Sunday was pretty nice. It was great to meet everyone and see others who I have not seen in a long time. I only took a few pictures (they're not even that good)..but you can check them out here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...84&id=22611433

I'm looking forward to the next event! (driftlanta/formula d, anyone???)

Here are a few from my collection. Not great but heh, still cool IMO;)

http://i31.tinypic.com/155kmk3.jpg

http://i32.tinypic.com/icl1y0.jpg

http://i31.tinypic.com/2qwhj47.jpg

http://i29.tinypic.com/1238jrk.jpg

http://i30.tinypic.com/2zhmzb8.jpg

http://i27.tinypic.com/30nafid.jpg

http://i28.tinypic.com/es1zxt.jpg

http://i30.tinypic.com/ht6vr7.jpg

http://i25.tinypic.com/348hylw.jpg

http://i31.tinypic.com/r9ehw1.jpg

http://i31.tinypic.com/168yljo.jpg

http://i27.tinypic.com/2mhu0bt.jpg

I was there on Saturday and Sunday, it was a great showing of cars.

I saw quite a few RX-7's around the infield, but I didn't have a chance to catch up with any of the owners.

Now some members cars. I will try to get the owners correct. Please correct me if I get them wrong. I tried to get all the cars at least once.

Richard's(I think) car Not sure of his screen name;(sorry I forget with all the back meds i am on

http://i27.tinypic.com/30wxtlt.jpg

http://i27.tinypic.com/2ai0hz4.jpg

Seipherzero's car. Did not get to meet you. Sorry. Nice car though. Good to see you out there.

http://i32.tinypic.com/opv8mr.jpg

http://i30.tinypic.com/29m6pe1.jpg

http://i26.tinypic.com/sol8cj.jpg

Dreg100's car. Very nice. Got to see the side skirts i want in person. Very cool.

http://i25.tinypic.com/10h39fo.jpg

http://i32.tinypic.com/24gt0eo.jpg

Did not meet this person, Nice car, and to cute of a kid driving his video game from the seat.

http://i25.tinypic.com/20po4m9.jpg

http://i27.tinypic.com/2j46f55.jpg
http://i32.tinypic.com/2enyzux.jpg

I race the blue 1979 IMSA widebody GTU RX-7 with a 13B peripheral port. This was my 12th Mitty race.

My report from Thursday:

I am running my old Mazda RX-7 on very old tires for test day. My fronts were some old 2003 slicks that have been under my house for years. I was able to run about 1.5 second slower than my best, so I am pretty happy so far. Going a year without a road race had not hurt my times as much as I had earlier feared. My test day run group is IMSA GTO and GTU, and the ex Winston cup cars - FAST company.

I had one sphincter tightening moment this afternoon I was going into turn 10 braking zone at 145 mph, and halfways thru the brake pedal went from normal to the floor. I decided to come on into the pits. When I tried backing up, the car was locked down. It would roll forward okay, so I knew it was a mechanical problem. It felt like left rear, so we pulled that wheel off and found half the pad lining was missing. We put on a new set of pads and were back in business

They have 2 pro races here this weekend: the Pro Miata, and the inagural race of the Miller Mustangs. The Mustangs are a new road race class that uses new FR500 mustangs, and spec BFG race tires.

Well the sun has now set on test day, so we broke out the barley pops, put some pork chops on the grill, and cranked up the stereo.

Tomorrow is official practice, then late is my official timed qualifying. There are a few Formula 1 cars running, the gasoline Audi LeMans cars, and many other exotic machines making sweet sounds

Life Is Good
________________________

Rerport from Friday and Saturday
Whew, road racing sure has its ups and downs. My first Friday practice was fast. At the end of the second Friday practice, I came into pit road for Brett and George to check my tire temps. I hit the brakes at my pit box, and a rear caliper bracket broke off the rear axle housing! I feel very fortunate; God was looking after me. If that had happened at 145 mph on the race track, that would have been all she wrote. I was feeling down, because I had a timed qualifying in an hour.

We went ahead and pulled the axle housing, and HSR's owner Steve Simpson's car fabricator TIG welded up the broken caliper bracket for us. We put the car back together Friday night after a fiine Mexican dinner sponsored by Juan Gonzales Mission Foods.

