[s-cars] Oops!

[Frank Amoroso]

Couple things,

I was at that Laguna Seca race. While it wasn't a historic Le Mans it
was a damn good time.

Friday:
18:37 Five S car mafiosos landed into SJC
20:25 Rendezvous  at the Central Texan BBQ in Castroville (DAMN those
were some hugely good eats!!)  w/ John Droege from Portland and two Bay
Area Locals.
22:10 Catch "One Hour Photo" (killing time waiting for another friend).
Hit the bars in downtown Monterey

Saturday:
02:30 Hit the sack
06:25 wake up
08:15 at the track
19:00 Dinner at Tarpy's Roadhouse (Filet w/ melted gorgonzola!)
21:30 Cut-off / street race big dualie truck with our '02 S4
23:30 Hit the sack

Sunday:
07:00 Wake up
08:15 at the track
18:00 depart MRY airport

Monday:
00:30 BAck in Boulder / hit the sack
07:30 get to work
07:31 & thereafter... TIRED!

Great time at Laguna Seca though. Weather was beautiful (plenty of
sunscreen), women were beatiful (plenty of glitter suntan lotion,
particularly on the Hawaiian Tropic girls), racing was beautiful (Audi
dominated ALMS).

Highlights: 1) feeling that B5 S4 TORQUE (stock) at sea level, 2)
touring the Audi garage / trailer in the paddock (close enough to touch,
and touch we did, the R8s as they were being assembled for the race). 3)
Bill Auberlin's girlfriend. 4) Hanging out at the fabled corkscrew all
weekend. 5) seeing the GTS class corvette burst into flames and come to
a rest ~ 15 feet away (I beat a hasty retreat back to the spectator
fence). 6) Getting autographs & shooting the shit with Derek Bell (who
was working a ~20 year old. Yeah, it's good to be the king!) and Michael
Galati (in Italiano, certissimo) and 7) Best of all, standing trackside
for the ALMS GT standing start. For those of you who haven't witnessed
this first hand, it is quite the site to behold. Those S4 Competitons
are viscous outta the hole.

Saw several busted up BMWs in the corral parking too. Plenty of
tantalizing rides out there (oh, how I miss living there), including a
Grigio Titanio 360 Spyder (che bella donna!!!), and two Maserati
Spyders.

Speaking of BMW's, I've been driving an '02 745i for the past day and a
half. It is quite the machine. I have a lot of respect for it
(particularly how well it corners, very, very flat). You do not feel the
size and heft of this vehicle once in motion. Subjectively, its still
ugly. The i-drive though is nowhere near as bad as others have made it
out. Let's put it this way, if you are a computer-savy technophile that
can program a VCR (or a TiVo box rather) you can get comfortable with
the i-drive in short order, and soon it would become intuitive. The car
drives beatifully and that 4.4 V8 is one gem of a powerplant.
Personally, if I could like with the rear end treatment (take it easy
Pizzo), I would go or a L(ong boy) with the 19" wheels. Yow-za, that'd
get valet parked up front at your local Morton's!

Frank at s-cars.org