Indy at Barber Motorsports

One of the best things about living in Birmingham, that most people wouldn't think of when talking about the town, is that there is a fantastic motor sports track 20 minutes from my house.  We make a run out to the place a few times a year to take in some howling motors of various types. Last weekend we had the pleasure of the Honda Indycar race coming to town. 

My parents were in town from Tyler, Texas and we all ventured out into a lovely spring day.  The grass wasn't as green this year as in years past.  For some reason, it seems to have been cool and the dormant grass hadn't come alive yet, but the trees certainly had.  There were clouds of yellow blanketing the area...bleh.

Needless to say, we weren't deterred by everyones' cars turning a sickly shade of yellow before our eyes, and we all loaded up on antihistamines and headed out to watch some racing.

Here is a virtual lap around the Barber Motor sports course, and you can see the course as well in some of my motorcycle track day videos here and here.

We watched the race from a grassy hill around turn one but went over to the Paddock to look at the cars and see some of the drivers before the race started.  The kids thought it was pretty neat to be right in among the cars as the teams wheeled them out and onto the track for the warm up lap and flying start.

Bryce's favorite car, the Boy Scout car, just after getting fueled up.  I wish they had started an engine close by to us so we could feel just how loud these things are.  Noting the faring in front and behind the rear wheels on this Indycar makes me wonder why the Formula 1 cars haven't adopted such a thing if it actually reduces drag to a material degree?

The paddock safety officers had to clear a path to get all the cars out to the track.  Here they are towing a car out and they switched the rain tires (note the grooves) to the racing slicks once in the pits.  Also, note the green pollen stuck all over the front wheel as they rolled it the first 10 yards.  Yuk...

We set up camp on a hillside and I shot an iPhone panorama of our springtime "stadium seating".

As the race started we got a chance to see just how fast the cars were.  They were warming the tires by weaving their cars back and forth across the track while the poor little pace car was whining and sliding as it navigated the course as fast as it could go.  When the Safety Car pulled off into the pits and the race began the noise increased tenfold.

The Start!

You could feel the engines in your chest as the cars raced by.  To see a vehicle go from a tight 60mph turn and accelerate to 150-160 mph in just seconds was astonishing, and viewing that never gets old.



























My mom noted that all the cars passing by sounded like angry bees.  That would be one serious swarm of bees...the kind of thing that would be featured in blockbuster disaster movies...or perhaps the final book in the Bible.  The signs of the Blood red moon, the 4 horsemen, and 700 horsepower bees... Yikes.

Turn 1 through a hole in the fence.

After about 20 laps the kids were getting cooked.  Typical, 20 laps of 90 and they are ready to go.  I have found that open wheel racing is good for ADHD people like me since they aren't 3-4 hour long oval track endeavors.  But oh no, not my offspring.  20 laps and that's all that they can handle without getting into fights for entertainment.  I had kind of guessed they would have that reaction even though we were sitting below a Jumbo-tron screen showing the race and just off the track where the cars whipped by.  We hopped a tram and headed over to the kids area for a new view of the track and to let the kids run around while the adults tried to keep up with all the driving exploits.

I got a few pictures, as you can see above in the action shots, but was having less success this time than in past events getting a clear picture.  Who knows why, but I wasn't happy with how they turned out.  I guess I'm glad I don't have to make money taking photographs for a living.  The family would be pretty malnourished.

 Ryan Hunter-Reay had a car that was handling the course beautifully and led for a number of laps early on.  As the race came to the last 10 laps, Ryan ended up in the lead again being chased by Brenna's favorite team - The Target Car...driven by Scott Dixon.  Ryan never gave up the lead after that and he and Scott were pulling away from the 3rd place car rapidly as the final lap came.  A great day and a great race.

Hopefully, now that spring is here, I'll have more writing to do on this blog because the family will have more fun activities going on.  Naturally, removing that 8 inch plate from my leg with the 10 screws lends itself to me feeling good enough to do some entertaining (and blog worthy) things as well.  There's just not much to write about during a year where most of the time I sat in front of an Xbox and a computer at work...

Have a great week everyone, and enjoy The Masters!


 

Rollercoasters!

Bryce had a birthday. Holy smokes!  He's eleven now!  And now that I think of it, that sparks a troubling thought that probably happens to everyone that realizes that they have a kid that's not a little kid anymore. 

Wait, when I have an older kid, that means that I'm....gasp!

For his birthday, we took everyone out to Busch Gardens in Tampa to ride some roller coasters until we were borderline ill and stumbling into stuff.  For some of us, this took fewer loops than others.  We rode the Cheetah first; which, instead of using a gravity based drop to achieve the speed for the ride, it uses a series of magnets to launch the cars forward in flat sections and then sends you up and over hills producing a nice negative G at the top. 

