Sad day for Saab

It's a sad day for the automotive industry. One of my favourite carmakers has filed for bankruptcy prevention. I love Saab cars, but I think that Saab under GM was mismanaged. The cars were nice (I know because I've driven pretty much everything in the model range on the track while instructing at Saab corporate days) but they didn't really stand out compared to the competition from BMW, Audi, Lexus and Acura. I loved the classic 900 (1978-1993) and I really like the NG900 (1994-2002 model). I liked that they were hatchbacks, the way they they looked but, most of all, the way they drove. I had a 1989 Sport 900 hatchback and, although it was not the most reliable car, it was such a pleasure to drive. It was the first car I had ever owned that really seemed to be geared towards driving enjoyment, which should be distinguished from ultimate performance. The car had very average acceleration and not a ton of grip. Also, it was not that fun to drive at 10/10ths... I know because I tried it on the track. However, just driving down the street, or especially on the highway, was an extremely pleasant experience. This is one reason that I've been seriously considering a 2000-2002 9-3 for my next car. It's a hatchback, it's turbo, and it looks cool. The newer Saabs are less distinctive looking and not hatchbacks. I believe this has made GM's decision to scrap the brand easier.

ICE RACING!

I went ice racing in Minden, Ontario last weekend with Alex and Carl. I just haven't had time to write about it until now.

Carl and I each rented a rubber-to-ice class car from Lee, a chap we know through the Honda and Acura Driver's Association (HADA). Lee charges us a rock bottom price to rent the cars and he lets us stay in the little chalet he rents which is only a mile from the Minden Fairgrounds where the event is held.

The events are extremely well-organized. Carl and I attended last year (see my post about it: http://vincentbasile.blogspot.com/2008/02/ice-racing-addictively-fun.html ) and had a fun time. It takes over five hours to get to Minden from Montreal, so it's not a trip we plan to make more than once a year. Still, in the dead of winter, almost any road trip is an improvement over the standard weekend at home and it's quite easy to convince Alex (who just handed in her PhD thesis a couple of weeks ago) to come along, despite the prospect of hours of car talk on the way and at the event.

We got a good nights sleep Friday as we had to be up early on Saturday for our races. We planned to race only on Saturday so we could be home early enough on Sunday. Carl got a CRX that was decorated like a police car, while I got a 1988-91 Civic hatch. These cars would normally be in different classes as the CRX is in the short wheelbase class, but running in the second driver race (a class that exists so two people can share a car and still get lots of seat time) allowed us to race against each other. We went out for a short practice in the morning and I realized that my car didn't really like to turn and understeered like a pig. This was not helped by the fact that the handbrake didn't work. I was sharing the car with another renter named John (who coincidentally I had raced against at the two 2008 Mosport enduros) and we played with tire pressures before he went out for his race.

My next time on track was for my qualifying race. The start order was drawn randomly and I got 7th out of 20. As I waited on the false grid, my Civic began to piss coolant and overheat. I pulled out of the line while John and Lee added coolant to the car. I managed to head out before the race start, but I was last. Carl started about 12th. The race was uneventful and I never saw Carl. I passed a couple of cars, but I still had no handbrake and the car would not turn except at ridiculously slow speeds. My car was scraped a couple of times as I was being lapped by the fast guys.

I was to start about 17th for my second race. I was gridded behind another Civic similar to mine for the standing start. When the green flag dropped, the green Civic in front stalled and, before I could pull around it, I was bumped from behind, pushing my car forward. I had to use reverse to pull back far enough to pass the stalled car. I ran my race pretty much alone and, to add insult to injury, the green Civic caught and passed me near the end of the race. Alex had decided to join me in the passenger seat during the race and she could see how pissed off I was. It probably wasn't as fun for her as it could have been... At least Carl didn't lap me.

For my final race, I lined up near the back. I could see Carl a few spots up from me and hoped to be able to catch up to him at some point. From the first lap, I could feel the car was different. It turned out that John switched the rear tires around between the races and suddenly, the car had some lift-throttle oversteer. It was suddenly drivable! I had much more fun in this last race and even managed to catch Carl and pass him. After that, my adrenaline was pumping as I fought to keep him behind me. I managed to hold him off as we finished near the back of the field, with a huge smile on my face.

Ice racing is wheel-to-wheel racing, there is no doubt about it. It just takes place at lower speeds. This is the cheapest way to experience wheel to wheel racing in real cars. If we had a series like this closer to home, you can bet Carl and I would have a car for the series.

All in all, it was an enjoyable weekend, made all the more so by the fact that Alex tagged along, despite the promise of mostly car-related activities and not much else.

