Art La Flamme

The kids and I made one last Mini adventure today: Ka’ena Point Satellite Tracking Station.

Me, at the far point.

If you remember, about a month ago the kids and I went to ride bikes at Ka’ena Point State Park and had an awesome time. When we were doing that, I noticed some odd structures up on the ridge above the point itself — one of which looked like a giant golf ball.

Look for the golf ball.

Today, we went to that golf ball, and to pretty much all of the other stuff up there. A guy I know works up there, and offered to show us around.

The shimmering Pacific.

Nice drive. I think it’s probably less than 2000 feet climb, on a government maintained road (meaning, not so good). The drive was pleasant, but wow, from up there the view is stunning.

The drive up.

I uploaded some of what I took, here. I also made a Google Earth file, with embedded photos (here). The ocean was smooth and silky, and the clouds were breathtaking.

More of the ocean.

And the wild pigs? Cute.

The wife and kids and I went to MINI to the Max at Aloha Tower on Sunday morning, here in Honolulu. It was a mix of a Mini car show, toy drive, and sales event for the local Mini dealership. It was sponsored by the dealership, the local Mini club (Hawaii Mini Motoring Club), and a few others.

One thing I did get a chance to do there was talk about my Mini, and Minis in general. Not hard to do — I love my car, and I love the Mini. And I love my Mini adventures — I put a sheet of paper on the dash, encouraging folks to ask about driving the Alps, or the Ring, or across America, or the Dragon.

I spent some time chatting with a guy who was there with his family. Not a Mini owner, but he is considering one. The dealership invited him to come down – and he was very pleased that he did. At the show, there was just about one of everything — Coopers, Cooper S’s, supercharged, turbo charged, Clubmans, stripes, stock, street racers, etc.

He isn’t in a hurry to buy a car. But he did have a million questions. Gas mileage. Stock / OEM run-flat tires, vs. after market.

I encouraged him to:

Read. Rummage around the Mini website, and check out all of the things.

Ask questions of owners. Find some Mini websites (like NAM, or Coopernation, or a local Mini Club, like the Tar Heels or HMMC) and join in their forums; they’re always receptive to questions from prospective buyers, and the forums probably have questions to answers you haven’t even thought up yet. And go to Mini events in the area — Mini owners tend to be social, and tend to enjoy talking about their cars.

Consider used Minis. Motoringfile has great buyer’s guides, for 2002-2006 Mini Coopers (R50) and Mini Cooper S’s (R53). With 2007 came new engines (turbo, not supercharged) and slowly also some other changes. Nothing wrong with a good, used Mini.

Test drive EVERYTHING. If you’re going to buy new, try one of each. See what heated seats actually feel like, if you’re considering buying them. See how noisy a convertible is at highway speed. Put your foot into a 210-bhp John Cooper Works monster. Make the dealer earn their money, and leave no question unanswered. And if you’re considering used, find the local Mini club and ask folks to take you out for a drive, or to let you try theirs, too.

K and the kids and I headed off this AM for coffee with the Hawaii Mini Motoring Club. I’d been in touch with some of the gang online, so it was a chance to say hello and put faces to names, and to ask a ton of questions.

Today was, apparently, the smallest gathering in known history. We counted maybe 15 or 18 Minis. Last month, they did a drive across the island — 51 Minis.

While there, a few of the folks said, “Oh, you should go drive up to Tantalus. It’s really pretty.”

So we did.

K fired up the GPS while I drove, and plugged in Honolulu and then Round Top Road. That worked. The area was described as Tantalus, but they were specific — the road is actually Round Top Road. It goes up through a residential area, and then into Puu Ualakaa State Wayside Park (here).

And it is beautiful. The drive is on a mediocre road, but it gets up into thick foliage — very jungle-like, the kids told us. And the view from where we had lunch was wonderful.

That’s Diamond Head across the way, and then the city of Waikiki below.

I make a Google Earth file (here). The orange route is the one we took to get there. It leads across Oahu and up to the park and where we had lunch. The purple route is the rest of the drive — what we took to come back down off of the mountain.

