skibigsky's Diaryland Diary
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In which the UHP have fun.
Today we took the new (new to us) Miata out to put it through its paces. These are my posts from the SCCA site, as it make life easier than trying to link and hoping that you'll click....
As ParkCityPhil alluded, the DP testing didn’t got exactly as planned….
It started off fine. The Miata got unloaded without issues.
Thunder (another G Stock Mini driver, for those of you who don’t know him) set the course for us as we were getting the car set up (skip back a few posts to the NASA launch). A nice course with a hard turn out of the start, a slalom, a big turn, a pivot and back into the slalom, back through the hard turn, finishing right before the slalom.
BTW, this could be a great venue to check out for real events. One of the employees there came out as we were setting, and it turns out that he used to race SCCA races for a number of years, and gave me the name of the site manager. So…. Another venue to kick around. If the Powers That Be are interested, I’m more than happy to pursue this.
Once the course was set, the kids all took some practice runs. We had PCP (ParkCityPhil, that is, not an illegal substance!), Thunder, Gary, and another ski racer friend of ours and his friend. I was not running, as I was there to make sure that Gary got the DP ready without issues. And that turned out to be just as well!
Gary then started off the series of timed runs.
And then.
Well, and then, it all went horribly wrong.
Apparently the Boys in Brown were not super impressed with the ‘but we were just doing some testing’ explanation.
Luckily, both the bail bondsman and the impound lot took American Express, so the boys are not cooling their heels in Coalville, and Phil is not in an impound lot. :blush:
A full update once the boys are arraigned.
****Phil's driver (the car is Phil) is a bit of a weenie, and almost immediately posted a statement saying that no one had been arrested. Geeze. Some people have no sense of humor. Anyway. Whatever. It is what it is. So I posted another post there after.... This is my continuation*****
Sheesh. Can’t a girl have some fun these days? I would have put up retraction. Eventually. Heh.
But okay, okay. No one is in jail. No one got arrested (if you look closely in the ‘arrest’ picture, you’ll see that Gary is laughing) or even close.
In fact, the Utah Highway Patrol guys were fascinated. Just another aside, UHP don’t have the jurisdiction to arrest people in a parking lot. But that’s sort of one of those ‘what is wrong with this picture’ sort of tests….
So, of course, we immediately invited them to join us. What better way to make buddies with the local – and state – officers, than invite them to join us? Yeah. That’s what we thought, too.
Anyway. Gary and Thunder each hopped in one of the patrol guys and gave the guys some co-driving assistance as they did some parade laps and got familiar with the course.
And then once they got comfortable with the course, we broke out the stopwatch.
And if this doesn’t tell the real story, nothing does.
C’mon. How often, in a typical encounter, do you see them smiling?
The officers each took 3 runs (possibly more, as there were a few, ah, DNFs, which resulted in several more parade laps to get the course right.,,) and for the record, the older Crown Vic beat out the new Crown Vic. But there was an active ‘conversation’ (it was far too nice to be called ‘trash talking’ but it wasn’t like they were just chatting about the weather, either!) between the two cars as they went at it.
And then, for fun, they decided to run with the lights and sirens on. Heh. You certainly don’t get this everyday in an autocross course!
If you are paying close attention, this guy doesn’t have lights on his roof – they are in his mirrors, and on the dash. Sneaky. The morale of the story? Don’t speed on the highways. And if you do, when you get caught, make sure you invite the officer to the next autocross. :grin: Not that it will save you a ticket, but it will sure increase participation in F Stock (although…. With the lights and sirens, are the cars still stock?)
After taking their runs, they both got rides in Minis; one rode with Thunder the other with David.
And they watched Gary put the Miata through its paces. The exact caption for this picture is :”This is so COOL”. Seriously. Direct quote.
And then, like after any good event, we all got to talk about it.
And they were taking notes on registration times and sign up for the E-Center. So, with any luck, there will be a contingent from the Utah Law Enforcement organizations (and with even more luck, the lieutenant with the Charger will show up!).
Believe it or not, this was fantastic PR for AX, and I think we’ve picked up a couple (at least!) of converts!
Oh yeah, and Gary DID get to drive one of the cruisers, with the lights on (no pictures, sorry!). And yeah, he did get beaten by over a second. Heh.
But seriously, we couldn’t have had more fun if we had planned it this way. This was, as the one guy said, “SO COOL!!!!!!”
6:24 p.m. - 22 July 2007
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