So I finally had it with listening to my Motorola Droid (Google Music and Pandora) for my commute. Why don’t I have a stereo? Well back in February I ripped it all out. Not exactly the best choice, but hey, I was in the hear of the moment thinking I was prepping the car for a fully competitive 2011 season. That has changed, (more on that later).

A couple of weeks ago I told the subwoofer and amplifier for the car, I wasn’t interested in putting all of that weight back in anyways. So tonight after work I put the speakers back in the door (with some cutting and soldering on the OEM wiring due to not having adapters for it.

I managed to get everything back into the front of the car, including the crossovers, and the head unit. I wasn’t able to get the radio working, as it doesn’t seem to see that the Antenna is hooked up, so I’ll have to track that down. I also didn’t get the rear speakers in, simply due to time/darkness, I’ll get those later this week.

So, why am I not building the car fully for 2011? Well honestly, budget. I need to put quite a bit more money into the car, and it’s already the middle of June. Where did time go? So, without the budget to fully prep the car, I’m going to drive something else at the 2011 Solo Nationals.

I’ll be driving Dave Whitworth’s Mustang in EM at Nationals. Dave and I have been friends for 11 years now, he was my first instructor when I started autocrossing, and while I surpassed him in autocross skills long ago, he’s still a friend of mine

 

I'll fly into Lincoln, though I'm not sure when yet, and likely be there all week. I've offered to announce at the ProSolo Finale, though I haven't heard if anyone is interested in taking me up on that offer or not.

I am hoping that for 2012 I can get the 350z sorted out and ready for Nationals. Though, I really don’t like that I now live 26 hours from Nationals. Living in St. Louis and being a 5 hour drive from it (when it was in Topeka) definitely spoiled me!

I’m worn out, so this will likely not be as long as it should be, but here’s a quick summary of the day today.

First heat, they got an extra run/look at the course due to some unforeseen issues with the surface, the course got changed, and the event started over 1hr into the day. Good deal for them, not so much for those who were working. Fortunately I was just walking around talking on the mic.

So today was the first day for a few things It was my first time running an autocross with the San Francisco Region of the SCCA. I must say things went fairly well, even with of the normal first event hiccups. It was my first time running this 350z on RComps, and any 350z on 18” tires on 10” wide wheels. Overall I was impressed, though I long for 315 Hoosier A6s! Today’s event was held at California’s Great America in Santa Clara, CA. I started out slow, but finally kicked it in gear a bit on my 4th and final run. I realized today that I used to drive balls to the wall all the time at an autocross, I guess in my old age I’m not doing that as much, so it took me a while to turn that switch back on.

Sunday I partook in the NorCalUFO autocross, their second event of the year, my first attending since the baby was born in October. I got to the event and heard that they had a course worker get hit at their last event, unfortunately he was hurt pretty bad and of course doesn’t have insurance, so they were taking donations. I assume that their insurance doesn’t cover the injuries? I believe (could be wrong) that SCCA events always have insurance that would cover someone who got injured, but perhaps I’m wrong. The odd thing is this is the SECOND course worker they’ve had hit in the past 6 or 9 months. Not exactly something that you want to hear when you show up. (Mental note, keep that in mind when signing up for worker positions)

WOOOOOOWHOOOO! Fun at an autocross again. It’s been a few events since I’ve really had fun at an autocross. This time around I was still on the crappy street tires, which actually I think are worse than before as the rears are getting pretty bald, it was wet, so that made things more interesting.

So today was the first time I’ve ever autocrossed in California, and the first time the car has seen an event since our runs at the Colorado event in January. I left San Carlos early in the morning and headed off to pick up Will Strohl. We headed down to Marina California for the Northern California United Five-Ten Owners Club