Monday, December 25, 2006

Brownsey Family

Merry Christmas to all. The kids are very excited with all the gifts and are quietly playing now. We did the traditional egg nog and 'Night Before Christmas' after church Christmas Eve.

Chris

Christmas Eve:


Christmas Morning:


After opening presents:

Wednesday, December 20, 2006


Monday, December 18, 2006


This plastic Tootsietoy Ford Thunderbird just sold on Ebay (150070218701) for $46.00. I bought it at Woolworth's in 1986 for $3 and never played with it.

Noah

Cub Cadet 528. 28"wide, 10hp tecumseh, headlight, electric start, and zero turn power steering. Bought it today at Tractor Supply. It was $100 less than last week when I went to look at it. I saw Mel Burger at Tractor Supply. Mom and Dad are invited to his house for a new years party.
If no Dyson P1 cars and Highcroft is running P2 Acuras then Who is competing against Audi? They will have no competition if the P2 cars are required to be slower than P1.
The team RealTime Honda is out of commision for a little bit. Hopefully it will be back soon.

Noah

*There will be a $2 handling charge per package for any packages shipped to 4001 Old River Rd. This includes any and all christmas gifts regarless of the recipient. Joel you account is currently at $4.
2 Big Stories:

Minardi buys a big chunk of CTE Racing-HVM. CTE will stay on board with the team and the team will be know as Minardi Team USA. They still haven't said anything about who or how many they are running, hopefully, Nelson, Clarke, plus one. There are 111 days until Las Vegas.

Even bigger news, Dyson Racing will be running 2 Porsche RS Spyders next year in P2... no more Lola's. That makes 2 Penske +2 Dyson + Van der Steur + AGR + Fernandez + Highcroft + Intersport = 9 P2 cars. All of them running excellent equipment, that will be very exciting. It also sounds like GT2 will be exactly the same next year.

Acura on track at Sebring (check LMSR.net):
The IRL is trying to add a street race in Biloxi, Missouri to the end of their 07 schedule. Larry Cahill is running that effort and he also plans on starting a two car team for the 07 season. He has already signed Milka Duno to run that car. The IRL needs to add a team to replace Fernandez who closed up.

Paul

Sunday, December 17, 2006

A Dayton Maine balsam:


Both kids were invited to birthday parties today. Megan went to a magic show and Jonathan to swimming party (indoor). Its nice to enjoy Christmas now as most of the preparation is over!!!

In memory of Snowball.
We took this picture 11/26 after our Thanksgiving visit. It was one of the potential Christmas card pictures.

Chris

Friday, December 15, 2006

Daytona 24 Test Days entry list is up.

AJA and Paul Tracy will be driving for MSR.

Oliver will be driving with the Dyson guys at Howard Motorsports.

Jorg Bergmeister can't fit in the Alex Job car.

Boris Said is driving for Krohn racing.

Vasser is back with Gainsco.

Lou Gigliotti will be in the Black Forest Mustang.

Johnny Mowlem and Tom Papadopoulos(Speed GT Aston guys) in a Tim Horton's sponsored Porsche.

Monday-Thursday before the 24hour there will be combined ALMS and Champ Car testing open to the public at Sebring. Wish I could be down there all week.

Stoddart Champ Car announcement Monday?

Forsythe has fired half of it's staff. They will run 2 Red Bull sponsored Atlantics and may only run Paul Tracy in Champ Car. However, they often say this sort of thing this time a year in hopes for getting sponsorship. They tested 9 people for that second Champ Car seat. Still early in the off season.

Each team gets a Panoz on Wednesday.


Good Enough,

Paul



Our Adirondack Balsam Christmas tree that I cut myself next door. Dad

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Happy birthday to Doug.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Yay Birthday.

Christmas yup... Phil, I hope you like Goat Head.

