okay, easy one first.
The graphing calculator is a TI-89. I don't think I have used it since I took calculus several years ago, I only used it a couple times then, and I have no intention of using it in the future. They are selling used in good shape on Ebay for ~$45. Anybody interested for $30 OBO before I sell it on Ebay?

Many of you know the awesome tool backpack that I bring to events. This, when combined with my craftsman tool kit, makes me essentially a walking workbench. You can get nearly all of your tools into it, and even has a space for a cordless drill in the front with a strap to hold it in place. This is truly one of the coolest things I have ever seen and is extremely useful. I have managed to get my hands on another brand new one just like mine. I was told that they retail close to $100. Somebody make me a decent off on this one, since I have no use for a second one. I'll try to snap a couple picks eventually.

Have any of you tried this game? From what little I understand, the engine is the same that drives GTR1/2, but this is direct from the developer. It also has a larger comunity of people making tracks (take a look at tracks at: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.rfactorcentral.com/">http://www.rfactorcentral.com/</a><!-- m -->).

I brought home the work laptop over the weekend (its somewhat more up to date 2gig mobile proc blows away my desktop :? ), installed GT2 demo and rFactor. It might just be that the rFactor demo had a much more playable car, while GTR2 dumps me into a race prepped Ferarri, but I enjoyed rFactor quite a bit more. You can tell they're similar, and I can't fairly judge two completely different cars, but the sound and feel of rFactor was better IMHO. Graphics were similar for both games (and spectacular). There's still a jumpy/fake/disconnected feel when I turn in in GTR, maybe it can be dialed out, but I wasn't able to make it much better. From what I read, rFactor's online component is much better than GTR2. In both games, the AI kicks my ass. :lol:

Has anyone else tried it? I was considering buying one or the other, and rFactor is $40 instead of $20, but from what I can tell, it looks like a lot more tracks (that we've seen and driven) are available. Am I wrong? Are there just as many tracks for GTR2?

I don't really have any well thought out questions or analysis, I just wanted to hear feedback from anyone else that's played the full version.

Mikey and I leave tomorrow for the motherland (of our cars and motorcycles). This weekend we'll be attending the last Japanese GP* at the historic Suzuka Circuit.

After that we'll be spending a day in the old capital of Japan, Kyoto, then onto Tokyo! Hopefully we'll get a chance to visit a tuner shop or two there and we'll be taking a day trip to the Honda Collection Hall where examples of Honda's racing machinery starting from the late 50's resides.

Finally we'll be heading South to watch Round 8 of the SuperGT championship. I was able to get a press credential for this so who knows, maybe I'll be able to get an interview or some kool pics.

I don't know if we'll be able to post pics while we're out there but we'll keep you updated 8)

*Toyota paid Bernie Ecclestone a boatload of money so that they'd have the Japan GP at Fuji circuit(which Toyota owns) for the next couple of years.

...Or so I think. I won a front license plate mount for my E36 on eBay and the seller sent me the wrong item. It wasn't worth enough for him to have it shipped back so he told me to keep it. I got the correct mount from him, but I also have this other one that I think goes to an E30.

Anyone want it? (Free)

I need to borrow an 18mm offset boxend wrench from someone today.


PM or post if you have one I can get tonight.

Anyone know of anyplaces to ride a dirtbike (legally) in the NoVA area?

just..uh...curious

I meant to get around to this way beforehand but I guess I kept procrastinating so I figured I'd post before I left for Japan.

So I decided to do a motorcycle track day at Beaverun last month with NESBA. I'd been to the Beaver a couple of times in the GS-R days and it was a track I liked, in spite of its spartan facilities (the control tower is a trailer sitting on top of a shipping container).

Still not having quite learned my lesson about packing for the track way early, I waited until early Friday afternoon to put on my frame sliders and finish bleeding the air from my radiator. I could've done it earlier but I was still fussing with the Tundra's timing belt until Thursday when I rounded off a key bolt. So I just took RJ's truck.

Anyway I left Arlington at 2:30 am so I could get to the track at 7. Got there with plenty o' time, unloaded the truck, did the rider's meeting.

First session, suit up. Track was damp from rain so I spent my first session feeling it out and not really getting my complete lean on. It felt okay but I was really pussing out on the brake zones...

So... second session comes up and I turn up the wick. I started biting off chunks of speed here and there and putting together some laps. Well...coming out of the hairpin I decided to go full throttle all the way down the front straight and was doing about 135 when I started braking...OH SHIT TOO LATE!

Running out of track
Way too much velocity
Where's my parachute

I was braking really hard but then I felt the rear tire start to skip and I thought I couldn't brake anymore. In retrospect it was just enginebraking that I was feeling, not the rear wheel coming off the ground.