Nice drive to get there. Great view. Great picnic areas. Good bathrooms, too. Easy to get to. We packed our lunch for the trip, but hey, I’d go there just to eat a sandwich from Subway. This is worth visiting, and worth taking visitors to.

We went and got her from the port today. She’s got two new and tine scratches on the passenger door — the shipping folks acknowledged that the scratches are new, so we’ll work out something to get her fixed. It’s why we have insurance.

I was thinking earlier that the arrival of Tess Turbo marks the closure of a pretty good summer of motoring. Since late August, Tess Turbo and I made it through the Nordschleife at the N?rburgring, across the Alps, onto a boat to Baltimore, across America to Kansas City via Hermann, MO, and then on to Augusta (and the welcome arms of M2C2, the Mini Motoring Club of the Carolinas) and the Dragon with the Tar Heel Mini Motoring Club, before heading to HI.

Wow.

(more…)

On the first of the month, the Army changed ISP’s for where I am staying. It went from Charter (a commercial firm), which provided crappy tech support and not very good bandwidth, to something through the Army’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) folks.

The first thing I noted, when I got back from my weekend on the Dragon, was that sites were being filtered. Most critical? I could not get to North American Motoring, my Mini hang out. Other sites were blocked, too.

The second thing I noticed was that the filtering / blocking was really, really slowing down web surfing. Tons of things were timing out — clicking on something as basic as Wikipedia might not even work, because the filters were slowing things down that much.

It sucked, in other words.

When I got back from class yesterday, I had no connectivity. No email, no web browsing, seemingly nothing.

OK, fine. I headed off to Columbia for dinner with the M2C2 folks. When I got back last night, still nothing. Hmm. Odd.

I get up this morning, and still nothing. So, I grab a bagel and call tech support. The guy speaks Mac — a good sign. Charter had once, on a call to tech support, suggested that my connectivity problem with them might have been caused by my using a Mac. Oh, yes — they were that good.

So, this guy walked me through some trouble shooting procedures. What we found was that yes, I had connectivity from my computer to the first piece of their hardware, but nothing more from there. Their equipment was the problem. I also asked who I needed to contact about the filters, and I mentioned how they were slowing things down. His response? Filters? We don’t use filters.

A couple of hours later, maybe two at most, all was better. Key word here is all. Filters are gone.

Life is good again.

Oh, and last night.

I headed up to Columbia for pizza and some beer with M2C2 — Mini Motoring Club of the Carolinas. Based out of Columbia, SC, but I’ve been working with some other Mini owners to open a chapter here in / around Augusta, GA. The folks in Columbia do something every month, and last night was pizza and beer.

Dinner was at Brixx in Sandhill (map). Maybe 10 or 12 Minis, of all kinds. Even had a brand-new, 2009 JCW — almost 210 bhp, a real rocketship. And, as always, great people.

Best part?

Yep — three guys named Art. Art on the left, aka Doc, has not one, not two, but three Minis. He actually offered me a loaner if I needed one. Art on the right is on his second Mini — his solid gold (paint) Mini went head to head with a truck, and he walked away with a scratch when the driver of the truck walked away with an injured should and some other non-life-threatening stuff far worse than a scratch.

Oh, and the meal. The special was a new wheat dough that they had just started using this week. So, I ordered a baked chicken caprese on wheat, and had a couple of IPA’s to go with it. I was one of the first to order, though, and the last to get my pizza.

Not long there after, the waitress (who was awesome) started talking about the wheat pizzas all being comp’d, that there’d been something wrong with the wheat dough.

I, of course, think food poisoning.

No, no, she says. They just didn’t have enough prepped, so some – like mine – took longer to make than they wanted, so all of our wheat pizzas would be free. Oh, and tiramisu for everyone, to help make amends for the problem with the wheat dough.

Dinner for me? $7. And then a $13 tip. Oh, and the wheat dough was awesome. Great pizza.

Hey, Tess and I made it onto Killboy’s blog (here). He’s the photographer at the Dragon, the best and the best known. He posted me and RudyT — pretty cool.

I drive a 2006 Mini Cooper S. I am, in every sense, just your typical Mini owner, in that I am as fanatically obsessed with my Mini as the next guy or gal.