Finally found a good cheap butcher in Cambridge, very exciting. Had some leg of lamb this week very good. Just slid by the Indian store and picked up some stuff to Indianize the leftovers. Turns out a leg of lamb is more than enough for two people?

Also had huge chunk of roast beef and shredded the leftovers for bean,rice beef tortilla thing with massive assault from my spice arsenal.

I think my plan is drive in for grandma's on Christmas Eve, then Christmas at Noahs and later drive back to Worcester and get Cyndy (and Tim?) and get a ride to camp with someone the day after Christmas. Me and Cyndy with Mom and Dad and if Cameron and Oliver are going too, Tim can sit between them.

The Office is starting at 8PM on thursday, 1 hour long.

Delivery for the Champ Car Panozes (Panozi?) will be 12/22. It turns out that they will have the same weight as the Lolas. Also, all races will be timed 1 hour 45 minutes next year. No wind tunnel testing, only Panoz parts allowed, shaker rig testing allowed. Max 600 miles of testing. Carl Haas is the official distributor for Panoz parts. Some standing starts.

I'm sure all this will be on speed or champ cars site tomorrow, but I'm posting it now.

Visa is title sponsor for both Las Vegas and Phoenix.

The two European races are still coming... Assen and ???

Stoddart is still interested in running two cars next year. There are now 20! confirmed cars with a possibility according to CC Pres. of 4 more cars(including Stoddart).

Seabass is testing with Toro Rosso this week at Jerez.

Marco is testing with Honda.

Red Bull is sponsoring two Forsythe Atlantic cars... a little odd considering the AJA thing.

No news out of the IRL.

Dad... Start DVRing anything on speed that is German Touring car, British Touring car, FIA GT or A1GP.


Good Enough,

Paul

Monday, December 11, 2006

Happy Birthday to Chris.

It is snowing as I write this, and yesterday we finally got the 1st bird in our bird feeder. It was a blue jay and it took 34 days. The snow knocked out the TV until Peter cleaned the snow off the dish. Very annoying, but at least it isn't cold out.

A belated happy birthday to Grandmother Brownsey on the 8th, late, as we were out of town.

Mom

Sunday, December 10, 2006



My Evo now with the parts installed, making it way sweeter than Noah's.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

I think the Pontiac GT cars are as close to the street cars as the Dirt modifieds were to a Gremlin. In one of the test photos the GXP or Grand Am is clearly a GTO with a new nose thrown on. The door doesn't even meet the fender. The new mustang looks great and at least appears to be built off of a Mustang. Just like the RX-8, Corvette, and 911.

Noah

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

I found that wrapping clear packing tape around santa was pretty effective. Also some combination of rope that I'm sure is still in that house from Dad to support the weight from above and be sure to adjust his ballast based on how you've suspended him. Ballast is important.

I read that the Acura LMP2 cars that tested last week on the Homestead roadcourse were 2 full seconds a lap faster than the IRL's official test at the beginning of last year. That is going to be pretty embarrassing next year for IRL when they share 3 events with ALMS. I looked up lap times for the Mid-Ohio race: All times are 2006 unless otherwise noted.

CART(2001) Gil de Ferran 1:05.442
CART(2003) Paul Tracy 1:07.058

LMP2 Porsche Spyder Bernhard/Dumas 1:12.378 (no R10 yet)

Atlantic(2003) A.J. Allmendinger 1:15.338
Atlantic(2005 runoffs) Graham Rahal 1:16.996

Star Mazda Ryan Justice 1:18.300

Ford Riley DP Colin Braun 1:20.202

Formula BMW David Garza 1:26.430

Porsche had the ALMS pole last year, but that was against the R8. Next year P2 cars will have there times adjusted so that they are at least 7% behind the fastest P1 car in qualifying. This season the Lola has been as fast or faster than the 2001/2002 seasons mostly due to tires. So de Ferran's record is representative of the current Lola's speed. Supposedly, the Panoz will add a couple seconds to that. Speaking of the Panoz, Champ Car teams will be very eager to knock down Toyota F1's record at Laguna this spring when they test there.

