April 22nd was an exciting day for me — It was my first autocross of the 2012 season! Not only was it my first race of the season, it was my first autocross ever driving the S2000. To say I was nervous would be an understatement.

Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get the KW Variant 3 coilovers installed before the day, but I’m hoping to get them in before the next autocross. I figured at the very least I now have something to compare the coilovers to and maybe I’ll notice a difference. Either way, the Bridgestone Potenza RE-11 tires are great!!

My only goal for the day was to NOT SPIN. The S2000, especially the early AP1s like mine, are very prone to snap oversteer. The course had two turn around points, both being pretty wicked corners that would easily induce oversteer or understeer, depending on the car. While drifting might look cool, it sure isn’t fast…. And autocross is about being fast.

Luckily, I didn’t spin at all!!! I had a pretty nice drift in my first run though, here’s the video for that:

I was really happy I didn’t, and I felt pretty accomplished considering a LOT of people did end up spinning throughout the day. I wasn’t one of them, though! I learned by my second run (video below) that the S2000 responds best when I drive as smooth as possible. And, since smooth is fast, that’s what I was going for anyhow!

After my second run, I knew that the S2000 was only going to be as much of a handful as I would let her be. She’s not crazy or out of control or hard to keep facing the right way… At least not when I’m trying to be crazy fast. Of course, the idea *is* to get faster, and thankfully I managed to do that in my third run!

Also running for the first time of the season and in a different car was my husband, Sean. He decided to take our STi out and see what she could do. He royally kicked my ass, laying down a 51 second time when my fastest was a 58, but part of that comes from the turbo and AWD of the STi too. Plus he’s just more aggressive than I am. Here’s one of his videos:

I went into the afternoon knowing that I was in 3rd place in my class, and I wanted to keep it! I didn’t know how many people were in my class, and though it turned out to only be three, I still wanted to do as good as possible. My fourth run was another improvement, hooray! I also moved the camera to the hood to see how it turned out, but I don’t think I’ll do it again… It’s pretty shaky.

My fifth run went a little backwards in time, as I got a little too gas-happy and had to slow down in the first slalom. Ick.

Unfortunately, the camera’s battery died after my fifth run and I didn’t get to record my sixth run, which also happened to be my fastest. I set down a best time for me of a 58.160, which wasn’t bad at all! It was an improvement of at least three seconds over the day, which is pretty good honestly. I believe the time translated to a PAX-adjusted 49 seconds and some, which sounds better to me honestly!

I did manage to get a 3rd place trophy, too! Yes, I was third out of three people…. But I was still proud of myself for getting a trophy. I may not be the fastest, but at the very least I do get out there and actually race instead of just watching from the sidelines!

I’m very excited for the next autocross, which is on May 20th!

I really didn’t want it to happen, but it did anyway (not that I REALLY thought I could get away with it not happening) — I fell in love with the Ferrari 458 Italia. Hopelessly in love. It is such an amazing car that you can’t help it.

The Gallardo Superleggera is behind the black and red 458 Italias.

The entire time we spent at the Exotic Driving Experience was great. We got there early enough to watch some of the people from the session before us and see the cars before we went through the class. The class itself was alright — definitely nothing that I haven’t heard before. To me, a track day is a track day and is familiar — don’t do anything dumb, here’s the track layout, here’s the cars we have, etc.

Shot of the two cars we drove that day -- My husband took out the Gallardo Superleggera and I got the 458 Italia.

It was kinda weird, because I don’t think most people that do it have the experience my husband and I do. We were in a group with two other guys that have NEVER done anything similar to it before. Not that having experience helped that much — it’s still a bit crazy to see the track layout for the first time, and then fifteen minutes later get into a rather expensive exotic car for the first time and then go out and try to drive a new car on a new track at speed.

I was happy to get to drive the red 458 Italia. Everyone knows red Ferraris are the fastest Ferraris.

Then again, my experience probably helped in that I was fairly relaxed about the track part. I do autocross, and autocross hinges a lot on your ability to quickly learn a course and master it in a short period of time. After that first easy lap, it was a matter of working to shave off the seconds and feel comfortable in the car. (Shaving off the seconds isn’t too hard, but getting used to pushing a car that cost as much as they did? Yeah, that’s the hard part!) I did get a kick out of the part where the instructors asked, “Where’s my Ferrari guy?” and I raised my hand, hehe. I was the only girl in my group driving and I was driving the most powerful car there.

