Went to Road Atlanta for the first time last weekend. Izzone, the Greek, and I made a post Thanksgiving weekend trip out of it. The event was hosted by Chin and the locals were great.

The greek made no arrangements whatsoever to get his track wheels there so he ended up bumming some space in my little tire trailer. We had a little caravan (2 GT3's and Randy's X5 -his GT3 was getting some work done-) for the ride up. Being as parasitic as the greek (maybe even more so), I took the first opportunity to unhook the trailer from my 3 and attach it to Randy's X5.

Anyway, 9 hours later and we were there. Randy took someone's advice about what should have been a good place to stay. Let's just say you could probably call room service for crack and prostitutes. The Greek being the junior of the group got the cot.

With Randy's car not there, 85 Gold (Peter) offered to share his M3 with Randy for the weekend. What a nice guy and apparently has big ***** knowing how Randy drives Turned out the little beemer was the most interesting car I rode in all weekend. Flat out everwhere. Although the heat in the passenger floorboard was so intense it literally burned a hole in my shoe. It was interesting watching Peter and Randy put down times in the car, same day for comparison, although Peter got the best of him. Props to Randy for evening continuing to drive that weekend after having a power steering line let go and leak on his second lap and the car stepping out on him in a big way on turn 11. I would have changed my underwear and gone home.

Despite the fact that the track seems really dangerous (no run off, walls everywhere, high speed blind corners with elevation changes), it was pretty cool. I think I would go back.

Chin had Chris Hall there as a guest speaker at dinner Saturday night. Interesting guy with great stories. It would have been nice to have had some crowd moderation as some of the attendees starting asking some realllllly stupid questions. Hard to explain, you would have had to have been there to hear it.

The Greek turned out to be the champ out of the 3 of us with the best lap time (dipped into the 1:37's). I've come to the conclusion that much like his spartan ancestors, he's fearless. I tend to have a gradual buildup of speed till I figure everything out and get comfortable testing each turn. He starts at speed and adjusts

Here's some video of me out with Eric (grey boxster-very very fast) giving me some tips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=cFl6e8d9MRQ

Apparently I found the little known option known as "***** mode". Contrary to sport mode, ***** mode engages and forces the release of the throttle when approaching high speed blind corners with elevation changes

One other revelation is that I snore really loud. So much so that I was ousted on the last night and forced to get my own room where I could saw logs in peace. This explains why my wife wears earplugs to bed.

I've spent the better part of this week resting my liver and hoping the plaque from arteries clear out after the meals we had. The last dinner we had on Sunday night consisted of an app sampler, 50 wings, no shortage of alcohol, and dessert. Now that I think about it, I didn't see Randy eating much of this stuff. Maybe he's just trying to plump us up like a thanksgiving turkey to slow us down at sebring

Good times.

 

Good write up. Hope to get to RA someday.

 

hall or harris?
you recall any of the funny questions?

 

I meant Harris. My bad.

It was interesting to hear his perspective as a journalist, especially when he discussed his current relationship with Ferrari He's quite a character and appears to be brutally honest with his opinions. Some of the crowd decided to make it more about them than him though and wanted to hear the sound of their own voices so it got a bit off track. One particular owner of a very exclusive Lexus ended up taking up about 5 mins telling us all about his car and himself. Seemed way inappropriate considering who was the guest of honor.... Then again this particular guy also wore a racing suit to dinner. Which took place 3 hours after the track event ended.

Harris seems like he definitely landed the dream job for sure. Racing cars, traveling, and writing about them. Doesn't suck.

Chin did a really cool job putting this event together. Still not entirely sure how they landed Chris Harris to come to speak at a DE event in Atlanta, but I think Gavin from Autoquest had something to do with it. Gavin and Chris both talk funny so I'm sure there was some sort of conspiracy between the two of them

 

HAHAHA! must have been an lf-a driver!

sounds like you guys had fun; would have been a great experience to hear harris speak, brits are generally straight-up guys with great stories.
thanks for the write-up

 

During his 5 minute diatribe, he made sure to let everyone know that he got the first one in the US blah blah blah. He trailered it to the track and just moved it around the parking lot leaving the hood popped wherever he went. He actually parked it next to the driver's meeting with the hood up, and then after the meeting moved it back to his parking spot and popped the hood again. I don't think it even got close to being on track that weekend. Something tells me this guy should have got a corvette instead

 

So this guy wore a driver suit, but the car was never on track? That's great. Should have snapped pics! Thanks for the write up

 

What is his relationship with Ferrari? I saw him say in a video in the new issue of EVO that he wasn't allowed to drive any Ferraris. Did they not like one of his reviews?


That is classic. Sounds like something a 6 year old would do (reminds me of kids wearing their little league baseball uniform to school).

 

This guy was classic

The LFA hood went up everytime he moved it five feet. I think Sharif took it out once to take Chris Harris for a ride in it.

The owner of the LFA drove a race prepped, caged GTR in the green group.

His race suit was personalized with his racing team....LOL

 

Enjoy.......I laugh everytime I read it

http://jalopnik.com/5760248/how-ferrari-spins

 

Do we really care about a Toyota wannabe Ferrari? or one of many Green group students making a racing Debut?

I want more details on HarrisMonkey I mean Chris Harris for the uninformed (shame on you Dog, Harris vs. Hall, shameful).

So many important questions to ask to an eloquent and talented journalist, car enthusiast and race driver, and you guys wasted it on multiple monologues?

Unfortunate !!!

If @harrismonkey reads this thread, I present my apologies even though I was not there, this is embarrassing.

 

Rad, there was lots of good in his talk

My funniest moment was talking with him at ra. Sharif, me and Chris got to talking about 996 gt3. I told him I've always wanted one.

Chris asked why would you want that car? I said I like the way they drive

Chris answer....."when Porsche develops a new gt3 they don't go backwards. Every new car is an improvement.".

The said in the uk there is a fascination with the 996, and he would take a 997.1 any day.

Interesting perspective

 

Most discouraging thing he said was in reference to the conversation he had with a high up AMG exec....

Basically got him liquored up, and tried to get info out of him. Then asked about high performance cars and how long the trend would last. The AMG exec said based on his understanding, he doubts it will last past 15 more years. Enjoy your cars and hobby boys....


The weekend turned out to be really really fun. I enjoyed Road Atlanta immensely, especially the blind uphill turns. (***** of steel to take those at WOT) Burke definitely got into the groove the second day, which was encouraging to see. Not easy coming back from a high speed spin the week before.

Izzone was of course the typical ******* of the weekend. Whenever he saw me coming up on him in 85Gold's M3, he would just waive at me, and block me the entire session. Pretty hilarious actually. 85Gold is an absolute riot. Guy is seriously classic, and it was cool finally meeting him. And yes, DeputyDog snores louder than BigFoot....

 

great stuff here...thanks

 

Perfect. To h*ll with the nostalgia - straight to the point