I love my Mini. I love driving my Mini. And I love my Mini adventures.

I’ve got a running list of adventures that I’ve had in my Mini. It looks something like this:

* Going full throttle on the autobahn
* Driving the Odenwald
* Sunday drives the Black Forest / Schwarzwald
* Driving the Black Forest from end to end
* Driving Poppa Bear Point
* Turning laps on the Nordschleife at the N?rburgring
* Minis in the Alps 2008

And this weekend, I added another one to that list.

I joined 8 others, mostly from the Tar Heel Mini Motoring Club, for a few days of driving through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and on into Tennessee. The trip was organized by my “brother from another mother”, Paul. He’s a veteran of five trips up to Deal’s Gap, and he organized a great weekend.

The coordination for the trip was ongoing, and it was online. Paul’s plan was to meet Friday night near Asheville, NC, have some dinner and a beer or ten, and stay at the Days Inn. Saturday, we’re make a wandering drive through the countryside, ending at the Dragon and staying at the Fontana Village Resort. Sunday, we’d have some breakfast, drive the Dragon again, and then head out separate ways in order to make it home at a decent hour — some folks had to work this morning.

Friday I popped smoke around noon and started the drive north. Dropping the address of the hotel into Tess’ GPS, she wanted me to head an hour east to Columbia SC and then north on interstate the rest of the way. Well, this was going to be a weekend about the drive, and that wouldn’t do at all. So, I had Tess re-plot a new route — the shortest one possible.

Much better. Much. The new route was almost entirely on 2 lane roads headed through the country side. I took a peak into Greenville, SC, as the only real detour from heading north, stopping to see the city some — no reason, other than it was there. Once I got north of the city, though, the low mountains started to come into sight, and I knew it was going to be a good weekend — the looked like the mountains around where we just were living in Germany.

I was the first to arrive, so i was able to relax and settle in some. We’d only be there the one night, so I kicked off my shoes and relaxed some. Just when I was starting get a little bit hungry, the convoy of 5 Minis from NC arrived.

We turned around and headed into Asheville, figuring we’d find some place to eat. Asheville is a nice, nice little city. I rode with Rudy and Paul, and the two of them told me the history of the founding of the city. Rudy had gone to college nearby, and Paul, having come up that way often enough to drive the Dragon and for work, is in love with the city. We didn’t have a chance to stop off and see the Biltmore Estate, which would be on my list of things to do if Tess were hanging around some more. We walked through the city some — on such a nice evening on a long weekend, everyone was out and about, and parking was limited — and ended up at Tupelo Honey, a nice restaurant with great food, great atmosphere, and great beer, and a wait that was probably less than an hour. I opted for chicken, vice the shrimp with grits that a few people had. Yes, I am not Southern.

(L to R: Frank, me, Paul, Mike, Van)

After dinner, we were teenagers — we stood around the back of a car in the parking lot, drinking beer from 5 liter kegs, using the ubiquitous red cups, and smoking (cigars, because we’re civilized). This weekend was advertised by Paul as being his Tour of Terror, and he was promising to show us a “spirited” drive. There had been much debate on what he meant by spirited — I was hoping it meant good German bier, and I was not disappointed. But other clearly wanted it to mean going fast, and it was that, too. Paul is fast — just look at this photo. He’s that fast.

Saturday was indeed about driving. Here is the actual route we took (it’s in Google Maps). We were assembled and on our way at 0800, in military precision. Eight Minis, 9 people, and not much extra stuff other than a cooler of beer. Paul had laid out this elaborate drive to get there, and I was not disappointed at all. It was fantastic. Easily, any one part of the drive to the Dragon would have been a good day, and we did it all. Without a doubt, my favorite stretch of the road was Wayah Road — it was fantastic. It’s marked in here, my Google Earth file for the trip.

Just driving Wayah Road would have made it a great day. We did so much more than that.

Lunch was at the Sweetwater BBQ, in Robbinsville NC — and the food was out of this world. Somehow I doubt I’ll find BBQ like that in Hawaii or Iraq.

