Well I have two items to report on in this installment: The Badger Burrows TSD Rally, and the 2013 Ford Focus SE.
Followers of the blog will, of course, wonder why it is that I am reviewing these two items together? The astute reader will immediately identify with this idea I think!
The background is that I recently sold my 996 Porsche. Yes: It was a very bittersweet day, but it makes way for new things, in time. This left us with the BMW e46 coupe, and the Chevy Silverado Crew Cab Monster Truck. The BMW has almost 200k miles on it, and has led a long hard life of rallying and midwest road trips, as well as several years of being a commuter car during the week. Like 20 thousand miles a year commuter. Needless to say it has a to-do list a mile long, which has been getting pushed off by my heavy work-load and myself now commuting to work a long distance.
So a bunch of work was suddenly put before me to get done in order to make it to Madison, WI for the 2014 running of the Badger Burrows Rally. Sadly I got 3 out of 4 wheel bearings done before I got stopped dead in my tracks by corrosion, rust, and too many miles.
So the alternative of course is the truck , but a simple Arithmetic problem showed that the cost of fuel for the Silverado is quite large, so much so that it cost about the same amount to fuel the truck over those miles as it would be to rent a small efficient car and fuel it. It didn't hurt that we have been considering a small commuter car anyway!
Followers of the blog will, of course, wonder why it is that I am reviewing these two items together? The astute reader will immediately identify with this idea I think!
The background is that I recently sold my 996 Porsche. Yes: It was a very bittersweet day, but it makes way for new things, in time. This left us with the BMW e46 coupe, and the Chevy Silverado Crew Cab Monster Truck. The BMW has almost 200k miles on it, and has led a long hard life of rallying and midwest road trips, as well as several years of being a commuter car during the week. Like 20 thousand miles a year commuter. Needless to say it has a to-do list a mile long, which has been getting pushed off by my heavy work-load and myself now commuting to work a long distance.
So a bunch of work was suddenly put before me to get done in order to make it to Madison, WI for the 2014 running of the Badger Burrows Rally. Sadly I got 3 out of 4 wheel bearings done before I got stopped dead in my tracks by corrosion, rust, and too many miles.
So the alternative of course is the truck , but a simple Arithmetic problem showed that the cost of fuel for the Silverado is quite large, so much so that it cost about the same amount to fuel the truck over those miles as it would be to rent a small efficient car and fuel it. It didn't hurt that we have been considering a small commuter car anyway!
A quick couple if calls resulted in no rental locations having a focus available "right now" but as luck would have it, as we were leaving work I decided to take an indirect route past a few rental offices to see if they had anything. First location: Forest Lake Enterprise office. I wasn't entiteely sure were it was but as we sail past it I look over and see a Bright Red Focus hatchback. The car gods must have decided to play nice this weekend! A quick call and they verified that it was in fact available for the weekend! Hooray!
$81 and a $200 hold on the credit card and the focus was mine! We even got to load up the car and leave the Silverado in their parking lot.
$81 and a $200 hold on the credit card and the focus was mine! We even got to load up the car and leave the Silverado in their parking lot.
The tank was on empty so we hit the road with gusto, since its no short drive to Madison. The last speeding ticket I have gotten was at the wheel of a rental so I figured "why not? Let's see what she's made of!" Which was followed by the angel on my other shoulder saying "that idiot is crazy, how about a solid 10 over instead?"
The fuel gauge barely budged for most of the trip, so I didn't bother to stop. We rolled into Madtown about 4 and 15 later, ready for bed. I shot the shit with Alex and raided his beer fridge while we talked cars and bicycles, as always. Soon we were all nodding off so we hit the hay so that we could make it to the rallying point in the morning.
The next morning, after an amazing blueberry pancake breakfast by Alex, we headed off to Dunn's Imports for the rally. Jay puts on a fairly typical SCCA style road rally, but the roads to the southwest of Madison are to die for!
My friend Jeff came down in his yellow GTO, and my friend Dave in his new Camaro SS, along with a few of the Twin Cities regulars. I talked with those guys about Porsches through most of the drivers meeting, since they had a 996 up on the lift for us to oogle at.
The rally went well, perhaps I will summarize it in another post some time, and we did managed a score of 86 in stock class.
My friend Jeff came down in his yellow GTO, and my friend Dave in his new Camaro SS, along with a few of the Twin Cities regulars. I talked with those guys about Porsches through most of the drivers meeting, since they had a 996 up on the lift for us to oogle at.
The rally went well, perhaps I will summarize it in another post some time, and we did managed a score of 86 in stock class.
