It's only been a few days since Jules' second birthday and he is already hitting another milestone: his first day at daycare. We've started him off with half days, actually, and hope to have him up to full days next week. He cries when we drop him off, which is sad, but apparently he is doing OK after we leave.
Here he is just before his first day Monday:
Later Monday, I headed to St-Eustache with the now reliable (knock on wood!) Civic. I told Pascal I wanted to follow him around for motivation so I could finally break my record and lap the track in under one minute. Pascal regularly laps in under a minute. I even removed the passenger seat to maximize my chances. Although we had a blast lapping together, we did not his the magic number of 59 seconds (my best of the day was 1:00.6). Maybe I will have a better chance when it's cooler out, as it was 28 degrees and very humid. I put together this video of our attempt.
Here is a photo I took before heading out
And here is a photo that was posted on MontrealRacing:
I really hope I can break my lap record this season, but I don't want it to be all about lap times. I want to have fun and generally improve my driving.
There are always interesting cars in and around Montreal, as can be seen from these photos.
Cool wheels on a design that is aging well
A rare sight in Montreal, as this model was never imported to North America
For the first time this season, I was able to attend a Monday night lapping event with no breakages on the Civic (except for the front lip, which was destroyed at home while trying to drive through the construction on my street). Pat made me a bracket to hold the header to the engine block and so far, this seems to have worked. I drove in three sessions. In the first two, I was using the mostly dead Hankook RS3's. I still managed to shave a few tenths off my time from a couple of weeks ago, getting down to 1:01.7. I later switched to some much less used BFGoodrich G-Force Rivals (in 205-50-15) and got down to a 1:01.1. I still need to improve my driving before I will see a sub one-minute lap time, but I feel that I will be able to do it, with practice. I am using different gears in almost every corner, due to the fact that I have an extra 35 lb-ft of torque and a 7400 rpm redline (instead of 8400). The fact that I am not using second gear at all should help the longevity of my transmission.
I had two good students, one with a Mercedes SLK230 and one with a 1996 Nissan 300 ZX non-turbo. In the 300 ZX, we were driving behind another student in a 350Z, who happened to be my student's father (and the owner of both cars!). I bet he was a bit surprised at how we were able to keep on his bumper, despite the power disadvantage.
Another good thing happened Monday: I got my repaired camera lens back (the repair, although not 100%, was free... thanks Sigma!). I grabbed a few quick shots around the paddock. There is a wide variety of cars this year, as can be seen from these few photos.
The Civic, ready for the first session
Apparently this wide Mini had a motorcycle engine
Justin's squeaky clean Miata
Two of the three Lotus' in attendance
Another very clean car: a Civic Type R replica
Amélie's C5 Corvette Z06
A cool photo of my Civic from the ASE Lapping Club Facebook page
A few days ago we enjoyed a mini vacation in St-Adolphe-d'Howard, about 90 km north of Montreal. For me, the highlight was the beautiful lake over which we had a lovely view. It was actually warm enough to swim in it. I think that the highlight for Jules was that there were three other kids there to play with. He also seemed to quite enjoy himself at the "Village du Père Noel" amusement park (with the exception of the petting zoo, which scared him a little...). I would definitely rent this chalet again in the future.
In the past few days, I have spotted a couple of rarities from the 80's and 90's, rare because there are so few left or rare because of their colour or condition. Enjoy!
This reminded me of my Aries... a lot of energy poured into an original project
This rare Prelude SR-V was also in nice condition and had its original wheels too
Nothing too special about this 535i, just a clean car in great condition
A clean early Mazda Mx-6, extremely rare these days!
There are still many of these SL's on the road, but this colour combo is rare, and the original wheels work well here