After lunch, it was a good drive up to Highway 129 and Deal’s Gap, the Tail of the Dragon. And let me be clear — we were deep in motorcycle country. It was clear when we arrived at lunch, and there was no doubt, as we got closer to Deal’s Gap, that cars were the minority. I think they cut us some slack — eight Minis is a pretty cool sight. And, well, we drive like the dickens — that helps. We got up to Deal’s Gap, bought goodies and stickers and shirts and stuff, and then made a slow drive out the Tail of the Dragon for orientation and to check for police — who were out in numbers. We stopped at the dam at the far end, and took a group photo. I snuck in a photo of the 300Z guys who had gone before us and gone a little too fast (it’s a 30 mph zone), and they got to meet the TN fuzz.

The Dragon itself is 11 miles. It starts at Deal’s Gap, and goes out along a ridge and then on down to the water. It’s not a lot of changes in altitude, no massive climbs or descents. It’s all turns.

And by turns, I mean 318 of them. In 11 miles.

Is there any wonder why it’s motorcycle country?

The best part, as I see it, is that the route starts in NC and heads into TN, and there is nothing along those 11 miles. No driveways. No intersections. No stop signs. Nothing. Just turns. And since it starts in NC, and since there are very few places to even pull off the road, the only police are from TN, and if you don’t see any on the way out, there won’t be any on the way back in.

But we’d seen some on the way out, so we had a nice, tame drive back in. Once back at Deal’s Gap, we turned left and headed out Hellbender, the stretch of road to Fontana Village where we were staying. Nice, nice place, loaded to the gills with motorcyclists, of course. We dropped bags, changed, had a beer or three and then had some dinner. The Fontana Village is a very nice resort, and the rates were very, very good. And yes, there’s a military discount — always a good sign. There was no free ‘net access in the rooms, and we had drinking to do, so we only loaded and shared photos on thumbdrives, stood outside drinking and telling lies, before we called it a day and headed to bed at a decent hour.

One Mini driver had to head out early, so we were down to seven Minis. Five of us headed out around 7 am, to drive the Dragon and then meet the others for breakfast. The drive out was, um, spirited indeed, and the drive back was, um, terrorizing. On the way back in, I loaded Sara’s camera onto the camera mount in my car, and chaser her the whole way. I’ll link to the video when she posts it — it was awesome.

The driving. Let’s see. I have dynamic stability control on my car; if the front tires are going to break free, the DSC kicks in to get the car back under control (and a light goes off on my control panel). It’s front wheel drive, and those front wheels are getting about 190 horsepower — maybe a little bit more. The car is supercharged, and I’ve replaced the supercharger pulley with a smaller one (for more pressure and more horsepower). The car weighs nothing.

That warning light from the DSC? Yeah, I saw it — a lot. The front tires? Thoroughly abused. The brakes? Needed cooling off time from excessive use. I learned how to torque steer when the ass of the car broke contact with the ground and I’d tripped the DSC at the same time. Ponder that one for a minute.

There are a few photography shops that go out to the Dragon every day and post their photos online. I am waiting for them to do so — I am dying to see them! I’ll link to them later when they go up.

Most made one run on the Dragon Sunday morning, before we had breakfast and before they headed home. Paul and Rudy are known for going fast. I was known for liking pretty roads. They’re the terrorists, I’m the prettiest. Paul and Rudy and I made a second go of it — and it was the slowest, “prettiest” drive on the Dragon, ever. Nice, though. At the far end, we said our goodbyes, and headed our separate ways. Actually, I headed out while they let their brakes cool some more.

I headed for Helen, GA. Why Helen? It’s Bavaria, in Georgia. Really, it is. Spot on tourist reproduction. And there happen to be some amazing routes to get there. It was just me, one Mini driving solo, and I really, really enjoyed the drive. At felt at one with Tess again, and I’d missed that feeling. Once I got out of Helen, though, it was pretty mundane driving (in comparison to the rest of the weekend, I suppose), though it was mostly smaller roads. When it was all done, I was really, really tired. I was asleep by 2000 / 8 pm.

