you look closely over the tires you can see the retro Chevy SSR truck pacing the lap. This turn is fantastic and leads onto a straight that is a blast to open up on.

Back at VIR on the Track!!!

Three weeks ago, Sunday June 10th, on the track at VIR http://www.virclub.com/vir/ in my MINI coming down the straight, I shot this picture over my dash. This track is very cool and the grounds are in very good shape. We are lucky to have a nice track like this so close to home.

A Sign for the Times!!

OK so I finally got around to mounting my badge holder in my grill. I have several magnetic badges thanks to http://motoringbadges.com/ Todds mods hooked me up with some cool items for the front of my car. Here is a link to his cool blog: http://toddsmods.com/blog/

Back to my badge...I think it kind of sends a statement to the current president of the USA who I didn't vote for...either time! Enough of that...the next time you see a Veteran remember to thank them for the personal sacrifice and the freedom we enjoy. I am not a fan of war, any of them, but I am a big fan of Vets, all of them. Thanks to all our Veterans. You are the best!

Die Cast Collectables..

Here is one of the prizes I won at MINIs on the Dragon 2007. Many thanks go to the Sunshine MINI Club of Pittsburgh. http://www.sunshineminis.org/
They have an event called the Monte Carlo night and it was off the meter...top shelf. OK so I enjoyed the "for fun" gambling and the people who all have MINI motoring in common....we had a blast and I won some cool stuff. Here is a picture of the gift certificate which took some real effort to produce. Check it out! My two new MINI models are in the shot. They are very cool. Go check out this business on the net or in person. It was very nice of them to give a donation like this for a great non-profit cause. Go spend some money with these guys. http://www.pittsburghdiecast.com/

Actual Size??

Which one is actual size? Is this really 1:1?

Either way is my car shining in this picture or what? OK so I did back my garage queen into the driveway just for this morning shot...Thanks to Heather at Detailers Paradise. Your products rock!

http://www.detailersparadise.com/_system/_advancedstore/qryDefault.asp

A Real Nice Vintage MINI !!

I spotted this jewel parked in the infield at VIR during the Ferrari Challenge. If you look just off to the right behind the fence you can see the red cars flying by on the track.

Imagine....

Imagine you and your MINI on track at VIR rounding the oak tree. This is the vantage point on the track as the Ferraris chase each other at high speed. The sounds were awesome. Nothing like feeling rubber in the air and the smell of a roaring engine. Dan Zipkin, his son Jack, and I camped out on this turn at the end of the race day.

I love this turn and there is no other like it on tracks of this size. If you have not been to VIR you need to get there as soon as you can! Our club is coming back soon with a MINI contingent and I can't wait!

The Union Jack Flies at VIR.

I took this picture last Sunday at VIR. http://www.virclub.com/vir/
This is a view looking at part of the garage area during the Ferrari Challenge weekend.
This track is awesome! It looks like a country club in the middle of some beautiful hills. The Ferrari Challenge was great fun and there were some really beautiful street and race cars
all over the paddock and track.

My MINI lined up for the Parade!

Here we are moments before the parade start last Saturday. After the parade the Tar Heel MINI club celebrated it's second anniversary at Miller Park in Winston-Salem with a cook-out and a cake. Fun stuff. Nice people, lots of fun. http://www.tarheelminis.org/

Tar Heel MINIs in a Parade!!

A group of MINIs line up for the Forsyth Humane Society Parade last Saturday.
http://fhs-artunleashed.org/parade_07.html
We had quite a turn out of cars, members, and dogs of all types. We all had magnetic bones on our car doors with various sayings. It was a very nice day with great weather and a long line of MINIs supporting a great cause.

A Very Cool GP Euro Plate!!!

You have to love this! Very very cool.

I have never ordered a plate from this site but they get high customer service marks on NAM. http://www.northamericanmotoring.com/

Check out the plate selection: https://www.mattman-enterprises.com/cart.php?einstein_jump=view::catalog&cat_id=4
I will order something from them before long.

