easier than writing by hand…

sunday the 17th was the last race of the season. noel and i went into it basically in a dead heat for the championship, which meant whoever beat the other would take first place for the season. i had orignally wanted to post something about this the saturday before, to give it a sense of drama, but as you all have figured out by now, timely blogging is not a strong suit of mine. cest la vie.

at any rate, to make a boring story quick, despite a valiant, “fuck it, i dont care anymore” last run by noel, where he was seven tenths of a second faster than me, he still hit a cone, which left me standing at the top of the list for the day. the results are here. so with 5 1st place finishes in 7 out of 9 races, i also got 1st place in WWSCC stock D class, the reward for which is monogramed jacket i’ll get a the banquet or something. it was mostly a fun year tho, because noel and i challenged each other for most of it, unlike kevin oshiro, the winner of SA, who ran mostly unopposed all season and who, in his words, basically bought himself a jacket for $175.

and because ang gave me a hard time on the last one about having only pics of cars and none of my beautiful wife, i have procured these. in fact they’re from the evening before the race, which is one of the reasons i didnt write an entry beforehand.

blue eyes and brown. a matched set. click on the pics for full rex.

this is our “adopted niece” jessica, the oldest daughter of d’s friend mei from work. she calls d “aunt danielle” in chinese and calls me grandpa, because the 1st time she saw me, i had a shaved head. actually she doesnt refer to me much at all, but she loves danielle. they sure are cute together tho.

it’s a battle of cuteness! who will win??

so eat your heart out guys! this is the pretty gal i married 1 year ago.

incidentally, those earings she’s wearing in the 1st picture are what i got her for our anniversary. they’re made with the 6 leftover diamonds i had from the original ring i bought her to get a stone from (which i traded up for the one she has now, so while she has a certified, non-blood diamond on her finger, she could have a few hanging from her ears. but anyways, can’t remember who said it to me. “can’t let good diamonds go to waste!”. in typical last minute fashion, i went to robbin’s jewelers down near pioneer square 2 weeks before our anniversary to tell them what i wanted. actually, that’s prolly another post for later. after my delayed review of snakes on a plane

in response

From: Pace, Danielle
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 2:50 PM
To: Miller, Zane B
Subject: RE: KY audi

I forgot to tell you, Sanaz said, “No Race!”. I would have to agree and say not a chance will I get ready at 10:30 in the morning and spend the rest of my day standing in a parking lot, so you can feel puffed up about how cute I look. It would be better for all of us if you stayed home that day.

hmmmmpf! killing my fun =(

 

Candra, Wenarto says:

Candra, Wenarto says:

Miller, Zane B says:

Miller, Zane B says:

Candra, Wenarto says:

Candra, Wenarto says:

Miller, Zane B says:

well, as promised, here are the results from the latest western washington championship event, the sports car spectacular. there’s not too much to tell. noel beat me. i cried. it wasn’t pretty. also there arent any good photos to show this time around. well… that’s not entirely true.

a 1938 studebaker pickup

there was a old guy there with long, stringy, thinning white hair and a grey beard driving a truck very similar to the one above. even though it was painted primer brown and the seat was covered with a blanket, it was a pretty cool truck. more interesting than the truck, however was the girl he had with him. she had come to see her boyfriend drive his 1st gen MR2 against jim starkovich in the stock C class. she had on this really short, blue-plaid, pleated skirt that came about two inches below her ass. nothing really TOO risque when she was just standing around, but when she got in the back of the pickup, rested her arms on the roof to look out over the course and stuck her rear out, well, she gave all of us in grid something to stare at while waiting our turn to drive. particularly whenever there was a gust of wind.

i couldnt help myself. after my last run, i ran over, got my camera and my 300mm telephoto lens and took a couple of shots that i hoped would turn out well and look relatively professional classic truck mag quality, but that i didnt take a lot of time to compose. i felt voyeuristic and dirty. and yes, i still have the photos. as if i wouldnt keep them.

tomorrow there will be an EPIC post. that’s why i was up so damn late last night. should take u guys most of the weekend to read.

Aquino, Noel L says:

Miller, Zane B says:

Miller, Zane B says:

Aquino, Noel L says:

Miller, Zane B says:

Miller, Zane B says:

 

aiight lets get this over with so we can move on to the interesting stuff. race days 3 and 4 in the WWSCC came and went in the form of the torque steerers yearly understeer/oversteer all weekend event. results for day 1 are here. day 2 is here.

jealous onlooker. they all want a ride in the s14.

this is a championship series. yes a regional championship series, with only 9 events, but a championship series none the less, so since i missed event number 2 (due to danielle SELFISHLY getting her knee operated on the friday before) i had some catch-up to play. that means, i have to win. as often as possible.

enter the spoiler. enter jim starkovich. jim was danielle’s instructor at the driving school we took last year. he normally drives a 100+ WHP ford fiesta and this year is driving a 2003 dodge ACR SRT-4, but on the saturday of understeer, his driving partner hadnt shown up yet with the car, so just for FOOKIN GRINS he got pete to let him codrive with him in the S13 and run against us in stock D.

