Vintage Racer

Not much else to say here....

2008-08-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

Like many others, I'm positive that Scott Adam' works in my office.

For those of you who have your own "pointy-haired Boss"!

And now for something different...

2008-08-15T14:13:00.000-07:00

The weekend of the 10th was a little slow - at least Sunday was. Jeff and I had
been working on the race car on Saturday - we've got 3 races left this season.
The Z-car Club of Washington was having a car show at Performance Nissan
up in Everett, and we decided to enter the 510. Had a lot of fun, some neat cars
there, and we were lucky enough to win a couple of trophys as well -
"Best Modified Datsun" and the Peoples Choice" Award.

Mrs. Kim's flowers...

2008-08-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

We were in the Beacon Hill neighborhood this past weekend for a Seafair
party, and I noticed the profusion of flowers at a neighbors house. During
a break in the air show, I went next door and started shooting. I met Mrs. Kim,
and she allowed me to take photos of her garden. Enjoy.....

Seafair...

2008-08-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

Seafair... a uniquely Seattle summer event. A 3 day party on Lake Washington
the Blue Angels overhead, and the Unlimited Hydros on the water. This year we
were invited to our friends Richard and Deanne's party in the Beacon Hill area on
Saturday. Couldn't see the race boats (could hear them just fine), but a great spot
to watch the Blues (up on the roof), and after the airshow, the band played.
A great day - there will be more photos up later on my flickr site. Too many
photos to sort and too little time....

BK....

2008-07-31T15:39:00.000-07:00

I was going through some photos (lots of them actually with my new Flickr site),
and found some pictures of BK.
BK was my cat. I got him as a 9 month old kitten from a neighbor who had to
give him up. I had him for almost 10 years before he got dreadfully sick and we
had to put him to sleep late last year. He was with me through the good times and
the bad. He didn't judge, he knew how to be a comfort, he had a great personality.

He was my friend....

More Automotive Art and my Flickr photo site...

2008-07-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while.... Been busy with work, racing, trying to get more
things done with my photography, remodel projects for the neighbors,
etc, etc, etc....

But here's some new stuff - and if you check back, I'll be adding more to
my Flickr site all the time... Thanks for looking!

Seattle icons...

2008-06-27T12:34:00.000-07:00

Puget Sound, coffee, and the Pike Place Market....

Oh yeah... gray skies too ;-)

Rough seas....

2008-06-26T12:56:00.000-07:00

The carrier is the USS Kitty Hawk, based in Yokosuka , Japan . The "Hawk"
was underway for CQ (Airwing Carrier Qualifications) in the Sea of Japan during
the week of March 22, 2008.

When your watching this, keep in mind that the carrier's flight deck is approx. 60'
above the ship's normal water line. And it weighs in right around 90,000 tons
(that would be in excess of 180,000,000 lbs. - yes, 180 MILLION!!)

The chopper seen on the ship's bow, tied down at helo Spot 2, is a Sikorsky SH-60F.
The pilot had just landed on deck, and his helo was tied down on Spot 2 because
the seas were too rough to move it to a safer place. Fortunately, it only suffered
some minor damage (blade crutch support socket) and a lot of salt water intrusion
from the sea...

More German Cars...

2008-06-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

Been a while.... Some health issues, some home issues, some "issues" issues...

Just a little something on some German cars that I like - lot's more posts to come
over the next few days (and no, not all of them will be about cars!!)

Mercedes 300 SL convertible....