GP MINIs!!

I started thinking the other day about Minis on the Dragon and I remembered that I didn't put my GP MINI pictures up on this web log. These cars are so awesome. The thunder blue color is killer! http://www.gpmini.net/wp/introduction I would love to have one! Hmm...nah I love my car too much...it is all mine....I read all about the GPs in Autoweek before they were shipped to the USA and really wasn't real hip on them via the pictures. Then I saw one...can you say drool? This was my first introduction to the GP. They are very nice. This picture was taken as our pal Mark Vogler organized a GP meet for a short while in front of the adventure center in Fontana Village. He has some other pictures on the net if you want to check them out...http://www.gpmini.net/gallery/Marks15GPs Thanks Mark!

SPEED Channel F1 Control

Here is one of my pictures from Charlotte, North Carolina during the Brazilian GP Speed Channel broadcast last year. It is very interesting how all of this works. There are tons of support people behind the whole thing. And they do a great job! Rock on Speed TV!! http://www.speedtv.com/

Steve Matchett.

Here are two sunburned F1 fans in Indy at a party during the United States Grand Prix. Steve Matchett http://www.stevematchettfanclub.com/steve/ and I were having a great time as you can tell. http://www.speedtv.com/speed/talent.php I have been to every USGP in Indy and even one back in Phoenix so long ago. My wife and I are rabid F1 fans. I will put some new F1 pictures up here from time to time when the subject matter relates. (See my very first post for a cool MINI USGP story) I thought I would add the picture of Steve as it related to the story below.

Installation Complete!

As you can see from this photo shot from a helicopter overhead, I have Glad brand Press' n Seal on the bar to protect it from moisture. It was almost 80 degrees today, sunny, and windy so I had a great day for a nice dryout of the insulation. Overnight the insulation has a light impression of the bar. I was surprised how little interference there was as I am told the 2005-06 models have thicker insulation than previous models and are more likely to have a hood alignment problem after the brace is installed. I am sure this will change car to car. Random variation. I have seen some 2004 models that had larger insulation dents than my car. Not sure about that insulation thickness information I was given. I will say one thing I investigated was Dynamat http://www.dynamat.com/ insulation for my hood vs. the factory stuff. I called their technical support Friday after I got in from work and talked to them about their product. I really like it and it would be cool to see metallic silver insulation under a MINI hood. In fact I told them to come to the Dragon event next year! I will have some of this stuff in my car soon so standby for that segment.
I was watching the Formula One Grand Prix of Spain this morning and was reminded of the stuff they use on the cars to deflect heat. It looks like the gold stuff NASA used on the LEM that went to the moon during the Apollo missions. Very similar to Dynamat. Cool stuff and it works. I have talked to Steve Matchett http://www.speedtv.com/speed/talent.php about it before. It is used by most teams and will soon find its way to our road cars.
The $64,000 question...hood deflection? Wellll....maybe a slightly larger crack in the clearance. I measure 1 mm. Actually not bad at all. Hardly noticeable to the untrained eye. So mission accomplished. I like my new mod and I did it all myself. My bolts are all torqued to 25 foot pounds per the M7 instructions and my Mom painted the logo on the brace red for me. Cool eh?

M7 Science Project!!

What is this? A science project? OK so I think too hard when I do a project. I am too picky about my toys so I ask 10,000 questions and read 3 books before I do anything. My analogy has always been "Ask me what time it is and I will explain how the watch works..." Isn't that the fun part of life?

