First off thanks for the birthday wishes. The blog is gaining momentum, I attribute some of this to the linking from Facebook, since Twitter appears to be a bust. Some people have been curious, little old DTOMracing.com gets between 300-500 visits a month. I think this firmly cements DTOM as the market leader in the amateur racing and dog blog niche.
Some news from the vet today on the big dog's leg. He has small amounts of enterococcus bacteria, still waiting to see about the fungus. The amounts were so low it took extra time to culture them. So not sure that is the problem or what is going on. I love sponsoring my own private canine health research. Obama should give me a grant or something. So far my favorite antibiotic is Baytril, Indy's on that until the vet(s) can figure out something.
The blog has gotten rave reviews on the few dog postings, so here is a visual essay of sorts on the 12 good pictures I've probably taken ever.
BTW - I crudely sized these using HTML since the blogger photo tool hasn't been working for me lately. The good versions can be found here.
Enjoy.
Obi sees the light, we're putting the band back together.
What is this white crap and why is it soo cold up here?
He's not heavy mister, he's my pillow.
You say its your birthday....
Letting sleeping dogs lie.
Can you believe that big beast used to be this tiny little dog.
The big guy, when he had his allergies and we didn't know what to feed him. Down to 50lbs!!! My first $$$ vet bill...
Obi as a puppy sitting by the AC vent.
People tell you this is a good way to train dogs to go out. It is also SUPER annoying!
Indy at his favorite place doing his favorite thing. Floaty fetch!
[I really really tried to keep this one short, since general feedback from the peanut gallery = ‘brevity is the sole of wit’. I guess I need an editor since I failed miserably again. Look at it this way – DTOMRacing gives you a lot of words for your entertainment dollar].
Shark week footage in progress. Dog update – Indy went in for surgery on Monday to fix his ear and get another biopsy on his leg. We are waiting for test results they take 10-14 days. He is wearing his mummy headdress while his ear heals nicely, but he is angry since it is very un-cool.
I didn’t want to race at Road Atlanta on Friday. I didn’t have the time to go over the car the way I like (read “need to” - I don’t really like it), and didn’t have the money to pay someone to do it for me. We went out for team trivia on Wed. to celebrate my wife’s few remaining days of summer vacation. That meant we got home late and that combined with work meant I was tired whaa whaa whaa whaaa whaa. Sometimes this hobby feels a lot like a job, but we wear the chains we forge in life.
My co-driver Dave White wasn’t coming down so I was faced with driving 2 hours in the hottest part of the day. The most dangerous thing I think we face driving on track is dehydration. Racing a car requires tremendous concentration, and nothing goes out the window quicker when you’re hot and your body is lacking what it needs to work properly than your higher cognitive processes. That sounds fancy but what does it mean? For me it means instead of thinking “brake here, watch for the shift light, check mirrors, etc” (or at least their instinctive counterparts) I’m thinking “man I’m hot, this sucks, what is that over there in the trees” or in other words your mind wanders and you’re not paying attention. So it makes driving and concentrating that much harder. It also means you have to strike a balance between drinking enough Gatorade to stay hydrated but not so much that you have to pee the minute you’re in the car. Believe it or not “Big Time” endurance drivers (or Al) pee in their seats a lot. I’m not sure how much money would have to be on the line for me to consider this…..
My race preparations consisted of putting the dash back together from my ill-fated attempt to diagnosis an electrical problem I was having (I stood as much chance of figuring this out as a monkey does of doing calculus, but at least I tried). That and packing the truck took the little free time I had left to devote to preparations. As I was getting ready to put the car on the trailer, I turned the key and nothing happened. Battery was dead. Now normally this is as much trouble as a cloudy day. Not sure if you’ve ever noticed but when you’re tired and grumpy the littlest things rub you wrong and everything seems to take twice as long. It was now 9pm on Thursday night and the last thing I wanted to do is screw with a non-starting car. My low maintenance plan was to roll it down the driveway and drop the clutch (known as ‘bump starting’ and one of the many awesome features of a manual transmission car). For some reason that didn’t work and now I was faced with a non running car that was at a 45 degree angle blocking our road outside in the dark. Run and find my jumper cables, bring the other car down to jump it since the truck was hooked to the trailer, etc. Get it running. Sounds loud and ‘racey’ too loud / too racey. Like I have an exhaust leak. M#@## F#@$%.
