But not any more. It has been figured out. And verified.

It seems that some engineer thought it would be wise to drain the sunroof gutter (front right corner) through a tube that empties into the engine bay near the battery bay. Which is great. Except for one minor issue: the tube doesn’t run the full length. There is a connector tube and then another joint.

Which had slipped. And which then necessitated removing the interior bits along that A-pillar to reconnect the tubes.

Which leads this post to racing. Racing teaches two things: that it is always possible to go that little bit faster and that at the end of the day a car is nothing but metal, rubber and a bunch of plastic (and at the ALMS GT2 level carbon fibre). Thus, break out the spanners, fiddle with some stuff and solve the bloody leak!

Bring on Mid-OH!

The 944 is a completely different car.

It’s the car I fell in love with during a cold test drive in November nearly two years ago.

It’s now the car I never really got a chance to fully drive based on detonating that wheel on the way back from Sebring in 2008.

Because there’s more stick, acceleration starts to happen before the apex on a corner. Throttle is wide open at the apex and it’s completely controllable. The 315S ramp off 161 ends flat in 4th just short of a ton never wanting to push wide at the front or step out at the back. Simply balance.

The only downside to this is that where before on a 90 degree corner the back used to step out to rotate the car, lift, settle, power on. Now, the car feels like it wants to flip. With 3 point belts, I can feel the suspension being torqued by the tires and it’s all go the whole time.

All this from a 24 year old car that will get trounced in a drag race by a Camcord. But that’s fine by me. Dancing in the corners is much more fun and I can float with grace and elegance around every twisting bend and pirouette from apex to apex while that Camcord bumbles down to a crawl and understeers all over its toes.

and Kirk on Randolph,

“For him, prescriptive right, common law, and custom afford the real guarantees of justice and liberty. Once men commence tinkering with the body of government, lopping and adding and stimulating and new-modelling, they imperil those old perogatives and immunities which are the fruit of many generations of growth. Law will change, indeed, with the times; but arbitrary intervention in the process, rude revision upon abstract concepts a la French taste, is a short and nasty way to social caducity. When people begin to think that they can improve society infinitely by incessant alteration of positive law, nothing remains settled: every right, every bit of property, every one of those dear attachments to the permanence of family, home and countryside is endangered.

[emphasis mine]

Granted, yesterday was a simply get from A to ZZ via lots of points in between, but it should be the only super long day. The rest are waiting to be defined.

Some of that may well come down to weather. The light drizzle yesterday was a welcome respite from the heat. The all out downpour this afternoon that caught me out after the luncheon was not. Couldn’t see. Could barely steer. I’ll need to either route around such predicaments or take the more direct route through them.

The bike thus far has been flawless. I’m looking forward to getting back on the open road and being able to open things up for longer stretches of time.

This eastern edge of Hartford is quaint. Bordered by a mountain, it’s contained but still rather rugged. Almost every road is indicated 30, but no one is very concerned. The state routes seem to wind about illogically (which Garmin kindly fails to be concerned with).

Not to get too far off topic, but the GPS software is far less than intuitive. And the planning software needs way too much babysitting. Starting to drive me nuts.

Two other guys from Ohio rode bikes up for the wedding. They took a more direct route and split it over two days. Both on BMWs, naturally.

Need to do some wash when I get back to the hotel. I’m only really carrying two changes of clothes for the trip. There isn’t space for more. With the camping gear, laptop and a book I feel like I’m carrying too much. Yet I’m not sure what, if anything, I could have left behind.

Also, I should feel the need to note that on days where I need to simply make time and/or it’s raining updates will be sparse and photos rare. There simply isn’t time and/or the want to unpack things to do that. Being stopped vs moving at rapid velocities makes for a considerable change in milage for the day.

Nearly 100 miles today. My off day. Everything is close by, provided you know where you’re going and/or how to work your GPS unit. Probably close to that tomorrow (Saturday), unless I try to make a quick run into Rhode Island just to tick it off the list of states of visit (likely if it’s not raining).