So I had two options. Try to bend it in, trail brake and hope for the best, or ride straight off and hope I could slow down enough. Chose option #2.

As I rode straight off the track onto the wet grass. I got maybe 15-25 feet and a bump bucked me sideways and I highsided. As I slid on my back I saw the bike dig on the frame slider and do a barrel roll. Shit.

Still, the crash didn't hurt at all, I wasn't even sore. I got up and tried to get her refired but for some reason the bike wouldn't start so I had to leave on a flat bed.

The End.

After two decent crashes one has to step back and reevaluate his approach (or keep on crashing), lest I turn into a Stoner or Xaus-like rider. The first lap crash at SP was a result of me not paying attention to cold tires. Fair enough.

This crash though was the result of me approaching things the way I would with a car. Over the years I've learned to get up to speed quickly at a new track in cars or karts by biting off chunks of speed here and there and calibrating myself quickly. However, I definitely can't do that with motorcycles at my current skill level.

For one I need to get used to braking distance and speed with the bike. I've never driven a car that is so fast that I really need to brake as early as I do with bike so I'm going to have to get used to that.

Secondly, I don't have the vehicle control skills to catch the bike if it gets too out of shape. With a car I can slide it or whatever and catch it most of the time. In all of my track days I've only had 2 spins total (if you count out the race school weekend...).

Third maybe sleep had something to do with it. It very well could be that I just misestimated my break marker due to brain fade.

Am I discouraged? Not at all. Doing Supercamp at the end of the month, and will be back to ride fast again next spring.

Only the truly old-school among us will remember Erik. He was in MM way back in the day, drove an old Fiat and joined us for many a party and autocross. Well, it being an extremely small world, I ran into him yesterday at a soccer game (he was playing keeper for the other team). He's married now, living in Madison with his wife. He still has that Fiat too 8)

Anyhow, I thought some of you guys would be amused - since he basically dropped off the face of the Earth a few years ago. I've got his number - gonna try to get him involved again if he's interested.

I haven't sat down and edited this yet but here you go.

G: Ok Josh, could you tell us how the ride with Erion Honda came about?

Josh: Well, I came and rode for Kevin my second year of pro racing here at Erion and we've always kept a pretty decent relationship. But we went on and went our separate ways and [did] separate things. Its been a couple of years, I spent three years over there with Attack, and opportunities came around to get me back on a Honda over here at Erion Racing.

And he approached me pretty early in the season, I was pretty excited about that because it really showed me that he wanted to have me on the team and I was excited to come back.

G: So Formula Xtreme was kind of ridiculed a bit for being boring class, Honda was dominating last year so Were you a little bit apprehensive about getting into it this year? What were your thoughts coming into this season?

Josh: Well, it's all how you look at it. We're racers, we like to win, I knew I was coming on equipment that was capable of winning races and that was really exciting. You know, yeah everybody has called it the Honda class for a long time which isn't so much the case anymore. This year has proven to be probably the most exciting class out there. We've got three guys within four points with 3 races to go. It's [been] a pretty exciting year, I'm just trying to put on a good show and fly the flag well for Honda.

G: Was it a big adjustment coming from the superbike down to the 600, did you have to change your riding style a little bit? Do you have to ride around some inherent shortcomings or differences in the bikes?

Josh: Yeah for sure, there was a big difference. I had been riding 1000's only for the past 3 years or whatever, I think I rode 750's the year before that. I hadn't been on 600's since 02 so that was a pretty big adjustment. But...you know, I had always loved riding 600's before that so I was excited for the challenge and then when I first jumped on there at Honda the bike was already sorted so well, it was so easy to ride that it was a lot of fun. It's really been fun to ride at a certain level [but] it's been tough to get extra.

You know Miguel and Jake did such a great job developing these motorcycles that to go faster than they went last year is really something. They had already brought the bike along so far and rode it to the best they could, and they're excellent riders so to get anything extra out of it has been such hard work

G: So yeah that takes me into my next question, it was obviously an excellent bike last year how is the bike now as compared to last year? Have you made some big changes on it, have you continued the development of it? You were saying it's kinda hard to get more performance out of it, is it because it's towards the end of its development cycle?

Josh: Yeah, the guys went back to the shop and really worked hard on engine development and came up with some very, very small things that... the significance I really don't know. They tell us it's a only little bit faster than last year.

So every little bit helps though. But other than that it's been more of a factor of just developing the bike into my own and getting a platform that was comfortable for me to extend beyond what Miguel and Jake were able to do with it, or even to that in a lot of races. Some tracks they set times that I couldn't get near. At most tracks I've been able to go faster than [when] they raced last year which is quite an accomplishment I think. Its been hard to do, you've got Miguel who's...everybody knows Miguel's record and Jake, is a superbike guy and can definitely get it done also.