Wake up bright and early; convince Craig to move his 911 off the lift and into its proper home in his museum of non-running 1980’s cars. Amazingly the car still won’t start on the trailer. Jump again and send the battery off to Brendan to put on the charger. Shockingly the exhaust leak is a simple fix. Brake pads and tires aren’t up to Dave White spec, but more than adequate for Jim Robinson. Battery goes back in, and we’re off to the races. I thank God for small miracles.
Now each one of these posts are filled to the brim with my b!tching and moaning but to put it in perspective – I have little ankle biting bad days. Our buddy Ted was able to come up and help out on Friday. Usually Ted has to work, but it seems that earlier in the week Federal Agents raided his company’s headquarters and shut them down. The 5000 or so employees got an email around lunch time telling them – good luck finding a job. That is a legit bad day.
We got up to Road Atlanta secured our pitstop and got ready to go. One of the many things to fall by the wayside in terms of race prep was charging (or even finding) the batteries for the radio. We’d do this race in radio silence as a result. We’re in first place overall which meant I’d be in pole position for the start. Green flag flies and I get a good jump, the high horsepower cars get passed and I’m in fourth or fifth with a Vette right in front and a 944 in back. As we go into turn 5 the Vette checks up hard. I get on the brakes but the 944 behind me is too little too late and he hits me from behind. I feel the hit and then I’m 180 and facing traffic coming up the hill and waiting to feel the crunch of the wall. Miraculously I come to a stop about 8 inches from concrete. I watch as everyone drives past and then pull out on track. Car feels fine and I do a lap but Race Control black flags me so I have to pull into the pits. The rear bumper was loose so Ted and Brendan rip it off and out I go.
I’m surprisingly calm and ‘un-angry’. I decide to use this ‘alone time’ to focus on consistency and making lemonade. I’m clicking off decent 90% laps and turn the wick up as needed to make up time. A little after ½ way and I’m catching up to cars. I pull in for our mandatory 5 gallon fuel stop and that goes off without a hitch. Few more laps and I’ve passed class traffic and can see two guys I assume are in the top-5. They’re racing and therefore going slow. I catch up quick and make a good move going into turn 1 to get past both Jim Leive’s Spec E30 and another Spec Miata. Going into turn 3 – I’m suddenly sideways again and then crunch as the wheel is yanked from my hands. I sit for a second trying to figure out what the F just happened. I see the miata and Jim driving off and figure that the miata must have just punted me from behind and then hit me somehow again. I pull back on track and smoke is filling the cabin. I stop at the bottom of the hill not knowing the extent of the damage. Turns out sheet metal was crumpled on the rear wheel and the tire was getting cheese grated against it enough that the little Spec E30 that could – couldn’t finish the race. At the time we figured I had come from last place to a 2nd in class, only to get wrecked out with about 10 min. left to go.
Moral of the story - NEVER get a race car painted.
Street view of where it went pear shaped.
Clay showing how its done in a car. Not sure how you can get 'inside' on this line?
Aerial view. Green = good / Red = bad. I've seen some people try to pass here none have ended particularly well...
