This winter has been pretty blah. Last year by now we had had a few feet, resulting in the impromptu purchase of the Legacy that we had. Ever since we bought the STi right before summer, we couldn’t help but look forward to finally driving her in the snow.

Well, irony had it that it’s barely snowed at all. I guess it’s a bit weird that it has barely snowed here and yet this was also the year we’ve been snowboarding/skiing every week since right before Christmas….. Figures!

Thankfully, it FINALLY decided to snow here! Our usual haunt at Mt. Spokane now has more fresh powder and where we live is now covered in a good few inches. It means that the STi and her snow tires seem like a fantastic idea again!! We were beginning to wonder if they’d be useful at all besides going to Mt. Spokane.

As with all things, I can’t help but have photos around to document it. ^-^;

Funny enough, this seems to be a pretty popular photo of mine.... Hehe. Just my S2000 buried in snow. She's effectively grounded until further notice. (Though, compared to last year, we've been mobile for much longer than I imagined we would be!)

Then, of course, there's the STi buried in snow before she got cleaned up and finally had a really good chance to put that turbo AWD on snow tires to good use! She's really, really fun in the snow..... =D

I can't talk about winter without sharing a photo of my snowboard! Now sporting an awesome What Monsters Do vinyl sticker. I'm definitely hoping to add more stickers to my board soon.

This is a little note to those annoying people who understand nothing about suspension geometry…

Dear Stance Idiots,

No, I will not be “slamming” my S2000. Ever. She’s much happier having some usable fender gap so that her fenders aren’t interfering with her tires when we’re turning. We had an absolute blast driving a twisty road with a bunch of Porsches last summer and we plan on doing it again sometime.

Of course, if you still think I should, how would YOU like it if I repeatedly slammed your face into pavement wherever we went? Every time you saw a speed bump, looked at my driveway the wrong way or found out that nothing really cares about what you think is “ill” (a phrase I’m afraid I just don’t get anyhow) enough to try and be low car friendly and instead smashed your face into a wall? No?

You sure??

Then don’t suggest I ask my car to smash her beautiful face into pavement just so she can look pretty in a few photos. We’d rather go autocrossing, thank you.

Cheers!
Meg & her S2000

P.S. When we do get coil overs, we plan on putting them to use on the track. Despite our few inches of ground clearance, we’re still quite low relatively speaking.

No, it’s not quite the end of 2011 yet… But I’m certainly ready for 2012 to get here. 2011 wasn’t the worst, but it wasn’t my favorite year either.

I figured it’d be worth looking back at some of the high points, though.

Highlights

For one, we brought home our STi. She’s been a dream to have since we picked her up at the end of April. She got even better when we added the little exhaust system and made her sound as she should!

The Miata and I managed to snag a little 3rd Place trophy autocrossing. Definitely a great moment. It was fun with the GoPro, too.

I got to enjoy driving around in my 240SX with her pretty Bride seat, even got her out to her first car meet!

At that same car meet, there happened to be these two together… Something I never thought I would see in the States!

I got to go to Canada with the Porsche Club, where I got to ride in a 996 911 Turbo. I have always, always, always had this thing for the 911 Turbo…. After riding in this one, there is NO doubt that I will have one some day. I LOVE them.

Of course, shortly after returning from Canada there was this red 997 Turbo that made me think it’s just fate and that I need to get one eventually…

I got to hang out at SOVREN and see two RUFs in one year! (After never seeing any!)

I got to see this beautiful 911 GT2 RS in the showroom along with the Carrera GT.

There was the video here of hearing the Carrera GT before she was shipped to California for the winter…

Oh, and the stop at the Ferrari dealership in Seattle. And seeing an F40 in person!

More Thoughts

Not everything was a high point, I’m afraid.

There was the fact that my husband was deployed, and between that and the runway being redone here he was gone for roughly six months this year. Yuck.

The other sad part was deciding to sell both my 240SX and Miata. Having four cars to myself and nobody to dictate which I drove when or where showed me that I just don’t drive them enough… My preference is really with the S2000. I’m hoping to sell them and put the money towards a third car that I don’t mind keeping hidden in the garage for the most part — a 911 SC.

I also kinda feel bad that there weren’t any great special moments with the S2000…. That will definitely be changing in 2012.

How will 2012 be different? Well…. That’s my next post.

Perhaps the most amusing comment people make about our STi is how great she looks in red. It amuses me because I have always thought that STi’s look good in red…. They’re just so prolific in World Rally Blue that nobody pays much attention to red. (Funny enough, I’ve seen none of the new sedans in WRB…. In person I mean. They do exist.)

So, after Enkei posted a photo of an older WRX with STi trim dressed in red and wearing RPF1′s, I figured I could spend some time hunting down more red WRX’s and STi’s and sharing just how well these ladies look in red!

