St Louis PCA Event

How should I start this story?

There are so many great stories, I think I will start with when Roland got sick and gave me the "win one for the gipper!" speech. I then suited up and put old John down by 2 two laps in the last group 5 20-minute session! That was a good memory but then I hit the snooze button and realized it was about 9 O’clock and I had to get to the airport to pick up Mr. Johnny Ferrari!
I arrived at an empty airport and pick up Johnny, and the fun began. When we got to the car I opened my trunk and he got to see his present. The 1/18 scale model of his car that I made from pictures taken on the Players Run. "I would say he liked it, but the real joy was on my end. Here is a guy looking over every little detail of a model of his car. Only to watch me the next day looking over every little detail of his car after making that model.
We checked into the Drury Plaza Hotel and promptly headed out to Calico's Bar and Grill (although we were given driving directions around the one way streets). We had a few drinks before heading back to the hotel around midnight to set our alarms for 6am. (Here is a tip of advice if you get room at the Drury Plaza ask them how many windows you get because even though I had a penthouse room Rockstar Johnny Ferrari's room was way cooler!)
6am came WAY to quickly. After breakfast we headed to the track around 7:30 and you would not believe all the people that were there at 7:30! We showed up just in time for the drivers meeting, and held our schedule for the "arrive and drive" weekend! (I do have to say that John gets alot of crap for this and I have to defend him. Every time Roland was out signing an autograph John was working on his car or working on getting someone in it!) LOL Anyway the weekend started off by tons of people hanging around asking us questions about the cars, and I thought it was pretty cool that people were asking me questions.
The conditions were fair but overcast, about 63 degrees for the first session but it warmed up over time. However the sun just peeked out toward the end of the day.
Group 5 was the first out on the track and it soon became abundantly clear that John was not happy with the performance of his car. I could not really judge since this was my first F40 ride, but the turbo was overboosting and would shut down. That in turn would snap your head forward like we just hit a wall. After we finished the session we adjusted the wastegate and hoped that fixed the problem. All day Saturday was trying to dial in and dial out the wastegate, but we still had some small problems. Although Saturday wasn't a bust by any means I could tell that John was comfortable with the track but just couldn't open it up all the way. I really wish I could remember more from the first day but I didn't really see all that much, because of the overcast skies and the ear to ear smile on my face.
The day ended on the racetrack and it was time to see what St. Louis had for us. We went to Leclede's Landing in downtown St. Louis, WOW. Everybody in the hotel said that was the place to go as well as one of my friends back home, but boy was it bad. I wanted to go to a sports bar and see the Gator game but the Cardinals were playing so we only saw the end of the game. (You know when they lost in the last 25 seconds) We were then off to the BIG BANG a twin piano bar that had a "huge" crowd inside. This is the part of the story where I intervene and ask everyone to fire up his or her copy of TOP GUN.

Glad to see that you are all back from the TOP GUN interlude. Did you notice that Maverick never lost his wingman again? Everyone John has been made aware of this rule and if a girl doubles you is size, and cannot keep her hands off of you John should be right next to you throwing excuses out there like "We need to get back to the hotel so you can take your herpes medicine” ANY EXCUSE WOULD HAVE WORKED!!!!!!!!
I cannot be mad at the guy I did get her number and plan on hittin' it when I am back in St. Louis. Maybe she even likes Akaneli. LOL
We even saw a lady that looked just like Roland! Except her beard was a bit thicker.

I just realized that most people will not understand most of this story but I guarantee that there are smiles and chuckles coming from John and his friends that the called or text messaged from the bars.

Day Two started with a 6:20 alarm and a handful of aspirin. I called John but he was on the phone with Dave Helms out in Colorado. For all of us that have never met Dave, I must say that he must be a great guy to be calling John about the F40 at 5am Colorado time to work out the problem and give us some instructions on how to fix it. We arrived at the track and adjusted the wastegate while hitting it with a hammer! OK it was a rubber mallet but if that didn't work we had a 4-pound sledge standing by! We also disconnected the oil line that runs through the oil cooler and drained out about a quart of oil. Problem Solved? Not quite but much better. The change in altitude was really giving us a pain in the neck, but now double time because the turbo was really starting to throw your head back into the seat now! The rest of the day was a blur from inside the car, however outside the car everybody accepted me as one of their own.
People with Porsches actually get along with Ferrari Drivers and Subaru drivers are the bomb. Everybody got along at the event and we all had a great time. I know there are parts of the story that I may have forgot, but those may come back up in later posts. This was just a general overview of the weekend and for those of you who look at this post as too long, but I will make an abbreviated version to post right after this.
I would like to thank all the people that I met over the weekend showing me a good time, especially John, and Roland as well as Jeff Snyder of Snyder motorsports, Joe Grasso for just being there (I don’t think he will ever forget us) and the Parktown imports crew as well as the PCA St Louis Region (Jim Fiss) and I hope that we can do it again next year.

-Matt

 

Here are some more pics!
Check out the 1/18 I made for John!

-Matt

P.S. Only a Ferrari owner color coodinates with their car cover and still looks somewhat cool!
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Hey good pics, I was just wondering if you noticed that the street F40 was in front of the F40LM.

If I make it down this year, we will have to trade stories and talk about cars.

PS
do you have your M5 order in yet?

-Matt

 

My brother in law went to UMR and got his masters in Geological Engineering!!
As for who I was talking about I was just wondering if you were planning on making an order for an M5. Looks pretty badd ass and thought any BMW driver would lop off a nut or at least a toe to get one at this point!!

Sorry you didn't like Missouri, but I am from Iowa and we hate them too!

Anywho, sorry you won't be joining the follow Roland around the world tour, but keep up the driving and maybe we will catch you on TV running down Jarno Trulli!!

Take it easy!