So now what. I get questions from non-racers about this so I’ll lay out what happens. Basically I’m SOL. No insurance on track, if you get broke you fix it, your dime, regardless of whose fault, why it happened, etc. The first guy that punted me came up and apologized he felt bad, of course me not being there allowed him to win so he probably didn’t feel ‘too bad’. But at least he made the gesture, we were in pretty heavy traffic and sh!t happens. I’m cool with a little rubbing since if you’re an amateur egg juggler from time to time you’ll have omelets. The Spec Miata guy I filed a contact form on with NASA. What does that mean? Roughly the equivalent of a complaint letter, with probably as much getting done. At the end of the day NASA is a business, so if they ban a racer from racing they just lost a huge chunk of change. So they have to balance the perception of caring (enough to mollify me) with not making the other guy mad so that he keeps coming back, but balance that with – is this A$$hat so dangerous that he will eventually kill someone and get us sued. IF this guy has been a source of constant problems NASA will tell him to sit the bench for awhile or pull his license and tell him to play somewhere else. Why did I complain in one case and not the other. Well Jim Levie witnessed the incident and said the guy basically just drove in the back of me. Also this guy didn’t come and look for me. I wandered a bit to see if I could find him to see what his story was, but nothing. He didn’t show up for the awards ceremony and people are parked over a 5 mile square parking lot. I had Ted and Brendan by my car in case anyone stopped by (like the 944) guy. So we’ll see what happens, I’m guessing nothing. In the meantime I’m looking for a discount bodyshop.
Another ‘to put it in perspective’, ironically (sad irony not funny irony) poor Jim Levie got victimized by a Miata during the sprint races in roughly the same place. Unfortunately he didn’t get off as light, and his car looks like a wadded up pop can. Thankfully he was all right.
What I did on my summer vacation...
Monday, August 3, 2009
Indiana Hoosier Hound in profile at the beach.
By Jim R.
My wife loves the beach, I hate the beach. I love race cars, my wife doesn’t. She told me that she was going to St. George Island for a week before school started and if I wanted to join her that was okay. I called her bluff and decided I’d give the beach another chance since I hadn’t really been since our honeymoon years ago. My last beach vacation I almost died from food poisoning and dehydration so you can understand my reluctance to go back. I’m pasty white and inclined to burn, I hate being hot, and I don’t like sand. Other than that I figured it would be fun. She left with the dogs on Saturday; I had to work for a few extra days and planned on leaving mid-week.
It’s about 6-7 hours from Atlanta to St. George Island and the quickest route there reads like a treasure map. One of the 24 steps from Map Quest says “Turn left on Bob Bodkin Road”. I was running a bit late since looking out for all these goofy little roads meant I couldn’t make good time. Map Quest was also decent enough to be off on their mileage by about 10 to 20%. They say go 55 miles on GA27/1 South, they really mean 63-ish. This didn’t help improve my mood as I hunt and pecked my way through rural Georgia. Then I found a hidden gem of a road called FL65. Its 60 miles and straight as a ruler and flat as a board, it’s in the middle of a national forest and has no real place for cops to hide. SENTENCE REMOVED ON ADVICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL... you can do the math on why that road might appeal to a guy that races cars for a hobby...
SGI is a pretty nice place, and it really wasn’t that bad. I actually had fun. With my wife there to remind to wear sunblock I didn’t get burned. The wind, I can’t really call it a breeze since it was quite strong, coming off the gulf kept the temperature around mid-80’s which after spending years in Georgia passes for comfortable these days. Our little rental place even had its own pool so I only had to suffer the beach sand when we took the dogs down to do their ‘swim’ in the morning before the families arrived.
The last day I decided it might be cool to charter a boat and see the rest of the island. If you wiki SGI you’ll see that only a portion is available to regular folk. There is state park at one end, and a gated community that is rumored to house Kid Rock and Hank Williams JR. among others, it even has its own runway so you can land your private plane. Since we couldn’t get past the gate I figured we’d go Omaha Beach on them. Unfortunately the weather conspired against us, but “Capt. Jack” was cool and said lets try and do it before you leave on Sat.
The rain let up just as we were resigned to cancelling the trip altogether that morning. Capt. Jack met us at the dock and we loaded up the dogs and headed out to sight see. We quickly saw dolphins up close and personal which for some reason Indy started to bark at thinking he was going to play with them or something? We saw big houses, and then on the way back saw a shark feeding frenzy. That was pretty wild. Jack said in his years growing up and working on the water he’d only seen it once before. My words won’t do this bit justice, but thankfully I have some shaky and poor video I’ll put up eventually that got the dolphins and shark stuff.