I’ve got two videos from the weekend. The first one is on Google Video and is on the drive getting to the Dragon. It’s filmed with my camera, but a borrowed mount that just didn’t see to want to work with me on finding an angle to see around the damn mirror. The second video is on my server, and it’s in an iPhone-friendly format, just for the cool kids. The second one is actually a good chunk of the Dragon, but I had no idea that that run was going to be soooooo sloooooooow. I ran out of disk space, it was so slow.

I’ve got photos up on my Flickr account, and Sara posted hers, here and SGT Pepper his. I suspect there will be more — like RudyT.

One last topic: How does it compare?

It’s not the N?rburgring. The Dragon is not built for speed. You’ll never hit even 4th gear on the Dragon, when you can wind it out past 100 or 120 mph on the Ring if you know what you’re doing (and are in a capable car). The Dragon is no racetrack, that’s for sure. The Dragon is all turns — which makes for an entirely different experience. But — both the N?rburgring and the Dragon are public roads; the only difference, I suppose, is that the N?rburgring has no speed limit. And it’s car country, without a doubt, while the Dragon isn’t.

It’s not the Alps. Holy crap, it’s not the Alps. Both have lots of turns, but the Dragon slinks along across the spine of a ridge. Lots of small turns. The Alps? Massive changes in altitude, and lots of switchbacks. Granted, the Dragon is 11 miles long, while we did 1100 miles through the Alps. But still. Even if you add in the miles getting to and from the Dragon, there’s no comparison. The area around the Dragon might, at best, qualify as foothills for the Alps. Foothills for the foothills of the Alps. Maybe.

It’s not the Black Forest. It’s close to the Odenwald (here and here). It could easily be Poppa Bear Point Run. The area absolutely reminds me of the area around Annweiler, out west of where I use to live in Baden-W?rttemberg. The Dragon would be an intense section of one of those drives. However — and there’s always one of those — there are a couple of differences. You wouldn’t see cops in the back woods in Germany, unless it was something unusual (I think I saw them once on Poppa Bear Point Run). Also, the roads in Germany were in better shape — this is more clearly shown if you include all of the miles I drove getting to and from the Dragon. Lastly, there are some great, great stretches I use to drive that were maybe wide enough for a car and a half, but were in fact two lane roads. Zippy fast, very smooth, very curvy — and very narrow, with the highest chance of an encounter with a tractor and not another car.

I’d do this weekend again, though — in a heartbeat. Great group. Great drive getting there, especially Saturday. The Dragon itself? Yeah, it’s OK. I got my sticker to put on the car later. But really, it was all of the other driving that made it awesome. I’d move to Wayah Road tomorrow if I could. I am glad that we had that one, um, aggressive run on Sunday morning, and I am dying to see Sara’s video of how I was driving. But really, it was great time spent in my beloved Tess Turbo, doing what we do best. I wish the kids had been with me, too — they’ve have gotten a kick out of it.

Oh, and as thanks for putting it all together, I bought Paul something pretty for his Mini. He’s a Dragon Slayer, and a Lady Killer.

It only took 34 years to get around to making another Italian Job movie. What brought that about? The return of the Mini, of course.

This isn’t a sequel, and it’s not a remake, per se. Mark Wahlberg plays Charlie, Donald Sutherland plays his mentor, and the ever beautiful Charlize Theron plays Steller, his daughter and Charlie’s love interest. They go to Italy with a crew to pull off one more job, the one that will let them all get out of the business. And they pull it off — only to have Ed Norton, as Steve, double cross them and take the loot.

Bastard. He even kills of Donald Sutherland’s character, he’s that much of a cold hearted prick.

From there, it’s an issue of trying to steal back the loot. Charlie rounds of a crew of good seconds, and they pull it off. And, true to form, the second half of the movie is the getaway, and the second half of the movie features the Minis.

Wahlberg is OK in this movie. Charlize Theron is smokin’ hot, as always. The one to watch in this movie, though, is Seth Green — he’s awesome as the computer nerd of the bunch.

You don’t need to see the original to enjoy this one. This a good one to put on the Netflix list, for sure. Can’t go wrong with this one.

