Life and Times of...

4.30.2004

Car time and interviews
The only productive things I have done the last few days is work on my car and look for a job. GVSU posted a position doing recruitment in the Chicago area, which might become a good back up plan to DePaul (I interview on May 10th & 11th). I am going to Dallas to interview with Southern Methodist University. They want to pay all my travel expenses so I can't say no to that...

The car. She is getting some much needed attention now. She does have a small rust spot coming back which I am not happy about. I have gotten some new parts for her and working on the final audio set up. Unfortunately I ran out of money... today I had to roll change I am so broke!

Today my new valve cover came in that I am trying to polish it. It is much more work then I thought it would be... but it will be worth it. A little elbow grease never hurt anyone. Also the other day I took some pictures of Becky driving the car to get some shots of the rims spinning. A guy on my forum had one and it looked great so I wanted to try it.

Becky wanted to practice driving stick, and I want a cool shot.

I love having the rims back on, she looks so much better with them.

She has never been cleaner and I am finally getting to the small details.

Packages from the UPS man and car parts on the kitchen table are a common site lately.

Tomorrow is the car show in Holland and I am excited to go and see some cars. I am not taking the NX, but I hope to see some hot cars and get some ideas for my car. I hope we have nice weather....

- posted by Sam @ 11:04:00 PM

4.26.2004

50 seconds
I had a busy weekend. Trip to Kalamazoo to party with the guys (pics coming soon), I graduated from GVSU, worked on the car a lot... and had the first race of the 2004 season with the Furrin Group (my car club).

Team Parking Lot Performance was defunct. Hermen was not able to go, but it was cool cause Becky and Heather went from GV. It was nice to have some friends out there who wanted to ride and learn a little about AutoX. I think Becky plans to get an old VW GTI and race it around someday... the adrenaline rush is addictive. The next race is supposed to be on the GV campus and I hope to have more friends swing over to that and watch.

I race as number 86. I need nicer numbers for the side of my car, but this hood one looks good.

None of the Nissan guys from my Forum went, but some Nissans were out from the Z club.

This Sentra SpecV really showed the guys what Nissan power is about.

Some other cars from the field, the Eclipse (far back) and VW were in my heat.

Ready to hit the track...I need to get my own helmet the loaner ones are a little gross...

TJ from SpeedWise and some guys checking out the NX.

Waiting in the Grid for my run... that Grand Prix GT... was gonna get beat by this little Nissan...

Waiting for the Green Flag at the starting line for my first run of the year.

This turn haunted me all day... I was generally able to control the slide but pulling out of it was tough on the little NX.

Running through the finish line after my second run.

The run day was great. The Nissan held up awesome... still need to fix that steering though. I have finished second to last in my previous races. I knew I would beat the PT and the Grand Prix GT... and I did. I made a goal of breaking 50 seconds. I bounced between 10th and 9th place all day. On my final run I got my time... 49.652 seconds... what I wanted! I ended in 9th meaning I also beat a Ford Focus. I beat all the American cars in my class.

The final highlight was this little video clip Becky took. Please click on the video to watch it. The MOV file is in a Quick time format. If you need you can download the player but most newer computers (and all Macs) will have it already. The AVI file is a bigger file but should work on even older PCs. Allow time for the video to download when you click on it.

Race Video MOV(smaller file) | Race Video AVI(larger file if other does not work)

Now I have to get the numbers washed off the windows, replace my sun visor, and get the audio stuff put back into the car. May 15th is the next race, can't wait...

- posted by Sam @ 3:29:00 PM

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