I had some money burning a hole in my PayPal account so I decided to pick up some lugnuts. I’ve got a total mismash of 19 and 21mm chrome lugs on the Miata now which don’t look right against the Bronze Heliums. $12, what the hell.

(Yes the Kosei’s need cleaning. Its going to be really fun using these rims this summer with all the dust my Ceramic pads throw off.)

Days until the Miata is back: 45

I was contacted by Subaru Canada a few weeks ago about using some of my Targa shots for a “Hero Card” to be handed out at the Canadian International Auto Show. Very cool. Here’s some scans of the end result:

Not bad, the images were pretty heavily cropped/edited for the card but I expected that. In a way I consider this to be more rewarding than the magazines I’ve had pictures in since this was more ‘in your face’ to a targeted audience rather than some postage stamp in the back of Inside Track.

Days until the Miata is back: 47

The Bluenose Autosport Club held an AutoCross today on Jack’s Pond in Wittenburg. Some folks were a little leery of the ice depth but a quick test drill showed well over 15 inches of ice which was more than enough for the cars. It was well attended with some folks coming out just for this event who used to ice race on this lake in the early 90s. I can’t imagine sliding around out there door to door with 20 other cars. I can see why people bought beaters for that exercise.

I took almost 600 pictures for the day, a lot of them were throwaways though. Exposure is always a challenge shooting against white snow. I started off with some pretty poor settings but improved them later in the day which resulted in more keepers. Unfortunately by that time people had realized that the best way to get around the course was to slow down so the only flashy drifting was coming from the showboaters.

Click here for the picture gallery

Days until the Miata is back: 48

Some tweaks, a theme change, some more tweaks and I think I’ve got this thing working about how I want it. Enough so that I’ve now made it the default page when you come to spoon.org. I still consider it an ‘experiment’ and I may revert back at any time but for now we’ll see how it goes… so, WELCOME! Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to leave a comment and let me know who’s out there.

…do something unpleasant with it. My poor old Civic has been on the verge of retirement for several years now and when the right car comes along it will likely be put out to pasture. In the past year I’ve had verbal ‘almosts’ on several cars and even cash-money on the table for another but fate keeps stepping in. Today Murphy’s Law strikes again as I’m told of a stock, dealer-maintained World Rally Blue WRX Wagon (#1 on my shopping list, right down to the color) for a price I’d actually be falling all over if it weren’t for one problem… I’m currently unemployed. The REAL kicker of the whole thingis that I’m COMFORTABLY unemployed. Money isn’t an issue but its also not coming in the door. So I can AFFORD the car, its just not a good idea. So I have to let it go…

Theres plenty of fish in the sea… there’s plenty of fish in the sea…

In other news BAC is hosting an AutoCross event this weekend in Stewiacke on a frozen lake. This will be a first for us and should prove to either be grossly entertaining, fustrating or some blend of the two. Pictures and thoughts to follow.

Days until the Miata is back: 50

Testing a post with pictures

This is our new rally Audi under the gentle pampering of its former owner! I can’t wait!

Well, so far this is an interesting experiment. WordPress seems to be right on the fence between solid and sucky. The WYSIWYG editor is maddening and best left turned off but the HTML handling is questionable as well. My kingdom for a damned working paragraph tag!

Hopefully the frustrations will lessen otherwise this may be over before it starts.

I have time on my hands these days so what the hell, lets start a blog.

This isn’t the first blog I’ve written. Years ago on my 1995-chic designed autocross page I had a blog equivalent text jorunal that I updated once in a blue moon. (I was blogging before blogging was cool!) Basically it summarized the things I did on four wheels from 2001 through 2005 with my 1993 Civic Si hatchback which is still my winter/foul weather vehicle. I enjoyed writing the entries but over time they became more and more sparse until updating them to current would become a real toil. I’m not sure using the WordPress engine is really going to improve the process but hey, grand experiment.

I’m not sure what kind of direction I have in mind for this page. My wife and I are involved in motorsports to a pretty heavy degree. If we’re not volounteering at the track for the local road racing series we’re helping out and/or competing in Navigation rallies, AutoCross, AutoSlalom or Targa Newfoundland. Between the two of us we have three cars and partial ownership of a fourth covering all aspects of grassroots competition. If it wasn’t so fun I’d say we had a problem.

Currently our stable consists of my aforementioned 1993 Civic Si which was the car I got started doing AutoSlalom in in 2002. Its a great car and with the right suspension tweaks can be a real contender but these days its starting to show its age, particularly in the Honda-rust department. Two years ago I bought a 1990 Mazda Miata as my summer fun car which quickly came to replace the Civic for pavement competition. My wife has a 2002 Subaru Impreza TS wagon which has some light modification for TSD Rally competition. Skidplates, Hella lighting, etc.

The real news in our driveway (sort of) these days our recently purchase (With a partner) of a 1990 Audi 90 Quattro rally car! I’m sure there’ll be lots more about that in the future. I plan to document the forthcoming refreshing of the Audi over the summer for its competition debut this fall. Hopefully I’ll actually update more than once a quarter.