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!

How was today?

COLD AND WET!

Beyond that? Very cold and very wet. I went to Great America today for the SFRSCCA Divisional Autocross. I got there around 7am and put the Kumho tires on the car, big mistake! I was sort of drying out, the sky was almost clear, but the drive down there was rainy, and there was snow! You can’t see it very well in this picture, but yes, there was snow in the “hills” around the Bay Area.

So I installed the wheels/tires and walked the course a few times. The driver’s meeting got delayed, then the start of the event got delayed. Then the rain started back up

Let me tell you this, Kumho V710s don’t work well when it is <40 degrees and raining. My first run I went out and it felt horrible, I turned a 66.*, I wasn’t too thrilled about that. Here’s a video of that run.

But I was too lazy to go get my street tires (freshly mounted the previous night mind you). Big mistake, I went out on my second run and decided I would take things slower, expecting to actually go around the course faster. I slowed down and ran a 69.*. That broke this camel’s back, I ran off to get my street wheels, drill, and jack so that I could swap to the Falken Azenis RT-615s.

Thankfully Grant (in a Nismo 370z) followed me over and helped me bring 2 of the tires back to my grid spot. I don’t think I would have gotten them changed in time had he not helped! Thanks for the help Grant!

The Falkens were MUCH better, not perfect, but way better than the V710s in the rain. I managed to run a 60.*, a big improvement over the first two runs, though I just wish I had put them on before my second run, or even to begin with!

Here’s a video of the third run