gratuitous sponsor shot. noel sent this to them. nice depth of field, imho. and no, i didnt shoot it.

something that should be mentioned at this point is the combined mini-series trophy the torque steerers give out to the overall winner of each class for both days. effectively, this means you have to actually win both days. on saturday i had high aspirations of brining home this trophy (in the form of a etched glass mug) after my earlier success at the dawg dash from over a month before. things were pretty much going the way the usually do (WAY overdrive the first run and tighten up from there) and i was out in front by what i thought was an unbeatable time at the end of the 4th run. 45.395 seconds. none of those guys was even coming close at that point. when it came time for me to start my 5th and final run, i sat a little longer at the starting line, ignoring the starter and waiting to hear them call out jim’s time, two cars in front of me, so i could know for certain that my victory was assured.

wait.  what? 45.183 seconds?? “FUCKING JIM STARKOVICH!!! GRAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” i cried and punched the gas!

when i came around at the end of that run, i looked out the window at jim standing with pete and noel, stuck my arm out the window, yelled “damn you jim!” and improved international relations. then they called out a time of 44.993 and i raised both fists in triumph!

“the bird! you know… the finger!” “yes i know the finger goose.”

fortunately, they all thought i was giving them the thumbs up. oops.

anyways, day 2: oversteer. fortunately laura showed up with the neon and jim didnt drive with us on sunday. going into the 4th and final run, i was ahead by less than a tenth of a second and noel caught up to me on his final run. even though i managed to post a faster scratch time than him on the last one, it was dirty (hit a cone) and i ended up with 2nd for the day.

which is only mildly worse than driving through the dirt on that had been swept out of the line like kevin here.

i was actually kinda torqued. not at noel for winning, but because i thought they only gave you the 2 day trophy if you actually came in 1st on both days. luckily for me, it was the best combined score for both days, and in this case, jim turned out to be a spoiler for noel now that i think about it. well… kinda. either way between the two of us, we rounded up 3 individual trophies and the mug. not a bad take.

we are scruffy bastards

this sunday is event 5. i swear on my mother’s… well, ok let’s not make promises we may not keep. i shall endeavor to do a write up as soon as the results are posted online.

this is gonna be relatively short (by my standards) because its already 1AM and i’m finally getting started

i’ve been meaning to talk about this for quite a while, but part of the deal with losing the FC was figuring out a way to continue racing. fortunately noel came to the rescue. in his inexorable quest to own every performance vehicle nissan has ever produced, he picked up this back in december or january.

a 1996 240SX SE, a.k.a. the S14.

he’s sidelining the 350Z this year and competing with the S14 in the WWSCC Stock D class. taking pity on me, he offered to let me co-drive with him. the deal is: he provides the car, i provide the rubber. meanwhile, he even got us a sponsor (dependable wheel and tire), if you can believe that. i wont go into details, but it noel put a window decal on the car and we run with some magnetic stickers on the sides and in return, we get a great discount on tire mounting and swapping. they’re a great shop =)

anyways, three weeks ago sunday, we had the 1st race of the western washington sports car council (WWSCC) championship series. here’s the results.  i took 1st place.  that is not remarkable.  in fact, it was pretty much to be expected.  noel had an inner ear infection a few days earlier and shouldnt have been driving period.  and pete’s car… well, lets just say its a not running on all 4 cylinders.  well i suppose all 4 have combustion, but his cams are screwed up and the compression is hosed.  he’s giving up about 60 hp to us.  i TRULY feel his pain.  in fact, it’s one of the reasons i got rid of the FC.

if they had given away trophies, this is where the pic would be.  instead i got a shirt. 

no, what’s really remarkable is that with my fastest time, i woulda placed 8th in pro class.  i feel like i’m finally busting away from the plateau in skill i was stuck on and finally beginning to see the line in the course, beyond just the next cone.  of course, i could be deluding myself.  we have a fast car and this was a good course for me.  aggressive and fast and not as technical.  guess we’ll see if it pans out over the rest of the season.  i have a theory, that seems to prove true, at least around here.  my theory is, the co-driver is ALWAYS faster than the owner of the car in question.  noel’s job is to prove me wrong

sponsored by pete eaton 

meanwhile, danielle had actually arranged to co-drive with pete and connie this year in women’s stock D.  she went with me in the morning to drive pete’s car and then stayed in the afternoon to run time only in jim starkovich’s modified ford fiesta.  had to get the most out of the day of course, because she prolly wont be driving competitively any more this season, since she’s getting ACL surgery in june.

yes, that’s right, for the three ppl who read this blog that i don’t talk to on a daily basis, danielle tore her just about 4 weeks ago and is scheduled for surgery tomorrow morning (friday). we have to be there at 6-freakin-45 in the MORNING! sadistic bastards!  i’ll report on it in the afternoon.  of course, this also makes it HIGHLY UNLIKELY that i’ll make it to race day 2 on sunday.  danielle made it pretty clear that if i bail and leave her in the hands of matt, my balls will be forfeit.  just as soon as she can walk again.  until then, i’ll just keep my crotch out of crutch range.