Day 8-11 - Mom's to Erics to Sonoma - Sailing on the bay

It's sure easy to tell when I am meeting up with friends on the road, the daily trip reports go cold. :).

This week has been all about getting down to the race track for Close Enough Engineering's last race of the year.

Tuesday night was packing up the van and getting ready to depart, which included loading up a fountain that Mom has had in her house forever, and she wanted us to have it.

Wednesday morning, I had breakfast with Mom and Sue, said my goodbye, and headed out for my Cousin Eric's place in Petaluma. A 781-mile route out of I-10 and up I-5. I had a good book that I was finishing up, and some great podcasts to listen to, so the drive wasn't that hard. On Wednesday, I drove 540 miles and made it to Kettleman, CA, where I stopped for the night.

Thursday, I finished up the trip to Eric's place, stopping at the Jelly Belly Factory Tour along the way. The tour was quite interesting. It is incredible how many Jelly Bellys get made, and what an influence Ronald Reagan's love of Jelly Bellys had on the company.

Eric and I had a good hang with Sahale - we went into downtown Petaluma and stopped in the Christmas store for a little bit of shopping, and gift buying before heading over to Sahale's dentist appointment. Thursday Evening, Eric cooked up a wonderful dinner of smoked salmon.

Friday morning, I chilled out with Eric for a bit before heading to Sonoma Raceway to meet up with the team and get my gear "teched" and approved for the race. After we were all checked in, Andy, Kyle, and I wandered around the paddock checking out the rest of the teams and cars. This was a big weekend, with 142 cars entered into this edition of the 24 Hours of Lemons.

We then headed into town to check into our motel (A lovely edition of a Hampton Inn, that was an old converted Silk plant). While we were there, we met up with my buddy Mike Huck from Seattle and his Brother, Ken.

For dinner, we met Eric, Sahale, and Maggie at the restaurant Ayawaska in downtown Petaluma. It was an easy walk over from the motel, and the food was excellent.

Saturday morning, it was out to the track early for the drivers' meeting, and the last checks of the car before heading out to the track for a day of racing.

For anyone who doesn't know how this works, the premise is that you buy an old beater for $500, install a Roll cage, a race car seat, a five-point seatbelt, a battery kill switch, and a fire suppression system, and go racing. Before they let you out on the track, your car is "teched," where they check to make sure that it is not going to catch on fire or kill you if you get into a crash. (They also check that each driver has an approved Helmet, Hans (neck restraint), and fireproof outerwear)

They also determine how "fast" you might be compared to the rest of the class, and issue you "Bullshit laps," which starts you in the hole. (You can bribe the judges with beer and cash to get the penalty reduced. The judges share the beer, and the cash goes to the charity being supported for the weekend.

The objective of the weekend is to see how many laps you can get in across the 7 hours of racing each day. That puts the emphasis not so much on being fast, but on not being broken or in trouble. If you car breaks down, that's bad as you are losing time on the track, and if you break a rule (things like touching another car, going off of the track, driving around with a part of your car falling off, etc) they issue you a black flag, which means you have to come in and talk with the judges. The judges will evaluate you as to whether or not you are "seeing red" (and forgetting that this is all about having fun, more than "winning" anything) or if you are tired, or just being a jackass, and they will issue you a penalty. The penalties are designed to eat up time and keep you off the track. So you may be required to write "I'm a horrible driver" 100 times in Sharpie on the hood of your car. Or we've seen teams have to cluck like a chicken until some little girl in the crowd cracks a smile, stuff like that.

We managed to race all weekend without any incidents. No breakdowns, no rule infractions, no touching another car, no running off the track. And the car ran awesome all weekend long.

Saturday afternoon, my buddy George rolled in with his kids, and his buddy's kids, and he brought his Propane grill and some food to feed us all. It was lovely. The kids were fantastic (if a little rambunctious).

Once the racing was done for Saturday, we packed up and headed into town. We first tried to go into downtown Petaluma for dinner, but it was the evening of the lighted boat parade, and things were absolutely crazy, and there was NO PARKING anywhere near the downtown area. We called an audible and headed to Lagunitas Brewing, only to discover that they were closed for a private event. But it all worked out, because across the street is Henhouse Brewing, which had an excellent set of beers and a Greek food truck. Eric came over and met us there, and we had a good time.

Sunday morning, it was back on track. Today, cousin Eric came out with his friend Mike and hung out with us as we were racing. The racing was delayed by almost 90 minutes as we waited for the fog to lift a little bit. But once it got going, it was going. The car ran super well again on Sunday. I did two stints, and by the end of it, I was really dialed in and turning some good lap times. It was so much fun, and the car was doing so well, and the competition was fun as well. It is a lot of fun to be doing laps with cars all around you, trying to figure out where you are going to pass the guy in front of you, all the time while being passed by the guys that are faster than you.

When the racing was over, we loaded the car on the trailer, had our celebratory beer, and headed out. Mike and I went back to my cousin Eric's for the evening. Eric W (one of the drivers) headed out for the LA area where he lives, and Andy and Kyle started driving the truck and trailer, with the car, back towards Seattle.

Eric made us another fabulous dinner at his place before we played a game of Bean Doozled, which was a bad idea, as those "Bad Jelly Belly" flavors are really, really bad.

Monday, Mike and I headed into San Francisco to meet up with George to go sailing on George's boat. George has been part of the Corvo crew for over 20 years now, and we found each other when George responded to a posting on the Amazon sailing alias that Mike had posted so many years ago. So it was good to get us all back together. George has just moved his boat from Alameda (an over-an-hour drive on a good day from his house) to the same yacht basin as the St Francis Yacht Club, which is only a 15-minute drive from his home and a mile from where his youngest goes to school.

We had a great sail. There was just the right amount of breeze, the sun was out, and it wasn't too cold. We ended up sailing around Angel Island while we talked and caught up. It was so lovely.

Then it was back to Eric's for dinner and a sleep. Eric and Maggie have been excellent to hang out with. And Sahale is just a joy. It really is a special treat for all of us to get together and hang out.

Mike is going to ride with me back to Seattle. So today we are heading up to Brookings, then Seaside tomorrow, and then back home the day after that.