Went down to the old audio bahn building where FD was loading up all the cars to get shipped down to Monterrey, Mexico for the upcoming round of FD. Jon Keri (yes, the politician) and I went down to drop off the car.. unloaded all of our labeled goods (tools, tires, jack, spare tranny, etc.) and rolled out.. pretty easy!
bye bye beautiful!
updates on Mexico soon.. I’ll be leaving LAX on Thursday @ 6:25pm and when I get back… busy week! I land in LA a few hours before my first class. With no complications everything should go pretty smooth..
This past Saturday we went out to the Balcony @ WSIR with the nice folks at 626drift.com to shake down the car before FD Mexico. Practice was short and sweet, and the car performed great! Bryan’s setup kills the setup on the other cars and I’m glad I’ll be driving this one in Mexico. The motor had a little hiccup around 5k RPM, but that should be fixed and smooth as soon as the car is shipped to Mexico.. can’t wait!
Okay so.. finally back after the long trip to portland, decided to try some new stuff. After being recommended this place I called ‘em up for a reservation and we headed down a few nights ago. Cliffs: Food was good, music made it better, and don’t order a mint julip, the waitress isn’t lying when she says that its bitter.
Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen @ downtown disney
live music is always good.. but when it’s piano you know I’m down
the restaurant had a new orleans theme–the decor, the menu, the music, everything… so I thought, “why not try a new orleans-esque drink” and ordered a mint julip. MAN did it taste terrible! I do not recommend it. I ordered the gumbo fettuccine which not only HAD shrimp.. but I ate two of them. new things all the time!
after dinner we wandered over to the house of blues..whiiichhhhhhh happened to be having karaoke night! score!
the old guy pictured above had to have been over 70, he was walking around table to table serenading all the girls at the tables singing dean martin…. awesome
Final day up in Portland.. Car #3 (first picture) blew a motor so it joined up with the car show and got a lot of attention from the Mazda fans that showed up. Watch out in the next update for action shots!
Here’s the download for the day:
posin by the car!
jeremy and kyle hanging out
bye bye oregon
one of the many bridges that we passed by on this trip.. unfortunately I slept through some of the more spectacular ones
spidey hanging out on the back of a rig.. it was a trip to see the first time!
I didn’t get a chance to update this yesterday (being that I’m already on day 2) but hopefully these pictures will tell a bit of a story, overall it was a blast coming up! I’m sure it will be on the way back too.. here’s the trip from Glendora to Portland with Team Allstars.
here’s the truck we rode up in.. no that guy isn’t the truck driver.. in fact i’m not sure who he is
pretty comfortable all things considered! there were 5 of us in there not including the driver
This was the car I was originally supposed to drive–but at the last minute I ended up in the red-nosed car (pics later)
fitting?? Pat brought the best motoring where they tested out the new MX-5
after we got pretty far up the 5 more towards oregon the scenery started to develop into really nice forrests
Mike, the truck driver, getting ready to make a quick stop a couple hundred miles south of portland
breaker breaker! after our quick stop pat put kelly on the cb and the truckers were not interested in chatting with her….but would respond to pat?? draw your own conclusions
pretty
around 8:15pm thursday we hit the track & made pretty good time.. couple hours later we were in the hotel room
the best part is… we don’t have to be at the track until 1! so these beds were slept in for a while
The event went off pretty well with a few little blips on the radar. I want to start off by giving a big thanks to everyone that made it happen; crew, sponsors, friends, family. thanks a bunch everyone..
Robert and Marc came out as crew.. thanks guys! Marc’s snoring made the ride up interesting
spicy italian, yes please!
most of the trip was pretty quick/easy.. decent weather, no traffic or car troubles..
one of the random storms we hit just as we were going through the steepest part.. a blessing in disguise! the van was working extra hard to get over the steep grade but didn’t overheat because the weather had cooled down so much
quick stop at the track to unload (110 degrees out) and check out this cool pit space! Can’t mistake it as anything but mine this way I guess!
Robert’s friend hooked us up with a room at The Las Vegas Club for the weekend in downtown vegas by The Freemont Experience. It was definitely an experience.
back to the track and ready to go.. good luck charm in place
We stayed on thursday night and watched the supplemental practice. It was good to see how other drivers were attacking the course. On friday during practice I spun and got hit by Yoshie, it was unfortunate but I was lucky enough to get back out on the course in time for the qualifying runs.
here’s a video of my last qualifying run:
and here’s some pictures from just a few of the media sites that were out there