Back to the science project. I bought this strut tower brace at MINIs on the Dragon from the future Queen of Nebraska before I knew her name. She was carrying one of these M7 braces in one arm literally like a bunch of flowers covered in bubble wrap and I said, you look like a beauty queen! Wow.. that was really psychic! I was at the Detroit Tuned booth talking to a guy doing a strut brace install on a car. I had been concerned about the tight clearance on the hood. The hood insulation literally touches the bar after the install. If my hood were to be one millimeter out of line I would go crazy. I want the brace for the slight handling improvement but mostly the strut tower plates to prevent any possibility of the legendary mushrooming of the sheet metal after a hard impact. http://www.northamericanmotoring.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78629

I have been reading about this on the NAM site for a long time so I would rather err on the side of being careful. So the dilemma, I want the bar but I am scared of the hood alignment outcome! Afraid I say...maybe I watched Charlie Brown too much as a child...well cut me some slack there were only three channels back then and nothing was on. But that is another story.

Last Friday I called M7 tuning http://m7tuning.com/ and talked to Shelly Horvath, Director of Marketing & Customer Service. She figured me out really quick. She said "Andrew it will be ok, we have sold hundreds of these! Many MINI dealers are installing the plates or bars as the cars are delivered. Don't make a science project out of this!" We laughed. She sent me the install directions for the bar via e-mail. The title of the e-mail was "M7 Science Project."

Well if you look in the picture I am taking this install to the maximum. The hose can be seen on the left "injecting" H2O into the insulation fabric. Forget a squirt bottle, I am going for some massive amounts of Dan River water. I soaked this thing for a while and installed the bar. The posts I have read said use protection on the bar to prevent the moisture from white spotting the bar while the insulation is drying. The NAM posters were right. I had some drips on my fender and they were ugly white globs. Imagine that on my pretty little M7 black brace. Nothing some Hydro cleaner couldn't clear up in short order! Man that stuff is great. http://www.detailersparadise.com/_system/_advancedstore/qryProductSearch.asp?Action=Search&SearchQuery=hydro&SearchType=1

The Caravan Heads Down I-40.

The Tar Heel MINI caravan heading down I-40. This is real fun when you have a line of MINIs full of friends, talking on the radio, and doing synchronized passing....this picture was shot by Dan Zipkin. My car is fourth at this point. A commercial break. For all your MINI mods be sure to visit Dan at

http://www.grassrootsgarage.com/

And now back to the story, here is a link to the video of all of us coming down Black Mountain on I-40 with some cool tunes on the Sirius Radio featuring some classic vinyl in the form of Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin.

Enjoy. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3065523228065888797

On the Way Home from the Dragon 2007.

Through the twisties, a caravan in front and in back. In the very back we have the ultimate safety net, Dan in the Grassroots Garage BMW support car. Not only are we in one of the most reliable cars on the planet but we also have roadside assistance and 10 second technical support..life is good in the Tar Heel MINI club. The blue 2007 MINI in my rear view has less than 1,000 miles on it. Wow. We had a blast and the whole time ripped by. This was more fun that I imagined! Great cars, great surroundings, great people, what an event! The whole thing was awesome. Owning a MINI is more than owning a car. It is a real experience! This is LIVING baybee.

The Red Bull MINI...

Red Bull to the Rescue! Check out this MINI...this pair gave all the Tar Heel MINI club members a Red Bull for the road! Man I needed one! I do buy Red Bull by the case at my house. I have one every day whether I need it or not...my Doctor says is is doing wonders for my lipid profile! Rock on. Here is an interesting site.... http://www.redbullf1.com/

Aww Man!!

Aww man...this is the outcome of a late night on the curves and a collision with a deer. This is a beautiful car, like new with tons of options...ouch...that ace on the roof was needed for luck to get this repair soon! We had just finished the Monte Carlo night sponsored by the Pittsburgh MINI club... http://www.pittstopmini.org/ what a great event that was!! I won prizes! I had great fun playing black jack! Hey I won $175,000 in funny money!! Not a bad night..I remember a girl from Seattle asking me "just how many raffle tickets DO you have?" I thought this reminds me of a song...I won't elaborate...lol...Too bad about that MINI and the deer. My condolences on both counts.