Bryce's first ride on a big roller coaster and you can see the "What the heck am I getting into" face in the photo.  Eek!

It turns out, that the Cheetah may not have been the best ride to open up the day with, because every major coaster thereafter was met with something like this...

Me:  Cool!  Another coaster to sling my brain out my ear!  Let'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGO!!! 

Ansley: Yeah!  Let'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGO!!!

Bryce:  Nah.  I'm good...

Me:  Seriously lets all go.  It'll be FUN!  Let'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGOLet'sGO!!!

Ansley: has already run into the coaster line without us...

Bryce:  Seriously Dad...  I'm good...

So, out of all this, I discovered my son, who has a cautious side, is not going to be a coaster fanatic, but my daughter...to say the least...is already one.  Since Aiden wasn't tall enough to ride the big coasters.  Brenna and I would do the kid swap thing where I would ride with Ansley, and Mom would wait with the non-riders and then we would swap.  Ansley would naturally then go and ride it again... with Mom. 

Ansley couldn't get enough of these coasters.  She rode every major coaster in the park and combined to ride them 17 times.  Even the ridiculous diving coaster "Shiekra" that I walked away with bruises from riding.  Ansley rode that thing 4-5 times. 

Who would have thought an 8 year old would be that fearless?  Of course the first time had its moments.  The ride takes you up 200 feet, then inches you over the lip to a straight down drop, and stops for a count of 3 before letting you go.  At that point Ansley looked like she was in over her head and was about to cry.  I told her that I was sorry, but we were in it now and there wasn't any way back.

The anticipation is worth the whole ride.  After that drop, it's a looping fighter jet kind of ride.  As soon as we dropped, Ansley was just fine and giggled/screamed the whole way down. Good stuff.

We also did some other fun stuff like take the safari ride around...which had it gone like this, it might have been more interesting!

The guide did make a note of Bryce's birthday and messed with him a little.  It was pretty funny.

We didn't see any Hippos that I can recall on that ride, and that's just fine with me considering they are the most dangerous animal in all of Africa and nastiest, grossest, poo-flingingest - is that even a word? - nevermind.  I'm not a fan needless to say.

See what I mean about dangerous!

Although, signs with warnings like the one below make me think that ignorant humans are by far and away worse than hippos.  Seriously, if a theme park has to write this down to reminded these idiots not to send their disgustingly ill children into the water to infect everyone elses' children, there is something very very wrong.  I'm a parent, so I understand that kids get ill at the worst times, but seriously, if you know your kid is sick...

Aiden had his share of fun stuff even though he wasn't quite tall enough to ride the big rides.  I'm curious to see if he is as cautious as Bryce or if he is a thrill seeker like Ansley...or if he is something completely different.

I think everyone had a good time, and I know I have a coaster buddy for life now.  I also know exactly what to get Ansley for her Birthday...

Tickets to ride.

Aerobatics Weekend

Now for those of you not "in the know".

Not that anyone out there in this interweb thingy doesn't know every detail about me possible, whether I want it that way or not quite frankly...  I turned 40 not too long ago, and in the process of my getting older my wife got "awesomer?"  I'm sure it's a word, and if not, it is now because it's posted in the internetish ethers for all eternity.

Awesomer?  You might ask?  Naturally, you are in a huge rush to use the newest word in the collective dictionary.  I understand.  Crud, now that I bother to look, I am not the first to use awesomer...

*Sigh*  Now that I have spent at least a few minutes typing a lead-in that is leading nowhere, I'll get to the post.

You're welcome.

My wife got me a chance to go flying.  Not just flying lessons, but lessons with a twist.  A, dare I say it, awesomer twist.  There, I said it.

Aerobatic flying lessons!  I told you it was awesomer.

This was one of the most challenging things I have done.  I spent years around light aircraft with my skydiving, and have flown a limited discovery flight in a Cessna around Georgia years ago, but here was a chance to get some basic flight training and couple it with some serious aerobatics with one of the best coaches in the area. The challenge came with stuffing my brain full of concepts and flight instruction and then trying to put it into practice in the pressure of a noisy and unfamiliar aircraft.  right rudder...right rudder...don't climb...seriously quit climbing...we aren't supposed to be in the clouds...

I think I was a bit of a project for Greg who normally deals with pilots that have hundreds of hours to see what he could teach me aerobatically while I was also processing the basics of how to fly in general.

