A new Lands End catalog?

So, I came home after class last Friday to the surprise of seeing my two good friends Scott and Josh at my door. They actually went through an elaborate scheme of having the landlord call me with supposed trouble (I was pissed). I actually couldn't believe it at first and thought I was being robbed when two guys just opened my front door and popped their heads in! Au contraire, I was being kidnapped. We were going to see the season finale American Le Mans Series (ALMS) race down by Monterey at Laguna Seca. One of the greatest road courses in America. We hung out with Scout and waited for Reagan to get off work. We walked the dog and still had a few hours to burn. What could we do...? Well, as usual, our conversation was heavily car related... and Josh is thinking of picking up a sporty coupe. So we obviously had to go check out some options for him. We headed down to the Davis dealership row to check out some vehicles. A salesman took us around to various lots (including one that had an Audi TT, which I think is what Josh will get, that wasn't even a lot he worked for) and we checked out some cars. We look at some options and found a nice M3 with SMG (Sequential Manual Gearbox, no clutch but still stick shifted). Which the dealer had us take our by ourselves. Did you know it has 333hp? We do. We also test drove the new Altima Coupe (think G35) which is really nice... I picked up Reagan and she made us a fabulous dinner of drunken Tuscan pasta and then we all passed out so we could leave at 4 the next day to head down to the races. We headed down and finished up the trip on 101 and checked out the beach. We picked up the tickets and drove to Laguna Seca. It was gorgeous climbing up into the mountains and looking into the valley on the way up. After arriving we headed down into the paddocks and checked out some of the cars. We got to see a lot of the cars including Le Mans prototypes, GT1,and GT2 classes of Porsches, Corvettes, Ferraris, Vipers, then prototype Porsches and the Audi R10. We got to hear them tuning the motors and get really close to the cars and see some of the technology under the bonnet as well. We walked around and got to watch the Speed GT racers depart under heavy throttle from about 15 feet away. Oh did I mention, it is LOUD. Every car is just dumped straight out of the exhaust and you can hear them from all points on the race track. We started walking the track and Scott was shooting pictures from the various points. We headed down to the "Corrals" and saw as Scott put it, "The most money in cars in one place ever." Seriously, we saw around 150-200 NSX's, Corvettes and Porsche's respectively.

Mind you, there were so many C6 Z06s that we think they actually outnumbered the "normal" C6's. It was rediculous. Oh yeah, and the Ferrari Owners club of Silicon Valley which had about 30-40 Ferrari's, each probably around 6 months old tops. We then did the Land Rover drive, where we drove a Land Rover on an off-road course at some impressive lateral inclines. After we ate some lunch at the "Corkscrew" section of the course while watching the end of the Star Mazda series, we headed down and walked the starting grid of the ALMS race. Scott set-up to take some pictures and Josh and I headed up the hill to watch the corkscrew.


Once 70% of the race was done (everyone gets points for the race after 70% completed) the action got intense. In ALMS four different classes of cars race at once, similar to the 24 hours of Le Mans but the finale of ALMS was a 4 hour long race, meaning that 4 different classes are passing each other competing for the overall champion while also racing in their individual classes. Tons of tight passes and amazing racing. It was a blast and all of our picks ended up winning, Audi overall, Ferrari in , and of course the Corvettes finished 1,2 since all their competition (Aston Martin, Maserati, Saleen) couldn't take the heat. Rumors have it that next year they'll move down to GT2 to get more competition with Ford GTs, Vipers, Porsches, and Ferrari. We made it back here and passed out and then they left this morning at 6am. It was an awesome weekend and way too much fun. I can't believe they drove down here and it was an absolute blast. I definitely have the best friends ever.