Also got the 944 going again. Recharged battery back in and it fired right up. Went for a drive to really run up the battery and managed to stop on exactly the 100,000 mile reading right in front of my place.

Last minute errands finished up last night, so tonight is just packing, finish up oil change, fuel/system check and then load up the bike.

And try to get a few hours of sleep tonight…

But I did ride ~50 miles with a passenger, who volunteered. Very different experience. Probably needed an extra 5 clicks of rear-preload to dial out some of the understeer.

Which brings up the fact that the whole experience was exceptionally surreal. For the pilot, the only real sensation that there’s someone on the pillon-seat is that the rear suspension is compressed (needs more preload), the balance of the bike is off (preload++), and everything happens slower.

Which made turn in a bit harder with a greater emphasis on shifting the weight forward. And then the 911-style understeer on corner exit where the weight on the rear wants to keep rotating after I want to be going straight and the bike pushes towards the outside, so the line into the apex really needs to be adjusted.

Which made the ride back home feel like I got my bike back. And everything felt right again. This isn’t to knock riding with a passenger, it’s just that it was very, very different from what I’m used to. And it was ~50 miles, some of which in some fairly stiff winds while trying to keep the pace down a few tenths from where I typically play at.

Thus, I look forward to future experiments with a passenger. And I think it would get better riding with the same person repeatedly, both from a suspension setup perspective and from a pilot + passenger learning to work together to go faster.

And lastly, I will close that I strongly subscribe to wise words of Joel M. Vaughn for when that day finally arrives: “She’s getting her own.”

To think that on the first big trip I took, I more or less respected the posted limits for rural roads. And the amount of ground that could be covered reflected that. Now… let’s just say I enjoy traveling solo for a trip like this.

Now planning on staying in Augusta, ME on Sunday night. And then by-passing Mount Desert Island altogether on Monday. It’s going to be a tourist zoo. Visit the small part of Acadia National Park and then make a run for the far eastern corner of the US. RON at a camp site there.

Tuesday: All the way north to and then back down to Moosehead Lake or possibly somewhere slightly farther south-west.

Wednesday: All the Notches in NH (I found a GPS file online!) and then RON in Hanover.

Thursday: Coffee at the Dirt Cowboy Cafe and then a leisurely ride over to Burlington, VT and a visit to Magic Hat.

Friday and possibly Saturday: Exfil back to CMH.

It’s interesting to see this as almost two trips. There’s the long first day and then 2 days off from riding/traveling. Then riding again. Riding a lot.

Still a few things to prep before leaving. Oil change Tuesday night. A few last adjustments to the camera-on-tankbag contraption. The tankbag was moved back so I can see the onboard computer and that altered the lens position with regard to the windscreen.

I suppose I should try to get some extra sleep the next few nights too.

And did I mention I’m already starting to think about the next trip?

And I’m now wavering on the after wedding route. Maybe making more of a figure eight than originally intending. The thing I can’t stand more than anything else on a bike is idling in traffic. So, thinking running all the way up north and then coming back down the east coast of Maine and visiting Arcadia on Tuesday rather than Monday after the holiday weekend would be better.

Need to change the oil in the bike this weekend. I could probably get away with what’s in there, but I’d rather not take any chances. I really ought to read the manual for the Ricoh GR II as well.

In training news, I don’t know anyone else who trains this hard to go on vacation and yet doesn’t plan on any traditional beach like activities.

I also need to plaster reflective stuff on my helmet to keep certain nanny states happy.

Picked up longer screws for the camera mount today too. Going to boost it slightly to clear the wind-shield. And add a lock washer.

Really need to get that route stuff sorted out. Did reserve hotel for the wedding phase of the trip.

And I just set off the smoke detector up stairs roasting coffee. Haven’t managed to do that for a while.