We spent the weekend up at Sky Country Lodge with Greg Koontz.  Greg has been teaching pilots and performing professionally in airshows for many years.  It was a real experience to catch up with him and his wife Cora at their place in Ashville, AL.  They made us, and another couple that were staying there, feel like family.  I can't say enough about how great they were.  I recommend you check it out if you are a pilot (or even if not as was my case) and want a weekend of fun instruction


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Brenna came in to hang out on Saturday and enjoy the fun of sitting at a grass strip airport like old times from when I was jumping from planes every weekend.  She seemed happy.  That may have been related to the fact that Greg and Cora cooked for us, entertained us with endless stories, and there were no kids around...aside from the semi-grown-up kind.

The set up was a bed and breakfast at Greg's beautiful house and hours of flight instruction followed by applying that training (plus some) in the air.  There was so much information to absorb it was almost too much in a good way.

We were flying a Super Decathlon  and it was a heck of a plane to learn to fly in.  Much more entertaining than the more pedestrian Cessna 152/172's that are quite common.  The Cessna's aren't bad, but this gave a whole added dimension of power and maneuverability to the mix instead of just trying to fly straight and adding in some coordinated turns.

In many ways, these flights were a "Create your own roller-coaster" experience.  With the added fear that I could actually mess things up and scare myself and the instructor pretty well.  I wanted to be good at flying for a novice, to show that I had some innate ability to do it, and I thought I knew a few things about flying.  Naturally, I discovered that even with my research and time around planes, there were a lot of nuances and theory to flying that I didn't know.  Big surprise there...

The ground school was really fun because it would take what little I knew and would either correct it or would expand on the "why" things were happening.  Then putting these things into practice in the air right after the ground lessons was a great way to hammer home the information even though I still didn't do things the way I should in the heat of the moment.  I need to go back and do some more flying now that I have had a few days to process the things I wasn't doing well in the practical portion of the flights.  I think I could improve on some things, but who knows I may just go out and not be any better at it.

At first, I was really still trying to fly the plane the way we all experience planes.  Gently and without pushing things.  After a few pointers, I realized that would just have to stop.  The plane can handle it, so go ahead and throw it around.  I feel bad for the next person that I fly with...  Would a normal instructor ground me if I rolled the plane 5 minutes into the lesson?

Let's talk about the plane a bit.  As I mentioned, we were flying the Super Decathlon which had two seats in line.  Greg would sit in back and probably try not to get sick watching my novice stick and rudder work.

It's a tail-wheel aircraft with a tiny wheel in the back to steer when on the ground, and it had a feel of an older WW2 aircraft.  Who am I kidding...It looked like something that I saw in some old movie with tail dragger aircraft, but I have no idea what a WW2 aircraft would feel like...

There were some basic instruments (only a few of which I paid any attention to, Variometer, Altimeter, and Tachometer for the most part) and easy to understand controls.  The blue control changes the propeller pitch and the red thingy changes the fuel mixture.  Funny thing I noted is that everything that can kill the engine or abruptly stop your plane from flying are denoted in red.  Good to know...

It had a high wing and Plexiglas windows on the ceiling which we put to really good use!  The majority of the plane was covered in what looked like a type of vinyl cloth aside from the engine cowling and the leading edge of the wing.  That way the June bugs and other flying objects don't make big holes in the plane when flying!

I stuck a GoPro on for the flights and found out just how goofy I look under stress and pulling G's.  And yes, I mean goofier looking than normal, as a good friend put it earlier this week...

I was able to witness Greg's passion for flying.  After putting up with me all day, we put up the Super D and he grins and says, "Hey, you guys want to fly the Cub?", and with that he pushed out another bright yellow plane.  We all took turns flying with him around the house.  You could tell, he just couldn't get enough of the fun of looping and zooming around.  It really was like watching a bunch of kids on Xmas.  All of us were having a ball.

Brenna got a chance to go for a ride in a Piper Cub from 1939 or '41, I can't remember which year exactly.  A really cool aircraft that Greg uses in his airshow to land on the modified bed of a pickup truck in "The World's Shortest Runway" stunt in the Alabama Boys comedy act.

Brenna and Greg getting ready to go on the Piper Cub.

The Cub climbing hard on Brenna's flight.

We skipped the wheels off the lake in the background, did some loops and even threw the plane into a spin for a few good rotations.  I got that on video, so you will get to see it if you haven't already watched the Timewaster Studio's production at the end of this post.

Ok, now I'm getting tired of typing, and I have to fix the dishwasher. So, here are a few other pictures, and we will get on with the video.

Permission to buzz the tower.  Negative Ghostrider...the pattern is full...

You knew you couldn't get through the post without a Top Gun quote, right?  Well there you go...

