Every Thursday night from spring until fall the Monterey and Carmel gearheads gather at the Baja Cantina for an evening of benchracing, bar-b-que, and beverages. Tonight I made my maiden visit as a guest of a couple members of the Rats To Riches car club. The Cantina had some live music outside, the parking lot was full [...]

In prep for this upcoming weekend’s SCCA Vintage race weekend at Laguna Seca, I took the Race Wagon down to the secret location of the IEM Racing bat-cave for a suspension and steering tune-up. We strung up a string box to confirm front-to-rear alignment, reset the front and rear toe and camber settings, then adjusted [...]

An important part of driving your car on a racetrack is passing the required technical safety inspection prior to getting access to the track. While the level of scrutiny will vary by organization, the goals are the same: minimize the possibility of injury to the driver due to a mechanical malfunction, and ensuring that required safety equipment is properly installed. A [...]

Wagons, wagons, everywhere… Maybe I’m just noticing old stationwagons more these days, but at this weekend’s race there were cool wagons everywhere! I’ve never been a trend setter, so it’s certainly not my doing, but I sure like this fad. These wagons were all cruising the pits at Willow Springs, except the last shot, that one’s [...]

Racing by the numbers This weekend’s race schedule was one of the busiest ever for me. Saturday included a 30 minute timed practice, a 40 minute qualifying race, a 30 minute enduro practice, and a 70 minute enduro. Sunday’s schedule added another 30 minute practice and a 40 minute flag race. 240 minutes, that’s 4 [...]

The Race Report This weekend I raced at the annual VARA Enduro weekend event held at Willow Springs Int’l Raceway, “The Fastest Track in the West”. This track certainly lives up to it’s name, in the Race Wagon it’s a two gear/two shift track. The first half of the 2.5 miles in 4th gear, one upshift and the second half in 5th. [...]