Its funny, but I pick the oddest times
to think about writing my column each month. This time I was in my car
driving to work, knowing I was going to be late submitting it if I didn’t
start writing soon. So as I’m avoiding the big rigs and the mini-vans as
I merge on to 495 south I searched for a reasonable amount of things to
write about, so as to not disappoint those of you who actually take the
time to read the Nor’Easter rather than just look at all the pretty pictures
Dave puts in.
To start with, I thought I would share
with you my truck tires. Huh? Truck tires you ask? Yes I say, because the
tires on my F250 have lasted me since I bought the truck three years and
69,000 miles ago. As a matter of fact, the tires still look pretty good
to me and should last throughout the winter if I rotate them soon. Now
I wouldn’t even bring this up if it wasn’t that I can remember when tires
never lasted more than half that total. In fact if I were to ask my father
he would probably tell me that most of the cars he owned didn’t even last
as long. So what happened here? Did I miss a press bulletin on super long
lasting tire technology, or did this just happen slowly but surely over
the years? Don’t get me wrong; I’m very happy with their longevity, I’m
just curious. It also makes me think – why can’t we have race tires that
last – oh say – twice as long as what we have now? I know a lot of people
that would love to have tires they could use for an entire season of racing
instead of throwing them away after a few races. I know its like comparing
Cayenne’s and Carrera GT’s (requisite Porsche content) but it seems to
me that if you can make a truck tire last 69K miles you could make a race
tire usable for a tenth of that!
Maybe I should have studied harder in
my material sciences class, or perhaps taken a business class instead?
Other news on the membership front is
that we still don’t have a new online database in place yet. Those in charge
at the national headquarters are however feeding me a lot of paper to keep
me busy, all of which I have to go over and hand enter into the database.
Tedious is the word, and prone to making mistakes which brings me to my
next topic – a call for help! If you are a database wizard, capable of
writing a nice little data import tool to assist in importing our membership
data – WE WANT YOU! The national database format is undergoing changes
and we would like to be able to take advantage of this and make the job
of keeping up with new and current membership changes as painless as possible.
If you can help here, please consider assisting the club in this important
function. A more detailed job description should appear elsewhere in this
issue.
Ok, so I’ve talked about tires, and the
club’s need for some programming, so what else is there… oh yeah the embarrassing
part. This past Sunday was the last of our regularly scheduled autocrosses
(except for the Ramble and the BMW challenge) and I had fully intended
on attending except… well… I overslept. By the time I had gotten out of
bed I would have had fifteen minutes to load the car get gas and get to
the airfield. Nowhere near enough time. If I had just slept another half
hour I wouldn’t have felt so guilty about missing it.
Oh, and one last thing before I sign off
this month. While returning from a work get together on Labor Day the beginning
of September, I nearly encountered a full grown deer on the way home. At
the time I was traveling at a reasonable clip on the highway and the deer
seemed to jump out in front of cars in the right hand lane! Luckily I was
able to avoid hitting it, especially since I had the whole family in the
car at the time. I’d have to say that if I didn’t have the driving experience
that I was able to get through the club, I’m fairly certain it would have
been a very bad ending to the weekend. I didn’t think twice about braking
hard enough to engage the ABS, lifting and steering (and a little sliding)
around the stunned animal…
So it just goes to show that what we sometimes
do for fun and competition has a practical day to day application as well.
That’s all for this month, and be safe
out there! |
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