Cool photos of Jules!

My sister's mother-in-law Ness came by our place to take some photos of Jules, and she sent us a couple of preview shots:

I think they are pretty awesome!

On Tuesday morning, I saw four Tesla's on the road (including a Roadster). I can't believe they are so popular, although I can see why people like them.

On Saturday, I will be instructing at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve with G1 Tours, a company that lets people drive exotic cars for a few laps on race tracks. I hope it's as fun as it sounds!

Cool cars spotted:
60's Alfa Romeo coupe
Tesla Roadster
McLaren MP4
Ferrari 458
Ferrari California
Lexus IS-F
Mercedes 230 GE

J's first Halloween

Even though it was raining out, we went trick-or-treating with Jules. Alex and I took turns carrying him up to the houses in our neighbourhood, until everyone was starting to get a bit wet. All in all, I am glad we went.

 

This is the candy Jules received

This is the amount he will be allowed to eat. 

The weather today is great... 17 degrees and some rain. I guess this is what happens when you install your winter tires early! All that is left to winterize the car is the rust proofing.

We have a garage!

This is what our garage looked like a few weeks ago: no floor. Even after the new floor was poured, we had to wait a full month before being able to park on it. That month is over, and we now have a garage! I am almost giddy with the possibilities. I have to to decide whether I want most of my storage to be in the garage, in the machine room, or in the garage-sized room one level below the garage (this area can clearly be seen in these photos. I have the Civic in there now, and it makes me want to do all kinds of small jobs on the car. We have yet to decide which car will be kept in the garage. I am leaning towards the Civic, as entry and exit will likely be tricky with the BMW in winter. 

I have already removed 30 wheels and tires from my parents' house (my mother had been complaining about this for years). My next focus will be to bring items over from my rental garage, which I still have for four more months, and my locker at the office, which I still have for one more month.

The room below the garage offers a lot of space. Alex and I have to figure out how best to use it, just like the room next to the garage that is "ours"... initially, it was to be an office for Alex, but it turns out that she prefers to work upstairs when she is at home, so she can be near Jules.

We are now leaning towards making the room into an exercise room. To be continued...

We have been lucky with the fall weather so far, as it only started to get cold in the past few days. I think J. is still a bit young to enjoy playing in the leaves. When I sat him down in the pile, he gave me a look like he was saying "Daddy, why are you putting me on the ground here?". Maybe next year then!

I spotted a new BMW 435i... I was underwhelmed. I like the 3/4 series, but styling-wise, I do not see them as a step forward from the E90 generation.

There are still plenty of cool cars on the road, and even a few drivers brave enough to keep the roof down on their convertibles!

Cool cars spotted:

Alfa Romeo GTV2000 (late 70's)

Porsche Carrera RS America (the same one)

Porsche 997 GT2

Porsche 997 GT3

Porsche 924S

Maserati GT

Maserati Quattroporte

Ferrari F430

Ferrari California

Jaguar XJR

Jaguar XK-RS

Alpina B7

BMW Z8

Dodge Viper

Lexus IS-F

Shelby GT500

Ford SVT Lightning

Yes, we get it, it's an M! 

Saw the same GT2 again, this time broken down on a street corner.

Racing season is over

Last weekend, I ran in the final two races of the 2013 season of the Super Production Challenge. The event was held at St-Eustache. It was our second visit to my home track, and I was not entirely happy with my first visit, as I had not driven as well as I thought I should.

I had planned to run only one race out of two, so that Pat could drive in the other one. However, we were told we could run the car in the GT-class race for free, so we opted to let Pat run that race instead, which would allow me to run both SPC races.

I went out in the practice session and matched my best time of 1:02.3 on the SPC street tires, despite being a bit down on horsepower and torque since our last race at St-Eustache. I realized that if I took it slow through the carousel and hairpin, the tires would perform longer. In my next session, I qualified 14th out of 27 cars with a 1:02.2. I was satisfied with the result.