2008-06-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

From topspeed.com:
"Based upon the legendary W194 sports racer, Mercedes-Benz introduced the
production 300SL in New York in 1954. The US was expected to be its primary
market, and Mercedes-Benz importer Max Hoffman had encouraged
Mercedes-Benz managment to build it. During the 300SL’s life three out of four
were sold in the US. There were only 1858 SL Roadsters ever produced."

http://www.topspeed.com/cars/mercedes/
1954-mercedes-300sl-roadster-ar14961.html

Making up for lost time (more automotive art)

2008-05-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

Ferrari - the name alone brings all sorts of images to mind... In a lot of
ways, some of the most beautiful cars on the road. And the older Ferrari's
can be more stunning than the current ones...
Here's one that was sitting in the pits over our last race weekend. It's a
1965 Ferrari 365 4 cam LWB (long wheelbase). Unfortunately, the owner
wasn't around and I wasn't about to open the hood to take shots of the
engine. I did speak to one of the Alfa Romeo guys pitted nearby who knew
the car and the owner - evidently he's had it for a while, and it gets driven
pretty regularly (notice that it's got regular plates - not collector plates).
The plaque on the dash is great- "Remember, you are not Niki Lauda"

What happened???

2008-05-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a whole week.... not quite sure how that happened...

Maybe I've just got a boring life?? Or just too much stuff going on? Yeah,
I'll go with that one. Home computer's been down because I'm remodeling my office -
but with the new storage space and the larger work area, I'll be able to work on my
photo projects a lot more efficiently and quickly (yeah, right...). Some construction
projects this weekend - a new floor for a neighbor and cabinets in Joan's office.
Caught the new Indiana Jones movie earlier this week, and while I'm not as negative
on it as my friend Marty ( http://renzntzman.blogspot.com/ ), I thought it was a little
too long and a little on the weak side. "Hellboy 2" looked good from the previews,
and "Hancock" looks like it could be good as well. Something to look forward to.

Automotive art

2008-05-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

Blower Bentley

Some people.... make that a lot of people - view cars as mere utilitarian
conveyances for getting from one place to another (not as often now,
what with gas prices being what they are. But that's a rant for another time).

I look at a lot of cars as rolling sculpture - a moving testament to the metal
workers art (or fiberglass and composite as the case may be). As somebody
who likes to think of himself as a fabricator - not great, but better than serviceable,
cars like this really just blow me away.... And to leave it in the polished aluminum.
You can hide a lot of flaws with paint, but a polished body shows ALL flaws.

This is a replica, built by Bob Petersen (http://www.bobpetersenengineering.co.uk/peterson6supercharged.htm).

A race fans favorite weekend...

2008-05-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

As a racing fan, this is probably my favorite weekend of the year. And
with a big screen, a DVR, and a REALLY understanding wife, I'll get
to watch even more of it (it's gonna be hard to top last year - I watched
the Monaco GP while standing in one of the garages at Indianapolis - with
some ex-Williams team guys).

Friday there's the Indy Lights - a family friend owns AFS Racing and has
2 cars in the Freedom 100. Saturday there's the Craftsman Trucks and the
Nationwide cars, Sunday is the Monaco F1 race, Indy, and
World 600 Nascar race, and the Rolex GT guys from Lime Rock on Monday.

Maybe Indy and Nascar will figure out a way to time the starts so that
somebody can try the double again-makes sense from a TV standpoint if
nothing else. Cross pollination of demographics, etc.

And our own car to get ready for the Historics over the 4th of July....
Man, I love this time of year.

Racing again... the Spring Sprints

2008-05-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

The last time we ran, we finished up with the right front corner covered in duct tape, but we were really quick in the clear cold weather. Fast forward to the past weekend, it was almost 100 deg at the track on Saturday, and 75-80 on Sunday. Needless to say, the hot weather and a greasy surface made everybody 2-3 seconds slower. So, here’s some shots of the car going back together, and the racing from the weekend. They did something a little different and ran a race group that was reminiscent of the Under 2 litre Trans Am from 66-69. We qualified top 10 on Saturday morning. Ran 6th in the first race on Saturday, won the 2nd race Sunday morning, and finished 6th on Sunday afternoon. All in all, a good weekend. And we've got the new tires dialed in for the Historic races over the 4th of July.

Nostalgia....

2008-05-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

Found this in one of my photo archives.... built it from bits and
pieces salvaged from various junkyards... It was a great truck - got
HORRIBLE mileage (maybe 8mpg), but it was the right vehicle for
me at the time....
And I will be building another one... ;-)

Still life....

