Barber Motorsports Park

[pdub]

Gosh what an amazing facility. Just amazing, manicured and beautiful. Killed the battery in my still shot camera at the Barber Vintage Museum. Unbelievable place if you're into motorcycles, but they've got a few four-wheelers in there, too.

And man is that track ever fun. I had bookmarked a YouTube video of somebody running laps there. I know for sure I watched over 100 laps at least for weeks coming into this. I just wanted to know the track before I got there, memorizing the turns, or so I thought.

Let me tell ya'll for a lived-it-fact, video is 2-D. The grid dumps out onto the track in Turn two. And right away, I mean instantly, I'd never seen this turn before....what thu?

I made three runs with a GREAT instructor, he helped me around and was actually starting to hit some marks at speed the third time out.

I just got plumb worn out, cross-eyed from all of that after three sessions. I didn't go out the last time because by then I was really not able to think straight, exhausted. Grinning on the outside but nearly too tired to smile. I mean whooped from having fun.

It was hot, 87 degrees with the humidity about the same. A lady in the paddock area keeled over from the heat and clonged her head on the pavement and they had to transport her to the hospital so that stopped the show when my group was sitting on grid for our third run. Can't race without an ambulance on site and they only had one ambulance.

I've got video, I've got pics. Stand by for more later today.

pdub

[Barry Donovan]

sounds hot. We had a frost warning last night.. still too hot here too. But I am a maimed sasquatch trying to make it in the big scary city. looking forward to videos.

[Deaf Bob]

Man!, don't keel over from too much fun!
Can't wait for the vid!
Like Barry, we had frost advisory last night but I work in shirt sleeves during the day!

[pdub]

Man!, don't keel over from too much fun!
Can't wait for the vid!
Like Barry, we had frost advisory last night but I work in shirt sleeves during the day!

Video uploading (I think), got two. Videos kick my butt until they work and then I don't know what I did to make them work.

Photos....got lots to do here to entertain the troops (though not as much as I was entertained).

DB, you and Barry can always move somewhere south of the Frozen Wasteland, even if you do talk (OR SIGN) funny....

[SpiderGearsMan]

Alabama ?

[pdub]

Alabama ?

Yep- Leeds, Alabama just outside Birmingham.

Daily Motion won't let me upload a video. It bruises me every time I try to do it...this time it looks like it just won't do it at all. It just won't do it for me. I'll keep trying, maybe work on some photos in the meantime.

[pdub]

Okay, let's see if this works. This is the third run of the day, and it goes on and on, and it gets faster, but bear in mind that this is slow, even at the end. The really fast guys would be passing all of us every other lap on a 2.3 mile course. But this sure is fun to do.

When we got onto the track, even "I" was asking the instructor, "Is this a pace lap, or WHAT?" We're supposed to be green when we hit the track. But it picked up a bit, just a bit after everybody got sorted out.

EDIT: I think I'll post all the pics I took after this, so y'all will actually have something to enjoy. I can do that quicker than to post another video where there is about 1 minute of highlight stuff with a story to go with it, which I will tell.

[Barry Donovan]

is that a silver 458.. loud one. Nice clean track there.

[pdub]

is that a silver 458.. loud one. Nice clean track there.

I don't know one car from another. I asked the instructor one time, "What kind of car is that? (that just passed me). He didn't know either.

Getting frustrated trying to post photos, I'm still brain tired from it all. Fun tired. Maybe I'll finish this all tomorrow. Lots of smiles and stories to tell.

Fun fun fun, I think I'm through today trying to post it all, it's got me whooped.

But a thing fell on top of me about an hour and a half ago. Just sitting at the computer, trying to think myself through all the stuff I brought home to put on the computer.....A conversation yesterday, at the end of the day with the instructor.

He's a quiet sort of guy. When we got out of the car he said, "Would you be interested in driving by yourself at the next event?"

I said, "No. I'd need to drive the same track twelve times in a row before I felt confident enough to go solo. I don't even know where the flag stands are, I never saw one today. You're telling me things in every corner that I could never imagine, how to go wider to gain some speed, or where to brake sooner and where to get on it to go faster. I'm a long way out from that."

What fell on me this evening, after yesterday, was that guy was asking me, as an instructor, if I wanted to be promoted to the next level. He asked it quietly. And I missed it. I didn't really digest it, as tired as I was yesterday, what exactly he was asking.

I'd still say no.

[pdub]

Jerry Stout and Mark West are the kingpins of Tracks Unlimited. Their outfit rents road courses and sell tickets like the one I rode this weekend.

Mark West is the guy who gave me the ride of my life last November in a Nissan GT-R at AMP. A stock GT-R. He's got another one. A track built one.

Jerry Stout is the guy with the yellow Corvette. Jerry and Mark race each other hard in the NASA series. Two weeks ago, Jerry was about to set the lap qualifying record for an event at Road Atlanta when his front tire blew out.

Jerry was yelling to himself out loud, "Stay off the wall, stay off the wall!"

The other guys on the radio chattered, "Who are you talking about?" Jerry said, "ME!"

Jerry saved he car, sort of, only scraped the wall, some paint off it it, but in the offroad excursion the front splitter on the Vette dug in and pulled the front end off of the car.

At Barber yesterday, there was Jerry and a yellow Corvette. I asked him was this the same car or do you have two?

This was another one, a time trial car. A "slower" one, I guess. Watch this video, but only watch it from 4:19. This is the Novice class, our second run, boring as heck, all of us trying to find our way around the track. Here comes Jerry in his "slow" car trying out some adjustments he made in the garage.

[Barry Donovan]

yeah that was "slow".

[Orange65]

I was at the Pull a Part in Birmingham on Saturday around lunch time. I can vouch for the fact that it was hot. Glad you had fun. I lived an hour south of Bham and worked in Bham for 7 years and never made it to Barber except for the time that Power Tour came thru there.

[pdub]

Here's some pitchers to go with that, almost all of them from the museum. As always, the camera doesn't do it justice. Just an amazing building even if it was an empty building.

http://www.weeville.com/barbervintagemuseummotorsportspark.htm

EDIT: A further amazinglyodious fact about the museum, or so Superman told me - I didn't pick up a brochure while I was there - everything on display runs and goes. Everything. Or it's not on display.

[pdub]

Gushing about curve racing.

I think I've said here before, I'm sure I have maybe a year or three ago-and I can say those words again RE how thrilled I get about track day:

When I was in grade school the teacher asked what you want to be when you grow up. Seven years old, I said race car driver. I meant it then, and it just didn't pan out. My daddy wouldn't pay for it when I was a sapling. Time went on, got older, much older.

I've got to say, those track days are a whale of a lot of fun for everybody. You think you can drive? Go find out.

One guy there I made conversational friends with, stayed at the same motel where I was at, his name is Andrew Jackson. That's his number 91 black Corvette on the photo link I posted above. He's 66 years old. Raised the kids, all that stuff, and figured it was time for some fun of his own. The car and the track. Why the heck not?

Man, was he slow. Even slower than me. But fun is fun, ain't it? Ain't is should be so?

Wow, that's fun. I'll quit grinning in a few months....no. No I won't.

[Deaf Bob]

He probably paid 3-4X or more than what you paid for Red.. You hafta go fast, as you don't have as much to lose as he does.. Thus he putters along.. Did his left blinker stay on??
Always nice to have fun with cars!