just in case you were interested…………the final roadster time was 228 mph. that was our best time to date, but unfortunately the current record is 231 mph.

next year driver and engine will change and my Dad will be driving once again. maybe 2013 will be the year the team sets a new record.

until then, pray for good salt!

photo courtesy of Dave Cecaci

and i don’t mean that in a Buster Poindexter kind of way, i mean it was crazy hot today. according to one of the shop keepers it was the hottest day of the year. of course i happen to be here the hottest day of the year, i love heat so much.

it would have been a perfect day to visit Claudius Therme, the wellness spa and pools, but alas it was a little expensive for the remaining budget. i could have gone for a two hour pool visit only, but once there i would have wanted to stay longer, have a massage, a facial, a special German scrub of some kind……i know how it goes. it goes with me going to the poor house. so i opted to go to an attraction near the spa, the zoo.

i like visiting zoos when i travel, there is always at least one animal i haven’t seen before, and some that feel like old friends.

i must admit this was the first zoo i’ve been to that had raccoon and badger habitats. who knew they were “attractions” in other areas. maybe i should look into starting a raccoon export business!

after the zoo adventure i went back to the cathedral area to do a little souvenir shopping. i stopped in at the 4711 store, i had to, this is the place it originated. 4711 is a eau de cologne that has been around in some form since 1792. legend has it that it was created by a monk as a wedding gift for a local merchant. the merchant then started to produce the water as a “remedy”. the name 4711 came from the address where the shop was located.

when i was little Daisy lived across the street from us; she was a wonderful woman and i remember spending a lot of time playing at her house. she had a bottle of 4711 in her bathroom and i loved looking at it; it was so pretty and seemed so grown-up. maybe her husband had traveled to Germany and brought it back as a gift, maybe she was in Germany and fell in love with the scent and brought it home as a reminder of the trip, or maybe she saw the pretty bottle at a local store and had to have it. i don’t know the story of how she came to have 4711, but what i do know is that i still think of her every time i see, or smell the cologne.

so that ends my visit to Cologne (Köln); tomorrow i head back to San Francisco via Munich. it was a good trip, although short. weidersehen!

day two at the salt starts with record runs at 7 AM. record runs are for cars that broke a record the day before.
if you break a record you have an hour to get to the impound area and then you have four hours to work on your car. the car spends the night in impound and runs the next morning. if i understand the record setting process correctly, it goes something like this………

say the record is 200 mph and you go 205 in mile 2, you break that 200 mph record. during your record run you need to go over 200 mph again in the same mile, in this case mile 2, and the new record is the average time of your two runs. sounds like one of those problem solving questions from math class right?!

did i mention there was a fair amount of waiting while at the salt? the main attraction in the pits this year is a phenomenal car by Triet & Davenport called the Target 550. it’s not running at this meet, maybe at the Mohave Mile in Sept. or at the Bonneville race in October. i can’t wait to see this baby run, she is a beaut!
a windstorm hit mid afternoon, causing a flurry of activity in the pits, taking down the tents and packing up. the course was shut down for awhile, but eventually reopened. sadly we did not end up in impound today. we made one run late in the day, and ended up spinning out right after the start.

damn soft salt! driver and car are fine, and we received the official okay from inspection, so we should be in good shape for tomorrow. thunderstorms are on the horizon though, fingers crossed they just bypass Wendover.

Bonneville National Speed Week runs Thursday to Thursday, and it’s usually held within the first couple of weeks of August.

the racing begins on Saturday morning; Thursday and Friday are spent setting up your pit and getting the car through inspection.

Saturday starts with a drivers meeting at 9 AM, followed by a drive down the course, and then everyone gets their cars ready to get in line and race.

3 out 4 tracks are open today, one is closed due to the rain yesterday, so things are moving a little slowly. we put our car in line about 3 hours ago, and we are still about 18 cars back. i take the opportunity to walk around and take some pix.

a new scoop is on our car this year and a couple of other modifications have been made, so it’s anyone’s guess how the run will go.

did i say there was a lot of waiting? and waiting. and waiting. so i wander and take more pictures.

and we run. 218 mph. good speed for us, but not enough to set the record…….now we wait for the car to come back to the pit to find out how it ran from the driver perspective and to see if anything needs tweaking.

did i mention we wait a lot? and i wander some more.

the car is back and it’s time for the team meeting. this is where every shift in gear is analyzed and they determine next steps. the good news is nothing appears to have broken and we can run again. it’s pretty late in the day to make another run today, but we are in good shape for tomorrow.