26 April: New photos.

25 April: Update. Google Earth file, here.

13 April: Big day today.

Me and the kids and the boys went to the N?rburgring today to drive some laps on the Nordschleife.

Holy. Crap.

The N?rburgring, known as simply “the Ring” by enthusiasts, is the name of a famous motorsport race track in N?rburg, Germany, built in the 1920s around the village and medieval castle of N?rburg in the Eifel, which is about 70 kilometres south of Cologne, 100 kilometres northwest of Mainz, and 120 kilometres northwest of Frankfurt. Originally, the track featured four track configurations: the 28.265 km (roughly 14.3 mi) long Gesamtstrecke (“Whole Course”), which in turn consisted of the 22.810 km Nordschleife (“Northern Loop”), and the 7.747 km S?dschleife (“Southern Loop”). There also was a 2.281 km warm-up loop called Zielschleife (“Finish Loop”) or better known as Betonschleife, around the pits area.[1] Between 1982 and 1983 the start-finish area was demolished to create a new GP-Strecke, and this is currently used for all major and international racing events. However, the Nordschleife is still in use; nicknamed The Green Hell by Jackie Stewart, it is widely considered the toughest, most dangerous and most demanding purpose-built race track in the world.

Out of this world awesome. Fantastic.

The kids and I had to get up insanely early to pull this off. We met up with Nick (BMW) and Henry (2006 Mini Cooper S) at 0600, for the two hour drive north, which was unevently. I had slept like crap, though. I think I sleep better on Xmas eve, waiting for Santa to bring the presents.

When we got there, Poppa Bear (Ken) and his younger boy were there waiting, and in a few minutes we were joined by Rob. Nick, Henry and I were virgins. Ken had been there once before. Rob has an annual pass, and runs a few hundred laps a year.

Yeah, he’s in a whole other category.

Lots of Brits were already there, and Wow, there were some AWESOME cars out on the track, to include a bevy of Porsche and other luxury / $ toys. Yeah, even a Lambo.

L to R: Rob, Nick, Henry, me, Ken

After making small talk, we hopped into our cars and headed out for a lap. I’d paid for 4 laps — 70 Euros. Not chump change at all. Rob slowed down and led us on that first lap, showing us a decent line to follow through the curves. It was early, and still mostly dry (that would change), and not many cars were out as the track had been cleared to haul out the first wreck of the day.

I should add this early on in all of this: the kids went with me out on the race track. They were in their car seats, and all buckled up, and they had an absolute ball. They loved it. They wanted to listen to Harry Potter on CD while we were doing it (they asked before we started) but stopped asking once they saw how intense the driving was. They were awesome co-pilots.

After that first lap, I left the kids with Ken while I went with Rob for a lap in his car. Somewhere, I have video of it. He’s a decent (!) driver on that track — he’s pretty much got it figured out. But, he did walk me through it as he went — where to brake, where to start the turns, when to push out of the turns, and to look for the white dots (key). It was a, um, spirited drive, on which we passed two cars off the track — one facing the wrong way.

I then did two laps with Ken and his son, them chasing us. It was starting to rain some, so we throttled back. Funniest thing was passing a mini van / sedan thingy, with the family out for a Sunday drive. On the Nordschleife. On one of these laps, near the end, I was braking hard before a sharp turn, looking for the white dot (turn here!), and seeing it, turned and punched the gas — and started to drift sideways. DSC kicked in and we were fine — just a flash of tire slippage — but yeah, my blood pressure went up.

That was nothing compared to Nick’s day — a couple of spin outs, to include one that left him facing the other way. Henry put a wheel or two in the dirt on one corner. I stayed dirt free – one of my goals.

For the last lap, we all went out again as a group. Rob came and road with me, walking me through the turns. My own coach. It ruled. Of course, when he sat down in the passenger seat, he pointed behind the rear view mirror and said, “Wow, you’re going to need a new windshield soon, huh?” I had no idea what he was talking about, or that, yeah, my windshield is cracked. Rrrrrr.

We have to do it again, and soon. Yeah, the laps were a blast, but it was a great group to hang out with and a great / classic guy day. I’m sure my wife loved that I had the kids out of the house all day. We loved it.