2008-05-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

The Pike Place Market is a great place for a photographer.....

No words necessary....

2008-05-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

How our kitten "Pit Stop" sees himself......

Busy few days....

2008-05-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

So I broke one of my vows about trying to blog something everyday-
and it appears that I've failed miserably ;-)

Last Tuesday (the 6th) was a great day - spent all day out at the
racetrack going through a high performance driving school with
Proformance Racing (http://www.proformanceracingschool.com/).
It was a gift from Jeff- the owner of the race car I maintain.
High speed braking and avoidance maneuvers, and instruction in
the correct line around the track, and extended lapping time with an
instructor in the car - It was a blast.
Now, since my daily driver is a pickup truck, I used one of the school
cars. There was a photographer there - here's a shot, and I've ordered
up some more. they'll look good on the wall with the diploma -
(http://www.redmistphoto.com/gallery/4881487_Gp5ZC#291117806_kLip4)

Other than that, finished another photography project for our church
for Pentecost, did a little work around the house, put in a new front door
for a friend of ours - her house got broken into this past Friday night...
Did some more work on the race car over the weekend - we've gotten the
body panels back from the painters, and are just scrounging up a couple of
more bits for the suspension, then it goes back together for this weekend.

And if the weather holds, I might even get one (or both!) of the vehicles
washed after work....

Finally.....

2008-05-05T12:02:00.000-07:00

Well, it appears that the nice weather is finally here. Still rainy
on Saturday, but it looks like the sunshine we got on Sunday is
going to stick around for a while..... 'bout time!
Quiet couple of days - grilled steak outside last night, went to see
"Iron Man" with Marty and Sarah on Saturday night, got some
projects around the house done. Just waiting to get the race car parts
back from the painters, then start reassembling it for our next race.
All in all.... life's pretty good right now.....

And now for something completely different...

2008-05-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

So it's the first Thursday in May, and while I'd love to go review yet more craptacular art, it would appear that all the dispossessed and impoverished workers of Seattle, will be marching through downtown to celebrate that most American of holidays.... May Day. Yes, brought to you by the same folks who protested the WTO and demanded free trade and equal wages for Guatemalan Nike workers while wearing their $300.00 tennis shoes... downtown Seattle will be a parking lot for several hours tonight.
I, on the other hand, will be taking myself down to Renton to go work on the race car, thus sparing myself the several hours trapped on a bus with 50 other sweaty, pissed off people just trying to get home.

Sack time...

2008-04-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

I've decided that this is how I'd rather be spending my day today.....

Back in the saddle again...

2008-04-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted for a few days - computer problems (solved by finally buying
a new one. My old one was built at the end of the last century!!). Got that
solved, and been busy with getting the race car torn down and the rebuild
started. Here's the race recap I was going to post last Tuesday.....

Saturday was a mix of rain, sleet, snow, wrong tire choice, and too much
throttle in the wrong place.... But with the liberal application of a dead blow
hammer and a lot of duct tape, we were back out on track after missing our
qualifying session. From a distance, you couldn't even tell there was any
damage, but I've got a couple of weeks of sheet metal work and paint ahead.
Fortunately, the suspension survived intact. We even ran the fastest laps
of our race group on Sunday afternoon. We'll get it all back together between
now and mid-May for the Under 2 litre Trans Am Revival race the weekend
of the 17th.

Another busy day....

2008-04-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

Not too much time to post today.... actually having to do some work!
I'll post some pics from our first race weekend later tonight - it was
a wild weekend at the track.

For now.... Joan and I found this church outside of Albuquerque
off Route 66 during a cross country trip in Feb 2004.

Dont touch that dial!!

