1 A Tangent On Cars

We're home!  It was a lot of driving, but worth it.  We didn't make it to the winery, but we did go to a big mall, and I spent the entire time there at Sur La Table because they were having a sale.  I found those cute kiddie animal chopsticks, so I picked up three pair for Miss E - a monkey, a panda and a giraffe - and my husband got me a neat paella pan!  I'm so making a batch sometime this week.

Ladies (and gents, maybe?), forgive me now.  I'm going to talk for a few minutes about cars, for my one or two like-minded readers.

Now, if you knew anything about me and specifically my husband, Ian, you'd know that we are huge motorsports fans.  Not NASCAR  (not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not our thing.) I'm talking about Sportscar racing, Formula 1, rally racing, Indy racing, that sort of thing.  I mean, when I found out I was pregnant, I gave him one of these to tell him.  To be clear, he's not a gear head.  He is not at all fond of working on cars.  He's all about the driving.  He also writes two very popular car blogs, MotoMania and Traction Inc.

Since before I've known him he's had all manner of BMWs - I'm not even talking about nice ones, I'm talking ones that have had the interior ripped out so there's no passenger seat (not convenient) all in the name of good, clean club racing.  He had one that we parked next to a dumpster in front of our tiny little DC apartment when we were first married, and when I finally convinced him to sell it, found that it had been completely taken over by rats!  Horrifying!  We pulled out various bones that could not possibly have come from the normal indigenous animals in our area.  Since then we've gone through a few more iterations of the E30 body style, and a Miata or two, which he calls "the poor man's 911."  Right now he has an E36 M3 with a rebuilt title, and a turbo Miata (which should have a rebuilt title!)

Every fall we pack up my car (I have a 530i) and head to the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta (in fact, our first date was at the PLMS almost 9 years ago!)  This past year we went to the PLMS when we had the major flooding in Atlanta and the race was actually called about a quarter of the way through.  While we were sitting in the BMW Club tent and with mini rivers flowing beneath our feet, our favorite driver of all time, Bill Auberlen made a surprise visit during the lull (he's a Factory BMW driver) to give a little speech and talk to people, and take some pictures.  I know his lovely wife Yvette, so we chatted (she also loves to bake.)  Right after they left, the Club held a drawing for some small items, and the one big grand prize was a weekend at the BMW factory M performance driving school weekend, which is worth more than $3,000.  Well, long story short, they drew Ian's name and he won it.  We scheduled it for later this month, which we are VERY excited about (I get to go and hang out, but not drive.)

He also belongs to the 24 Hours of LeMons race team "Kudzu Kommandos" (I won't explain it, but you can read about it here if you have the inclination.)  All I'll say is that our car last year actually turned into a literal fireball on track mid-race.  Don't worry, no one was hurt.  Except the car.  Poor car.

But as for yesterday's auto fun, we drove a Lamborghini Gallardo, a BMW M3 (was supposed to be the GTR, but the Ferrari was down, so they had to sub the Aston, and give the GTR to that group along with an AMG) and finally the Porsche 911 Turbo, which Ian said was his favorite, though I must say that the lack of appropriate engine roar was disappointing.  The Lambo gets top marks for engine growl, but the gear box (paddle shift) was weird and rough.  The M3 was old hat, but nevertheless exciting.  At the end of June he's going back to meet my dad to do the 4 hour Ferrari group tour, which I'm sure they will love.

Here are some pix from yesterday:

 

And just for kicks, here's one of Ian doing an autocross event in his M3

Here are a few pictures we took of the World Rallye Race we accidentally stumbled upon in Monte Carlo a few years back!

Yes, those are the race cars mingled in with regular traffic, coming down from the mountain stages to the paddocks at the water.

This is Sebastien Loeb coming back to the paddocks.

As you can see, we do a lot of things related to motorsports!  Thanks for hanging in with me here on this tangent - we'll be back to our regularly scheduled foodie programming tomorrow. :)