"I'm getting better"
So, wow it's been a while since I last posted up here. A fair amount has happened.
1st, I got a rather serious infection of "OneLap Withdrawl". It meant that I spent a bunch of my non-working time (which, since I was back in Miami, was minimal) reading blogs and trying to keep up with the event as much as possible.
Then after being in Miami for two and a half weeks, I drove from there back home... helping a co-worker who has difficulty flying... and has parents concerned about her driving solo the whole way back. If I remember correctly, I did it (driving the whole way) in about 16.5hours (6am to 8.30pm), in a rental Sentra, including dropping off my co-worker in Richmond. It wasn't too bad, the rental Sentra had descent power, and I've gotten used to driving automatics. I think I only had one 'oh goodness' moment, which came during heavy-ish traffic and an on-ramp merge area where a honda zipped down the on-ramp and cutoff a semi... or was it dump truck?
Then I jumped on a plane three days later and headed to England for what turned out to be two months (originally planned as 1 month of work, with a two week vacation). In that time I got to learn that the Seat 1.4TDI-eco [is absolutely gutless], the VW Golf TDI 2.0 is much better, and the Ford Fiesta 1.5TDI is somewhere in between. I also found that I prefer driving gas cars, and driving on the left. I also learned how good I am at judging car placement (driving in the narrow street hill-towns of Spain), and how much I dislike Hertz (missed a scratch declaration on car pickup that cost us $135 in 'new damage').
Finally, I managed to arrange a track day @ Summit Point for two days after I got back from England. I managed to get the car inspected, and switched over to some 'consistent' rubber thanks in large part to my good friend Greer. My original plan was to swap my Enkei & OneLap rubber onto the miata, and put his miata wheels/rubber onto the Fit. However, his Borbets had an 'installed' hub-center-ring that meant they wouldn't mountup onto the fit hubs (56.1mm hub vs. 54.1mm miata hub). So I ended up using his wheels/tires for the track day.
The track day itself went pretty well, although I felt pretty slow. I was having trouble trusting the tires, and I still need to sort the brake pedal height w.r.t. to the gas-pedal height so I can do consistent heel-toe downshifts. I didn't pass anyone, and was passed quite a bit. Although, I had shown up for only the second day of a two day event... and it was my first time at Summit Point 'Main'. In the end, despite my lack of pace, my instructor recommended me for the intermediate group. Now, I just need to go to a track for the second time and actually get to be pushed into that group.
