Hondas of the Nurburgring

As winter drags on into the second half of March, I thought it would be nice to look back at the cool assortment of Hondas I spotted at the Nurburgring last summer. I wonder how expensive it would be to ship my Civic to Europe?

My Civic is stuck in Canada :(

Navigation Rally: our best ever performance at "La Grosse Ride" 2023

A few weeks ago, my co-driver Josée and I participated in a navigation rally called "La Grosse Ride", which covered a couple of hundred kilometers in the Laurentians. This would be our third time running this rally. Since I sold the Saabaru, I don't really have a car that would be suitable for an event of this type held in winter (I would love to use the Civic or M3 for a summer event). I offered to co-drive for Josée in her Subaru Impreza, but she preferred that I drive, in her car. This seemed like a fun idea, so I signed us up.

I drove the Impeza on the way to the event and I could tell the car would do just fine in the rally. A very large percentage of participants were driving Subarus, as usual. There was to be a change in the way the rally was run this year: when you reached a checkpoint, your out time would be the same as your in time, so your average speed was calculated as if you had never stopped at the checkpoint. This meant that we were frequently running "late" and there was less risk of incurring penalties for early arrival. This worked out well for us, because the penalties for early arrival are twice as severe as those for late arrival, and that was the kind of penalties that usually moved us down in the results.

As we set off in the rally, I was quite enjoying this standard Impreza. The lack of a turbo did not seem at all like an inconvenience. The car's acceleration was more than enough for the winter conditions on these twisty country roads. We were not using any special GPS apps to track our average speed, just seat-of-the pants and rough calculations, focusing on having fun. It all worked out in the end, as we finished third over all, not too far off the winners (we were third out of 5 teams in the expert class). Josée's nephew, whose co-driver was Josée's partner Guy, was not so lucky, ending up deep into a snowy area off the road. We went to meet them just as a tow truck had finished extracting his WRX. After all this, we arrived home in the middle of the night. Still, it was a fun event and I'm really grateful that Josée and Guy let me drive their car. (Sorry I forgot to photograph the Impreza!). 

Cool E46 rally beater

Subaru cylinder head on display at Lachute Performance, the rally HQ

Cool variety of Subarus at Lachute

Best-looking new WRX I've seen so far

Eric in front of the hole made by his off-road excursion

Josée and her nephew Eric

Josée and I, tired after a long night.

Turning 50

50-year old dude

I haven't taken a lot of time to write in the blog lately, but that's mainly because car-wise, there is not much going on in winter. The most significant happening for me was that I turned 50 a few days ago. It feels weird... there is no definition of "still young" that includes 50-year olds (you could still sort of call yourself "young" in your forties!). I am happy and healthy, so it doesn't really matter that I'm 50. Alex and I planned a weekend away to celebrate my birthday and the boys stayed with my parents as we headed to Ogunquit. We walked around, ate and drank, and watched hours of HGTV. There was no snow on the ground there at all, which was strange, because we basically drove through a blizzard on our way out of Montreal.

The holiday season was also pretty relaxing. We had to cancel most of our social plans as three of us tested positive for Covid at some point during the 2-week break. None of us had any serious symptoms. We went skiing twice, since this did not involve spending time indoors with any of our friends. We spent time at the country house and one day in Vieux Quebec. 

What's going on in the car world? Not much. The 535xi is working very well. I put on some newer used winter tires at the start of the season and the car has not needed any repairs of any kind. It's still a pleasure to drive on the highway, and very comfortable. Still, I miss the M3 with its manual transmission and lovely-sounding normally aspirated straight-6. I had a list of 4 things to do on the M3 before taking it out of the barn in the Spring. The easiest job is changing the battery, which I will do in the Spring. The second easiest job was changing an ignition coil, which I did just before putting the car away. The next job is replacing the cracked door card with a spare one I bought in the scrap yard and repainting the armrests. I disassembled everything and started the sanding, but haven't done the priming and painting yet. It will surely be a bit of a pain to get everything back together smoothly, but it's not a terribly messy job. The most difficult job was fixing the leather cover of the driver's seat that had become unstitched. What a lot of work it was to get the cover off the seat! Luckily, once I got everything apart, the shoe repair place near my house re-stitched the leather for only 30$. I reassembled the seat and putting it back in the car should be easy enough. So basically, the car should be drivable with 2 or 3 hours of work. As for the Civic, I haven't touched it since I stored it and have no plans for it over the winter. I have a few parts I bought a while ago which I never installed, the most important one being the limited-slip differential. Rather than miss out on the beginning of the season, I will probably have Choo do the work in July, while we are on our month-long trip to Italy. The car should be ready to roll as soon as the snow is gone, since, for once, I did not break anything near the end of the season. I am looking at the possibility of attending a GridLife event at Lime Rock Connecticut in late August. It would involve a lot of planning, but I'll see if there is a way to make it work. 

I don't really have a car for navigation rallies any more, but Josée graciously offered me the use of her Subaru Impreza for the Grosse Ride coming up on February 11th. That should be a fun event as it's always memorable when Josée and I team up. Over all, life is good!

M3 seat with the cover back on

Cool E46 wagon

Clean E36 coupe in Ogunquit

Not a lot of sports cars there, but some nice trucks: Land Cruiser

... lifted Chevy Astro...

... and new Defender on cool steelies

I did find this one sporty car. 

Subtle STi in Montreal

I have many photos like this over the years from Vieux Québec

Ur-S4 near home

Cool colour and wheels on this CrossTrek

Skiing with the boys

Country house on a winter evening

So many presents!

I could not believe how clean and original this Stratus was

Also clean: EK Civic sedan with gold accents and badges

Jules participated in his first chess tournament

New M3's tend to be driven all year

... which is pretty cool.

The 996 was a big 911 when it came out, but it's not longer than a mk.7 Golf

Subtle spec Focus RS

The very ugly new 7-series

Mk.3 Jetta (Vento) on mk.4 wheels... nice

Surprisingly clean Tercel

Mitsubishi Delica

Lucid Air

... don't really know this car

A rare daily driven E30

I love these wheels on the G-Wagen

Volvo 240 on Turbo wheels

Aston Martins from this era are lovely