One of the most interesting moments was when Greg showed me how to make the plane quit flying.  Call it a spin, call it an "aggressive stall compounded by auto-rotation"; it's fun by any name if you have the altitude to play with.  Make the plane stall one wing more than the other by putting in full left rudder right as the plane stalls and you will fall out of the sky rapidly in a rotation.  One of the coolest things I have ever experienced.  To recover it was simple.  Just apply opposite rudder to slow the rotation first and then dive out.  This spin kills a lot of people, but the problem is that they do it accidentally at low altitude and don't react properly to fix it.  There is a lot to be said for learning how to make it happen and recover from it in controlled circumstances.

The spin.  

I'm pleased that Greg trusted me enough to fix it to take pictures while we were falling.  

I guess I wasn't THAT bad a student...

Looping over the house in the Super D.

Ok, now you have read, or just skimmed...or just scrolled down here once you got bored with the first two paragraphs.  Whatever...

The video.  I'm sorry the video did get longer than I had planned, but there was so much to put in there that I wanted to share and also remember.  I couldn't find a song that would fit with the video that didn't sound lame, and I wanted to hear the engine noise, so this video has the authentic soundtrack from the weekend. 

Enjoy.


Aerobatics from Brad on Vimeo.

Links to Greg's site and Sky Country Lodge:  http://www.gkairshows.com/Newsite/Training/Training.html

Let There Be Light! The Serfas 1000

I went on a quick night ride tonight, and since last Friday's night ride was thwarted by a burned out lamp, I had borrowed a demo from the local shop Bike Link.  Good people there...pay them a visit.  

And now that I'm done with the plug of one of the local bike shops, let's talk lamps.

I demo'd the Serfas 1000 lumen lamp.  Compared to the 10 year old halogen lamp I have been using to ride through the winter nights on the Oak Mountain trails, this was a real change.  I had no idea how bright these things were.  My old lamp (a vintage 2003 Light and Motion Solo Logic MV) must be putting out a whopping 200 lumens now and will last about 2.5 hours.  This Serfas will throw off 1000 lumens continuously for 3.5 hours, 650 lumens for 6 hours straight, and up to 21 hours on the lowest level, but who cares about that last one.  I'm not planning on riding at the north pole during winter where I would ever need 21 hours straight of lighting.

Holy crap it's like having the sun packed into a bulb on your head.  Without all the heat, radiation, and massive prominences of course...  I was also told that having a set of stadium lights on my head was quite the conversation starter...

The Niner illuminated!

After spending 2 hours riding around in the woods as fast as I could go... I noted that this lamp may be more effective than my car headlamps.  You be the judge. 

The Car

The Serfas

More reason to spend time outdoors in the dark!  But with less of the dark part!

Lightning Storms

I got home from a great Labor Day at the lake nervous about the week ahead.  Kicking off the budget cycle at work, big meetings, a big birthday party, and loads of important stuff that I haven't finished yet on other fronts as well.  I needed something to take my mind off the looming wall of responsibilities...

Well, the evening presented a pretty good excuse to pull out the camera and test my almost 40 year old reflexes...

Of half a zillion pictures and one dead battery pack, I got two.  I'm happy with the shots though.  This back yard is presenting a pretty spectacular venue for photographs...

Oh, and I lied about the reflexes part...  The trick is have very low light conditions, find a storm with lightning...duh, set a camera up on a tripod with a 30 second exposure, grab a chair, keep shooting while watching the storm, and presto!  See, honesty in blogging right there folks...

Happy Monday.

1st Day of School

The kids were up...slowly...  It was really early, so I understand.  The bus was supposed to arrive at a much more tolerable 6:45am vs the 6:20am at Rocky Ridge.  

The big difference this year is that aside from the kids being a year older and much larger is that Aiden had his first day at kindergarten!  He got to ride the bus for the first time!  The years of him watching from the door as the other two headed out to the bus were over.

The kids decided to trace the cat footprints in the front yard instead of going down the sidewalk.  Who wouldn't want soggy shoes and socks in 1st period?

The bus came and before we knew it, they were off and running in a new school year.

2012

Bus pictures through the years *sniff*  They are growing too quickly for my tastes, but it's beautiful to see...

I missed 2011's picture because we took them to school that year.  The bus came at 6:20am.  I would leave with them at 7:15 and get them to school just as the bus arrived.

2010

Ansley's first day...

2009

2008

I hope the year goes well!

Happy Monday everyone.

Human Weapons and wasting time...

I was wasting time on this new fangled internet thingy the other day and ran across this image.  An image of other people wasting time in a field and posting the results on the mostly-junk-filled-interwebs.

Sooo...for those of you who haven't see this yet.  I present another example that people with loads of time on their hands are creative and pretty awesome...

You're welcome...