R.I.P. Larry H. Miller

Most of you may not know this guy. I didn't really have a clue up until a few days ago, reading AutoBlog. Yet there was a small connection I had with him. Though I never met the man personally, I guess he does have a passion for motor racing. He's the man responsible for the creation of Miller Motorsports Park. Definitely one of my favorite tracks I had the opportunity to drive last summer. Yet there was more to this man besides motorsports as I learned more about him. Let's take some time to remember this great man and his life at this link.

the review

as this year comes to a close, i look back and i have to say i have been truly blessed. things i thought i was never able to to do, i did. i think i should start a list of 101 one things that a car junky must do list.

I dropped by and visited Japan. definitely an uplifting experience for the japan motorsports aficionado. and yes i do like greddy

Competed in Pro-Am. with not so good results. but at least i tried my best.

went to a ton of driving events. no i didn't drive in all of them.




Had the opportunity to see the filming of Top Gear USA pilot show. It's actually pretty good contrary to popular internet belief. too bad they're going to cable.


Viewed the Monterey Historics. if you wanna see some old stuff this is it. next time it'll be goodwood.

including a vara event earlier this year.


Attended the Jim Hall Karting school. i should give up cars and race karts. it seems alot less maintenance.


decided to make the race car into a show car and entered my car at TORC. didn't win anything, but it was the easiest event i entered. maybe i should start doing these from now on.

Visited the toyota and datsun museum.

enjoyed a few import shows of with the old school flavor of course.

sevenstock

spring fling

jccs

torc

west coast z nationals

picked up a new race car

early 90's volvo 740 turbo wagon. and no i don't smoke meth. maybe my neighbor

as this year comes to a close let's wave one last good bye to 2008 and say hi to 2009.

GT Live 6 Extra Crap

During the down time, when I wasn’t practicing or working on the car, I made some time to take some snaps of other happenings.

Taka hanging out with the locals. He’s famous in Utah.

Poor Choh’d had lost his phone. He was depressed cause he won’t be receiving any booty calls for a couple of days. But the track workers did find it and wrote him a friendly note. Utonians are so friendly.

They take friendly to a whole different level.

Choh’d oil temps were really hot +250F and couldn’t keep it cool for the whole event. They tried to make the cooler work better with this make shift duct. Unfortunately it didn't work so his day was pretty much over.

Cyrus was hot on and off the track so everyone did their part to keep him cool.

But she is even hotter.

Wish I had a better shot, of Naoki doing his impression of Deebo. If you don’t who that is, then get a copy of Friday.

Herb knows how to keep cool.

D.A. staff relaxing before the start of the event.

Before I returned home I had to stop by and pick up the awesome Alien Jerky. If you’re ever in Baker, Ca. stop by and check it out. It’s a bit on the expensive side but it’s well worth the money.

Overall, it was a great event. Everyone was really friendly and we got along really well. What really annoyed me was I had to pay to get in to the venue. It should have been stated on the site and/or added into the registration fee. It’s kinda like they’re nickel and diming me. There also should have a been a packet that contained wrist bands, parking permits, etc. I kept on going back to the main office, first to get tickets, then the parking permit. It’s like every time I return the gate keepers had something different I needed.

Well enough of me rambling let’s enjoy.

The End

Pro Am Utah

This past weekend was spent at Tool Tooele, Utah, which is about ½ hour away from Salt Lake City. You’re probably wondering what would be interesting in a place called Tooele? Miller Motorsports Park of course, which was the site for GT Live 6, I was there to participate in the Formula D/ Pro- Am qualifier presented by Mazda. Miller Motorsports Park, located in Tooele, Utah, is the host to great racing series such as American LeMans, AMA Super Bike, Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series, etc.

The plan was to leave Thursday night with an ETA of noon Friday. Only after a 2 hours of driving I had to stop. I was so drained the past few days that the road started looking like this, so I had the co driver take over.

As we got closer to Salt Lake City, gas got cheaper. But you get cheated by being served up 85 octane. Being the cheap bastard, I filled it up to the top. It’s a Ford it’ll take anything you throw at it. I had arrived at the track Friday afternoon after a long 12 hour drive up from Los Angeles.

Even being in the middle of nowhere, I have to admit, that this was one of the most amazing tracks I have been too. It's a bit smaller than what I thought it was. It seemed much bigger from videos and maps I saw online.

We were assigned a garage space, which was setup along pit row. Here’s stupid Choh’d getting in the way and ruining the shot. The garages themselves are fully decked out, with all utilities. From air hook ups to televisions, even the bathrooms were hella clean, I couldn’t ask for anything more. It definitely beats working on the car with the under the sun.

With 1^st day of practice over, I really hadn’t been able to link the whole track. Due to the higher elevation, my car was down on power. I couldn’t get the tires to keep spinning as I normally do back in California. I’m not making any excuses, cause AE86 drivers don’t need power to make things happen. Just a bigger bag of pixie dust will make things work, not excuses here.

On Saturday my car was just had some minor problems, leaky clutch slave cylinder and an oil leak around the rear main seal. I had to travel back to the city to get the slave because the little town of Tooele didn’t have them in stock. But I noticed that this town doesn’t have very many import vehicles to begin with.

2^nd day of practice was much better, with some good advice from Taka, I made some changes to my setup and my driving technique. I was able to link up the first 2 corners once, I was getting very close.

There was a time attack on our side of the track so here’s a couple of snaps.

She wasn’t driving but still looked fast.

On Sunday Naoki decided to put his art skills to use and drew a penis on my car. Why? I never did anything wrong. Competition consisted of 3 runs taking the best of 3. All that was needed was one clean run. My goal for the day was to score points for by completing first 2 corners, I really didn’t think I was going to make the third corner. 1^st run was o.k, too many corrections more than likely a zero run. 2nd run was a zero dirt drop at the end of the 2^nd corner. By this time I wasn’t sure if I was going to choke and go home empty handed. Naoki came over asked me how I was doing and I think he offered to draw another penis on my window. 3^rd run definitely a score. A bit on the dirty side but I’m pretty satisified, I hope the judge was too.

Returning to the pits, I was greeted by a beautiful sight. The GT Live models happen to be hanging around in front of my pit garage. So I took it upon myself to at least grab one picture with all of them because I couldn’t find them during my pit walks.

She was hella pretty.

After all the fierce competition, we’re all still friends by the end of the day and it still shows.

Congratulations to the top 10 who got invited to Pro-Am. Which includes me!

The rest of the pics are here