The crazy steering wheel of the 458 Italia. The guys there were great and let me get this photo after I had my laps in!

All in all, it was a FANTASTIC day! Pricey, sure, but it wasn’t that bad compared to other similar events I’ve seen before. It’s great to see them doing so well, too, since they have just started this in January of this year! And, if neither the Porsche Carrera S, Audi R8, Lamborghini Gallardo & Gallardo Superleggera or the Ferrari 458 Italia get you going, don’t give up hope yet! They told us that they’re working on adding more cars to the experience.

I had to giggle at the 997 Carrera S, since we had driven the 991 Carrera S only two weeks beforehand. The R8 was the V10 one, so pretty close to the Gallardo, save for the sound when they were driving. (Gallardo > R8)

Honestly, my words can’t do it justice. Lucky for me, I don’t have to try! I have the video of my entire drive. Just please forgive my weird dialogue, plus I sound off since I was sick… But I still managed to lay down one of the fastest times of the day at that point, and they may have been the fastest times of the day overall but I don’t know that for sure.

Bottom line from me: If you get the chance to do a drive or day like this, DO IT! I would love to go and do this again if I go back to Disney World, and I want to do more at different tracks as well. I mean, I gotta go and drive a Lamborghini myself yet….

I’m calling today Ferrari Day for me, because today is the day I get to go and drive a 458 Italia around a track for a bit! Definitely been looking forward to this for a while!

So I decided to gather up some of my various photos of Ferraris that I have around and share them. I’ve been a huge Ferrari fan for quite a few years now, and I still get excited every time I see one. And yes, I usually have to take photos.

I will be sneaking in some live tweets and photos from my time at the track at Disney, so feel free to follow me somewhat live on my adventure. In the mean time, enjoy the pretty girls posted here!

First up: Some weird artsy attempts from my first encounter with one of my personal favorite Ferraris, the F430.

While I still take photos like this with the other Ferraris I see, I make sure to get a good full car shot these days.... Lol.

I'm not just in love with the full sized Ferraris... This little Hot Wheels F430 Challenge is part of my collection.

Saw this and really wished I could have it, haha.

My only good shot of the Testarossa I saw, and not for my efforts. They had her parked awkardly & doors open and all that...

Thankfully I made sure to get a shot of *this* F430 I saw.

The Ferrari that wasn't a Ferrari and is now considered part of the Ferrari family, the Dino.

One of my candidates for my first Ferrari, the 308.

LOVE Ferrari's gated shifters. So classy.

Seeing as how I just posted this 360 Modena the other day, I won't post all her photos.... But I couldn't leave her out!

I already know I want a Porsche 911 — I’ve wanted one for quite some time now, especially after I realized just how affordable they can be. I’m very eager to continue saving up for my own 911, I’m about 25% of the way there! The day I really start searching for mine is going to be great.

I figured some of the first 911s I’d ever drive were from the ’80′s, since that’s the years I’ll be buying from. I don’t think I ever expected to get the chance to drive the brand new 991. Why would I? I certainly can’t afford her! (Not that I feel buying an older 911 is settling AT ALL. The Carrera is really the one I want!)

The first 911 I've ever gotten to drive -- The 991 at that!

Funny enough, the first Porsche 911 I’ve ever gotten to drive in my life is the brand new 991. Crazy. Never in a million years would I expect it to happen like that!!

First Impression

If you told me that I would have not only gone to a launch even for the 991 911, but get the chance to drive the car a month later, I’d probably have laughed and called you crazy. But it happened, and I’m all the more in love with Porsche and the people around Porsches for it.

The 991 is every bit a 911 — I love her. She fits in the family perfectly well in my eyes. I wish I have driven more 911s so I could make an accurate comparison, but I can’t. There are plenty of magazines that have done it, though. And from what I understand, the general consensus is that the 991 is a fantastic 911.

I may not have driven many 911s, but I have been around them. My favorite thing about them? Listening to that amazing flat six engine. They just sound FANTASTIC. The 991? AMAZING. That flat six just purrs. To me, it’s one of my favorite sounds in the car world ever.