Look I'm a dog on a boat!
I should have suspected things were going too smoothly at this point. As we pulled into the dock Indy decided he would jump out of the boat and be the first on land. Thankfully Jack was close behind and was able to drag him out of the water before he hung himself on his leash, drowned, or was crushed by the boat smashing him against the dock. As he sputtered and coughed we noticed he was favoring the leg that he just had surgery on. We had been watching it lately since it seemed to be getting worse, and sure enough it was bleeding / weeping again just like it did prior to the antibiotics, crazy fungus medicine. I hosed him down to get the fish cannery smell off for the trip home and we started the easter egg hunt in reverse.
We made it about 5 hours into the trip when on 85, construction caused traffic to come to a stop. I was following Christine in the Lexus and had to jam on the brakes to keep from hitting her. Unfortunately the dude behind me wasn’t so lucky and hit me doing about 20-30 mph. We had to drive about 5 miles to find a safe place to pull over and the GA. State Trooper was waiting for us to fill out the paperwork. As he was completing the forms I went over to the truck to talk to Christine and see the dogs. Rubbing Indy’s head I noticed his ear was swelling up again too. So he was right back to where he was 2 months ago.
Nissan 0 - Lexus 1
Anyone know a good insurance agent - @!$!%!!#$ State Farm
Today we took him to the vet, and they knocked him back out sewed his ear up and took another biopsy so we know if he needs more / different antibiotic, or more / different fungus medicine, or if its something else entirely. I called our great insurance company since the Trooper assured me all I had to do is give them a call and give them the report number and they would take care of the rest. State Farm said they’d be happy to take care of it, minus my $500 deductible. I questioned this since I was clearly not at fault. The chuff girl on the other line said I was welcome to sort that out on my own with the other guy’s insurance company. When I questioned what exactly was the value they added, she again stated they’d be happy to help if I wanted to claim it on my own. Needless to say the first thing I’ll be doing after this gets straightened out is change all of my insurance over to someone else, that will probably be equally unhelpful and incompetent but at least different.
In the meantime I should have stayed home and worked on the car. We have a race at Road Atlanta this weekend and my car is in pieces in the garage and I’m not very motivated to put it together.
Shark Week video and Road Atlanta race report next week, stay tuned..
When Bad Things Happen to Bad People
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
(Editorial note: this is pretty half a$$ed in terms of narrative, it is more a stream of consciousness’ rendition of events, but hey it’s a start)
First off to put things in perspective, I have my health, a decent job, all four limbs. So this isn’t the type of story that is going to make Extreme Home Makeovers there are people much worse off than I am – go see Slumdog Millionaire or something if you like that stuff. Also this isn’t some type of desperate plead for sympathy either, if anything it is more of an excuse on my p!ss poor updates lately. At one point on our way from Virginia to Atlanta Craig stated “God hates you.” He isn't the first to chalk most of my bad luck up to karma, but really at this point I’m not sure even that can account for the ankle biting madness that surrounds me since I'm just thoughtless and insulting vs. actually a serial killer - maybe in a previous life.
Strangely though I have a soft spot for dogs, I've never met one I didn't like. And I can't watch any movie that even remotely pertains to dogs dying. Like 8 below, it was a Disney picture not really hard core drama, couldn't make even 15 min. in, pretty soft I know. One of my good friends recently had to put his dog to sleep (we miss you Norm) right before a lot of this happened and I can't say that didn't weigh on my mind as we continue(d) our struggles with our dog Indy. IF you have a pet and haven't already, please look into getting pet insurance. We're lucky enough to have the means to afford (so far) all the various surgeries and medicines however I'd hate to ever be in a position where my financial condition dictates how I care for my pets. We didn't know it was an option when we got our dogs and I can safely say we've managed to spend more on our dogs than on my racecar and that is saying something. Our one vet who has become a friend was kind enough to point out that I could have gone to vet school for what we've spent surgery. Anyway enough about that.
