Style points

For nerd cred and to show off a bit of my national pride, I painted my calipers green and yellow: colors on the Brazilian flag.



My car is white, so that's covered, but where's the blue? Have a look:


Yup. Angry eyes in painter's tape. Win. Number of Jalopnik points gained: Zero. Total Jalopnik points: 126.

(For comparison, the ZX2 earns 25 points, the former Benz earns 70.)

Various things I've seen on the road

All of these are my photos, not pulled off the Internet. They were all taken with my cell phone, hence the crappy quality.

Sarah Palin 2012 bumper sticker. Funny, since 1. she never announced that she was running, and 2. she just resigned from her governorship, presumably because of all the investigations against her.

You have to look closely, but you'll notice the license plate reads: LARDINE. I don't know if that's her actual name, but it's certainly not a flattering one.

I never thought about it, but of course a limo won't fit on flatbed. How else would you tow one though? It would be way too long to pull behind.

Since the car color is clearly not what they're referring to, "RED DEUCE" can only mean they have bloody shit. TMI, people.
Hello Kitty + Jeep Wrangler = Failure.

I've seen several of these before, but these MAXI DUMP trucks and trailers always make me laugh. I love poop jokes.

Simply the best license plate ever.

My obsession with Ford Escort Wagons

Amanda and I have decided to go camping for our vacation this year, and it got me thinking about how much I love Ford Escorts -- specifically how much I miss my '93 Escort wagon.

It was my second car that actually belonged to me (third, if you count the '71 Plymouth Satellite I owned for all of 3 months), the first being a '91 Escort Pony that I still owned during and after the time I owned the wagon.

It was like my hatchback but with a stronger engine, air conditioning, no broken springs, much less rust, and a lot more room. And, like all the cars I loved, it was stickshift.

For my 21st birthday, my friends and I loaded that car as tightly as we could and took off on an 8-hour road trip to Garden of the Gods, a scenic spot in the middle of Shawnee National Forest, in what we dubbed the crotch of Illinois. (Look at it on a map. Illinois has a crotch.)
On that trip, it carried a fallen tree from the road to the campsite, a tree that was longer than the car itself. I slept in it the first night.

When I was in college, my roommate was threatened with a knife by another roommate the night before my last final exam of a fall semester. Not feeling safe sleeping in that apartment, I drove my wagon out to the NIU parking deck, hopped in the back, folded down the seats, unrolled the sleeping back I kept in there, and slept until my morning final. It wasn't terribly warm, but it kept me out of the wind.

It hauled wood, doors, giant art projects. I got stoned in it regularly, listened to way too much public radio in it, and drove it through several snowstorms, one of which was so bad I couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of me at times. I really did everything in that car, and I loved it to its all too early death.

It started on fire. One day, out of nowhere, a recalled part that was never repaired failed. A mandatory recall too, so Ford notified the (previous) owner. They just never took it in. The wires to the fuel pump pulled enough current to melt the insulation off, and, naturally, the fuel pump stopped working. I coasted into a parking lot that happened to be a repair shop, and the rest is history. Not a very dramatic fire, but still technically a fire, so it was covered by insurance. And, of course, it was totaled. I wish I could've kept it.

To this day, I still sometimes itch to get my hands on another one. This camping trip with Amanda got my mind rolling with the possibilities, and they're very tempting. "Get it for a winter beater," I tell myself. "It would be a great commuter car," I say. "The Miata doesn't need the miles; the Escort would be more comfortable and better on gas." I scour Craigslist and dream of the possibilities.

I'm still dreaming.

The magic of Dymo labels

I love Dymo labels. So does Amanda. I've had this toggle switch in my car since I bought it, and it was (gasp!) unmarked!

So, once I remembered that Dymo labels exist, I took it upon myself to mark the switch. What does it do? See for yourself.

Parking Lot Repairs

A brief bit of catching up: I sold the Mercedes. It was an awful car. It was stately and beautiful, but painfully (painfully!) slow and problematic. Daily commutes tested my patience. Not a day goes by that I'm not glad it's gone.

