9/6/2011

Wow! Jenny is one hell of a car. John, why didn't you steer me to one of these back in ‘08 when I was looking at the Altima Coupe? If you tried, and I “poo-pooed” the idea for some reason... well, shame on me. But you could have tried harder! No, I'm just kidding. So Monday I went for a hoon. I took off out I-20 towards... crap, I can never remember the name of that road. Well, it is the same little cutoff road going between I-20 and Aledo/Iona Road that I always take. If its name is that important, look it up your damn self. I took the exit from Loop 820 to I-20 at a brisk pace, probably 60 or 70 miles per hour, and it felt good. The little cutoff road didn't take as long as it usually did to traverse and was quite the fun little hoon. I got caught behind a tank truck on Aledo/Iona and we all got stuck at the railroad crossing. The truck turned off about halfway between the tracks and 1187 so I got to pick up some speed finally. On 1187 I hauled ass until I got stuck behind a Hardly. We both turned right to stay on 1187 when we got to the FM5 split by the high school but they turned right when I took off on the road to Anetta. I cruised that semi-twisty road and was pleased with the way Jenny handled. At the FM5 intersection in Anetta, I turned left and took off up the hill. Oh yeah, that is how I want a car to accelerate. Ms. Clio, and even The Seven, have a bit of trouble getting up to speed on that hill. Jenny? Not so much. She hauled ass right up to 70 or 80 before I reigned her in to a more legal speed. I took most of the twisty parts of FM5 in fifth gear. I'm sure I was a bit more tentative than I could have been, but I still think I did the road quicker than I ever did in Ms. Clio. I probably am not up to the Subaru’s pace on FM5, but this was my first crack at it. The only time I had an incident was in the really tight “S” curve by the water tower. Coming out of the second half, entering the straight away, the car would have gotten totally “Ass Out” had not the traction control taken over. It gave a short “WHOOOMP” of intake honk, and the rears broke loose. The ass started to the left and as I began steering into it, the power was “shut down” and it settled back into line. I'm sure I could have caught it, but it was nice to have the nanny for the time being... until I'm more settled into driving 300 horsepower through the rear wheels. I ran the rest of the road and then headed toward 377 on 1187. In Whiskey Flatts, I decided against going to the shop and headed towards the Motorsport Ranch instead. I didn't see any of Ray’s cars so I headed west on 171. I turned off at Bear Creek and took that semi-twisty back through Muir Road to the far end of FM5 again. I hooned that again with the intention of taking 1187 up to Boyd and then down to show the car off to Larry. I turned the opposite way at 1187 and went to the shop instead. I took the little cutoff I take which twists around by the lake after turning off of 377 again. When it came time to get back on 1187 I had the second traction control induced incident of the day. I began to accelerate onto 1187 as I normally would but apparently Ms. Clio or Seven throttle application is too much for that intersection with the aforementioned 300 horsepower. The rears broke loose and tried to do a big smoky burnout... until traction control took over. I need to re-learn how to take off quickly I guess. Once the tires were happy with the grip, she took off and flew up to speed. I got to the shop and immediately removed the “Allen Samuels” badge from the trunk. I spend half an hour or so removing the residue from the double sticky tape they applied it with then stood back to see how much better her ass looked. “Hmm,” thought I, “It seems to be lacking in Hello Kitty.” I went in to see what I had by way of Hello Kitty decals. I decided on one of the black faces rather than one of the AK-47 Hello Kitties. I sized up the location and saw that if I lined up the backer paper with the window defroster lines the face would sit in a nice location. I applied a decal to the passenger side in this manner. I like it. Then I decided that a Badtz Maru would look good on the opposite side. I did the same alignment process and applied the decal. When I was done, I realized Badtz Maru would probably look better on the passenger side due to (tee hee, I said doo doo) the angle of his feet and the angle of the glass. I didn't change them though as I'm going to wait for John's opinion. Besides, he’ll probably freak out and say I applied them wrong and want to re-do them himself. What ever. When I was happy with all I was going to do at the shop, I closed up and left. I took a fairly straight run back to the house and declared the hoon a success. This morning the drive to work was uneventful and I got the parking spot at the very edge of the upper deck where I used to park the two Versae when they were new. I'll give it a year before I'm parking next to people down in the shade. We'll see. Well, it is 1440 h and I'm beginning to have a little trouble with my eyes. Yeah, I just can't see me staying until 1700 h today.