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

Lots of track time, but not as much as I had hoped for, and Jules turns one!

Birthday Boy!

The biggest news since my last post is that our little "Poussin" Jules has turned one. Cake (baked by Val) was enjoyed by all!

The first year has gone by so fast, it's almost hard to believe. We love you Jules!

On the Monday and Tuesday following J's birthday, I headed up to Tremblant to instruct with the BMW club. The car was reliable, but my lap times were 4 seconds off last year's times. I headed to Synoptic to tune the car, because something felt "off" since Pat changed the exhaust and piston rings. On the dyno, the car had lost 10 hp and 10 ft-lb of torque since last year. We tried removing the exhaust, but it made no difference. Mystery: unsolved.

One of my students was driving this supercharged Elise, and I got to take it for a spin for a few laps. It was a real pleasure to drive, and felt quite planted on track. My student was really driving it nicely by the end of the event.



It's funny how there seem to be more Porsche's than BMW's at these events now. Rodrigo had just finished restoring this original Rothman's Challenge 944.

At the gas station in Tremblant Village...

BMW Club?

At Sajan's, there was a K20 turbo Elise with no body work... pretty cool.

They also had this neat Cappucino

This weekend, our family of three headed to Calabogie, where the next rounds of the Super Production Challenge were being held. I also signed up to run the Sunday sprint races, with Carl driving the Civic in the Saturday races. Pascal and Jean St-Cyr also drove down in their race cars, and the Boyer's trailered in Pat's Integra.

My first session went well, and I dipped into the 2:32's, despite traffic. The car felt good, which is rare at Calabogie. Carl switched to Hoosiers and ran almost five seconds faster with brand new Hoosiers. He loved how the car was handling as well. The next session was a 60-minute race, to be scored as two 30-minute races in SPC and involving a mandatory pit stop. Needless to say, the half-hour in which you choose to pit will be your poorer race result.

I had qualified near the back, but managed to catch and eventually pass the pesky Audi A4 that beat me at ICAR. I pitted in after 35 minutes (and a small off at 4-Left!), which resulted in my placing 9th out of 18 in the first race. Unfortunately, I had an ignition failure after 50 minutes, which left me stranded on the side of the track. The car never ran right all weekend. We checked the distributor, main relay, ECU and spark plugs. The problem would go away and then reappear as soon as we hit the track. The car saw only 2 more laps of racing before we gave up and focused on getting home.

The car even died on the way home, but the Boyer's, who were driving by, saved our butts. Pat switched out the ignition control module in our distributor with one he had in his trailer. He showed us where our own module had overheated and recommended we install a genuine Honda replacement. We had tried a different distributor at the track, but I guess that one was not good either. At least we got home in one piece and I did manage my best SPC finish yet this year. Pat ran in SPC and finished 7th and 4th. Pascal took a class win and Jean took home a trophy as well. Carl managed to finish the one hour race in Jean's Civic, completely obliterating a pair of front tires in the process.

I was glad that Alex and Jules were there, so that the weekend was not only about racing. We got to spend a day doing touristic stuff (visited Almonte, looked in vain for a petting farm!) on Friday and stayed in a neat chalet we had rented with the gang (the Doublebogie). All in all, I still had a pretty nice weekend.

Our area at the track

Jules wanted to help out...

All four of my "Babies" in one place!

Cool vintage Lotus Formula (Ford?)



Extremely fast TR8



Extremely cool Volvo

Lovely race M3's

The Civic ready for action

Pascal's Civic, quick and reliable

Pat's car was less reliable, with oiling issues

Jean's "Special K" Civic, capable of 2:22's at Calabogie, and the subject of an insanely intense rear trailing arm swap on Sunday



Lovely BRE-style Datsun 510

Cool cars spotted:
Lamborghini Gallardo
Ferrari 348
Ferrari F430
Ferrari 458
Ferrari F12
Ferrari 599
Maserati GT
Audi R8
Audi RS4
Audi RS5
Acura NSX
Aston Martin DB9
Shelby GT350
Porsche 993 turbo
Porsche 968
Porsche 997 GT3
Porsche 996 GT3
Porsche 964 Carrera RS America (!)
McLaren MP4-12C
Buick Grand National
Datsun 240Z
Lotus Elise supercharged
AMG SLS

Carrera RS America

I finally made it back to Monday Night Lapping

Racing is fun, of course, but I had almost forgotten just how fun it is to head over to St-Eustache and give the Civic a good thrashing at the ASE Lapping Club's Monday events. I managed to get organized enough to bring the Civic out there on Monday and everything went well. I would have liked to have been a bit faster (best lap of 1:01.3), but the car was reliable and easy to drive. Curiously, the car barely used a drop of oil in the first two sessions, but the level dropped visibly after the third (maybe I was parked on uneven ground?).

It's hard to tell if I was slower because of the car, or because I was a bit rusty. I don't like to make excuses, but there are a few things on the car that might contribute to my lack of pace. 1) There is no rear wing, for now. Is is possible that, even at a slow track like St-Eustache, the wing makes a difference? The G2X tells me I am slower in certain sectors, like the second part of the esses. I know I am a bit tentative there, since an aggressive style leads to loooong slides there at high speed. 2) The tires, which were bought used last year then used a lot, may be getting too old to deliver maximum grip. 3) Since we changed the exhaust and piston rings, the car seems to be slightly out of tune, although my top speeds have only dropped a very small amount. I will try to resolve all these issues before my next race on August 24th at Calabogie.

Here is a pic of the Civic, ready for action at St-Eustache.

In other news, our condo is sold and we will be moving over Labour Day weekend. All three of us are looking forward to this. I look forward to having more space and a garage!

Other than that, we are enjoying summer with Jules, who will turn one year old in a few days. I know it's a cliché but time goes by so fast!

Jules with the family car

As is typical during a Montreal summer, there are many cool and interesting cars on the road. 

Cool cars spotted:

Lotus Elise Supercharged

Lotus Evora

Austin Healey 3000

Lamborghini Gallardo

Maclaren MP4-12C

Maserati GT

Maserati Quattroporte

Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 1

Nissan Pulsar GTi-R

Nissan Skyline R32

C1 Corvette

C2 Corvette

Audi R8 GT

Audi RS4

Audi R8 V10

Mercedes 500e

AMG SLS

Porsche 993 Turbo

Porsche 997 GT3

Porsche 968

Porsche 930

Dodge Viper

Early Porsche 911

Ferrari F430

Ferrari 458

Ferrari 599

Ferrari FF

Ferrari F12(!)

MGB GT

MG Midget

Citroen DS

Jaguar F-Type

BMW 635CSi

BMW 1M

Early Toyota Celica

Pinzgauer 710

Alpina B7

Tesla Roadster

Aston Martin Vantage

Aston Martin DBS

Aston Martin Virage

Had a baby seat in the rear!

Doesn't this Miata just look right with the steel wheels?

There were three of these, but only two fit in the photo

Cool grey 968

Unexpected spot on my street!