Pat & Walter

New additions to the tank

Just a quick note about a couple of new additions to the tank. And surprisingly, we actually looked them up first to make sure they are suitable for our tank! Crazy.

The first is a Black Longspined Sea Urchin. It moves very well around the tank and can defend itself with long sharp venomous spines. We had to be careful not to touch the spines when we added it to the tank. The venom is equivalent to something like a bee sting. It's neat how it is able to get into the smallest places, even with it's long spines.

The second is a Banggai Cardinalfish. I think they look pretty cool, and it's on the cover of our (Mel's) aquarium book! He (we think it's a he) also seems to like to swim in the open part of the tank as opposed to hiding behind the rocks. Should be fun to watch. (Sorry, the photo is a touch blurry).

-Walter

Bridgestone Racing Academy

June 27, 2004 I finally redeemed the birthday present Pat bought me a couple of years ago. If you remember, Pat tried to kill me with her last present.

This time, this one's called the "Thrill of a Lifetime II" from Bridgestone Racing Academy. They are located next to Mosport International Raceway near Bomanville, Ontario. It's a 1/2 day course on driving real open wheel racecars.

The day begins with a couple hours of lecture on what and what not to do in a racecar. They included heal-toe downshifts to get around corners quicker, the proper racing line, and what not to do when cornering. Because they are rear engine racecars, the only thing you should be doing if you are turning the car is either keeping your foot on the gas, or giving it more gas. If you lift the throttle, or (heaven forbid) try to brake in the corner (say if you think you're going too fast), the car will spin backwards in an instant. That was something I did not want to do. They also mentioned that the gears in the car are for racing, and not for a standing start, so the car will initially "lug" from a start. Remember this as it will become important later.

After the lessons, you get fitted with a full nomex racesuit. Everything from socks to gloves to belaclava is nomex. Then you finally get to see the cars! They give a thourough introduction to the car: how to start it; the gearshift (more on that later); and to never pull the knob that says "FIRE". Then you pick your car. I picked No. 1 since Pat liked the gray colour. Each driver has someone to fit you to the car. Not a lot of room in these things. Here you can see my assistant removing my seat... not enough room for that! I'll just be sitting on the floorpan with a bit of foam. Notice I am still sitting way higher than the other drivers.

Time to start racing! Ok, maybe not yet. First a couple of laps with one driver at a time to get comfortable with the car and try to remember everything that was taught. I thought I was doing okay, but I had not got the car going fast enough to shift yet. Everytime I got it close to the redline, it was time to brake for the next corner. Seemed a bit strange to me. The instructors thought I was having a hard time too... they called me in a couple of times to talk about how I was doing. The second time they scolded me for not downshifting into 2nd gear on the last corner. Downshift!?! I had not even upshifted yet!

It turns out I had been in 3rd gear the whole time. Doh! That was why the car was lugging off the line so much (I guess they don't lug that bad in 1st), and why I had not shifted yet. Now the car was goinng much faster and I could practise my heal-toe downshifting. But! Time's up! That was just the qualifying session where they determined how fast (ie crazy) you were with respect to the other drivers. And since I had been driving in 3rd most of the time, I was put with the slow guys.

Anyway, we had two more full lapping sessions, and it was a blast. I was always driving up behind the slow guys butt when he was following the pace car, but when I was in front, I got about a half a lap ahead of him before we had to switch places again.

Awesome time. Terrific experience. I'd do it again anytime.

-Walter

PS And if you have a fast connection and can play video files, you can download this 6MB video that Pat recorded. The yellow car was supposed to be trying to keep up with me.