For the first race, I got a pretty good start and passed the 350Z that had outqualified me. I consider that I had a pretty good race. I managed to keep a Mazda 3 behind me for several laps until the driver decided to pass me at the hairpin, with contact, under full-course yellow. We talked about it after the race, and he said he was "sending me a message" because I had blocked him for so many laps. I know what it means to block, and I know I wasn't even driving a defensive line when he was in my mirrors, as he was too far back to make a move. I told him it that there were better ways to send a message than grinding your way past on a full-course yellow, and he reluctantly agreed. I think the Boyer's were more pissed off than I was, but I am just trying to race for fun. I did not protest his finish, as I eventually re-passed him when he was struggling with transmission issues. Also, the place where he hit my car already had a huge dent from a 2007 incident.

I would say that the only mistake I made in the first race was giving up the oval-in corner when the 350Z driver came to pass me on the inside. I wanted to focus on the next corner, the dogleg, to pass him under braking for the hairpin, but there was a local yellow flag there, and then the checker fell. I had not seen the "final lap" sign. I ended up losing a position there. I went to see the driver, telling him that he had managed his race well. He seemed not to remember the pass, and I think he had not realized it was the last lap either, nor that I was unable to re-pass him because of the yellow. Still, I was happy with the other aspects of my performance, as I had stayed out of trouble, improved my best lap to 1:02.131 (on lap 18 of 24) and driven consistently. I also regretted not turning on my video camera before the race!

Photos from Flagworld.com:

When Pat went out to qualify for his race, the car began to overheat. We poured what was in the overflow tank back into the rad and I went out for my second race. The temperature was all over the place, and I slowed down a little to nurse the car home, but I still managed to finish 14th, and I may not have lost any positions, as the cars who passed me in the first half of the race (a Volvo C30 and a Mini Cooper S) were quite quick. At the end, the temperature was staying near the red line, but still dipping down a bit a couple of times per lap. As the engine is due for a re-build anyway, I was maybe risking it a bit more than usual.

We tried to bleed the rad and re-fill it for Pat's race (I filled my water jug by removing the lid from the toilet in the men's room and diverting the little hose to my jug, as it was too tall to fit under the faucet of the sink), but Pat was back in after one lap. I feel bad that he barely got any track time. We added some water and I drove the car home. Despite these issues, I had a good day!

As soon as I can, I will bring the car to Marc or Pat, so that the engine can be removed and rebuilt. That means that the season is officially, truly over, even if some event pops up, as I will not have a functional car any time before winter.

Alex and Jules in Old Montreal

Other than that, we continue to work on the new condo (which we officially own, since yesterday!) and the work in the garage is finished. I still have to wait a couple of weeks before I can park on the new garage floor, but I am looking forward to that too.

Cool cars spotted:
Bentley Mulsanne
Dodge Viper
Ferrari 599
Ferrari 328
Ferrari F430
Ferrari 612 Scaglietti
Ferrari California
Lamborghini Gallardo
Aston Martin Virage
Aston Martin V8 Vantage
Aston Martin Rapide
Porsche 997 GT2(!)
Porsche 997 GT3
Porsche 914
Acura NSX
Lotus Exige
McLaren SLR (!)
McLaren MP4
AMG SLS
AMG SL65
Mercedes 230 GE
Nissan GTR
Datsun 1600 Roadster

Pleasant surprise

I took the Civic to Monday night lapping at St-Eustache yesterday to see if the car would overheat again, so that I could decide whether to replace the head gasket before the last Super Production Challenge race on October 12th. The car ran flawlessly for three 20-minute sessions in less than two hours. What a pleasant surprise! Also, considering the car is slightly down on horsepower due to a compression leak on one cylinder, I was happy to achieve a best lap time of 1:01.08, less than 0.6 seconds from my best ever lap at St-Eustache. Let's hope the car will be as reliable on October 12th!

There is lots to do when you move...

I don't think I properly realized how much work it would be to move... I mean, we hired professional movers and painters. It takes a long time to choose bathroom accessories, curtains, and furniture that is affordable but still looks and feels nice. Also, you have to move or install all these items. Still, things are progressing and it is quite satisfying.

