buckle-up

Just two weeks after our outing at High Plains Raceway in Colorado we found ourselves trackside, once again. This time we were spending the weekend at a track we have grown to really like, the venue for our very first adventure onto a track anywhere in the world, Willow Springs International Raceway (WSIR). Also known simply as Big Willow, this track looks relatively simple on paper, with only nine turns, but the more familiar it becomes the more every driver comes to realize how difficult it is to master and how much punishment it hands out to the cars that tackle its pavement. It was Ernest Hemingway who said “auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports ... all others are games.” While we are still participating in sessions established as High Performance Driving Education (HPDE), where our cars are not officially timed, it doesn’t stop others following us with their iPhones – yes, there’s an application for that! But strap yourself into a modern c...

It was a relief to finally be in cooler weather. The mountains of Colorado came as a welcome break after two days of driving through the high deserts of the western half of America. The late afternoon climb out of Simi Valley up through the Mojave desert, the early evening run across to Las Vegas, the passage next day south of the Grand Canyon and the increased desolation that leads to the “Four Corners,” with the final run through to Farmington, New Mexico where we spent the second night, saw temperatures routinely climb through three figures. Standing as we were, snapping off pictures, along side the twists and turns of the “million dollar highway” as it descended into Ouray, we just let the cold mountain air wash over us. The picture at the top of this column is of the blue ‘Vette framed by high, snow-capped peals of the San Juan ranges. We needed to get the Vette back to Colorado to have her smog tested, and to pick up the new tags that Pyalla Technologies was happily sponsori...