Hiding in here is one of the best sounding engines ever, I think.

Of course, part of what makes the 911 so magical to me is the sensation you get when driving or riding in one. There are very few rear-engined cars out there, and you can definitely tell the difference. Not only do you get that fantastic sound from behind you, but the combination of that and the RWD makes it feel different. It’s like you’re being pushed around — that’s the only way I can put it.

It’s really hard to describe, if not impossible to relay how it is. All I can really say is you need to ride in one at the very least. They’re incredible.

The 991 is a very stable car. The engine, aside from sounding amazing, is great. Acceleration is not a problem in the least, and if you aren’t careful, you’ll find yourself going a lot faster than you think you are.

The PDK

If I’m not mistaken, most 991s in existence right now are PDKs. Porsche decided to release the 991 in the PDK only at first in order to get more attention and orders for the cars with these transmissions.

The interior of the 991 911 -- Very comfy!!

Yes, the PDK is an automatic. There is no clutch pedal. If you want to, you can put her in drive and just go. When she’s like that, she shifts flawlessly and smoothly and you can barely tell she’s doing anything at all.

Then there’s the manual mode, which gives you use of the paddles on the wheel as well as the shifter in the console. Adding in the sport button makes her even better — More response and noise. Of course, if you don’t, say, downshift when you stop the car will do it for you.

To me, it was odd but really nice not having to take my hands off the wheel to shift, but trying to shift when turning was weird because I’d lose the paddles. (I mean like shifting from first to second turning from a stop sign, I didn’t drive her crazy in any way — Just a little gas to see what she had to offer.) It’d take some getting used to, but that I didn’t mind.

No issues braking with her either -- These are just awesome.

She didn’t seem to have any issues with me downshifting to higher RPMs for acceleration, which was nice. She really seemed to hold gears and wait for me to change, save for the stopping and the downshifting for me. (Which happened in my first few minutes of driving, so I was still sorting it all out.)

Missing a Piece

I do miss the clutch pedal, though. A LOT. I’m not sure what it was, but downshifting seemed less effective without the clutch pedal. I was missing that feedback. Though I did downshift a lot because the nice rev matching made her sound great.

But I want to learn to get her to do that on my own. I can do that. As great as the PDK is, it is still an automatic…. You take your foot off the brake and the car moves forward. She doesn’t depend on you for driving like a manual does.

Really, I’m eager to see how the seven speed manual turns out. I’d really like to drive that one and see the difference. I loved driving this 911, but I want my traditional gearbox…. I need my three pedals.

All in all….

She’s amazing, period. PDK or not, the 991 911 is an awe-inspiring car. She’s insanely comfortable and quiet and seemed like the perfect road trip car to me.

I really can't wait until I get a Porsche key of my own.....

I really can’t wait to start the search for the 911 that will become mine. I love the 911; all of them. I’m especially excited about getting one in the years that I am — No computers, no electronics, not even power steering. Just the car, the engine, the gearbox and you. I’m looking forward to my first track day with the rear-engine layout and learning to master the art of racing a 911.

The 991 911? Yeah, I think she fits right in. She just makes you smile…. Though I’m pretty sure that the biggest smile a 911 will ever give me is when the one I get to call mine is sitting in my driveway…..

This past Saturday, instead of going out to Cars & Coffee I got to sleep in courtesy of a nice snow storm. While we didn’t get much, it still seemed to cause a fair amount of chaos… Including some downed trees when we tried to go boarding. (Lame! :/)

There were enough accidents that the police department advised that people not go out unless necessary. But why not? We were fine — Our STi is aaaaaaaaaaaaaamazing in the snow.

It made me think of the great videos I’ve seen of cars people wouldn’t really expect to be driving in the snow driving in the snow. So, in true lazy fashion, today’s post is all about my favorite snowy car videos!

All I can say is, enjoy!

Audi R8 Snow Day

Not bad, eh?

And I’m not joking, either.

In March, my husband and I are taking off for nearly two weeks of blissful vacation to Disney World in Orlando. Since we skipped a honeymoon and it’s our fifth anniversary this year, we figured it was about time for a nice big trip like this.

In a way, this was going to be a non-car-related trip at all. We often travel because of cars or something to do with cars, a la Miatas at Myrtle Beach or my excursion with the Porsche Club to Canada. Even when we visited Seattle last fall, we had to include the Ferrari dealership as a stop in the trip.