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The Windy City Miata Club autocross comes highly recommended by Sean, the guy I bought my Miata from. I went to their first event this weekend and brought my friend Mike with.

(Pictures courtesy of Bill, my instructor at The Learning Curve.)

Lined up for the first run

Mike is riding shotgun.

Coming around the first carousel

And a hard left around the second carousel.

Notice how, even with stiff springs and shocks at the highest settings, she still leans pretty far.

All in all, it was a great time. Running with the WCMC is better than the SCCA in that you get a lot more runs in a day, and they're a little more lax about the rules. You can, for example, have someone ride with you who isn't registered as a driver for the day. They just have to sign the waiver.

The people are really cool too, though as with any group of people, there's a few douchebags here and there.

So, I finished my 5 afternoon runs, handed the car off to Mike, and went out to corner 3 for cone duty. A few cars go by, then Mike goes, far more controlled and stable than he was in the morning runs (and not lost among the cones). This turned out to be his best run of the day.

And his last.

About a minute after he went by, I heard a call on the walkie-talkie: "Alan at corner 3, come to the grid. Alan at corner 3 to the grid." Well shit.

I sprint off the track and across the parking lot. As I approach the grid, I see the hood up and people gathering around my car, and I see a big puddle under it. These words keep repeating in my head:

"Please don't be oil. Please don't be oil. Please don't be oil."

Once I'm close enough, I see that the puddle is bright green. A relief.

The Miata radiator has plastic ends on it. It cracked where the plastic meets the aluminum core, apparently all the way across the top. A few guys help me push it off the grid and into the parking lot. Sean lends me his tools, I call around to area parts shops, and Sean's brother Aaron drives me to a Pep Boys in his NC Miata.

(My picture, cell phone.)

I changed the radiator in the parking lot, collected my prize for winning in my class, and went home. The prize, by the way, is a glass beer stein with the WCMC logo on it. Mike got a ribbon for placing 3rd in class. (No, we're not that awesome at racing; it was the novice class, and the car is pretty fantastic.)

Hairy Farts

I got this e-mail from Amanda the other day:

Subject: My car got weave

The strangest thing happened.

I got an e-mail from another girl in the office this morning, saying "Have you looked at your tailpipe? It appears it needs a shave."

I went outside, and there was about a 1.5 feet of grey/white/silver HAIR (HAIR!) hanging from the exhaust. Like, inside of it, spilling out. I pulled it out with my foot. It's a huge pile and it seemed to be stuck in there and possibly like there's more. It looks like the scalp of the singer from Dinosaur Jr. I'll go out at lunch with a flashlight and make sure nothing's clogged and maybe get a picture if the weave pile is still there.

Do you have any idea what this is? How it got in there? It's definitely LONG and human looking, so not an animal or a bird or anything like that.

It is BIZARRE. I want to brush my teeth now and wash my hands compulsively. Buh.

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This is what happened.

SCCA Autocross, Event 1

I attended the SCCA's Learning Curve in the beginning of April. It was raining, so cold that I couldn't use my race tires, and generally awful weather all-around, but I had a good time and learned a lot about racing.

Last weekend I put on my race rubber and went to the first real SCCA event of the season. I placed 2nd in class.
http://www.scca-chicago.com/solo/2009/event1_index.html
Yes, I'm in 71st, but keep in mind that there were plenty of cars there that weren't street-legal, i.e. open-wheel race cars, plenty of people with a lot more experience than me, and plenty with faster cars. So, I'm happy with my standing.

I'm especially satisfied considering the 1st place in my class (STS) was a well-prepared 91 Honda CRX driven by a man with 30-some years experience in racing. His son, who also drove the CRX, was well behind me.

All things considered, I'm happy with my standings, surprised at my own skill, and I think the sunburn was entirely worth it.

I'm going to see about joining the Tri-State Sports Car Council and the Windy City Miata Club so I can attend more autocross events. This summer is gonna rock.