2008-04-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

So.... there's nothing wrong with your screen. You haven't gone back in time to this past winter.... This is this past weekend here in the part of Seattle that I live in. We're about 30 miles north of downtown Seattle... due north, not inland near the mountains or anything like that....
8" of snow in the driveway... snowed most of Friday afternoon and evening and part of Saturday morning. The plants are seriously confused, the frogs that live in the stream behind are seriously out of sorts, and I am just so over this weather... We went racing this past weekend - the tracks about 50 miles south of where these pic's were taken... and yes, we had just about every kind of weather there as well. I'll put those up a little later...

Going Racing!

2008-04-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

Our season starts this weekend at Pacific Raceways in Kent- and
here in Seattle, with the always changeable weather, we may be
looking at mixed rain and snow.... if nothing else, it's gonna be cold.
Today is novice day - all the newbies are out on the track under the
watchful eyes of the more experienced racers, and tomorrow and
Sunday everybody else hit's the track.
Time to shake off the rust (figuratively speaking, but you never know)
and cleanout the cobwebs - (and maybe some carb-webs as
well - bad puns R us).
The 'Defrost' usually doesn't have the big fields that we get later in
the year. The 'Spring Sprint's' over the weekend of May 17 & 18 should
have a great turn out - we're running a revival of the Trans Am under 2
litre races with car's from the late 60's.
If you're in the area that weekend or over the 4th of July for the
Pacific NW Historics, look for the Jolly Roger flying in the
pits- that's us.
You can get some more info if you'd like at at the link on the right
for the Society of Vintage Racing Enthusiasts.

A quiet day....

2008-04-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

... deserves a quiet picture. This is the sanctuary
of the Mission de Alcala in San Diego. I posted a
picture of the courtyard a week or so ago. Almost
250 years old, and still in continuous use...

Flowers.....

2008-04-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

I've really got to get a photoblog of some sort set up... Any ideas?

Until then.....

New Americans....

2008-04-16T11:21:00.000-07:00

84 people from 31 different countries....

That's how many people became US citizens at the swearing in
ceremony that Joan and I went to yesterday.

Think about that for a minute... For all of the bad and horrible
things that others around the world (and some here in our
own country) love to say about us, for all of the things that
we're blamed for around the world, there sure are a lot of
people that want to come here, and leave their old country
behind. Multiply that number from here in Seattle by
however many Immigration offices are around the country
doing the same thing.

Take some time - go and see one of the ceremonies. I think
you'll be moved by the emotions and the reactions of these
new Americans.

Congratulations again to our neighbor Nina (from Lebanon).

Welcome to the United States!!

Balboa Park

2008-04-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

A courtyard in one of the buildings in Balboa Park - a great public park in downtown San Diego. Also home to the San Diego Zoo...

Coming to America....

2008-04-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

A big day for one of our neighbors today. She finally got her citizenship last week, and has her swearing in ceremony later this afternoon. Congratulations Nina!!

You just can't hide from your past...

2008-04-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

So Mom brought a bunch of photo's from the past to share with all the
people at the party... and this seemed to be the favorite....

(yes, I really was stuck. and yes, she left me there to go get the camera before she got my butt out of the bucket....)

Too much fun....

2008-04-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

Wow.... what a weekend. Saturday I hit the big five-oh (I know, hard to imagine the handsome guy kneeling on the starting line of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is 50... goes to show what good genes and clean livin' can do!!)

So - my lovely wife Joan decided to throw a party - catered Mexican food, about 50 friends, and a live band (many heartfelt thanks to Midlife Chrysler and their new lead singer Marty Gordon (http://renzntzman.blogspot.com/) ) - this was their first gig, and they were great! Joan got to sing with them on the Beatles song "Birthday" - and she sounded better than ever as well. There were friends from church, from work, from racing. My folks flew up from San Diego (and Mom did bring several years worth of embarrassing photos to share with all). It was the best birthday party I've ever had. Thank God I've got a few years to work on Joans 50th.... So how does one get in contact with the USC Marching Band.... and do they do parties??

Global Warming my a**....

2008-04-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

So in honor of the fact that it finally looks like Spring has sprung, I thought I'd have one last reminder of Winter from the last weekend in March. This is from the front deck of our house.