Here are some photos:

This is Carl in his rental CRX, affectionately know as HADA five-0

This is me in my rental, one of my all-time favourite cars: an EF Civic

Our final race of the day (my Civic near the back, Carl a few spots ahead)

Me finally catching Carl...

...and trying to pull ahead!

Alex goofing around on the couch at the chalet

Our host Lee, fellow renter Miles, and Carl chilling on the couch at the chalet

BIRTH OF AISA

Home-made logo

In the hopes of having the school where Carl, Dave P. and I instruct accredited so that we can give out road-race and lapping licenses, we incorporated a non-profit organization called ASSOCIATION DES INSTRUCTEURS DE SPORT AUTOMOBILE over the holidays. It took us several weeks, but the club is now affiliated to the FSAQ and ASN-Canada-FIA. Our first official event will be a road-race and lapping school at St-Eustache on April 19-20. I made a small website for the club.

Cool cars spotted:
AMG C63
AMG G55
AMG CLS55
Saab Turbo X
RHD Mitsubishi Delica Offroad
RHD Mitsubishi GTO
Audi S8

Motorsport in Quebec

As I try to organise a new club and a race school, I can't help but reflect on the state of motorsports in Quebec. The present state of affairs is quite sad. Insurance prices are on the rise, as are track rental fees. There is more and more regulation from sanctioning bodies, not all of it useful. It makes me glad I don't have to organise events (although I am helping Carl with a couple of them).

Old flyer

When I started organising Solo 1 events in 2001, it cost 80$ to participate. Here is a poster from those simpler times, back when I was the president of LAPS Solo 1. We had no budget, and I remember that we had to do everything ourselves, including advertising and creating a free web site. I made this small ad in my spare time.

I am planning to participate in an ice race in Minden Ontario over Valentine's weekend (thank you for your understanding Alex). I have to get my race license sorted out first, but it looks like it's a go. Stay tuned...

Cool cars spotted:
New M3
New Evo
Bentley Continental
Brabus SL55

I know it's been a while since I posted...

... and for that, I apologize. Not that much has been going on car-wise and I have been extremely busy with work. Also, I headed down to Washington D.C. for the Obama inauguration and only got back yesterday, which made me even more busy.

I went to the inauguration with Alex, her cousin and her fiancé. We drove down in his Jeep Patriot and had a good time. We froze our butts off waiting for the inauguration to start and were not very happy with the lack of any order for people trying to leave the National Mall after the ceremony, but we all made it home safe and sound. I would have loved to have been driving a Saab instead of the the Jeep, but that will have to wait until I can afford a new (used) car...

Various updates:
I have not done a single thing to the race car.

I turned 36 last week. Alex bought me a really cool Tivoli Audio Model Two mini stereo, which is made out of wood and now hooked up to my desktop at home. Thanks Alex! Great gift and a beautiful design.

The high school basketball team I coach lost last week 50-37. We got as close as 3 points back in the 2nd half, but it slipped away from us.

The team I play on lost too 2 weeks ago. I scored only 6 points and the team as a whole missed many easy shots.

Last week, I lost a trial (it was a long shot to win, but still a bummer)

I have a paralegal trainee at the office starting today, and she should be able to handle some of my work load.

I have incorporated a new non-profit organization called the AISA for instructors. I am trying to get the Quebec Auto Sport Federation to accredit our road race school so we can hand out licenses. We will be meeting FSAQ representatives in a few days to discuss this. Stay tuned.

I will be doing some indoor karting on Saturday at a friend's birthday. Should be fun!

That's all I can think of for now...

Menacing Mercedes

Cool cars spotted (on my recent trip)

Buick Grand National
Porsche 993 Turbo
Bentley Continental GT Flying Spur
AMG C63 (in flat black!)
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8 (3 of them)
New WRX STi
BMW M5
Cadillac CTS-V

Happy Holidays!

All the best for the holidays! What's funny is that the holidays make me think about my race car... the time I could be spending working on it if I had a garage.

There is not much going on car-wise. The snow removal service scraped my blue Civic and left a scratch on the fender and bumper.

I am thinking more and more about the 2009 season. I really really want the race car to be in SCCA ITS trim by late spring. I also want the car to always be drivable (as it is now) so I don't think I'll undertake any improvements that will require disassembling major components. I just confirmed that I have to modify the roll cage, but Pat Boyer should be able to do that fairly easily.

Here is a pic of me with the race car in 2008 and as it will look again when I remove all the decals this spring:

Car and driver

Have a great holiday season!

