I attended my annual TSO concert ritual with a small group of friends including Collin and Raina. I think this was the third time I have seen them, each time it gets better, the show gets constantly tweaked and improved from year to year, and you notice things that you didn't notice before... a lot of action is going on and off the stage. This year I had front row seats, I am totally spoiled now, best seats in the arena. If you have a chance to see this Christmas concert in your city, by all means go see it. It is a family friendly, but has the feel of rock opera with over the top light show and pyrotechnics, they even make it snow indoors!
I was able to shoot some fairly good pictures with my iPhone, enjoy!
The first time I ever drove on a race track my instructor was Shane Lewis, Daytona Prototype pro-driver. I first met Shane April 20, 2005 in Savannah, Georgia at a High Performance Driving School named Sports Car Driving Experience. The entire experience of high performance driving on a road course changed my life, I have since driven on race tracks hundreds of times and become a very confident track driver, in fact I do some instruction myself.
I had the opportunity to get some private instruction with Shane again two years later, it was fun to get to drive again with my first instructor. After my first session with him not saying much, the first thing he said to me was "Wow, I can't say to much, you were always looking where you should be, your hand position on the wheel was good, your line was good, your braking was good." I said there is always more to learn, I am sure you can give me some hints. We had a great time during the day, he pushed me hard around the track (I need that) and we had this little moment which I caught on video... enjoy!
This is a video of a test drive on the full circuit at the Autobahn Country Club with Mike Davero in the right seat. This is just after I got my L.G. Motorsports C5 Z06 back from their shop in Texas. Mike is a good friend who also owned a C5 Z06 at the time, we have driven together many times. The car as stock was impressive, with all these modifications it's absolutely hard core!
Saturday was a washout for me, Sunday appeared a little bit better weather wise, so I ventured out to the Autobahn Country Club's opening weekend. The Audi club was there running on the South circuit, it looked like there were a lot of people having fun. My only goal was to bed the brakes, scuff the tires a bit and get used to the new setup on my Z06.
My first session was uneventful, I bedded the brakes and cooled it down and brought it in. I snapped a few pictures and had some lunch with some of the guys.
Lotus Cup Car
Ducati Monster
"Autobahn Racer's" C5 FRC race car
"Short-Throw's" C6 Z06
Rudy's C5 Z06
Here's some track video from the North circuit in a session with two of the vettes pictured above. This is some pretty conservative driving by all, it was the opening weekend, my car had a bunch of new modifications so I wanted to take some time and enjoy re-learning my car on the track. jimbacus.mylaps.com
Anthony left the final dynosheet on my dash, it was better than the numbers he had told me over the phone. 484.3HP and 435.3TQ at the rear wheel on a naturally aspirated LS6, just excellent! (You can calculate about a 16% drivetrain loss on those numbers)
This is the way to end the week, with the L.G. Motorsports rig in front of your house bright and early. It looked as it was about to rain any minute, so Mike unloaded my Z06 off the trailer, and I drove it into the garage and let it idle. It sounds amazing...
I started the R/C Soaring Frappr when I first heard about Frappr, that would be over a year ago. Since then over 170 pilots from around the world have added a photograph to the map, it sure is getting interesting to look at now...
Results after tuning my Z06 with all the L.G.Motorsports mods
The baseline graph presented below for reference, not too shabby of a gain for a naturally aspirated motor. These numbers are what's being put down at the rear wheels, I am quite pleased.
