… in the scammers to legitimate enquiries about my rally car, that is. No real prospects for a sale yet, but I didn’t expect something like this would sell quickly anyway.

In other car news:

• New WORKS O2 housing (turbo turbine outlet), Zeitronix wideband oxygen (air/fuel ratio) sensor, and ECU+ piggyback ECU are now installed in the Evo. I’m awaiting on a fix to a small radiator puncture before I can start playing with the ECU+. In a week or two I’ll rent a couple hours of time on the dyno to do some proper tuning. I’m hoping for around 280 horsepower to the wheels, which would equate roughly to around 350 horses at the crank.

• Also on the Evo: I now have all the bits and pieces to install my new Cobra racing seat. Getting all the necessary parts has been a challenge because there are no totally “bolt-in” seat solutions for the Evo; some amount of custom fabrication is invariably needed to make all the pieces fit together.

• With the radiator out, I’ve got easy access to the A/C condenser and the A/C compressor. So I’ve decided to take the opportunity to remove the air conditioning from the Evo, taking another 30-40 pounds off the car

• Did a two-day track event with Speed Ventures down at the Streets of Willow Springs, where I met Brian Goodwin of Good-Win Racing, a major Miata parts vendor. I was favourably impressed by Brian (himself a very capable race driver) and last week, ordered Good-Win Racing’s “Autocross ‘Stock’ Class Performance” package which includes Koni adjustable shocks, front swaybar, exhaust and intake filter. I installed the exhaust a few days ago and couldn’t be happier with it; the suspension pieces will go on this week as soon as I can get the Evo out of the garage. This will make the Miata mostly “done” for C Stock autocross class; I’m still planning on doing the Miata Sport conversion but since all the Sport option components need to go on the car at the same time, it will be a while before I have all the parts gathered.

• The Evo will return to action at the world-famous Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on February 20, at a track day run by the Golden Gate Lotus Club.

jimhoward2006@yahoo.ca claims to be from Canada. Shame on you Jim for trying to rip off a fellow Canadian!

Thus sums the response to my ad so far: 3 lame-ass scam attempts, 1 legitimate interested party. I suppose I’m surprised to have even received one legitimate reply so far given I only posted the car yesterday.

derayonline@yahoo.com and smithmichael19@yahoo.com, you suck. I hope you die and rot in whatever hell you believe in. (Well that goes without saying I suppose.)

Why do scammers like Yahoo mail so much, I wonder?

Not an hour passes after I post the rally car ad up, and I get the following E-mail:

From: mark james (mark12_james@yahoo.com)

Hello
Good day to you, i am mr john and was passing by adverts on internet just
saw that you want to sell car so i am very intrested in it and will like to
buy it i am a serious buyer and will like you to get back to me tell me
about the condition and then tell me how is works,the asking price and the
pics as well so that we can proceed on it.
Regards
james

Of course anyone with the least bit of Internet savvy would recognize this as the opening salvo of the well-known car-buying scam. As far as scammers go, this so called “Mark” or “James” or “John” was particularly lame as he neglects to even mention a single detail about my car.

I replied by offering to report him to the FBI.

Under continuing pressure from my housemate, and having no place to store it and not enough time to work on it, I put the rally car up for sale.

Realistically speaking, Northern California is just about the best place to be to get into roadracing (due to wide availability of racetrack venues, the car-friendly weather year-round, sheer number of racing clubs, vendors, etc.), and about the worst place to be for rallying: events are far away (and the nearest ones are reputed “car breakers”), laws make it extremely problematic to register a rally-prepped car (as required). So maybe it’s just as well that I focus my efforts on the former, for the time being…

… than I was a year ago, I guess. Technically I’m only 2 days older than when I was 30.

You’d think the shock of being in your thirties would have worn off again… you’d think.

Two things that easily slip your mind when you’ve had less than 3 hours of sleep:

1. Check your mirrors carefully as you back out of the driveway.
2. Your housemate parked his M3, half blocking the driveway behind your Miata.

Sigh.

