Marc's Public Blog - Cars

Below is a recounting of various car events I've attended along the years, from car club meets, autocrosses, track events, and enthusiast drives.

Table of Content for cars:

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2024/06/27 Fast Toys F488 at Sears Point

π 2024-06-27 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

Not a bad drive to Sears Point:

Lots of nice cars:

I did mostly ok, but not great, I was generally tired and didn't want to push it. I got a few laps down to 1:55, and that's as low as I managed, which is a time I have done in my 650S on street tires (apparently I only got down to 2:00-ish in the 2 sessions I tried in the 650S). I did a 1:53 in a mercedes race car that was slower in 2020. I'm sure the car was good for 1:45 or so, but I was not. That said, I avoided pushing too hard and running out of talent, which is always good.

So yeah, not my best day, but still a fun day at the track and not a super long drive home:

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2023/04/16 Woodland Auto Display at Paso Robles

π 2023-04-16 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

I had been there briefly 10 years prior, and had a chance to see it again. It felt bigger and with more displays, either way, it's a cool museum if you are in the area:

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2023/04/16 Solvang Motorcycle Museum

π 2023-04-16 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

While in Solvang, there was a small motorcycle museum, which despite the small size, had lots of bikes, cool collection to go through:

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2023/01/28 Mozart Foundation Automobile Museum

π 2023-01-28 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

Very interesting private collection gathered in a small museum in the middle of Mountain View, and that no one knows about since it's not really open to the public. The owner however does open his collection for occasional visits to a few select car clubs, and I was lucky enough to be part of one of those visits. Definitely has some unique vehicles, some one of a kind and that took 20 to 30 years of perseverance before he was able to acquire them:

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2022/08/20 Saturday at Monterey Car Week

π 2022-08-20 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

This time I went saturday with one of my friends. We drove separately and she left her car at Bring a Trailer at Laguna, which gave us free entrance and free parking, which otherwise aren't cheap.

it was foggy as it often is early in the morning

nice parking behind turn 3

Bring a Trailer had a nice collection of customer pictures:

very cool Citroen DS, hatchback no less

nicely done, manual coffee grinder, coffee and croissants

leather straps for the win

We also got to see parts of a few races:

best view was from the corkscrew

nice to see a pagani lap the track

I have a short video:

We got to see a few races after that:

Then, we got to see the other cars on the track:

Next we went to Exotics on Broadway in Seaside, which was quite busy:

interesting split wings

Next, we went to Pebble Beach, but we arrived a bit late (15:00) and most things were gone:

Ferrari had a corral you could pay extra to look at closely:

Also some concept cars:

We were supposed to go see Bentley, but we never found them until they were closed, so we saw a few other cars and were done for the day:

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2021/08/13 A bit of car week in Salinas and Carmel by the Sea

π 2021-08-13 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

Joon was nice enough to hook me up and I signed up for the Mclaren AutoX in Salinas. It had been almost 15 years since I last autocrossed, and never autocrossed any of my more recent fast cars. So I started by going to Salinas Airport, that was fun:

I then did a few runs, and got my times down

this was the best time of the day

I got 2 better times even, but they didn't count because I touched some cones

My best unofficial time was only 0.5s slower than their chief instructor and my tires were way past their prime, so I was pretty happy with that :)

I got a price, woohoo :)

After the autoX, I went to Carmel to enjoy the nice downtown, sea view, and cars:

lots of nice houses

police nicely closed Ocean Av after a while, sigh...

I went to see a few nice stores to kill some time

After a few hours, it was time to go to the Mclaren reception (thanks again Joon)

and I ran into Dan, awesome!

I had never been to Monterey/Carmel during car week. That wasn't exactly the perfect day to go, but it sure was fun. Glad that I was able to make it.

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2021/07/24 Mclaren Cars and Coffee to Exotics Cars and Cofffee

π 2021-07-24 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

Two Cars and Coffee in a row, sure, sounds like fun :) First went to meet the Mclaren crowd, and it was a big turnout:

nice, I hadn't seen this GT before

We then drove to the Cars and Coffee location, we had a nice lineup:

lots of cars

of course, other car groups too:

a Senna, nice!

bad ass looking

so tiny, don't roll it

nice

winner of the widest tires

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2021/07/10 FOC Mt Hamilton Grand View Meet & Drive

π 2021-07-10 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

It was nice to be invited to an FoC event and join a large amount of supercars. Cynthia was happy to join me to enjoy all the cars. We met them at a parking lot in Milpitas:

We then went for a short and slow-ish drive to Joseph Frant Ranch County Park, where we got more pictures:

From there, we drove back down to Grandview Restaurant for a nice buffet lunch:

From there, people left but there is no way Cynthia and I could just leave while Mt Hamilton peak was 35mn away up the road according to google maps. The road was totally empty, we made up in 22mn, it was glorious :) (google says 14 miles, so that's 38mph average, just under the 40mph speed limit, so it's all good, right? :) ).

The way down, we were just as lucky, we made it all the way down in 26mn flat and only had to pass a single car. Woot! (google says 18.8 miles, so that's 43mph average)

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2021/04/26 First DC Track Day at Thunderhill

π 2021-04-26 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

It had been a while since I got up early to fly to Thunderhill (well, not that early, 6:15), almost 2 years. Damn... Beautiful flight:

Thanks to Ren and driveclub for inviting me to their track day. Lots of cars, lots of drivers of different ability and it worked beautifully considering, I was beyond impressed.

hi joon

represent!

I arrived just in time for a group picture, but got in trouble for getting there a bit too quickly (oops):

Social distanced-ish meeting time, and then driving most of the day:

Lots of different cars:

I rented a Porsche GT4 clubsport from SP Motorsports, and Paul took good care of me (thank you). It was a fun new car for me to learn to drive. It had enough power, the brakes were really good, the included tires were scrubs, so that was the main downside (real slicks cost a lot). Still, eventually got the car down to 1:57 when it's apparently good for 1:53 with proper tires and a real driver, so that's not too bad:

after a good day of driving where I used up all the brakes :)

That was my best lap in the afternoon on one of my few almost clean laps (didn't get many) and 2nd set of scrubs before they went downhill. 1:57 is 9 sec slower than what I would do in my F458 GT3, but well, that car is a bit cheaper too :)

After that, the scrubs got worse, and I got more tired, so I went back to 1:58 and above, but still had a great time.

Thank you to everyone involved in making the day happen, it was lots of fun!

The flight back was also nice and uneventful (i.e. good):

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2020/11/28 Skyline to the Sea Loop

π 2020-11-28 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

Damn, it's been more than a year since our last drive. It was short and sweet, but after so long, it was nice. Lots of people on the road though, but I was lucky enough to get mostly clear roads for most of the fun bits: