Wood Family's Southern Command Post.

Nope, we didn't forget about the requested videos...however, Deb's vids were to large to put on photobucket so I've got some editting to do. Here is a Morgan vid that makes the size cut. You can tell she hasn't been around in a couple weeks and is used to running things at her house.

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First things first. Happy Birthday to my mother today. Both Lyndsay and I had a great time up there, and really appreciate how much extra work you put in to make our stay fun. I'll be paying for all the food for weeks, but it's worth it to me. Most of the folks that will see the following video are coming from Mom's blog and I want ya'll to know that even though I don't comment over there much I read it daily and love my mom very much.

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Ok, I've put off talking about this because I was unsure if we could do it or not. I've put in vacation from June 28 to July 6. There is no way I can afford to drive our car up there as the gas bill alone would be around $350 round trip. Tonight Deb's mom offered her new Camry for the trip that would basically cut that in half. No way Deb can come because if she doesn't work for a week, she doesn't get paid...no vacation days in the hairstyling biz. Without her check, we ain't making it even in a Camry. Lyndsay has been counting down the days, so I'm going to try to make this happen.

The plan is to be there Saturday night, and head back the next Saturday. If this doesn't work on your end let me know. My vacation days aren't locked in stone.

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We got the DVD from the SRT track experience that I blogged about here. I made a few youtube vids of it for the car club, and thought I'd share here.

First is the little turbo 4 cylinder Caliber. The funny part in this one is the lady getting kicked out of the instructor car when she tells him she gets motion sickness!

Next up is the first run in the SRT Magnum. You can see Deb sitting on the pit wall when I return.

This is the last run in the Magnum, this time Deb is in the car I'm chasing with the instructor.

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I'm not a big fan of going out when I have to work the next day. I'm not much of a fan of going out at all really, though someone who didn't go "clubbing" would probably think we are quite the bar fly's.

We try to support any of our friends who are in local bands by going to see them when they play. We actually know a lot of musicians, but mainly just our close friends draw us out. None of them do a lot of gigs, and they really like to see a familiar face in the crowd. My mechanic/welder buddy Mike is a drummer at night. The bands he joins very seldom stay together long enough to get an actual paying job, so when he called today saying he was playing this evening I knew we had to go. He is very talented, and so are most of the folks he hooks up with, but those band types just don't get along to well. Anyway, we went to see him this evening.

Deb and I are actually pretty ruthless on the folks that hang out in these bars. It is pretty much a freek show anywhere you go anyway, but the type of people that go to bars on Thursday night was worth the price of admission just for us to make fun of them. Just tonight we saw Charlie Manson, Bob's Big Boy, a cro-magnon cavewoman, a very fat girl who didn't know she was fat and had her ass hanging out, some women that thought they were men...well, you get the picture. The music was not really our taste, but Mike did a great job for the band.....and we made fun of folks for a couple hours.

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I won't say where I got the link for this one, but let's just say it wouldn't look quite right on My Country Life....just sayin'.

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Just when you think this blog is dead, I show up with a post. Top story of the day is another grandchild and the first boy of the group. Celeste had Skylar this morning around 9am. I haven't even been to the hospital yet...me and Monk are waiting for Deb to come pick us up.

We've been running crazy lately. You sure wouldn't know just how broke we were if you were trying to tail us in traffic. We had our car clubs birthday party at a diner in Atlanta two weeks ago.

This weekend was highly anticipated by both Deb and I. When you buy an SRT of any type, part of the price is a driving course voucher that you have one year to redeem. They set up at tracks all over the country, and you just sign up for one that's close to you. I'm doing a cut and paste from my car club forum on this one, because it pretty much is the short version. If you click the link there are several videos to give you the general idea of why I'm worn out and sunburned today.

Just a week short of our vouchers expiring, Red07SRT and myself made the trip to Atlanta Motor speedway yesterday to take part in the SRT track experience. I thought it would be a cool thing to do, but I had no idea just how cool it would be. From the opening briefing when they said to drive these cars like they were rentals I started to get the idea.

The road course was my favorite portion of the shindig. Two cars follow the instructor who gauges from his rearview mirror just how fast to lead. There were a couple problems with the ESP systems freaking out when exiting the infield onto the banking. If you hit it too fast the car thought it was flipping over and pulled all throttle. I first went in the Charger group and we went fairly fast, nothing I haven't done before though. The second run was in 300's and the trail car had the ESP problem so it wasn't very fast either. By the time I got in the Magnum I figured I'd went as fast as they would allow....WRONG. I can honestly say that we drove them poor bastards as hard as they would go. I made sure to get back in line for the Magnum instructors group a couple more times, and each time we had the station wagon drifting through every corner, and flat footed on the back stretch.

I won the drag racing portion in our group and found out that if I had the Jeep I wouldn't have to worry if Silver Dollar preps the track or not. At the end of the module I was 7 and 1, then went on to beat the instructor 2 out of 3. As you can tell, they didn't short us on runs, although each of three groups had over 25 people.

Autocross I ended up in forth for our group, but way down the list in the totals. There were a couple ringers in the groups, SCCA types. The guy that won the day was turning better times than the instructors. Oh, on that subject the little Caliber runs pretty darn good if you keep the turbo spooled up. Blow a corner and have to hit the brakes though and you may wonder if the motor is still running when you get back on the gas.

The Viper driving was also an autocross event. Again, I didn't fair so well, ending up mid pack. The part the suprised me was how close everyone was in the Viper. The times were so close it was hard to tell who had won each run. Deb probably had the most fun at this one because she rode out with the instructors a couple times who drifted the entire course.

At the end of the day you go back onto the road course to ride with an instructor to see what "maxed out" feels like. Through the entire thing I was sitting there thinking "we were going this fast this morning" until one sweeper heading from the front straight back into the infield road couse section.  It turns out the guy was holding back a bit in the morning section because we hit that way faster than I thought the car would stick. I do understand why we were "shorted" when we were driving though...it was probably a 100mph sweeper and had concrete on one side and aramco on the other. The instructors basically drifted through the entire corner. Not Fast and Furious style, but a wonderful 4 wheel drift right to the edge of the track.

When we headed up I was thinking "hey, it's a free day of driving and we get fed". Now we are both talking about next year.

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