Well, trying to fit in attendance to the 12 Hours of Sebring didn’t work out well. The dates, yes, the rest of the travel plans…. Not so much. We decided that that would be left to its own trip someday and to just do the “touristy” Disney thing for now, sans cars.

That is, until I found the Exotic Driving Experience. And I just couldn’t say no. I mean, who could?!

Pricey, yeah, but so is everything else like this that I’ve looked into. And believe me, I’ve wanted to plan a trip to Las Vegas to do one of these things for quite some time. (Vegas just because it’s somewhat close, cheap to fly, abundant places to stay and, well, supercars!)

Perhaps my only disappointment was the lack of a 911 Turbo, which, as you all should know, I’m completely obsessed with. Sad, but I’ll get there someday anyhow, even if it’s not this year.

I pretty much zeroed in on the 458 Italia from the beginning. How could I not? My first Ferrari love was the F430, but I even have a fondness of the 360 Modena, so of course I’m going to love the next evolution of the line. That and, well, I don’t ever see myself owning a 458, though I expect I’ll become rather smitten with the car.

My husband will be commandeering the wheel of the Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera. She’d have been my first choice, if I wasn’t just a total Ferrari > Lamborghini girl. But I’ll get to the Lamborghinis eventually. I mean, I have to drive them at some point… I have zero desire to own one after all. (While I don’t think I’ll ever own a 458, it’s not because I wouldn’t want to!)

Of course, I’ll be sharing my experience here. I have my trusty iPhone 4S to have snaps of the day, and we’ll be purchasing whatever souvenirs/photos/video they have to offer. It’s just going to be a super special day, I already can’t wait.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing some extra research on the 458 Italia. I want to kinda get to know her before I *really* get to know her. So I found a couple of videos on YouTube that I enjoyed. Hope you like them too!

My second autocross wasn’t exactly the best day out for me, I had a hard time trying to be fast and just didn’t make it happen.

June, however, was great to me! I somehow became competitive and was running times up there with people, not at the back of the pack the entire time… I was even excited to be beating people. (I was faster than a stock Mini Cooper! Don’t judge, those things can be wicked autocrossing…)

My Results

Once again, going without my support system (the husband) isn’t fun, but it’s also extra motivation to do really well and make him proud of me.

At the end of the day, I even made myself proud — I came home with a 3rd Place trophy!!

My awesome little 3rd Place Trophy!

And I wasn’t 3/3 either, I was 3/4! That means there was actually somebody who was slower than me. Really, that hardly ever happens…

Definitely a proud and surreal day for me. July’s autocross is coming up quick, and I’m wondering if I can’t pull it off again.

The Videos

Once again, I’m either waiting in line for my turn at the course or chasing cones, so I don’t really have time to play photographer if I want to play racer too.

It’s quite alright with my GoPro, though! I might put it on photo mode one of these days and see how that goes, but for now I’m enjoying the video I end up with.

I had nine runs on this particular day, and managed to only screw up the recording of one… So there are eight videos to share.

If you want to see my fastest run of the day, that’s the fourth video down. (My fifth run, I botched the video on the third run.)

There are good race days, and then there are bad race days. Sadly, this particular day fell into the latter category for me… It just wasn’t my day.

Regardless of having a very slow day, it was a ton of fun! It was great to get out and autocross at Spokane County Raceway. Definitely different than any other course I’ve ever run — It was cones set up on the track itself!

It was probably nice for the novices — There was really no way to get lost. Though for anyone who’s first day was out there, I think it’ll be way intimidating when we go back to Deer Park next time and you’re staring at a sea of cones.

Since my amazing sidekick and adorable husband of mine is deployed, I ended up going to the event solo… Which meant that I had no time to bother with taking photos. My poor Nikon had to stay home. (I decided to leave it at home rather than worry about someone walking off with it.)

Instead…

Since I knew I would be hard-pressed for any photos, and I definitely can’t take photos of myself racing, I made sure I got a GoPro camera.

While I will always love photography, I’m finding my venture into the world of video to be an interesting one… Hey, it’s fun because I can do both video AND drive, at the same time!