I'm looking for Al Gore so I can kick his butt...

Missed a day...

2008-04-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

Had the day off from work yesterday... my folks are in town for a big party Joan is throwing, so there was a lot of running around and general hangin' out. And the weather cooperated - it was a perfect spring day. Today is supposed to be even nicer - highs in the upper 60's or low 70's. Course it's going to start raining again Monday, but for once it all worked out with the weather and the weekend coinciding (if you live in the Northwest you know how rare that is.....)

Night time....

2008-04-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

I was at the Daytona 24hr race earlier this year with Team Seattle. The great thing about that was the access we had all over the track.
Late night, the cars just seem to come alive under the lights. I'm going to start a photoblog or a flickr account or something to start getting a lot of these and other images on line, but for now I'll drop them in as "Pictures of the Day" or some such....

General grumpiness....

2008-04-10T15:02:00.000-07:00

Busy day at the office today... I had a rant about air travel all ready to go (my folks flew into town last night... When did we
all start accepting that flights were just gonna be late, crowded, and be just like big flying buses??). I'm old enough to remember when (and flew on) airplanes with propellers instead of jet engines, and people actually got dressed up to go on a flight. Of course, my wife (too young by far) says that "they don't fly Pterodactyls anymore, now quit yer bitchin, and pass me that complimentary bag of peanuts ....

Off track again..... looks like I got a mini-rant in any way....

Meerkats (pic of the day)

2008-04-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

Joan and I were at the San Diego Zoo during the week between Christmas and New Year's.
These are just a couple of the den (tribe? herd? coven? clutch?) of about 10.
These little guys drew quite a crowd...

What's in a name....

2008-04-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

So the name on the blog is "Vintage Racer".... You may very well ask why. It's because it's what I like to do. A few years ago, a friend of mine took me over to meet his uncle Jeff, who'd just bought a Datsun 510 race car. Well, Jeff was new to racing, and I'd owned several Datsun trucks and cars, so I offered to help him out. Well, 7 years later we've been racing in western Washington, Portland, British Columbia, and gone as far south as Monterey to run at Laguna Seca. He drives, and I do the mechanical work and the fabrication. The liitle car's changed a lot in the past few years.

There's no prize money in vintage racing - it's just for sport, It's a great opportunity to see the cars you may have only seen in old video footage or magazines, and meet people you've only ever read about.
This is our car. I'll be posting pics of other cars, and doing some race reports, etc, through out the season. Hope you enjoy....

Picture for the day

2008-04-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

In keeping with my plan to do this pretty regularly....
No real story behind this - just nice and colorful.

Picture of the day....

2008-04-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

I thought I should do something to develop a habit of posting regularly.
So we'll try this. Feel free to comment, critique, complain, etc....

This is the courtyard of the Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala.
In March, 1769, a party of 219 men called the Sacred Expedition, led by Father Junipero Serra and Don Gaspar de Portola, left Baja California, Mexico, to establish the first Spanish church in California. Two groups travelled, one by land and one by sea, meeting in July, 1769, on a hillside above a wide bay. It was a difficult journey; almost half the men died, more were ill, and one ship was lost.

Portola soon took Fathers Crespi and Gomez and the strongest men and left for Monterey Bay. Father Serra and the rest selected a site - at the base of a hill, beside a river, with a native American village on a nearby hilltop.
On July 16, Father Serra celebrated the first mass beside a wooden cross. He named the mission San Diego de Alcala in honor of Saint Didacus of Alcala, the name explorer Sebastian Vizcaino gave the bay 167 years before.

Under Construction

2008-04-06T05:37:00.001-07:00

Well, this is all new to me. The plan is to have a place to show and share some of my photos, share some thoughts and ideas, get some feed back, and start something new for myself. Lot's of things are gonna change, but I'll find something I like.
Might be a little slow at first - I'm hoping to get my newer, faster, and much more capable computer fairly soon here (hey, it was state of the art in 1999). So be patient, and I think you'll enjoy what you see....