4/24/06

Well, we had Birkinstock IV over the weekend. Of course the official name of the event was the Fourth Annual Southwest Sevens Festival, but I prefer Birkinstock. Ok, to be perfectly honest, the real name had the numeral “7” in place of the “V” in the word “Seven” but I cannot stand that and refuse to type it. But I digress already. Let me see if I can remember how it all went down. Friday afternoon at about 1530 I get a call from mom asking if I can cut out early and be at the house while the plumbers were there. I left about 1545 and headed home. They were already done and about to leave when I got there so it was kind of a waste of my time. Speaking of waste, I must go on a bombing run right quick. I’ll be back. Ok, so where was I? Right, I get home as they are finishing up and it is barely 1600. We decide to go eat even though I'm not terribly hungry. We discuss where we’d like to go and it is decided that we’d have Japanese at Tokyo Steakhouse. Unfortunately they don’t open until 1700 so we wait a bit. I decide that I don’t have time to go to the shop before dinner, as mom is hungry now! We go eat and I finish all of mine except for the tiniest pile of fried rice. So much for not being hungry! I drop mom off and head for the shop. I round up the canopy, my helmet, one chair (it’s all that would fit in the Seven), my hats, goggles, and whatever else I had decided to take from the shop. I also had to unpack all of the water from its package to fit it in. I lock up and head for the house. There, I pull into the garage and start really loading the car for the weekend. I figure out what coolers I can take and put half of the water in the freezer and half in the fridge. I have everything loaded and ready so I can pull out at 0630 in the morning without too much thinking. I waste the rest of the evening and go to bed. 0600 comes and I get ready. I know I'm going to be outside sweating all day so I forego a shower to get that last thirty minutes of sleep. I dress and roll the car outside before starting it up. When I'm satisfied that I have all I'm going to need for the day I close the garage and head to the Motorsport Ranch. I arrive and sign in then go find the Sevens corral. I don’t believe my eyes when I find them in the tech garage! I'm early enough to get a nice shady spot! I halfheartedly volunteer to be outside since I brought a canopy but Bernie says he’s not even sure we’ll fill the area. We did by the way, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I unload the car and greet everyone then hear the announcement that the track walk was about to commence and that I needed to be on the grid if I wanted to do that. I head for grid. We head out and do a lap at medium speed, I would say low speed but I'd get ahead of the story to explain. So after a lap we stop in turn one for some lessons on the line. I had a surfer dude who was going to do the school riding with me. We get out and listen to the instructors talk then head for turn two. Out, listen, and then head for turn three. This goes on for almost a full lap. They decide to skip “rattlesnake” as it is a throwaway turn and we do some medium-high speed laps. I'm following a minivan but there is an instructor behind me in a BMW. I can hear him taking a different line and try to follow him in my mirrors. Yeah, you can’t do that. I let him pass and follow his line for a lap. It doesn’t really matter where I go on the line at that speed since the Seven will go wherever I want it to. I decide that I'm really not interested in flogging the car in the school for however many dollars it was going to cost and I really didn’t want to sit through the classroom stuff. I've stated my case before, look it up in the archive. Anyhoo, we go back in after that and I drop surfer dude at his car. He thanks me for letting him ride and says his buddies aren’t going to believe what he got to experience. I head back to the corral. The NASA folks have their scales set up right behind me so I roll across. 1151 pounds! I'm only 151 pounds over my goal. The side-to-side weight balance is dead on in the front and about fifteen or so pounds off in the rear. I can live with that. Of course I forgot to look at the front to rear bias. D’oh! I roll off and drive back to my spot. Gregg shows up and we walk around for the rest of the day. Occasionally I'd lose him but we’d always find each other. As the day progressed more Sevens showed up. There were several Birkins, the majority of the cars were Birkins in fact. There were two Caterhams, several Ultralites, one Stalker, and about four or five Locosts. Those were the “Belles of the Ball” I'd have to say. The guest speaker was a dude who wrote a book on building a Locost but I don’t remember his name. I'm really bad with names. One name I do remember is Harold Pace from “Kit Car Magazine.” He was there shooting a story about the event. I think I may be kind of prominent in the article due to the oddity of my car. I sucked up to him a bit just in case. At lunchtime NASA has a memorial service for the guy who got killed at the last event and then we got to take all of the Sevens out on the track for a low speed parade lap. Now, by low speed, I mean LOW SPEED. I didn’t get out of second gear, and I was NOT revving it very high. We do one and a half laps then they line us up for the group photo. I'm just about dead-nuts in the center this year! Ha ha! The track photographer shoots some shots, Harold Pace shoots some shots, some of the owners shoot some shots, and we head back. This time we pick up the pace a tad. The dude riding with me, not surfer dude but a guy from Austin who is thinking about getting a Seven and looks remarkably like Charlie Sheen, yelled out, “Woo hoo! We hit third gear!” I laughed. If you are wondering why Charlie Sheen, see above about my terribleness with names, rode with me instead of Gregg, I promised him before Gregg showed up and Gregg graciously bowed out on the “buddy trump” due to the fact he’s actually driven the course before. The afternoon is spent mostly trying to stay in the shade and drink plenty of water. Josh calls to see what I'm up to and I invite him out. About an hour before the dinner I call John to see if he’s going to be able to make it. He apologizes that he can’t which I assure him is cool. I call Kevin to see if he wants the extra meal pass. He can’t make it either. We seek out Ray to offer it to him. One of his drivers is cooking for them. I ask Pat if he’s still planning to join us but he’s really busy working on a racecar. So now I have two spare dinner passes. I call Josh to tell him that if he can get to the Ranch in an hour he can eat with us. He says he’s standing by my car. We head back to the garage and I show him around the cars. We head for the upstairs “party room” at the “clubhouse” and grab some chairs for dinner. When they announce that the serving line is open, I hop up. I look around and see that everyone else is “being polite” so I grab a plate. They serve up some big ole steaks! We all eat and have a raffle for some crap. Gregg has to head out pretty quickly after the “festivities” and I decide to go before it gets too dark. I load up and head for the house. Oh, Josh left about that time as well. I unload the car at the house and decide what I'm not taking for Sunday. I put the remaining waters back in the fridge and a few in the freezer then go take a much-needed shower. I fall asleep in front of the TV and go to bed about 2230. I'll tell you about Sunday tomorrow. Have a day.