I’ll try and condense the past 3 months into a few quick pictures and captions:
March – motor breaks unexplainably thus negating 3-4 months of work and putting the car back to where we started in December.
April – car goes to BimmerWorld for what, I had planned to be, “finishing touches” like safety stuff, paint, and fancy decals. They get it ½ done and I go up for a race and test drive at VIR, we confirm “Yep motor’s still broke”. Everyone inexplicitly shakes their head and says never heard anything like that before.
A rare site - an E30 coming off a pro team stacker transport!
An awesome track and fun time, especially since I got to drive Brendan’s car (we made some progress dropping nearly 5 seconds off his previously fastest time there). I’m second in the B-mod national championship hunt!
Fancy decal place semi-goes out of business. Engine comes out of the car stalling progress on fancy data / gauge solution, also means windows are stuck in permanent ‘down’ position. My truck overheats the day before a planned trip up to BW to pick the car up requiring a shuffling of plans. Mechanic states that this water pump failure is “uncommon”.
Craig and I make a pilgrimage up to BimmerWorld HQ the next weekend to see just how a pro racing team lives (the answer is they live much like I did in college). On the way home it is raining so hard that people are stopping on the highway and visibility is about zero. Since the windows are stuck down it is now raining inside of my ‘new’ car, complete with awesome new seat, and fancy new electronic dash. I’m imagining my car looking like an aquarium. It is here that Craig made his theological observations.
My wife takes our dogs to spring break 2009 and our one dog develops an odd sore on his leg. She goes to the vet and finds after 8 months his body appears to be rejecting a plate from his previous knee surgery.
Spring Break 2009 - Who let the dogs out!
He goes to the vet, who sends us to the surgeon. They take x-rays, plate needs to come out, bone might have a tumor. Surgeon says that less than 5% of dogs have this problem. Surgery goes well, biopsies go to the lab. We wait, I carry 90 lbs dog out into the yard every time he needs to pee, we don’t sleep much. Dog hates wearing goofy collar manages to take out stitches while we’re somehow not looking, new vet lectures me.
The big dog rolls in the grass after being carried outside.
May – car resumes its (rightful?) position in Craig’s garage. We do bare minimum to the engine to get it ready to go back in. Craig loans Dave White and I his car for CMP enduro race. We win and eat Mexican food. Brendan and Ted prep my old engine to go back in the car, I get sick with some type of mini-swine flu (despite first ever flu shot).
Dave White, the very pregnant trophy girl, and I, all hoping that black is as slimming as they say it is.
Dog results come back kind of, he has some type of crazy staph infection that requires 7 days of injections with an antibiotic that can cause kidney failure and hearing loss, also might have a fungal infection in the bone, but not cancer - still might have to cut leg off though. Surgeon and regular vet tell us the rarity of these types of things, especially the fungus. Christine becomes really good at collecting urine samples with those disposable Tupperware containers.
The Barber enduro is cancelled and we all sigh with relief since that gives us more time to finish things up. Barber enduro is back on, and we spend Memorial Day weekend pulling 8 hour days while Craig tries not to get divorced from his pregnant wife who is tired of us ‘visiting’ their house. Second lab result comes back, fungus isn’t in bone, but is present and needs anti-fungal medication that is very expensive 2 months worth, oh yeah by the way this will hurt his liver so we need to monitor that. Good news is full recovery expected, we sigh relief. Few days later dogs ear swells up with a hematoma (basically a huge fluid filled bruise, like wrestler’s cauliflower ear). They can’t fix it since his liver is stressed from the medicine so he walks around with a painful water balloon thing hanging from his head. He is miserable, oddly this is a common condition in Weims and the first time he has been ‘typical’ – regretfully so.
Is that a sausage in your ear or are you just happy to see me?
We get the car running, Brendan is now sick, I leave the car at RWL for him to finish a few things at work to make sure we’re ready for Barber. Since I felt that running the full weekend at Barber would be pressing my luck on a car that is almost 80% new and untested parts, I plan to just show up for the “enduro” race on Saturday. The “enduro” is now just an hour long, meaning it is a total joke, and a transparent ploy to get more money for NASA on what is a money losing event. Since I hate Barber and short enduro’s I complain a lot about this to no avail. See my feelings and description of Barber Motorsport’s Park here.
