quick note - come play with your car, Monday Nov 17

Howdy, folks. Just got an exciting call from a friend and all-around cool guy, who is in the middle of testing a Lotus Exige for a major national newspaper. He's renting out a facility on Monday, Nov 17, to play with the car, and he's issued an open invitation for a few of us to join him.

The facility is located just south of Boston, and we'll have some impromptu autocrossing, skid-pad, drag racing and maybe some high speed runs, whatever our heart desires. There will be a video crew there as well, to shot, starting at 11:30. We'll be at the facility starting at 8:30 am, and will have plenty of time to play.

If you're interested in coming and playing, let me know, and I'll send you the particulars. Any "cool" car is welcome - Corvettes, Porsches, Elises, Ferraris, GTRs, STi, Spec Miatas, whatever. And if you're a talented driver, maybe you *won't* get your rear-end handed to you by a guy in a Lotus track weapon.

Who knows, if you're particularly witty and humorous, you might find yourself quoted....

Anyway, let me know! EMAIL ME AT "BIG HEAD DENNIS", all one word, at gmail.

Vty,

--Dennis

 

.. and just responded to your email!

In the last 12 hours, have gotten a bunch of replies, so we're filling up rapidly, and we expect some cool machinery there. Just checked the weather myself:

WHDH (Ch 7): Monday Blustery & cold. Partly sunny with highs in the mid 40s.

WCVB (Ch 5): Partly cloudy and cold, high of 45 degrees

Weather Underground: Partly sunny in the morning...then mostly cloudy with a 30% chance of rain in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 40s. Southwest winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph.

So, not too bad for mid November. Downside is that tires won't get much heat in them on the first couple of runs (so do more!); upside is that if it does get some rain in the afternoon, it'll be good for skidpad/car control...

vty,

--Dennis

 

Howdy, all - thanks to all that came! And for those of you that couldn't make it, we missed ya!

It was insane fun. We had the run of the place for the day. I don't know how many runs each of us had; towards the end, a couple of guys were getting car sick from all of the on-course time. And a bunch of us were hoping in and out of each other's cars. We had a 355, 360 Spider, 430 Spider, Z06, 996, new M3, JCW Cooper S, R32, AMG S55, and a buddy's race-prepped Porsche 928 with a supercharger and open pipes. Yowza!

Our host was the estimable Mr. Ezra Dyer, IMHO the most entertaining columnist for Automobile and Esquire magazines and contributor to the NY Times (he's testing the Exige for the Times). Ezra also does writes a regular column for the Improper Bostonian.

The facility was rented from In Control, which runs car training and safety classes. So though it was cold, we had a nice warm classroom, an instructor on hand (who had to keep going out and resetting the cones 'cause most of us were pretty reckless about killing them), and lots of fun. We're probably going to do this again in the spring.

Ezra had a great day too - the videographer got some nice footage of him hot-footing the Lotus around the track (though we had some difficulty figuring out how to completely defeat the traction control), and that will post up on the NY Times Website when Ezra's review of the Exige runs in the paper.

Here are Bill Shaw's pics: http://p-928.home.comcast.net/Weymouth

And a few from yours truly: (sorry, I know I should have taken more photos, but too busy driving cars!!!!)

vty,

--Dennis
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