Once again I’ve badly neglected this so-called “blog” of mine,
but now that I have a few free moments (slightly delayed by my
having forgotten to bring along the power supply for my laptop)
here at my parents’ in Montréal, I’ll do my best to bring
things up to date…

• Traveled around Italy for two weeks with my friend Jae
  and four of her friends. We started in Venice (where we went
  straight after flying in to Rome), then went to Florence,
  Cinque-Terre,
  Milan, and ended up in
  Rome. Though not without its occasional
  challenges, it was a wonderful trip overall; the weather,
  sights, sounds, food and people we encountered were generally
  fabulous. We visited the glass works in Murano,
  countless churches
  in Venice and Florence, went a biking tour
  to the wineries outside
  Florence, saw more galleries and museums than I can count or
  remember, explored the Colosseum
  and many other Roman ruins—and
  so much more. This probably merits an entry of its own
  but as I’ve still not gotten around to processing the thousand or
  more photos that I took, further details will have to wait.

• Finished the year with 14 track days under my belt. I
  think—I’m at the point where I’m starting to lose count,
  though track days haven’t entirely lost their sense of
  novelty or become totally “routine”. Reliability has become
  something of an issue, as early into a two-day event at Reno-Fernley
  Raceway in October, the Evo suffered a critical turbo hose failure,
  ending my weekend (it could have been easily fixed had I had the
  parts, tools and motivation, but as I was slightly sick and still jet-lagged
  having returned from Italy earlier that week). At
  Thunderhill a few weeks
  later the car “popped” a brake line, just about the most frightening kind
  of failure one can experience, though luckily both car and driver escaped
  without incident.

• The Evo has undergone further upgrades and changes. The
  aforementioned failed turbo hoses and brake lines have been replaced,
  obviously. The back seat and rear seatbelt hardware is gone, as is the
  the navigation system and stereo equipment. Small upgrades to the
  engine/exhaust system are pending, and I’m about to install a
  “piggyback” engine management computer to allow me to tune the
  car not only to optimize power, but also to maximize reliability.

  Also, gone are the temporary magnetic racing numbers that I’d put
  on the car before each event: the car now wears a more “permanent”
  vinyl “149″ on a
  Grassroots Motorsports
  number panel sticker.

  

• With the Evo becoming more “race-car-like” in every
  respect—noisy, uncomfortable, conspicuous, and frequently
  undergoing repairs and/or upgrades, I bought a new daily driver for
  my regular commute and movement around town. For a long while I had
  my heart set on the new Toyota Yaris which is set
  to come out in the US this coming spring. However, after further consideration,
  I realized that I’d end up spending some $14k on the car, then another further
  $10k or so to modify it to my satisfaction—beefing up the engine
  and improving the handling by overhauling the suspension. It was then
  that I decided to spend under $10k to get a car that would already
  outperform the Yaris: after two weeks of shopping and test-driving four
  different specimens, I bought a lightly-used
  1999 Mazda MX-5 Miata.
  Practicality wasn’t too much of a concern, since I’ll be buying a tow
  rig—pickup truck and race car trailer—next year and the
  pickup would meet any large hauling needs that I might have.

  

  The Miata hasn’t exactly remained stock since I got it in early
  November. My first additional was a rollbar to
  make the car safer and make it eligible for track events. I’ve also added
  a Pioneer AVIC-D1 navigation system and will
  shortly add more creature comforts such as a remote entry system.

  I autocrossed the Miata at a local event and intend on preparing it to
  SCCA Solo2 C-Stock class specifications.
  This should incrementally improve the car’s already satisfying
  performance (at least in handling; it can’t touch the Evo’s power)
  while keeping it comfortable and “civilized” for daily driving duties. I
  also drove a track day in the Miata at Thunderhill; since it uses the
  same performance wheels and tires that I had bought as a “tarmac”
  setup for the rally car, burns 87-octane (“regular”) gas and at a rate
  less than half that of the Evo, and is light on brake wear, the Miata
  costs about one-third as much to run as the Evo. While not anywhere
  as fast around the track, it offers almost the same thrills, and my
  friend Jason—a more experienced and therefore faster racer
  than me by all accounts—has convinced me that I might learn
  quite a few things by driving an underpowered rear-wheel-drive car
  around the track.

