Xmas Morning

Delivered on Monday, September 20th:

4 Pyrotect Sportsman Deluxe one-layer, one-piece SFI 3.2A/1 driving suits

4 Pyrotect Pro Airflow SA lightweight, SA2005-rated full-face racing helmets

4 pair of Pyrotect SFI single-layer Nomex/pigskin racing gloves

4 pairs of Pyrotect SFI leather/Nomex/rubber racing shoes rated SFI 3.3/5

4 sets of Nomex flame-retardant long underwear

Oh, yes. It's on.

Driving As Fast As You Can

Sunday, September 19th. Shortly after dawn. The rising sun does its damnedest to dry the large puddles draped luxuriously across an expansive parking lot. Men, many mustachioed, move silently at their tasks - registration, tech inspection, course layout, the sweeping away of peanut shells and discarded candy wrappers from Saturday night's automotive confection. For this morning we are at the racing complex in Joliet, Illinois. This morning the speedway, drag strip and dirt track, however, are eerily quiet. Today there will be no brightly clad and clamorous crowds. There will be no checkered flag or winner's circle or small-town beauty queens kissing oil-smeared cheeks. In this empty parking lot there will be only drivers pushing Miatas and Subarus and Corvettes and Mustangs through a course marked in cones against the cold, relentless sweep of a second hand. This, then, is SCCA Solo Autocross. And in the midst of this glamorless battle against time, heat, pressure and focus, three members of Byte Marks Racing ride in upon winged chariots - A4 and Mazda 6. They dutifully don their numbers, helmets and dangerous countenances. They deliberately check their tire pressure. They deftly apply brake and wheel and throttle. They gnash their teeth and steel their minds and drive their horses against that dragon whose deadly wingbeats are measured in thousands of a second and in the end...

...they didn't really do that well at all. But it was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures. And here are the results. Look for Josh Bell, Hoang Nguyen and Andrey Belomutskiy. You'll save time if you scroll right to the bottom. Ahem.

Until next time...

Tear-Down Day

"Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it."

- Michelangelo Buonarroti

The Byte Marks team "discovered" the race car buried within the sleeping hulk of our '89 Mercury Tracer on Saturday, September 11. There was much breaking of things - windows, trim pieces, Mr. K's tools - and much over-zealous removal of things which Mr. K then had to restore. In the end, we tore out every piece from the interior of the car not essential to proper racing. In addition, Mr. K saw to the replacement of the front axles, removal of the A/C compressor and installation of a trans cooler. Thank goodness for him. Mr. K's father, also Mr. K. (coincidence?), stopped by briefly to scratch his head.

See the photos by team photographer, Aidan

The Cart Before the Horse

Thanks to Byte Marks friend, Dave, at Rally Ready Racing - www.rallyready.com - we now have on order egg-cradling helmets, racing suits, flame retardant underwear (also handy for those with an active sex-life), manly gauntlets and tootsie-cooling booties. Tomorrow we start turning the Tracer into an honest-to-God race car. Which is good. Cuz we're gonna look awfully stoopid walking around in all this crap without a race car to get into.

And so it begins...

And by that I mean the spending, of course. On top of owing team-member, Mr. N, for registering the team, there are a whole host of items to pay for. Most of them are the same crap my mechanic tells me need replacing every other week on my daily driver. This encourages me, actually, that Mr. K knows what he's doing.