The Worst Car I have ever driven..........

Peugeot 308 Station Wagon. It has an automatic transmission that feels like a high-schooler lives inside and shifts for you. The eco mode is terrible on hills and the diesel motor left a bit to be desired. It did, however, fit all of our bags and go 120mph on the Autobahn.....

Cruising through Southern Germany.....sponsored by Red Bull

116mph snapshot

C'mon Ferrari...let the Peugeot through

N'ring Industry-Pool Certified

East Belguim Action & Fun Karting Center

Despite a group of weird Belgians playing skee-ball in livestock costumes, this is the best indoor karting track I have been to. First off, all of the employees spoke English well so that was a good start. The karts were gas-powered which I prefer and the track was long with lap times around 57-60s. At first it seems a bit expensive at 38 Euros per session, but one session is a total of 35min of track time - 10min qualifying session and a 25 minute race which is far superior to the 8min non-race sessions standard at American tracks. We had 16 drivers in our session. I got beaten by a few flyweight Belgians qualifying 4th and finish 4th in the race. Overall, I would high recommend this place if you are rolling through Eastern Belgium....it's just around the corner, right?

Btw, I didn't get any photos or video from the karting center so these are photos and videos I pulled from the interwebs.

Link to the East Belguim Karting Center

Oh yah...with techno beats:

This is what it's like onboard:

Nürburgring Touristenfahrten - Onboard Suzuki Swift BTG Lap from back in May

Castle Vianden on the drive from Lux to the Nurburgring

Lambo action on the Autobahn

A little late posting video and pictures from my trip to Europe....this was back on May 18th. I rented a Suzuki Swift stage 2 from Rent4Ring. Same as last year, Dale Lomas of Bridge to Gantry blog fame helped me get the rental sorted and he hooked me up with the highest HP Swift they have....

or maybe it's just pink. Either way, it was fun to pass Porsches and Ferraris in the pink Swift. It was a really busy Sunday when we were there so traffic was quite tough. My best BTG time was 9m30s but it was impossible to get a clear lap that day and two-up in a 140hp Swift is not ideal for fast times. The Swift was tons of fun to drive despite the low power - it has a good balance and really high grip tires which made it pretty forgiving. It was a good platform to get back in the groove at this tough track.

Driving the Suzuki Swift out on track

Onboard video w/data:

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7M6VvkDAf0

First Time to Spa-Francorchamps.....Spa Classic 2014

With my trip to Luxembourg, I was able to make the 1 hour drive up to Circuit Spa-Francorchamps for the 2014 Spa-Classic historic races. There was a really nice mix of cars there highlighted to Group C prototypes, F2 formula cars, and the Sports Racers and GT cars of the Classic Endurance Racing classes.

My favorite cars of the weekend were the Group C. This was my favorite:

Here is onboad video from one of the car owners....pretty spectacular noise:

Here are some photos from the weekend:

Elevated Podium...euro style

Endurance Pits and Garges...a blast from the past

Mazda 767B in before Group C Quali

1978 Porsche 935 in the CER 2 Group

Historic F2 car in the F1 Garages

Sports Racers coming through Eau Rouge and the Raidillion

Cool view through a hole in the fence looking up the Raidillion

Hot looking 1968 Chevron B8

A look down the Endurance Pits 

Nissan R90 missing its engine cover

Group C cars in the pits after a red flag

Sauber C11 poking out of the F1 garages

SpeedHunters Article: Inside Monster's Lair

http://www.speedhunters.com/2014/06/deep-inside-monster-sport/

Fascinating article about one of the most interesting characters in racing. Most Americans only know Monster for his exploits at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb so this is a really interesting look at the story behind the Pikes Peak star.

And I'll be back to blogging now. I'm back from my trip to Europe and will be getting the my race season back under way soon. Look for pictures and videos from Spa, Nürburgring and Monaco soon.

When you watch F1 in the UK....

....it's on the when the sun's out and it's played in public places. Word.

Ogburns are 1 and 2 in ESP ProSolo Points right now....

With only 4 events so far this year, this is sure to change...but it's kind of cool for now. 

Missed Shifts at the Mineral Wells ProSolo

With the drag starts of SCCA ProSolo, shifting is especially the 1-2 shift at the drag start is kinda important. The ESP Camaro was not too happy with 1-2 shifts this weekend. For the first time in the car, my Dad and I both had trouble with getting the car into 2nd gear. I had to double stab it on half of my runs which was extremely frustrating and didn't help the lap times at all.

Here are the Bump class results. Korry Berger took home the win in the ESP battle clipping me by 0.05s. Grant Watkins took home the Bump class win in his SMF Civic. Congrats! I really struggled on the right side all weekend and couldn't get into the 39s for the life of me. With my 3rd place finish and being 0.8 back from Grant, I barely made the Super Challenge for the event which makes it 2 for 2 events this year. I was the 31st qualifier based on my gap to Grant in Bump class so I had a tough road to go. Despite this, I had two decent runs and barely lost by 0.2s. With a missed shift on both sides (common theme....), I could have moved into the next round...oh well.

Our next National event will be the Pro Finale and Solo Nationals in September. Despite the transmission troubles, I took home 2nd place points for the ProSolo championship this weekend and will take a 1st and 2nd into the Pro Finale which gives me a shot at the ProSolo Championship if I can hang with the AWD cars. For now, time to pull the transmission which won't happen until sometime over the summer, but I have to get it fixed before pulling the car up to Lincoln. I will be putting the lift to good use this Summer!

Mineral Wells ProSolo This Weekend

Arrived a bit late in the Mineral Wells Paddock

We are in Mineral Wells, TX for the our 2nd ProSolo event of the year. This is the closest National SCCA solo event of the year to my house so I enjoyed just having a 3 hour drive after work instead of 12! We only have 3 entrants in ESP unfortunately so we will be competing in the indexed Bump class. We should have over 5 drivers in Bump class so it will be possible for us to qualify for the Super Challenge. It's going to be a hot one this weekend, but at least there is no rain the forecast.

The car is basically in the same trim as my last event in College Station except for the new front upper control arms I installed to gain front camber. They are Global West arms modified by BlaineFab and look to be nice pieces. We will see how they fair on the old Mineral Wells asphalt this weekend.

You can following the action here:

Live Timing: http://sololive.scca.com/MW/index.php

Live Audio: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/SCCASolo