• The trials and tribulations of the VW Corrado rally car
  continue. I raced it at a nearby SCCA Rallycross
  event at Altamont Raceway, and despite our
  best efforts the previous day to improve the cooling system (by closing
  the gap between the radiator fan shroud and the radiator, and replacing
  the fan thermostat with a manual switch), the car overheated at the end
  of my second run. Luckily, other than ending my event prematurely, the
  car seems to have incurred no damage, as I was able to refill the coolant
  after letting it cool down and drive it home later that day.

  At this point I’m torn between hanging on to the rally car and putting
  it up for sale. I’d still like to get into rally, but as all rallyes are relatively
  far away (the closest are six hours away in southern California, and
  they’re generally reputed to be “car breakers” and not well-suited for
  the rookie driver), I have to admit that it may simply be not the right
  place or time for me to do so. However, realistically the best that I could
  hope to get for the rally car would be around $6k, the original amount I
  paid for it, so I’d be losing almost as much in the money I’ve sunk into
  it since—such is the nature of race cars. Therefore I might simply
  be better off just hanging on to it even if I do nothing with it for the next
  year or two…

  … Assuming I have somewhere to put it, which is my
  present challenge. Between my Evo and Miata and Jason’s M3 and
  Elise,
  our driveway and garage are full. The rally car sits parked in front
  of a house under a cover, a situation neither of us are particularly happy
  with. I’ve started looking for shop space to rent, which may also come
  in handy for working on the Evo. I’ve found that working on a car is
  made infinitely easier by having the right tools, and then doubly so by
  having lots of comfortable space to do it in. My garage, though
  adequate, is neither spacious nor very comfortable.

• Life at VMWare goes
  on with no particular highs or lows to highlight. Which is not to say that
  I’m unhappy there—I’m not—and if I sound
  blas&acute& about my job it’s not because I don’t work
  with some pretty cool and interesting people and on some neat and relevant
  products—I do. I think it’s simply that during
  my time at NVIDIA I overdrew
  from the “rabid enthusiasm” account…

  Given my relatively new-found interests, would I be happier
  wrenching on cars for a living, for example?
  Maybe, though I have a nagging suspicion that something like
  fixing cars might very well lose its appeal once it became a “job”.
  The fact remains that writing software is the singular thing I’m best at
  and I’m far better off as a full-time software engineer and part-time
  race mechanic and driver, than the other way around.

Per your request, I’ve updated this blog. That is all.

(Just kidding, big update shortly…)

Been a very busy summer; I’ll try to follow-up with details later, but here it is in summary:

• Autocross: kind of my “default” motorsports activity. Ran the full season of events with the SCCA, San Francisco Region. Finished mid-pack which is about as well as I expected, though I’m definitely continuing to improve. Won an autocross event at the Rim of the World Rally. Co-drove Navid’s class-favourite ESP car at SCCA Solo Nationals a couple weeks ago. He finished third due to a bit of bad luck on the first day; I finished a respectable 17th out of 26 despite not really putting down my finest driving performance on either day.
• Track days: nine this year so far, at Thunderhill, Laguna Seca, Reno-Fernley, Willow Springs, Streets of Willow, and Buttonwillow.
• Car: the Evo has undergone more upgrades, in addition to the usual fairly rigorous maintenance regiment.
• Rally: we fixed the rally car up enough to the point where it was running fairly well. I took it to an SCCA rallycross event. It drove well enough at the rallycross but had some major overheating problems. It drove back from the event without incident but mysteriously stopped working shortly thereafter. I suspect some fairly expensive overheating-related damage to the engine but haven’t had time to look at it. I worked as a volunteer at the Desert Storm Rally and Rim of the World Rally events as a way to familiarize myself with the sport and the people involved.
• Attended my friend Iliese’s wedding at Niagara-on-the-Lake; I’m attending my friend Paul’s wedding nearby tomorrow.
• I’m going to Italy for two weeks in October with some friends.

Well there you have it. Details to follow…