Members cars/bikes

You sound almost exactly like my wife. If there are only three stores in a town, my wife will find a "gotta have" in two of them......

She sounds like she isn't trying. I can get pretty serious about the biz of shopping. lol I could come out of a men's shop or a plumbing supplies with something. lol I have a piston from a 426 hemi as a paperweight/knickknack holder on my desk and a short piece of aluminum irrigation pipe holding pens and pencils. Also have the B&M shifter handle off the GTX racecar Les & I built, but it's just a doodad on the shelf, good for collecting dust and looking at.

Ah yes. The rule of law brigade. They don't want to speed and they don't want anyone else to speed either.

My first vehicle at age 16 was a Kawasaki 750 H2 triple.
Possibly the most evil and inappropriate first time vehicle in existence at the time.

Next up was a Volvo 144 heavily subsidized by M & D who probably felt that my fascination with extremely fast bikes would quickly lead to a nasty end.
The Volvo seemed to be a little light on torque so I quickly traded it in on an Olds Centurion with a 455 big block.
Those were the good old days of driveway valve jobs and setting the timing by twisting the distributor.
The Olds made a lot of noise and sucked a lot of gas but in reality it was boring.
Tinkering about with it solved nothing.
I ripped the transmission pan clean off that thing at high speed one dark night.
Because I enjoyed driving I obtained my class one and put in my time on the logging roads of Northern BC and Alberta.
And I drove whatever beaters I could afford and get my hands on but I always had a quick street bike in reserve.

More recently, when I was a little older and my credit a slightly better I ran a little black Vette that was track tuned quite nicely.
Did all the sports-car and Corvette club track days available and sold the thing 8 years later for within a thousand dollars of what I paid for it.

Picked up a lightly used BMW M3 simply because I flat could not bring myself to shell out the cash for a 911.
The M3 was a great car.
Did the cold air intake, reworked the timing curves and pulled the rev-limiter.
Upgraded the brakes and slapped on a set of track radials.
The thing was good for 170 if you had the stones to stay into it that long.
Ran it on the track every chance I could get and got certified to drive really fast cars on really fast tracks.
Managed to wangle my way into Dinan BMW's,Merc's, 911's and even a Lambo.
And I learned that I pretty much suck.
I had the privilege of driving with and being coached by truly fast drivers.
Some folks have serious potential and some dont.
I dont.
Dont get me wrong, I know how to drive really fast cars really fast.
But the older I get the slower my reaction times are.
And some of those young kids in Miata's and Sabaru's are really, really good.
And they will kick your but in a flash first chance they get.

So I sold the Bimmer and now I content myself with puttering about on a Kawasaki ZRX 1200R
With a stage 2 job on it.
And I am probably going to sell it.
So if you see the advertisement that says little old man, original owner, ZRX 1200R.
Thats me.

Oh, as an edit.
If you like to drive fast.
Please respect others and take it to the track.
Thanks

Trex

I once took a race driving course that convinced me that I was not a race driver.
When I was in Germany with the RCAF a few years back I took a one week high performance driving course. The course was given by Bob Bondurant. The driving was on the short track at Nurbergring. We were driving formula 3 coopers When I started the course I knew I was destined to be a formula one champion. During the course we started with how to drive a particular section of the track and once we had learned that section we moved on to the next section. Once we had covered the whole track we started on laps. Over the next two days I learned that track. I thought I was lapping that track as fast as humanly possible. One of the instructors took me out in an MGA and damn near cut my time in half. That pretty much told me that I wasn't formula one material. The course cost me $800.00. I think it was money well spent.

You dog.
The Bob B. courses are pretty much understood to be absolute top drawer.
You can make or break a potential racing career at his schools.
Never went to one myself but I have been on the track with some of his American instructors and they are world class.
And at Nurburg?
You Dog.

As to how fast cars will go around a race track, it's my belief very few people really know how fast a well driven car will go.
Excepting the folks who spend time on race tracks.
A little Honda Civic Si or a Toyota Celica driven by a professional driver is capable of
going fast enough around a track to make your eyeballs bleed.
It's not the acceleration.
It's that late braking at super high speeds going into a hairpin that makes me pucker.

As to the $800 bucks.
How could it be better spent?

I was recently spending close to $400 a day on track insurance/inspections to run my car.
Expensive as hell but in the long haul worth every penny.
I have packed that stuff in but I sure don't regret a penny of it.
And really, compared to golf.
Pfft.

Trex

Here is a short video of a lap on the short track by a race prepared BMW 330i (Actually, there are a few different cars doing laps.) The bimmer is the second one down from the top on the left hand side.

The track is a lot wider than I remember it but then, my experience is a few years old.

short track at Nurburgring - Google Videos

That reminds me of a video I thought Les had. It was car racing and I think it was a Bimmer. I can't remember if it was on a regular road or track, but I think it was a track. Anyway, this car had a cam in it and the thing was screaming like it was doing like 15,000 RPMs.
Anyway, I can't find the clip.