Naturally, I forgot to turn the camera on for what ended up being my fastest run of the day… *Sigh* Hopefully next time I won’t forget to do that!

Overall, it wasn’t a very good day for me, but I think everyone has bad days where it just doesn’t come together. That’s how this day was for me, definitely! Anytime I would try to do something it just wasn’t working.

Next time, I’m going to figure out how to better read my tires to see what’s going on… I have a feeling that’s to the point where it’s making a difference to me big time and I need to get on it.

Here’s my video results from the day!!

Yup! I have finally entered the world of video… I got myself a GoPro camera for an early birthday present.

My own GoPro wasn’t my first experience with the camera, though. Some friends of ours got two of them over the winter to use autocrossing, and they let us record some of our own autocross laps with them!

It was crazy cool to watch my husband drive the S2000 around and awesome for me to see how close I can get the Miata to cones.

My First Autocross Videos

Since I love sharing, here are my first autocross videos! These weren’t my super fast laps by any means, but you can see the course (I never got lost, yay!) and in the one view I found it really cool to watch my suspension during the run.

Of course, after watching these I knew I had to get one. I was already planning on it someday, but it definitely expedited the process. The fact that my husband was deploying (he’s now deployed) helped it along too — it would be awesome to share video of my autocrossing with him while he’s gone. (Since I won’t be able to take any photos of myself, lol.)

The Karting Test

Surprisingly, my own GoPro showed up a couple of days before my husband left. After outfitting it with a 16GB memory card, I wanted to test it out. We set it up mounted to my helmet and decided to see how it did recording a go karting session.

We headed over to the local indoor karting place and proceeded to beat ourselves up for 15 minutes of fun. (The soreness lasted a few days, the price of fun. Ouch.)

The camera did fantastic! But don’t just take my word for it, view it yourself:

This isn’t the true HD setting, either. I plan on testing out the 1080 setting at my next autocross, and maybe a couple of other settings just to see what works best.

At any rate, I’ll be sharing plenty of video in the coming months. Feel free to check out my YouTube channel for all of my videos and to catch them as I post them! (I won’t be posting ALL of them here, just like I don’t post ALL of my photos here.)

Or just like my Facebook page, where just about everything is posted as soon as I get it up.

One thing I missed terribly was racing. While I’ve never been fantastic at it, I also know I have potential… And I want to develop this potential. It’s important enough to me to work on it.

Plus autocrossing isn’t terribly expensive, so I can easily afford to do it. (Especially with my job.) As long as I can get the days off for it, I’m going to be there!

First Autocross of 2011

My last autocross was in 2009, which was also the year I did all of my racing… I think my first autocross was in December of 2008 and I ran the entire season in 2009. (Save for one autocross event I missed when I was doing my first track day.)

In 2010, I didn’t do anything because of our moving. It was also hard for me to afford it without a job…. So here I am, finally ready, willing and able to get back into it in 2011.

My Miata and I out on the course!

I had a blast racing, that’s for sure. It was a great day out for it, clear, mostly sunny and dry! The Miata handled great and I finally got to enjoy my Kumho Ecsta XS’s racing! It’s only what I got them for after all…

Results

My personal results were both good and bad.

I say good, because I nearly shaved off 12 seconds from my first run to my last run. That’s pretty good. I improved and my final time of a 52.9 was completely unexpected.

I also say bad, because I didn’t quite do well enough to place. I have no idea where I ended up… It’s kinda sad for me. I really like competing and winning, haha. I strive for that. But I’m at a huge disadvantage going up against people who have been doing this for so much longer than I have. The competitive times were nearly all ten seconds faster than my fastest time. Ouch.

Then again, I wasn’t the slowest person out there either! And that’s always a plus in my book.

And some photos!

I even managed to have some time to take some photos of the cars. My awesome husband worked for me on the first shift so I could play with my camera too. That was nice.

Three wheel cornering!

This is a car I never knew of until we got up here, a Nissan NX2000.

One of the new STi sedans doing what ours will be doing this fall.

I had a limited space of the field to shoot with, so I tried a few different things. Not sure if this is working or not, but I really like the mountains in the background.

The background mountains also look good here, though I kind of wish I had a slower shutter speed so the WRX didn't look like it was sitting still.

I kind of like the framing of the cones... (Not our S2000, but very similar!)