Speaking of Mid-Ohio, the weekend is $50 for GA and $13 for paddock.

Loads of good pictures/stories at lmsr.net. Dyson teaming up with Howard motorsports. Cool Banner Pontiac, really cool looking black forest mustang with no decals yet.


Rahal broke the track record at MSR (CC has tested there for ~ 1 year). Pizzonia will be in GP2 next year.

Risi has a couple new Ferraris for G12.

Pirelli will not be back with Aston Martin in GT1... not good.

Roberto Moreno was at Zhuhai China showing off the Panoz... which should start being sent to teams any day now.

Paul
Only 1 catalog today, Land's End "very last chance 2006". I put up the plastic Santa today. Not a very imaginative spot. I had a better spot in mind but couldn't get him to stay in place. Santa has bad mounting points.

Noah

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Mom's gift to Christine last year. Fits nicely.

Chris

5 catalogs today Hearth & Song, American Girl, Young Explorers, Hanna Anderson, Target Christmas '06. First dusting of snow on the ground for this year.
Phil email me if get read this supercd61@gmail.com

Noah

Monday, December 04, 2006

A little jealous of the Christmas Train, looked like fun.

The Christmas Hut looks fantastic in the snow!

A year ago it looked like Panther racing was finished but today it is far from it... thanks to Fernandez closing up. Meira's car has picked Delphi Sponsorship and the team picked up a fully funded second car with Panasonic and Matsuura from Fernandez. Here are some pictures from Panther's shop:



According to IRL pres. Brian Barnhart, despite the fact that as of today IRL has 16 cars it will have 20-21 at Homestead in March. One entry possible coming from a new team with Milka Duno and Citgo. I still say 18 with the two cars coming from Vision and Foyt.

The IRL is testing mufflers...

Rahal and Bourdais tested at Sebring last week with Rahal putting in faster times than Bourdais.

Next week Forsyth will test Atlantic Champ Si Pag, Adam Carroll and IPS champ Jay Howard. This will be the last test for the Lola which will have a testing ban starting the 15th.

Expect 4 Frenchmen next year, Seabass, Noah's favorite: Nelson, Si Pag, and Alex Premat(who was really fast with Conquest last week). Cyndy says Nelson doesn't count as French.

Gelles racing seems dead and Stoddart has been too quite recently for that to seem like a reality. So that puts todays count at 20 cars. With Forsyth possible running three cars, they have tested or talked to 10 drivers for the seat along side PT: Rice, Wirth, Martinez, N. Phillipe, R. Phillipe, Wilson, Howard, Si Pag, Carroll, Lawson Aschenbach(Speed GT).

Neel Jani is a go at PKV with Red Bull money. Next week they are testing a 2005 GP2 driver from Monaco named Clivio, first name. Which leaves Oriol (who will hopefully find something) and Katherine (who is guaranteed a seat somewhere by KK) without rides.

Claire Bourdais had Emma Bourdais on Saturday... I guess I'm out of news.



Paul


For our Greatgrandfather.



What is it?

Saturday, December 02, 2006



There was a box car parked in the way of taking a photo of the whole train. There were 1 engine, 4 box cars, one generator car for the lights, the performance box car and 4 passenger cars. Lots of lights.


Canadian Pacific Railroad Holiday train his headed north from Scranton, PA. Making stops in Binghampton, Oneonta, Cobleskill, Delanson, Saratoga, and Fort Edward. Went went to Cobleskill tonight at 7pm. They had a box car cut open as a stage with musical performers. At each stop CPR gave $1000 to the local mayor for the local food bank. There was also a food drive. It was very cold but we made it.

Noah

Team RealTime

Friday, December 01, 2006


Grandpa's Bonneville is on eBay. Item #150066236902. Please do not bid on it. Don't let anybody you like bid on it.

