buckle-up

  Last month I wrote about inspiration and where I drew inspiration from as I posted to the National Auto Sports Association (NASA) digital publication, NASA Speed News. However, when it came time to write this post my inspiration came from none other than that Indy and F1 legend himself, Mario Andretti. Yes, I can honestly say that I enjoyed doing a couple of laps in an Indy car set up as a two-seater, where the racer who piloted me around the track was Mario. The post itself was much more than just a glowing testament to how well Mario can drive in spite of his age and to how it must have been to be alongside him in any race car when Mario was in his prime. What this post was all about was friendships and in particular, the friendships that develop from a shared interest in motorsports. Our accidental encounter with the Kenny family proved telling even as what makes this post particularly special is that this friendship that developed entirely by chance all those years ago cont...

  It really struck me hard. Margo visited her Boulder hairdresser the other week and as I usually do, I took up station at a coffee shop across an ally from her stylist. However, as I looked across Broadway, the main street that crosses the Pearl Street Mall, I noticed numerous folks stopping at a shop to drop off flowers. Turns out this was the premises of Tralona Bartkowiak (better known as Lonna), who together with her sister, owned Umba on the Pearl Street Mall. It was Lonna who was among the victims of the senseless shooting at the nearby Kings Soopers grocery store. It struck me that only the day before, having been to the Flatirons Crossing Mall, I considered driving by for a Starbucks at this very King Soopers, but then I changed my mind and went to Boulder’s famous Moe’s Bagels instead. Different times and different days; all the same, a wake-up call that life can be fleeting at times. So sad. “ It's already written that today will be one to remember ,” wrote Steve Winwo...

  Among the posts to this blog, Buckle-Up, from which I drew inspiration for the HPDE articles published in NASA Speed News was the post of April 21, 2010. It was titled, A father’s advice … where I noted how even as my father resided in Australia, we would always talk after a weekend at the track. This we had done since that first outing back in 2008.   While there are many instances of father’s providing good advice to their offspring – Indy and F1 are liberally littered with second and even third generation racers – on the occasion of this post I referenced racer Sebastian Saavedra’s father who gave his son advice that resonates with me to this day.   \“Sebastian understands well what I always taught him; if you don’t have a first place car, don’t drive it like one! Drive the car you have, finish the race, and take the points!” While these remarks were expressed when we watched a round of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) that was held in Long Beach, just down th...

  As Sunday night crept over the golf course alongside our home, the falling snow finally abated. On more than one occasion I had stepped outside to first clean snow off the roof of our ragtop Range Rover Evoque as concern mounted that two plus feet of snow might be too much to bear. It was then a case of knocking down the “flow of snow” building up on the entrance to our front door. By “flow of snow” I meant that; the more snow that fell the more the snow began forming what looks like a small waterfall. All around us trees were sagging under the weight and close in to Ft Collins the big cottonwood trees began losing branches onto homes, cars and the sidewalks. Photos soon appeared of snowplows stuck in drifts along with news that the main interstate highway, I25 was closed just north of us all the way to the Wyoming border.   As the news updates late last week informed us all to hunker down for a storm of historic performance, we elected to drive to Ft Collins for a Friday ...

  With the second post written for the National Auto Sports Association (NASA) digital publication, Speed News, I upped the ante somewhat. While the central theme was about going fast and having fun, little did either Margo or I realize the commitment this would require! To be honest, for most of that first year on track with NASA as a participant in their High Performance Driver Event (HPDE) program it was more a case of hanging on and hoping to be able to drive home with the car we brought. This second post also made reference to a previous post that appeared on this blog. It was a reference to an outing in a Ferrari F430 that good friend David Roberts had arranged for me and my good friend Brian Kenny while we were visiting him in Sydney. The venue was Sydney Motor Sport Park and with a number of weekends completed with NASA there was still no denying that a huge gulf in skill existed between a pro driver and those like Margo and I wanting to simply drive our car fast. For t...

  OK, so let’s talk cars! After all, this Buckle-Up blog has always been about motor vehicles, road trips, car shows and our time out on track. I know, it’s been a while to dedicate a post just to cars but for Margo and me year 2020 represents a milestone. That’s right; we didn’t buy a single car all year! Mark that down as a new record for Margo and me although truth be known (and already recorded in earlier posts), we did order a new car for delivery sometime in 2022. Does that even count? Worth noting, however, was how we took the time in 2019 to reduce the number of cars from six – plus an RV and trailer – to four and this year that number will be further reduced to just three. Count them; a garage with only three cars to choose from. I seriously don’t know if I will be able to adjust to this new reality! For the past two decades, we have really had opportunities to pretty much test drive many different cars.   Some we truly did enjoy more than others even as we had ac...