Bathrust 1000

I downloaded some cool footage from the Bathurst 1000 km race from 1976 and 1980. What a cool event. The cars were also quite neat. Here is a photo of the race-winning Holden Commodore of Peter Brock.

Not much is going on concerning my cars. The blue Civic keeps on truckin', the race car is in storage.

There are still some pretty cool cars out on the road even though it's winter:

AMG C63

AMG C36
AMG G55

AMG CLS55

bunch of new M3's

Jaguar E-type

Aston-Martin DB7

Porsche 997 turbo cabriolet

Old photos

A while ago, I realized that I had somehow lost a folder containing dozens of photos of my first visit to Watkins Glen, back in 2002. While looking through various files, I found some that had been moved around in my computer. This was one of my first ever races with my first race car, the 1988 ex-Honda-Michelin car I had bought for 2200$. These photos were taken by my good friend William Le. Here they are:

Here is a copy of the race report I wrote after this event, back in 2002:

Watkins Glen sprint and enduro, EMRA, October 18-19, 2002

Our 2-day road race event began on Friday, while it was cold but dry. I was scheduled for a practice, a qualifying session and a sprint race in the small bore class with my 1988 Civic.
At the practice, I tried to follow a beat up old Opel Manta to learn the line a bit quicker, but I was feeling pretty lost. The car was working well. I followed the guy for a couple of laps and thought “hey, I may not be the slowest guy out here”. At that point, the guy decided to try for real and he left me in his dust. Confidence level: low.

My next time on the track was for a qualifying session for the sprint. It was still dry, I felt I was learning something and stringing together some decent sections. However, I had a little slide in turn 1 and drove off the track, aiming already for the spot where I would get back on. Unfortunately, I hadn’t noticed that the path I had chosen led through a small part of the gravel trap. I hit the gravel pretty hard, but was carrying enough speed to keep going right through. After that, I was going slower and was paranoid about having screwed up the alignment or something. It turned out the car was fine (just full of gravel and dust) and I had qualified 4th out of 6 in class with a high 2:34. It wasn’t that bad though, as I was only 3 seconds behind the 1st place ST4 car and 2 seconds behind my instructor from the EMRA school who drove an almost identical car to mine. Confidence level: not bad.

Our race was scheduled to run after the big bore race. However, there was a major incident in that race which required taking one driver to the hospital (he was ok, only a concussion). As a result, we could not run our race with only a single ambulance left, which makes sense. We were instead promised a race first thing in the morning and were allowed on the track anyway for another practice session. This session went great, I finally felt like I was running some decent laps. The car was working great and the gearing with the new final drive felt perfect for the track (3rd and 4th everywhere). I even passed some of the guys who outqualified me. Unfortunately, this session was not timed, so I could not tell if the seat-of-the-pants improvement resulted in a faster lap. Confidence level: relatively high.

The next morning, it was raining. Confidence level: down the toilet. We had 2 warmup laps and then the race. My driver side windshield wiper failed on the first lap and I was freaking out in the car. I couldn't see at all. When I stopped to grid after the 2 laps, one of the officials was kind enough to move the defective wiper up so the passenger side wiper could at least function. He said "most of the turns are to the right, you'll be fine!" and I started the race, feeling better. I realized that the visibility was quite bad as it was raining so much that I couldn't see much better out the passenger side of the windshield. I managed to hook up with my former instructor’s Civic. I figured if I could stay with him until the end, I would have a nice result because he was the series points leader. Also, we had almost identical cars, so I could copy his braking points. We passed some cars, some cars passed us. We saw cars spin right in front of us. Actually, the same MR2 spun twice and re-passed us twice. I almost hit the armco at the very slippery exit to 6 (left hander after the chute) when I oversteered onto the narrow strip of grass between the track and the armco, somehow bringing it back (I don't remember how) and barely losing any ground on the other Civic. I managed to follow him to the checker and took second in class, 9th overall out of 21. I was really happy with that. I had totally not been expecting to come home from my second road race ever with a trophy, especially nt at this track! I went to talk to the guy who beat me by 1 second to see if he had been really pushing it. He said that he hadn’t because he knew we were 1-2 in class and he only had to keep me behind to win it. However, he had to admit that he couldn't let off too much because I always was right there.

My co-driver JS was running the second sprint race in my car. It was raining less, but we tried a switch to the Hankook tires since they looked better for the wet (we had never tried them though). Well, JS put the car on pole for the class and 6th overall! He said the tires were great and he posted a 3:01 in the rain. He ran a thankfully uneventful race and finished 3rd in class, 7th overall.

