Dragon 2007

Finally getting around to sitting down and putting in my thoughts on this years MOTD. I headed up Thursday with some friends and had a great time before we left Sunday. Bamatt and I put together a dinner for those who, like us, didn’t get our tickets for the welcome dinner soon enough. Thanks to others that came with food and supplies the dinner was a hit and filled some stomachs along the way.

Friday morning as usual I headed up to Fontana dam for some nice views of the mountains in the morning. Then headed down the dragon for some fun. This is the first time in my four events where the roads didn’t seem overly busy. It was clean for some nice driving……and driving we did.

Saturday brought some rain but you have to rest sometime. Right? It gave us a chance to walk around and check out some vendors and see what we needed to blow money on. Luckily, not much was spent this year.

All in all the event was great. A little too commercialized but none the less a great time around all the other MINIs and MINI owners.

You can check out a few pictures on Flickr. Also, Greenblur made a video of one of the runs so I uploaded it for him to Google. You can find the video here. I’m the one in front of him.

Yellow MINI Pages

StoopidGirl of Rogue MINIs has created what could be considered the ultimate links page for the MINI Cooper. It is called the Yellow MINI Pages. It is a good resource for finding things from national events, where to get service performed on your MINI to small sites like this by other MINI owners. Check it out.

MINIs and Minis on film

I found this in my bookmarks today.  It’s an Internet Movie Cars Database.    There are five pages of movies and shows which the MINI/Mini are in.  A very interesting site.  That said.  I really need to clean my favorites out as I apparently have no idea of what all I have in there.  :O

MOTD5 on Google Earth

It’s getting that time of year again. To start preparing for the yearly MINIs On The Dragon, also known as MOTD, this coming May 3rd through 6th. Last year was my 3rd event so I took it easy and enjoyed the view from atop Fontana dam as the MINIs were lining up at the base in preperation of the parade down the Dragon. Some locations such as the top and base of the dam are not easily pointed out with signs. Actually I don’t recall any signs to the base of the dam and where the road is located it is hard to tell it leads to the dam. Quite a few people came to the top of the dam looking for the parade thus making them late to get to the parade or miss it.

I made up a quick Google Earth map of the area. It looks as if GE has updated the image this year to better resolution. If you don’t have Google Earth you can download it for free here. After installing GE, click this link and choose to open with GE. (If the link is broken for you. Right click the link and save as)It will open GE and carry you to an overview of the area with locations such as lodging, dining, route markers, places of interest plus the beginning and ending locations of the parade.

You can also use it to view a route. Expand the folder for your chosen start such as lodging. Then right click on the lodge and choose “directions from this”. Then do the same for the end of the route. This time right click the location and choose “directions to this”. Or you could simply do all of this by right clicking the marker on the map and choosing the appropriate option. This will carry you to an overview of the route or if you want to fly the route select the play button in the new menu that pops up.

Thanks to snooters Dragon website for some of the lodging and dining areas I was not aware of in the area. All on his site are not listed in GE as I have no clue where some are and didn’t want to get anyone lost.

Fun with Photoshop

I was given a link to NASIOC about how to turn real pictures of your car or whatever else you would like into a version of the Cars movie. This is a nice and easy guide to get you started to many fun attempts to see what you can do. It’s a must for those that like to fool around in Photoshop or other paint programs.

Here is the link to the specific thread on their forums. How to do the “Cars” Photoshop. Here was my first attempt.

It’s that time of year again……

Christmas is upon us once again.  So I dug up an old video I made a few years back when I had time to play my favorite computer racing simulation.  It’s a take off on Ferrari and its prancing horse.  Hope everyone has a wonderful, yet safe, holidays in the coming weeks.  Video

3rd annual Toys for Tots run

The weather was perfect today considering it’s mid December. Just over 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Several of us from Rocket City MINI headed to Cullman to meet up with Magic MINI and the BAMA group. Seventeen cars showed for the event.

We headed out on the back roads of Cullman county for some fun motoring. I was more lucky this year than last. This year my MINI wasn’t chosen as a chew toy by the local loose dog. We got through slowly but the Minivan behind us was the chosen one this year. After a bit of motoring we stopped at the resteraunt to fill up a MINI with toys then fill ourselves up for a short ride home. All in all, it was a fun event. Plus, the children will benefit this year for Christmas.

If you get a chance. Children and animals with no families could really use some help. Even if it’s just one toy for a child or dropping off a bag of dog/cat food to the rescue shelter. Every little bit helps.

Click on the picture for more pictures of todays event.

The new MINI is not the newest any longer

There is a nice article on Motoringfile about the end of production for the R50 and R53.  I’ve been meaning to order some grill badges so maybe I need to get me one of those R53 badges.

Last weekend I ran in the local autocross event. In hopes of getting some practice and more knowledge so maybe I can run the full season next year locally. It turned out to be a very nice day. It was sunny with the temperature in the mid 50’s. The supercharger loved it. Because of the low turn out, 48 cars, we were able to get 6 runs in.

The first 3 runs before lunch weren’t bad though I was getting quite a bit of understeer. After messing with the tire pressures I was convinced it was due to my recent mod. The M7 strut brace. The product is great and I plan to keep using it. The problem was that it put a little more understeer into the car which I had removed with the rear swaybar. So during lunch I removed it as it was easier to do than adjust the swaybar.

After lunch, the other 3 runs were held and I felt more comfortable with the cars handling. While under steer with the M7 strut brace feels great on the road. During autocross I like to have a little over steer so the car can be tossed around more freely. I dropped my times down around a second compared to before lunch to a best time of 64.617. Enough to finish 3rd in my class. Those Subaru’s are fast and the drivers more experienced that I. But it felt good to be running against them and they keep me pushing for more.

Here are links to the results. I’m STX #6. Final Pax Raw

White Roof Radio and Fireballed! Racing rock.

If you haven’t listened to White Roof Radio yet. It is a must. db, Todd and Gabe are a cool bunch of guys that really enjoy making one of top rated automobile podcasts out there. I started listening to them around episode 30 but have gone back to listen to all previous woofcasts. As they are called.

They have quite a bit of interaction from listeners including Roberts soundseeing tours to the 100th episode where listeners were able to listen live. Hopefully something that will happen again as it was a blast to hear what gets edited out before release.

Also, they have contests. One of wrote a song for and placed second and another, guess how quick hubie would run at Panoma which I placed first. First place had some great prizes. A White Roof Radio shirt and a very cool Fireballed! Racing shift knob.

So get out there and subscribe to White Roof Radio.