Thursday, November 30, 2006



1995 Subaru with 167,000 miles...sold.
I need Cyndy to email me to discuss rat boy's christmas gift.

Noah
supercd61@gmail.com
2 today Mac Connection and Cricket

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

We have received at least 100 catalogs in the mail for Mom and Dad at the blue house since labor day. LL Bean has easily sent 25 catalogs in the period of time. 4 today LL Bean, Cabela's, Williams-Sonoma, Garnet Hill. That makes 12 so far this week! save the trees.
Oliver and I went to Lock 11 today and saw three trains. On the way back we went to Mike's hot dogs for lunch. Temperature today was about 55. Washed the EVO and rode Cameron's yellow Ski Doo in the yard. Pizza for dinner tonight.


Noah

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

We have a portable dishwasher... I don't really like it but we have it.

Dan Petit the p of PKV bought RuSport.

Noah is on MySpace.

Zanardi is on the side in the BMW Sauber.

No Grand Am news but Homestead testing is next week.

Risi, and Audi have been at Sebring testing this week with Dyson and Rahal(IRL) and Vision, and Corvette testing last week. Here is a photo of Scott Sharp's new car with Patron Tequilla livery.
That LMSR.net is a good site, I'll throw that with the links. The trouble is that they don't leave there pictures or anything for very long. So unless it's fresh they take it down. So this photo will be gone soon.


I made a comic.



Paul


Camping down at Big Sur after Thanksgiving. The weather was perfect. Note the grazing lands down by the ocean in the distance.



Where's Rachel?
Well, it was wonderful holiday. But, after all the dust settled there is still a pair of black shoes in the laundry room. Maybe, I will wrap them for a Christmas surprise.

Mom

Monday, November 27, 2006



Another after Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat.

Dad
Emily and I would like to give a special thanks to Noah, Kate, Mom, and Dad for everything they did to accommodate us this weekend. Everything worked out flawlessly for us and we appreciate those who helped make that possible.

abercrombie pose, feel free to print and frame it.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

If I read this right. Wayne Taylor is starting his own DP team. Taking the sponsor (SunTrust), GM engine support and the teams' best driver Mad Max with him. I would guess his former partner is annoyed.

Noah

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

I made it to and from Ann Arbor, Michigan this past weekend for Emily's birthday and also to prepare myself for the cold weather in Stillwater on Thanksgiving, however Michigan might be colder. I got to eat in the dining hall,

watch the Michigan vs. Ohio St. game alongside Michigan students, which happened to be the biggest game all year in college football, and witness most students do nothing all weekend but study. I was surprised so many actually took a 3 hour break to watch the game on Saturday.

Evidently they don't have squirrels in Peru which explains why Emily seemed so fascinated by them.

3" downpipe and testpipe



Joel

Monday, November 20, 2006

I updated my webpage today. Let me know if you see anything wrong. It's public, but not easy to find until the department builds a search page to find it.
Philip

Sunday, November 19, 2006

No more Nelson please. Robby Gordon won Baja 1000 in trophy truck.


Noah
Happy Birthday Patrick......although I have my doubts that he ever reads this blog.

11 days and no birds in my birdfeeder yet. I'm starting to get annoyed.

Another tree is coming down with the balsam disease. Does anyone know what it is or what to do about it.

I am not confused, Mom

Friday, November 17, 2006

I finally found a copy of Paul Tracy's Autosport article that Joel wanted to read.

Another current Champ Car driver was with Tracy and knocked unconcious for 9 minutes. No ones saying who it was.

Dale Coyne will have a real sponsor next year and for the first time in awhile actually pay a driver.

Names for the second Forsythe seat include Rice, Martinez, Wirth, and Philippe(unless his Dad buys RuSport).

It is very important for teams to get there drivers in place by the start of DP01 testing in January. Teams will be able to use the Lola for driver evaluations until December 15.

The Champ Car TV deal with ABC/ESPN is for five years with 11 races this year and all the races starting next year.