I don't actually have access to the garage yet, as repair work is being carried out. It should be ready in a few weeks... can't wait!

Drooling J. with his new loudest toy

Jules seems to enjoy having several rooms to play in, at least, although I would say he is not 100% "settled in" yet. Having a little park just outside our front door is really nice. My walk to work is mostly the same, although I walk more along Parc avenue now, which allows me to see a few nice cars heading to/from downtown (saw a Ferrari F12 there yesterday).

We went to a farming expo the other day, and Jules got to see many animals up close, although he was not as impressed as he was with a bail of hay and a giant pumpkin.

J. and uncle Billy with a giant pumpkin

My return to basketball was a bust... after less than 10 minutes, I got hit in the calf by someone's knee and could barely limp around after that. Now, 12 days later, it finally feels like I could play again.

The Civic was supposed to get the rest of its engine rebuild, but neither Marc nor Pat had time to do the work, so I will have to run the last race with the car as-is. I didn't mention it in my last post, but the Civic did not do so well on the dyno... 174 whp, 10 less than last year. A few days ago, Marc and Sajan performed a leak-down test and found that one cylinder was down 50% on compression. After the last race, Pat will have time to finish the engine work, and install the .050 over pistons. I look forward to having all the power back (then parking the car for the winter!).

Cool cars spotted:

Ferrari F12
Ferrari F430
Lotus Elise 
Nissan GT-R
Tesla Roadster
Porsche 997 Turbo S
Porsche 964
Porsche 928
Jaguar XKR-S
Porsche 930 Slantnose
Audi R8
Audi RS5
Aston Martin V8 Vantage
Aston Martin DB9

This Elise looked like it meant business with its Team Dynamics wheels

Cool colour

We have officially moved

Moving house takes up a lot of one's free time... almost all of it, in fact. I took the race car for a spin on the road the other day only to find out it had been losing coolant, which led to overheating. Not only do I not have time to drive the car, I don't even have time to fix it! I will be dropping the car at Marc's house tomorrow, and hopefully he can find out what is wrong with the cooling system, fix the idle, which is too low, and find a way to make the exhaust system bolts stay tight. Luckily, the next race is only in a month.

Other than that, the move has been more painless than it could have been, mainly due to three reasons:
1) We hired professional movers, and they did a great job
2) Alex obsessively unpacked all 42 boxes of our stuff and found places for each item on the first day in the new condo
3) We hired professional painters, and they got the whole place painted in only a few days.

Now, we are at the stage of decorating and buying furniture... there is a lot more room in the new place. What I really look forward to, though, is the end of the repairs to the garage floor, which will actually let us use the garage, as well as our storage area.

Jules seems to have adapted to his new surroundings, including a new smaller bath and a play room.

Although I had no time to coach a basketball team this year, I decided I would start playing again with the Two Mountains Men's Basketball Association. The pickup games start tomorrow, and I know I will be quite rusty, as I haven't played a game in over a year. Also, I have a stupid cold!

There are a crazy number of cool cars out on the road these days. The other day, just in my walk home from work, I saw a Jaguar XKR-S, a Gallardo, an R8 V10, a Ferrari 456 and a Porsche 997 GT3. Where do people get the money to buy all these cars? There are also several cool more "affordable" cars out there, like this M5 and debadged AMG. 

  

The Panamera almost looks good when it's lowered 

Cool cars spotted:
BMW Z8
BMW M5 (E28)
BMW M5 (E39)
BMW 850ci
BMW 633csi
BMW 2002
Lotus Elan (FWD)
Fisker Karma
Lamborghini Gallardo
Audi RS4
Audi R8 V10
Porsche 997 GT3
Porsche 996 Turbo S
Porsche 911 S (1970's)
Mercedes 190 2.3-16
Aston Martin Virage
Aston Martin V8 Vantage
Ferrari 458
Ferrari 456
Ferrari 550
Peugeot 205 GTi
AMG C36