Snowshoe Hillclimb

[Mike]

i called motor awhile back. i'd like to add brakes to that!

[.RJ]

Dumbass

[JohnC]

john, i haven't heard anything. if you'd like to contact jim pantas yourself you can...

<!-- e --><a href="mailto:jimpantas@nasa-southeast.com">jimpantas@nasa-southeast.com</a><!-- e -->

Done. I'll post here if I get anything back.

John,
We'll take all the help we can get! Come on out, we will give you credit
towards a free NASA-SE event in the future!

Jim Pantas

So there it is. Lacking in pertinent details like when and where, but otherwise good. I suppose we show up early Saturday morning ready to go?

[Mike]

That is basically the same as what I got John... you can wait on another reply or just show up and find him I guess

[.RJ]

So which of you douchebags are showing up for this?

Me and G should be rolling in around 10pm. I have no idea if we're getting a hotel.

[white_2kgt]

I'm trying to pick a fight with the wife so i don't have to go to St. Louis, so far she just stopped talking to me

-c

[.RJ]

she just stopped talking to me

So you're in?

[Dragon]

I'm trying to pick a fight with the wife so i don't have to go to St. Louis, so far she just stopped talking to me

-c

Gonna have to try harder man.

[white_2kgt]

sigh, she rolled over this morning and gave me that little 'look', then we made up, hehe. oh well, you guys have fun

-c

[Mike]

[white_2kgt]

yes, I'm just a squirrel in the world trying to get a nut

-c

[Mike]

i heard pussy rj didn't go to the hillclimb.

[JohnC]

i heard pussy rj didn't go to the hillclimb.

Yeah you heard right. Jess and I are the only MM representation there. You all fold!

First day report: Miscommunications between organizers and drivers, seriously f-ed up timing equipment, searing heat and pouring rain. They only got in ~3 runs in per car during the 8 hours we were there (after promising "more runs than you'll know what to do with"). And there's only like 20 cars running... Hopefully tommorrow will go more smoothly.

But Jess and I were lauded in front of the entire crew as "experienced corner workers", and Jim Pantas knows we're from MM (he instructed me at VIR a couple years ago, and remembered the L) - so some good relationship building going on there. We were definitely the only folks who had ever even seen a corner station before - they put us at the end of a long straight right before a hairpin turn No wrecks, but some nice dorifto action by a DSM and one of the Legends cars... I'll have plenty of pics and some short videos to post when I get back home tommorrow night. By in large the drivers were taking it *very* easy today, at least from my perspective.

I'll post again tommorrow night with a full write-up. Gotta say I'm pretty disappointed to not see any other MM-ers out there, it's a gorgeous location and Budweiser was sponsoring the parties... Later folks.

[Feersty]

That sounds awesome dude.

[damnit458]

Sounds great, look forward to seein some movies/pics

[JohnC]

Okay so I still need to post some pics.. And a writeup. Bah!

Here's a stupid movie that I made:

Hillclimb Movie

[G.Irish]

You're right it does look like they're taking it easy, as well they should. Looks like there was some hot machinery out there tho *thumb up*

[JessicaRabbit79]

Okay so I still need to post some pics.. And a writeup. Bah!

OK, since John is slacking... :wink:

j/k, we decided that we would each give our versions of the weekend. Sorry for the length of the post- wanted to get all the details in.

1. More of you f00ls needed to be there. It would have been MUCH more fun that way.

Saturday was kinda a cluster-fuck. They were running late, using *brand-new-never-been-tested-timing-equipment*, and the drivers only got in like 4 runs all day (time-frame: around 8 hours). There were timing problems, so the times from the day got thrown out completely. I think that the person who sold them the timing system got themselves ripped a new one on Saturday night... but I digress. We watched a huge rainstorm head across the valley and soak us to the bone before we got picked up to head back to the grid. Overall, Saturday left us wishing that we could cop out and not show up on Sunday.

However, we took the high road and decided that we would be dedicated MM members and give NASA-SE a good impression of the club.

So, Sunday rolls around and we end up back on corner 3. John flagged and I maintained com with start so they could keep multiple cars (2) on course at a time. There was a Snowshoe employee named Joe on the corner with us, a really nice guy- had a Chesapeake retriever named General with him. We talked a lot to him about his impression of the event from Snowshoe's perspective. Snowshoe really seemed to have their shit together, for only having a couple of weeks to set the whole thing up. NASA... well, they had a few hiccups in their plans. Things ran fairly smoothly all day, the cars got a lot more runs in, there were only a few minor accidents (a Camaro who took out a bunch of the haybales on our corner and left metal shards all over the road), and only a few timing glitches.

From talking to Joe, it appears that they could really use more skilled people working in the future, possibly pairing MM people with volunteers, or having a flagging/radio training session for all workers before the event. Possibly something that MM could talk to Jim Pantas (NASA-SE) about...

It was kind of scary that John and I were probably two of the most qualified people at the event other than the 5 or so NASA folks and the drivers- many of whom had their comp licenses. They could definitely use more people who know what's going on for next year.

Overall, it was a good experience, and we have a full free HPDE weekend with NASA-SE. So, we'll probably be headed down to ATL sometime in the future to take advantage of those credits. :twisted: Now that we've got the 300ZX, and a winter to work on it.

Recap:

Downsides:
-the first year the event has been held, there are bound to be glitches
-could have used a bit more organization, but they were running on about 2 weeks of planning
-yeah, that's about it

Upsides:
-beautiful weather (for the most part) and scenery... for those of you who haven't been up that direction, Snowshoe is a beautiful resort
-cool to work with another NASA region and get the MM name out
-some pretty sweet cars flying up the mountain at speeds that topped out somewhere over 100 mph right before they went around our hairpin turn

[G.Irish]

Good write up *thumb up*

I hope we can all hang out at Chan and RJ's for a MM Road Atlanta weekend . Everyone has to come down to FL for at least one of the big weekends too (12 hrs of Sebring, AMA Daytona Bike Week, 24 hrs of Daytona).

[Mike]

are you in FL now g?