Some rain hit at lunchtime Saturday, but blew over quickly. My qualifier race was at 5pm Sat, and I had to start in the back. I worked my way up to 4th in class out of 8 cars and the other 3 cars in my class were not far ahead. My feature race is at 4 pm Sunday, and I am ready for battle !

PS:. The Playboy sponsored Pro Miatas raced today, and they had 3 PB bunnies wiggling around the pits ....... No honey, I didn't look at them
__________________________________________

Rerport after my Sunday feature race:

For my Sunday main race at the MItty, the weather was clear and pretty. Our run group is a mixture of Trans-Am cars (like SCCA GT-1 cars, IMSA GTO cars, and Grand-Am and ALMS Porsche Cup cars, and our little GTU class is the slowest in the run group.) We had a fair sized run group, about 40 cars Saturday and down to about 30 cars on Sunday. In our GTU class, us top 4 cars were starting right together - I knew it was going to be a dog fight out on the track.

When the race started, we ran up into some of the faster classes, and had to work our way thru them too. These guys were all driving like we were running a Pro-race, it was rough out there. I worked my way up to third in class, and then caught the two lead cars, a BMW and a Porsche. The Porsche worked his way past the slightly slower BMW, and then I started working ont the BMW, looking for his weak points. I saw he was weak in Turn 1, which is a 100 mph fast sweeping right hander that heads up a steep hill at Road Atlanta. The pavement is so wide at Turn 1 that people do not swing all the way outside at track out for the turn. I setup for the turn to pass him on the outside, and it was working great, right up until he swerved over to the outside while I was beside him. I did not want to hit him, since I was the passer, and it was my responsibility to make a clean pass, so I ran off the pavement into the dirt at 100 mph. What a wild ride! I slid sideways, and then it whipped back sideways the other ways, and then at about 60 mph I had it pointing in the right direction, so I nailed the gas. Wrong move - the power immediately threw the car into another series of wild slides. Finally it slowed down to about 20mph, and I pulled back on the pavement at Turn 3. Two other cars slipped past me while I was plowing up the Georgia Red clay. That ride scared the crap out of me. I finished the race, but the fight was gone out of me for that day.

Post race, the wife of the BMW driver came over to see how I was doing. Then she went and brought her husband back to apologize to me. I was not realy happy about it, but I stayed cool. A 5th place finish in class was my worst finish in many years

We packed up and headed for home. We were on I-85 rolling towards Atlanta, when a trailer tire blew out. As usual, we had to pull out 800 pounds of gear to get down to the spare trailer tire and jack. The embankment was steep where I pulled off, so the flat tire was only 3 feet from the white stripe of the interstate lane. I felt at exposed with my fanny next to the white line and Tractor Trailers driving by 2' away, more risk than when I was in my race car running 150 mph. I sent George 200 foot up the interstate to wave drivers away from the side of the road, but they must have thought he was just a hobo trying to hitch a ride because they just ignored him. Some of those cars blew by me really close.

I finally got the spare trailer tire put on, and we were resting before reloading the 800 pounds of gear back into the trailer. Another truck & trailer stopped to see if they could help, and who was it ? None other than the BMW driver who forced me off the track during the race. No one else stopped to offer help but him. All the ill feelings that were still harbored in my heart just melted away; I couldn't hate him anymore after his goodwill gesture when I was stuck on the side of the interstate. It has taken me a long to learn that it is not good to stay angry with people; it eats you up inside.

I let my buddy George drive for the next 70 miles, until it was time to make a pit stop at an interstate rest stop. When leaving the rest stop, about halfways between Atlanta and Chatanooga on I-75 north, the exit to the rest stop had a huge crater that I plowed thru. The trailer survived fine, but it broke the back window out of my pickup's camper shell! Sheeeeit.

The rest of the trip home was unventful (thank you Lord.)

speedturn-- i didnt get to stick around and see you race. i left while the 4 rotors were still running. im glad to see youre ok. any footage of the accidnet?

i went sunday. i had a shit load of fun. i have a lot of pics ican post if desired.

aws140... Does your rx have a red hood? I think you were parked next to us over by the esses. We were sitting under the huge Oak over by the run-off/access road. Where were you at? I was looking for the owner when/if they returned but i must have missed you/them.