Yeeeahh, I mean it's been tough to get a little bit extra out of the bike but we keep putting our head down and we have our goals and our focus and it's going well right now.

G: What are some of the strong points of the bike[600RR] compared to the R6's and what are some their strengths compared to you?

Josh: For sure everybody's been talking about the speed of the Honda. The bike is definitely fast. We also have a very stable bike. The tracks that we seem to be able to put together well are a lot of the flowing tracks. When we get stop and go tracks we tend to struggle a little bit. That's one big thing.

Our bike stops fairly well, we have good brakes and we have excellent suspension. It could use a little help in a couple of areas. We're constantly trying to make the bike actually turn a little bit better. Turn-in is ok and corner exit is really good, we have good grip and a bike that gets off a corner really well and has good speed so that's what we try to
focus on.

G: Have you guys started to experiment with traction control yet now that it's fully legal?

Josh: Um *laughs* This weekend by the grace of Rockwall Honda being very giving with some of his crew we are testing, I'll say electronics, on the motorcycle with some success.

I think there's a big misconception with people that traction control makes a motorcycle faster, it's not necessarily the case. I think lap time for lap time I can probably do, anybody can probably do the same lap time with and without traction control. What traction control does do is over the course of a race as a tire goes off it takes some of the work out of throttle control and lets you just put the thing on the stop and let the computer do the work for you.

So yeah I think there's been a big misconception about traction control and it making bikes go faster. Cause that's not the case, traction control doesn't take a bad tire and make it into a good tire. All it does is get the best to get the most out of the tire that you're using.

We have experimented with it. [Experimented] with some things like it. I don't know what they call it, "engine management" or whatever

G: "Acceleration management"

Josh: Yeah, we've been toying with it a little bit. It looks like something that could be good in the future.

G: So what's your favorite part of VIR, what's your favorite section here?

Josh: Front straight, I'm on a Honda! *laughs* Ah, it's got so much to offer, there's a lot of really neat sections at this racetrack...it's just trying to put a whole lap together that's the hard part so I've gotta like all the sections.

G: What's the trickiest section? I saw a couple of people, especially on the Superstock bikes kinda get out of shape coming out of turn 17 because there's kind of a ripple there...

Josh: Yeah there's some big dips and waves coming onto the front straightaway. For me I think going off in the back section under the bridge, you've got the right hander going up the hill, I'm not sure what turn number it is...

G: Seven I believe.

Josh: Yeah leading into the whole rollercoaster section across the back, that's probably the most challenging part of the racetrack for me, the one that I need the most work on.

G: Yeah I uh almost crashed there at a trackday on turn 7 so I know what you mean.

Josh: *laughs*

G: Cool, so one final question, who's your favorite up and comer in the class? If you had to choose one of the privateer guys who's on the upswing to be on your team next year who would you pick?

Josh: You know there's quite a few guys that I think stand out. Of course Josh Herrin has shown that he's got a lot of speed. I've always been a big fan of Danny Eslick. Danny Eslick's riding is almost inspiring, I really like watching him ride and race. Ryan Andrews over here on Rockwall Honda has been doing a good job this year and I think he's probably been a little bit underrated. He's been doing a really good job.

And then I think probably ones who reminds me the most of myself, which [gives] me a little favor in there, is Michael Beck. I think Michael's learning curve has been really high and he's some done some pretty big things, but in the shadow of other things happening. He rode such a strong race at Miller and worked his way up to 5th, ran down the lead group and the only thing that put it in the shadow was the fact that Josh Herrin, who got a great start and ran at the front the whole time, got on the podium. Michael had such a great ride behind but it just got overshadowed. He's done that at several races, he got 5th at Fontana. You know, he's been there. He's riding well, he's a quiet, good kid from a good family as far as I can tell and he's just quietly doing his job and I like that kid.

G: Well hopefully see some new factory [rider] announcements next year and we'll see how it goes. Welp, thanks again and good luck today and tomorrow and thanks for the interview.

Today Ryuichi Kiyonari wrapped up the British Superbike championship by winning race 1 at Brands Hatch and finishing 2nd a red-flagged race 2. Who says the CBR1000RR can't win? First time a Honda has won the BSB crown in 20 years.

Josh Hayes led every lap of the FX finale at Mid Ohio to take the FX championship aboard his Erion 600RR. I wanna say that's his first AMA championship. This was really cool because I got a chance to interview him at VIR and he was a very cool and interesting guy to talk to.