Paul
I added my research webpage to the list of links to the left, although it is still under construction. Once it is done, you will be able to see what I am working on without getting the confused version from Mom.
Marion has one room left for Fri. & Sat. night if anyone changed their mind it let us know.

Dad
Happy Birthday Emily....and we are looking forward to meeting you next week.

Went to Watertown yesterday and scored a turkey- I know it isn't like getting an xbox- didn't have to camp out overnight. Drove home in a wild storm and arrived to find the power out. The generator had a 10 hour workout and ran beautifully.

Joel-mission accomplished at the airport?

Mom

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Peter and Donnie. DVR "Racing Incorporated" on SpeedTV tonight(wed) at 8PM and tommorrow night(thurs) at 8PM. Each is 1 hour long. They also replay at 11pm on their respective nights.

Chris. Bus wedensday morning. Pick one

Noah. Cyndy is planning on driving to your house on Friday morning for a ride to camp. Supposively Mother already told you this, but, she probably didn't or if she did she sounded confused.

Joel. Jerk

Phil. Jerk

Grandpa Steates. Jerk

The schedule for the Daytona 24 has been posted. Notice the start has been moved back to 1:30. I guess that's why the Delta flight to Atlanta on Sunday got pushed back as well.

This week at the Champ Car banquet they should announce the addition of Assen, NED, and Zolder, BEL. to the schedule for September. Also, Paul Stoddart will team up with CTE-HVM together they will run two CTE branded cars and one or two Minardi branded cars. Also, RuSport got bought by someone.

Mexico City was a good race.

The first official test session for the teams with the Panoz DP01 is Jan 25-27. I don't understand why they aren't doing it on Jan 23-25 or something, oh well.

I bought this book: Rapid Response It's pretty good, but not as fun as Zanardi's.

We've made $8 with the ad thingy now just short of $30.

Paul
Happy Birthday Cameron.

Grandma

Monday, November 13, 2006

Over the weekend Jonathan and I had to make a water wheel for his science homework. Lucky the weather wasn't great Sunday so we got right to it. Jonathan's suggested putting it into a Clementine box. The rest is made from scrap wood. This is the first of the potentially nightmare homework assignments I have heard rumors about.



Another picture of Paul and Cyndy's visit.



Chris
Brownsey Family
Jane passed along the notice that Evelyn Bol passed away yesterday.

http://www.glenvillefuneralhome.com/viewobit.cfm?ObitID=560
Evelyn Bol

Chris
Yeah! Frontier finally showed up with a new modem. The old one blew up when the power line came down on the phone line some days ago.

It's nice to be back online and I would like to say Happy Birthday to Rachel. Stand by- it's a big week for birthdays.

Mom

Sunday, November 12, 2006



Cameron and Oliver are working on a project in the basement. We are converting Paul's attempt at a train layout into a dance/show stage. They had fun painting the edges today. I used a belt sander on the top and we will polyurethane it tomorrow.
I did not see the Camp Car race today. So don't spoil the end for me!


Noah

Friday, November 10, 2006

I'm still trying to digest Paul's 11/7 post. Too much at one time. No room for cake.

Noah

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Beneath Nelson is an ad. It is part of a fundraising exercise so we can get a subscription to Autosport.com. I'm using an account that already has $20 some dollars on it and we need $100 to get to cash out. The Autosport subscription is $60, the remaining balence will be donated to the Stillwater-Number 4 Fish and Game Club or something.

Good enough,

Paul

Click on it everyday. It won't hurt.
It turns out Jonathan has a long lost twin. Which one is his twin?



Christine's parents sent us this picture they cut out of a Lowe's ad. Chris

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Two Ndinjas was replaced before the previous race in the World Series by Renault (I think they have 1 left). I haven't heard anything about his plans for next year.