Speedturn,.. Damn man, what an adventure.!! Glad you are OK from the spin and did not hit anything or one. Igaurrenty you his wife saw you when they pulled up behind you on the Hwy and turned to her husband and said something smart!:D Karma works in weird ways. And yeah, Grudges are not worth the energy needed to hold them.

nice cars. the blue wide body isn't a 79. the rear of it suggests at least 81.

I took a few that were worth sharing.

Richard - how were the hot laps??

The blue wide body 1st gen is Billy's "Bwaits" Nice car. He was standing by the car, when you took the pic.

Good to see you Ken. Don't forget to let us know where we can get some good sushi.

Nice pics John. Where is the pic of you by the cars? The one no one wanted to take.

-Sigh- I really wanted to go...

Mike S. keeps talking about putting one of those snorkels in his GS(L). Will it make his go as fast as yours Billy?

Looks like some fast stuff out there.

Here's some of my pics from this weekend. We'll see how good they load. I've got full-res pics upon request.

The first one is speedturn's Blue '79 IMSA Widebody. My camera settings were wack-out for the earlier part of Sunday, but in the last hour I got a couple that were good. I didn't get many action shots of the big-rotor cars but I've got several video clips (hehe @ 60 fps with stereo sound) that will be finding their way onto youtube over the next week.

There's even a pic of Jim Downing helping push the RX-792P back into the pit stall.

speedturn: Sorry to hear about your semi-rotten weekend. Next time we have a group trip or something we should come up and see you guys. We're not that far away. I'd love to hear a little more about your car.

I had a great time. Good to talk to everyone.

Wow, fantastic pictures everyone! They absolutely blow mine out of the water, hehe. BigIslandSeven, did you get any pictures of Alan's car (the lickable-clean black FC)? As for the sushi, if anyone is ever craving some, I work at a japanese restaurant out in Marietta. Here's the address:

And website: Ege Sushi
If anyone has any questions/comments about the restaurant, send me a PM :D.

Anyways, I'm going to try to make it the "Old Guys" meeting tomorrow night, hope to see you all there (if I make it)!

You know what,.. I have been searching for a pic of Alan's car,... BUT, I think I was so stunned by how clean it was that I did not take ANY pics of it. WOW Can't believe that. Sorry Alan!! But it is probably just as well. I would only get jelous every time I looked at it anyways!!:D I can't believe I forgot that car. The only one I did not shoot really.......almost like my subconcious was telling me no:D

Ray, Billy sells the radiator pillar to make the CAI setup he has on his car. I already talked to Billy about. ReSpeed will be getting an order before the week is out. You know I have been lusting for a clean CAI setup like that for a long time.

Unfortunately, it will probably take a little more than the "snorkel" to catch Billy's car. But, I am sure after I add the CAI the butt dyno will say I gained 5 hp.

A hell of a lot of fun, though I wish we had met more of the out of towners. Who got to do parade / touring laps?

mine doesnt have a red hood. i was parked with everybody from here on top of the hill. i have no idea where i was at, it was my first time at road atlanta. i was close to the suzuki bridge. i was parked two cars down from billys blue widebody.

i was walking around with the GF(now fiance) and we came back to the car a few times.

a guy i know knows the guy who drives the orange rx8 race car. the guy has a shifter cart set up at his house in texas.

Donnie, I thought you were still shopping and/or financing a ring - didn't realize you had finally popped the question. I'm not sure who to send my condolences to, the ensnared husband-to-be or the Mazda widow-to-be.

Congrats.

the mazda widow? you mean the SA? haha not likely. kim wants the thing as bad as i do. the only place thw SA will be going is with me. itll be mine, but itll probably eventually turn into "kims" car.

No, women who had a husband and a Corvette used to call themselves "Corvette Widows". In this case, you've got yourself a Mazda Widow, that's all.

I spoke to a man while looking at the car Sunday morning. Possibly you?

Mine is all bark no bite. ;)

-billy