I got a late start in the enduro practice because JS forgot to bring me the car in the pits after his qualifying session! Then I only ran 1 hot lap before the session was black flagged. I was trying to get around this 200 SX SE-R who left right in front of me as I was faster in most corners, but I could not pass him in the straights (140 hp vs 92), which was the only safe place in the rain with my experience level. Unfortunately, I made 3 major mistakes: 1- I didn’t know it was a qualifying session, I thought the gridding for the enduro was random or something2- I didn’t see the first couple of black flags and was forced to exit the track by some other track exit after being instructed by a marshall, which led me to the paddocks and not the pits3- I didn’t know the session was re-started after I parked it in the paddocks. The guys came to see me and said “Where were you man?” I said “What, I was out there”. And they said “Not for the longer half of the session”. Result, a sad qualifying time of 3:09 which put me in 20th out of 24. Only consolation: a 3:01 like JS had pulled off earlier would still only have put me in 17th.

The start of the enduro went well. I had passed a couple of cars in the first laps to get up to the position where I should have qualified us. We had switched back to the Yokohamas because the track was almost completely dry. As soon as the race started, so did the rain. As the track got wetter, I was following an Alfa Milano down the front straight when I totally botched the braking zone. I felt like an oil slick. I stuck it deep in the kitty litter as 3 other cars had done on the same lap. Actually, there were 2 in the gravel and one in the armco, as he had been unlucky and skipped rigth over the gravel, damaging a really nice Grand Am Cup Integra Type R. The race was black flagged because of us four and I was towed back out of the litter so I could drive around to the pits. The car seemed fine, but the battery light was on. We re-started and I came in at the 1 hour point to gas up and let JS in the car. I opened the hood and saw that I had thrown the alternator belt. We tried to race on the battery, but it died near the end of the race. JS had pulled over with no more spark and been towed to the paddocks. I thought the race was almost over and that we should park it, but Carl, our crew chief, said that the race had been extended because of all the black flags and that there were still 25 minutes left. We had no belt and knew it would take at least 15 minutes to change, so we borrowed a battery from some kind soul and stuck that in, figuring it could easily run for 20 minutes. We sent JS back out, but just as he got to the pits to try to re-enter the race, there was another black flag and the officials ended the race. So after all that, we finished 20th, 4 laps down.

Basically, it was one of the coolest weekends ever for me and I see why everyone loves this track. It is nerve-wracking in the rain. There were at least 10 accidents and 5 or 6 major wrecks in the 2-day event, so I'm glad my car is still in one piece as well. I can’t wait to race there again next year and would like to thank EMRA for organizing a top-notch event.

Vincent Basile ST4 #44

Acura TL: what were they thinking?

I saw the new Acura TL today... that is one homely car. The front "grill" is ridiculous and the rear looks like the worst Pontiacs of the past 20 years. I'm sure it's a pleasure to drive and it has more power than an NSX, but what an ugly car.

New Acura TL

Other than that, there has not been much going on car-wise. My Civic is much easier to steer at low speeds with the 175-70-13 winter tires. I will certainly go with something not too wide next spring, maybe a 185-60-14.

I have not done one bit of work on the race car. I'm not that motivated this early in winter I guess. I was watching Top Gear earlier and watched them add a splitter and wing to a Renault Avantime, a sort of minivan, and it got me thinking that I should try to make an airdam on the front of the race car, as this is allowed in the SCCA's IT classes. There are a bunch of things to do on the car and I really should get started. I can't wait to race the car again.

Speaking of Top Gear, they had this awesome Lamborghini, the Gallardo LP560-4. Wow. Just wow. When I was a kid, I had a Lamborghini Countach poster (what kid didn't?). I knew it was an object of desire, but it was in no way a race car. The Gallardo looks quite at home on the track, which only makes it more desirable to me.

Also on Top Gear, James May entered a really cool grassroots type race in Finland. People were driving old Volvos and Opels with beat up bodies around a track made up of dirt and asphalt. It looked really fun, and James May, who had been coached by none other than Mika Hakkinen, finished quite well. The story also featured an awesome Mercedes 190 2.3-16 rally car.

There are still some mighty nice cars on the road, despite the fact that winter is pretty much arrived:

Lamborghini GallardoFerrari F430

new BMW M3

new Subaru STi

BMW 633 CSI

AMG G55

AMG C63

Tomorrow, my basketball team plays its second game. Unfortunately, our best scorer has been suspended for poor academic performance. I hope the other girls can pick up the slack scoring-wise!