Everyone has probably heard about PT. Though I still expect that the race in Mexico City will be the best of the year. Hopefully, guys like Ranger and Zwolsman will be able to push the Lola's as hard as they can without worrying about accident damage. 3Pm this Sunday on Speed.

As I wrote earlier the hiring of both of Fernandez's IRL engineers by Dreyer and Reinbold suggested Ferandez was done. According to Tom Anderson (part owner of the team) they have 0 chance of running next year at this point.

What I didn't write was that DRR has not said whether or not they will run in the IRL next year and they have been looking at the new Champ Car Panoz. Both of Fernandez's engineers were with the team while he was still a one car operation in CART. Regardless, my assumption that they will go to a two car operation in any series seems to be wrong.

My assumption that Foyt would go to two cars is also wrong. Panther is going to two cars with Matuura (Super Aguri Panther). Rahal Letterman is going down to two cars with Scott Sharp driving one of them. It looks like Tony George will have to go to three cars with Vision and keep funding Marty Roth to make 18 (assuming DRR isn't leaving but rather extorting money out of Tony George). Tony did just sell his share of Chicagoland to ISC to fund "improvements to IMS" (AKA fund 33 cars for this year's I500).

Paul Stoddart(fmr Minardi) is buying a existing Champ Car team (Robin Miller says RuSport). KK says Champ Car will have 22 cars next year. Good Enough.

Champ Car and Grand Am both announced they will be releasing (seperate) PC based video games this year at their respective season openers.

Daytona November Test Days just finished today.

Teams were testing the standard Bosch ECU that everyone has to use for next season. The Porsche power plants had big problems with them forcing Brumos to go home on Monday since they had none of last years ecus with them. Other teams did not even try the new ones.

Michael Shank racing will have Helio and Hornish on board for Daytona with Oswaldo and Mark.

Ganassi tested Carlos Padro to replace Luis Diaz who is ALMS bound with Fernandez. They plan on running a second car but have not said anything about drivers for either car except Scott Pruett.

Carpentier with Milka in the Citgo car.

The Infiniti G35 was on the track.

Howard Boss has lost Boss so now it is just Howard Motorsports. They have also lost Danica... so sad. I guess she was afraid of Katherine Legge.

Alhadeff and Auberlan will be in the Sigalsport car which is trying to add a second car.

Team Sahlen will run at least one of each of the following in the 24: Corvette, Porsche, and GTO. I believe they have seven Nonnamakers lined up to drive the cars, plus Joe Sahlen.

Grand Am announced the new chassis specs for '08. Current cars will still be eligible and Sabre will be added to the list of manufacturers, current manufacturers will be able to sell there spots to other manufacturers if they wish. Also Engine manufacturers will be allowed to pair with chassis manufacturers. Manufacturers, manufacturers (manufacturers)

Whatever, Daytona Prototypes will still be ugly.

Zanardi and Glock will be testing the BMW F1 car. Remember, Zanardi has no legs.


That's all for now.

Paul

Oh... IRL is running all ethanol next year. For the enviroment. Or maybe it's for marketing? Same thing anyway, sounds good.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Happy Birthday to Grandmother Steates on Friday and Happy Birthday to Tracy a day late but important none the less. Excuse- we had company all weekend. And went to another of Marion's wonderful wine dinners.

Mom

Sunday, November 05, 2006


Mom, Is hockey an approved activity inside the blue house?

Noah


We went to the auto show at the empire plaza saturday at noon. Cameron and Oliver checked out a minivan. The Z4 coupe is very nice appears roomier than an S2000 inside. The 335i is nice but the inside doesn't have any performnace car feel. The new Chevy Suburban is also nice inside is nice, don't need flex-fuel capability though. I won't be tricked into paying more for gas that is enviro-friendly. There is a Saab 9-3 sedan that has a turbo V6 that does not require premium fuel. That is rare for a turbo car

Let's see if anybody can guess where this photo was taken. Hint: it was taken on saturday.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Maine=cold