Hello everyone! It’s
Max-Susan-racing-pug-update time!
Over the first weekend of February we bought a tow rig and
car trailer for racing. On Saturday we
bought a green 2001 Chevy Suburban and on Sunday the car trailer. Both seem to be in decent shape. We did run into issues driving the car up on
the trailer as the car sits so low to the ground. Backing the Suburban’s rear tires onto wheel
ramps fixed that problem. The Suburban
was also filthy inside and we (mostly Susan) spent a lot of time cleaning. Buying a vehicle to tow our car wasn’t
something we were going to do for awhile (if ever) but my new role as event
chair changed our minds (I simply don’t have as much time to prep the car the
morning of events anymore). Now I prep
the car before we leave, just drive it off the back of the trailer when we get
there, and we’re ready to go racing. We
also spent the Super Bowl on our couch with the pugs. We didn’t watch the game but checked up on it
periodically using our smart devices.
Somehow I convinced Susan to watch Deadpool with me at the
Alamo Drafthouse a couple of Fridays later.
It was fun except that the movie brought out a lot of older guys who
laughed so overloud as to deafen the ears and take away from the humor of the
film.
The next day was the rallycross awards banquet for the 2015
season. It was held at Quaker Steak and
Lube (car racing themed restaurant). The
food was basically what you would find at a Chili’s but with some of the names
changed. Like their house hamburger is
named the “Lubeburger” and their margaritas are named “Lube-a-ritas”. We brought our little PA and the
trophies. We had reserved a large room
but some signals were crossed and several tables were seated with
non-rallycross folks when we arrived.
Since the basic plan was for everyone to eat before presenting the awards
this was mostly ok (just annoying). After
the unwanted miscreants had finished their meals and vacated the room and our hunger
was satiated I got to present trophies.
For better or worse I like to ham it up on the microphone and I think
Susan almost gave herself a headache rolling her eyes throughout. Everyone had a good time and it was a great
way to kick off the 2016 racing season.
To finish out the weekend we participated in an autocross on
Sunday. We rarely autocross anymore but
this particular event was held at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park which is a site we
used to race on a lot back in the day and one which hasn’t been used in a long
time. We brought Tia (the red Miata). The night before I made the mistake of trying
to close the soft top in the cold and managed to split the plastic window all
the way across. Luckily we raced with
the top down so I could hide my shame.
We did not do well against the competition but we didn’t expect to. It was a lot of fun and we got to chat with
some of our old autocross friends.
The next Sunday (February 28th) was Susan’s 35th
birthday and we celebrated it with 20-odd friends and family members at
Macaroni Grill. It was great that so
many people came out and we all had a good time.
Two weekends ago had us out at Colorado Off-Road Extreme
(CORE) helping to put on a rallycross school/test and tune (Saturday) and
participating in the first rallycross event of the new season (Sunday). I’ve been instructing every year since we
started racing on the dirt and did so again this time. CORE has an upper and lower area we
rallycross on regularly. On this day the
upper area was used for the school and the lower for people to test and tune
(basically anyone can come out and flog their cars/practice before the first
event). After we unloaded the rally car
from the trailer and had a brief drivers meeting Susan went down to supervise
the lower area while I joined the other instructors in instructing the noobs. The group of students this year was great and
I had a good time telling them to go faster (this is the majority of the advice
I give). In the afternoon a small course
was put together in the top area for the students to practice on and I even got
to drive a few laps (I was *ahem* the fastest driver). There was a minor tragedy late in the day
when one of the students went to the lower area and managed to roll his
car. No one was hurt but it was still
massive bummer. Oh yeah, it was also
windy all day. Miserably windy. And there was a lot of dust flying around. Miserably dusty wind. All day.
Besides this the weather was pleasant.
The next day was race day and we had a great turnout. Our biggest event ever was last year’s first
event with 84 participants and we almost matched it this year with 83. Close to half of the drivers were new to
racing around on dirt which was great.
As always our driving class was extremely competitive with the gap
between the top three drivers around 0.3 seconds after the morning runs (I was
in the lead). I knew I lost the top spot
after I completed my first run in the afternoon (it was dreadful) but I managed
to hold onto 2nd place. Susan
drove really well and came in 5th out of our giant 24-driver class
(a couple of cone penalties knocked her out of 4th). This was my first event as event chair and it
went relatively smoothly. We stayed to
help clean up cones and by the time we finally loaded up the car we were the
last to leave and it was getting dark.
This past weekend had me installing small airbags inside the
rear springs in the Suburban to help limit the amount of sagging we experience
while towing. I think there must be a
natural law that all the dirt under a car will far directly into one’s eyes and
mouth when working on it. Good
times.
Tidbits
The pugs are doing well. Sophie is just finishing up another
bout of heat which was super-fun in a sarcastic way. I still can’t get over how cute she is. Satchel is doing well and Bella is still the
puppy in the house. We had a little
scare with Tweetie as she somehow managed to hurt her front left leg (she was
in a lot of discomfort). Susan found
some leftover pain medicine from a prior pug-problem to tide her over until the
next day when we planned on taking her to the vet. Of course the next morning she was fine and
we have no idea what happened. Go pugs!
Susan has been incredibly busy at work lately while my busy
time is just finishing up. She’s been
taking work home each night this past week and may be working more over the
weekend. It’s a bummer but at least she
knows she’s needed (it also helps that she is paid hourly).
We hope this finds you happy and healthy!
Max and Susan
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