The Cars

Enkei posted this photo of this WRX with STi aero and RPF1's and it made me wonder.... Why was there no stock red STi until 2008?!?!

Seriously, they look fantastic in red...

Another WRX. I believe the WRX had two different color Reds, while the STi didn't get a red from Subaru until Lightning Red.

*Like*

One for the hatchback fans....

 My STi

Of course, the biggest requirement for our STi was that she was red... So when this one popped up in our area, it was little question she'd come home with us.

I couldn't post up red WRX's and STi's without having mine included. This is back when she was stock, and she's not now, but not too crazy either.

I’ve somewhat come to peace with my decision to sell my Miata and 240sx. Well, about as “at peace” as I can possibly be until the day I actually have to say goodbye to them.

Part of what makes it bearable, of course, is the fact that I’ll still have two fantastic cars to drive. The STi certainly isn’t going anywhere for a few years at least, and the S2000 I have vowed to NEVER sell. She means way too much for me and I draw my selling line at her.

However, I always really considered the S2000 my husband’s car, while the Miata was mine and the 240 became my project. I also consider the STi his, because it was more for him than for me. (I definitely benefit and I really enjoy her, but he drives her more than I do and what not.) In a way, selling my two leaves me with none.

Because I’ve decided to sell, my husband has pretty much “given” me the S2000. She’s now “mine.” I guess the distinction really came in as far as maintenance and modification costs — and I have now assumed the role of financial provider for the S2000. She’s also the car I drive more often than not, at least when the weather and logistics allow.

It’s still weird to me that I struggle with this “yours, mine and ours” concept when it comes to the cars. We don’t really have it drawn out, but we tend to drive one more than the others or what things for one more than the others. We share all the cars equally and have no issue paying for what they need.

For me, it’s more of a “proving I’m a car girl” sort of thing I guess. Somehow, having a car that my husband mostly paid to modify is less exciting to share than a car that I paid for the mods on. Like I said, weird, and probably a little stupid too. I’m just as much responsible for the modifications done to the S2000 as my husband is. I never pushed to have another S2000 because I joked that the only difference would have been color. (Actually, our taste is so similar that I never see us having “his and hers” cars. They’d be identical save for our color choices.)

I’m looking forward to saving up the funds and buying the S2000 a set of coilovers myself. She could use them, and I think it’ll help me get over my funk. At least that’s my hope.

(Not that I’m not already making plans for my next car that will be “all mine,” hehehe….)

Towards the end of my husband’s deployment this year, he started to put together a list of things he wanted to get for the STi. We also bought a few of them and she’s already not quite stock anymore.

Goodies!

While it’s not a lot, she did get a new piece of exhaust piping (enough to delete the mufflers and add a nice bit of noise), some necessary mud flaps (rally car, duh) and some yellow fog light covers.

Really, nothing super crazy… But enough to make her look really nice.

Of course, her most expensive bit was her new set of winter wheels — a set of the gold BBS’ from the older STi’s, that were practically brand new and already had Blizzaks on them.

Showing Off

If you’ve been keeping up with me on Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr, you’ve probably already seen them. Or maybe you missed them. Either way, I feel like properly showing her off here.

The exhaust is only an axle-back, but just getting rid of the mufflers was great. (It's also completely custom.) And every STi deserves a great set of mud flaps!

Definitely like the effect of the yellow fog light covers on her, and it was ridiculously cheap too! Haha.

And here she is in "winter mode," with the winter set of BBS wheels. (Kinda extravagant, no?)

So it’s been a while right? A pretty long while. So I figured it was about time that I share what’s going on here.

Since I don’t want this to be horribly boring, here’s the quick run-down:

• My hubby got back from his deployment, only to be sent somewhere else for two weeks after he was only back for two and a half weeks… I’m only now starting to feel consistently better. (That was my biggest issue — Being married and alone is a lot harder I think than it would to be alone as a single person, because I miss the person I enjoy spending time with…. Nothing against you single people!)
• The STi officially has some goodies now — a Nameless Performance exhaust (axle back, which is surprisingly helpful for her and sounds great!), Rally Armor mudflaps and some new pretty yellow foglight covers. I think I need good photos of all of them… (I haven’t even shared the foglight covers at all yet!)
• I have been slacking now mostly due to work. What should have four employees only currently has two, and I’m one of the unlucky two. It’s been a long time since I worked a 40 hour week, even longer since I’ve worked seven days a week. It’s kinda sucking, since I still have classes to worry about. (Only two, so that’s a good thing!)
• Oh, it’s cold now. So even if I wanted to do more car stuff…. There really isn’t. So for me to say I may be consistently blogging now would be a bad thing to do. I’ll run out of things to talk about, I know it.
• And, perhaps the biggest thing of all, I’ve recently decided to sell both my Miata *and* my 240sx. I’m just not into the huge projects anymore… I may or may not have been corrupted by sitting in a C63 AMG and realizing that I want more stock performance and less projects-that-eat-entire-paychecks-and-then-some.
• Despite the sales and my disdain of projects now, the S2000 stays, she’s more “mine” now (my driver at least, until the snow arrives…) and she will still get some goodies because I’m not done with her yet. At the very least, she’s getting the Bride seat that’s in the 240 right now and will be the first car I’ve ever had with a pair of racing seats.