P1

Audi got right to it. They ran their program. They were quick. And knowing how Dr. Ulrich goes about running a race week they concentrated on race pace in the wet because it will rain at some point during the race. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the 3:22s during qualifying tomorrow night.

And the Peugeot’s… they should have spent more time engineering their drive train and less complaining about Audi’s interpretation of the aerodynamic rules governing the design of the front of the car. Honestly, I was surprised to see that one of the Pug’s detonated a clutch at 10 pm CET. As for pace, Brab’s car was nearly as quick as the Audis. But the other two were 3 seconds off the pace.

The unknowns are: the recce car and the tire management. At Sebring, the Peugeot’s clearly had the Audi’s beat for tire wear. It wasn’t as much of a penalty there as there were 2 tire guns per car. Not so in France this June. Add 10 seconds to each tire change. Double stints for Audi and triples for Peugeot? Watch this.

By recce car, I mean the third car on the team. In Audi’s case: Primat, Bernhard and Dumas. Not sure for Peugeot. This is the team that get’s to be the lab rat for testing when it’s time to change tires when (not if) the conditions get all mixed up.

Re: Aston, their cars are beautiful. And their driver teams are pretty good. But I don’t think they’ll be on the podium.

P2

Essex or Goh. Simple enough.

GT1

The last year for the fire-breathing dragons. Corvette Racing can lose the race. I’d pick Jet Alliance or Alphond Adventures to be on the podium provided they keep their respective cars out of trouble for 24 hours. Don’t look for the JLOC boys around breakfast.

GT2

Today seemed to be Porsche’s day. Though Risi was p2 in class. But over 24 hours with traffic and mixed conditions, it could be the factory shoe Felbermeyr team, Risi, AF Corse, IMSA Matmut or Flying Lizard on the podium. To finish first, first you have to finish. Staying out of trouble will be key. Pit stops and tire management will be critical. This should be quite a show.

Macs

The new laptops look very nice. The integrated battery is essentially as good as what two old batteries would have been. Speed bumps and RAM bumps are great. The extra memory should play very nicely with 10.6.

I am incredibly tempted by the new 13in Macbook Pro. The form factor would fit in my motorcycle cases much better than my 15in. The SD card slot makes sense on this machine. As does the MiniDVI port thing. And it’s great to see Firewire return here. However, the net effect of all this stuff is plus ~1 dongle. (loose a card reader, gain a FW 400 adapter). Best of the new machines in my opinion.

The 15in MBP is a total train wreck. It is no longer the “have Powerbook will travel” machine. FW 800 is nice, but it’s not the expresscard slot. Which could setup eSATA cards, EVDO, or other stuff. And the SD card slot doesn’t work as well here as the 13in. Nor the Mini DVI port. Apple has forced a lot of people to get a 17in now, regardless of whether or not they want it.

Snow Leopard

I’m excited to see this come out. I’ll still wait till 10.6.2 or 10.6.3 if I can. Especially with the total Finder rewrite. Scary. It’s taken Apple till the later part of 10.5 to make it not crash hard when a network volume is unkindly removed.

That said, Grand Central Station should help a lot with resource contention and hopefully eliminate the problem with closing apps and that RAM being kept in reserve rather than immediately given to active applications. But only time will tell.

Mobile stuff

iPhone OS 3.0. Looks cool. Also looks like Apple did a complete 180 on 2/3 of their previous application developer agreement. Which only means that Apple, being Apple, will continue to do whatever Apple so chooses to do when they so choose to do so.

RE: iPhone 3Gs, I’m not in a hurry to upgrade. My current iPhone 3G makes calls just fine along with checking email. I have a real GPS and a several real cameras. And I don’t honestly need the rest of the new stuff it does.

I think now is when we will really start to see the difference between professional (and serious amateur) content creators. Yes, there really is a difference between a cell phone camera and one taken with a bigger sensor and good glass. The same with video. (However, if I had stock in Flip…)

Your thoughts? Please share and discuss…