I pick up the car, and Brendan, bright and early Saturday morning. It is warm already and looks to be getting hotter, but at least no rain. We fiddle faddle with a few last minute things and load the car up for the trip to scenic Leeds, AL. The trip is 2 hours door to door and since we gain an hour with the Central time zone we’re there around 9am. We go to the gate to register and are told the entry fee is $30 a piece. Incredulously I inform them I’m racing in the event. The lady tells us it is $30 each, and please sign the waiver. This is kind of like your local county fair charging a $100 to get in; I’m $60 lighter just to entertain the ‘fans’. That spoils my good mood and brings back my “I hate Barber mindset”. I go to register with the NASA folks and they’re nice enough to refund me at least $30 for my entrance fee.
We still need to put stickers on the car, I had deliberately waited on this since I knew that Scott Mc MiniMe would be on hand. He is a true graphic artist (not like Craig who simply pretends). He is also really good at putting stickers on, however the festivities from last night have dampened his enthusiasm for working on my car gratis. I cajole him into the bigger harder stickers, but am left to fend for myself on the remaining. See the picture and see if you can guess who did what.
Don't worry it isn't finished this is just the 'interim' step.
Since we’re in first place overall (which defies explanation since there are much faster cars in the series) I should be starting on pole – meaning first guy in line. NASA, in a further attempt to stop the monetary bleeding, has let another group share the track with us, and they drive “Radicals”. (Really fast go-kart type cars with some flimsy bodywork on them.) They are a) very fast and b) incredibly hard to see in your mirrors due to being so low to the ground.
What is really radical about these cars is how bad the drivers are!
The race directors determine for safety to start them first. That means I’m now starting 16th. No problem, since these guys aren’t technically racing anyway. We manage to get most everything buttoned up and I go to the ‘gird’ where cars are parked in their starting order before proceeding out on track. There are numerous volunteers that work with the officials to get people in the right spots. The first girl confirms I’m looking for spot 16, I pull forward and the next guy motions me to the left row, I can’t see the numbers at this point so I follow his directions. As I pull forward I see that I’m not in the correct row and I need to be one over. The grid isn’t designed for parking lot maneuvers and you have a lot of people and cars moving around. I yell for help and a guy comes over. I mention the dilemma and he acknowledges and goes to talk to the head starter person. They chat for awhile and he goes back to staring at the sky. I yell again, he remembers me but doesn’t seem to have the answer for getting me to my spot. He walks off again. I holler one more time and he motions me into a blank spot #35. I’m thinking he is going to use this as a ‘conduit’ to the next row so I pull up. He is looking both ways to make sure I’m clear to advance. That is when the cars start to pull off the grid to begin the race. I’ve dropped from 1 to 19 before the first lap. I express my frustration on the radio and to the gentleman as I drive past.
"The Grid" imagine full of cars with me at the back instead of the front. I learned what Craig has felt like all this time..
Thankfully the race is uneventful despite being very crowded with fast cars / slow drivers that you can’t see in your mirrors and I manage to get past all of our serious competition and avoid manslaughter charges for killing any go-kart racers. Official results have me in third place, but we’ve lodged a protest since it appears that the top 2 finishers in our class didn’t do the mandatory 5 gallon fuel pitstop. So we may actually have won, we’ll see. I don’t have my hopes set very high since ‘unorganized mess’ is the best description I can come up with on how things are being run lately.
Is this the karma they're speaking of?
We’re home by 6pm. Sunday rolls around and it seems warm upstairs in the house. I check the upstairs Air Conditioner and it clearly isn’t working. I try the AC repair tricks I know (very few) and nothing works. Monday and I call the AC guy to come out and check. He says “Well here is your problem --- Good thing the house didn’t burn down, I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Well at least the car starts now.