So that’s pretty much the quick run-down. I have someone interested in the 240sx, but have yet to get any nibbles on the Miata. To be honest, I’m not surprised, I figured the Miata would be harder to sell and that the 240 would be more attractive to potential buyers.

I’m also throwing around the idea of FINALLY picking myself up a bike upon sale of both cars. I’m looking into an older (1970′s preferrably) Triumph. I’m a total café racer nerd and love the style to pieces, and think it’d be a great fit. (Not to mention the fact that bikes don’t take up much garage space and the S2000 could then finally be garaged!)

This is the newer Triumph Bonneville, but I plan on getting the older one.

So I guess wish me luck, heh. I’ve never really had to sell cars like these, and to be honest I never thought I would so I wasn’t really sure of what to do…. I want them to go to good homes, not just anywhere, but I also can’t hold onto them forever if I want to move forward, ya know? :/ It sucks.

I’ll try to throw some updates on here. I know the STi deserves some spotlight for her new pieces and just in general for being awesome. Plus she’ll be wearing her winter setup soon, which is just a set of the older STi’s gold BBS wheels…. They’re a nearly brand new set too, so I kinda feel bad for basically signing them up to be destroyed, but I like her stock set better.

Either way, I’m still definitely around Twitter, and Tumblr gets all of my Instagram (which I LOVE!) car photos. So I still kinda keep some updates around, otherwise I’ve been pretty boring car-wise…. You haven’t missed much really.

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.)

To me, there’s something about being into cars that always entailed doing my own work. I, however, am a tiny person with tiny muscles and not very much weight to throw around.

While I am quite knowledgeable on how to properly change a tire, there is little hope in the way of me doing so on my own without a rather large breaker bar and some dangerous hopping on said breaker bar in the hopes of breaking lug nuts loose.

That said, I usually stick to smaller things that don’t require gobs of insane muscle. (Or just the ones you get from being born with XY chromosomes.)

Burned Out Bulb

I was ever so kindly (*cough*yeah right*cough*) notified one night by some base cops that my license plate bulb was out. After getting home (finally. jerks…) I found out that yes indeed, the bulb was out.

No big deal right? Right. We had already planned on replacing it with an LED bulb.

Oh, I ought to mention that this was the poor S2000. So while the bulb was indeed out, it was a total BS stop. At the very least, it shouldn’t have taken as long as it did and once the cop realized I was a girl, he made some sort of attempt at being smooth…. (Which did not work and won’t ever work on me.)

Plus the other guy with him was standing on the other side of the car for unknown reasons… It was just a bit creepy.

So, in the interest of not making the S2000 any more of a target for harassment than she already is, I ordered the bulb. (After waiting for a week or so and then deciding to not tempt anybody anymore.)

The Replacement

The bulb arrived fairly quickly, and really that’s what it was — a bulb. Don’t ask me what I was expecting, maybe I’m just used to ordering more than *a* bulb.

The LED bulb!

So, how hard can it be, right? How many does it take to change one license plate bulb??

Well, I managed to do it! The hard way, naturally.

There’s the plastic housing that protects the bulb, and mine popped right off. Apparently that’s not always the case, and sometimes it’s necessary to remove the entire bracket that houses the light…

Yup, I took off that entire bracket just to pop a light out and pop a new one in. Nobody said I was a genius when it came to this sort of thing. (Bulbs imply electricity, and if left on my own, I would kill myself with electricity. Fast.)

Needless to say, shortly after this I made sure to buy myself a set of needle nose pliers. If I had my trusty, favorite tool it probably wouldn’t have been so crazy. I mean, I was a little scared of breaking the original bulb with the vice grips I ended up using…

So, after a long and drawn out process that should have taken mere minutes, the bulb was successfully changed AND working!!

The working bulb! Pretty, huh?

And I feel really accomplished, haha. Still. I have to fight the urge to get out of the car and check to make sure it’s still working… Because I’m pretty sure it’s just fine.

Though now I think I’m ready for the challenge of upgrading the one on my 240SX. Maybe….

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!!