PonoBill

Get your motor running, head out on the highway… So we’re in Mackinac Island, pronounced Mackinaw, as is the nearby Mackinaw City and the nearby Mackinac Bridge. Huh? Hey, it’s a genuine regional idiosyncrasy, one of those oddities like Regular Coffee in Boston (coffee with cream and sugar) that the endless boring strip malls and […]

We’re headed north through Michigan farmland to spend a few days on Mackinac Island with two of our grandsons, James and Shea. James’ full name is Christian James Patterson but when he was four he decided his name would be James. Not Jim or Jimmy: James. If you called him Christian he’d say very politely

7 August 2007 I had a great experience before I picked up Diane at the Minneapolis airport–I went to a meeting of the Old Liars Club, a bunch of racers that have been getting together in Mendota Minnesota for lunch once a week–for the last 46 years! Diane was scheduled to fly in about two

6 August 2007 Peyote has a lot of history around here. Many of the people that stopped by said something like “I never expected to see that car again–I remember Peyote from when I was a kid”. far fewer people asking what it was–many of them knew a lot more about the history of Peyote

6 August 2007 I was in Minneapolis the day the bridge went down, dropping Diane off at the airport. She needs to fly back to Portland to spend time with one of our dearest friends who is having a recurrence of breast cancer. While she’s gone I’m going to be racing at Brainerd, a track

30 July 2007 Fish boils, miniature golf, big powerboats, crowds of souvenir shoppers–somehow it’s all fun. Diane and I are having a good time spending time in Door County, Wisconsin waiting for the next race (at Brainerd, in Minnesota–a track Peyote raced at back when it was a pup. Man, it’s easy to see how

Another great race weekend at the Kohler race. Elkhart Lake is such a spectacular little town. I got out on the Starboard SUP board the first day we got there. Freaked out a lot of people. I had people stopping me in the street and at Gessert’s (the soda fountain/candy shop in Elkhart Lake) to

16 July 2007 Jackson Center, Ohio. It looks just about like it sounds. Sleepy. But Airstream is here, and what a company this is. They really take care of their brand–they treat their customers like they are part of the family. Hard to believe in this age where customer service usually means a phone conversation

16 July 2007 The great week continues. We towed through the center of Pittsburg to get to Schenley Park, a very pretty park in the Oakland/Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburg. Beautiful homes, quiet streets–hard to believe they can run a race here. We got to the paddock and were directed to an ideal spot, where

16 July 2007 What a great week! I got a fin for my standup paddleboard and spent some time on Lake Arthur, cruising around. This Starboard 12’6″ is a really great board. It’s a super cruiser. I have no idea what it will be like in waves, but it’s great on a lake. Very stable,

11 July 2007 As Steve McQueen said in the movie Le Mans: “For those who do it well, racing is life. Everything else is just waiting. ” I don’t know about the “do it well” part, but we’re sure waiting for the Pittsburg Vintage Grand Prix. We’re still at the Lake Arthur Family Campground. Pretty

10 July 2007 I’ve been neglecting the blog, mostly because I was spending time in Massachusetts with family. We had a great time seeing everyone. My Mom is healthy and pretty spry for an old broad (she’s probably reading this so there’s a kick to the shins in my future). I got to see my

25 May 2007 Headed out from Mosport giving brief thanks that Peyote and I are both in one piece and still ticking along. We stopped at a KOA in MalloryTown which should be renamed MosquitoVille. I’ve never been attacked so vigorously, and I’ve fished the tundra in Alaska. We retreated to Nero bringing along a

I’ve got a lot of photos to post, I’ll have to go back and add some to previous posts. Mosport went just about as I thought it might. The relatively small field of sports racers whittled down a bit through mechanical attrition and wall-related modifications. I finished the feature race in eighth overall, third in

24 June 2007 I thought Watkins Glen separated the men from the boys. Mosport makes Watkins Glen look sane. Most of the turns seem to have been designed by the Marquis de Sade. Off camber downhill blind corners. A lot of them. Here’s a blow-by-blow. It’s worse than it sounds. A lot worse. Starting with

20 June 2007 As my friend Tony Garmey says: “Boys need not apply”. Lots of pucker factor at the Glen. It’s easy to wad your car up into a little ball, as numerous people did this weekend. It was a strange event – HSR is really weird. At least half the cars on the track

19 June 2007 I never finished the previous post, and now I’m a whole track behind. I’m sitting in the paddock at Mosport, we just came here from Watkins Glen. More about that later, but here’s what happened at VIR: So the Chapparal and the Scarab hit the straight and disappeared like the Roadrunner in

12 June 2007 VIR looks like a horse farm, or a really big golf course. There’s a nice hotel on the grounds overlooking several corners, a clubhouse/tavern in a huge plantation house, and they’re building townhouse villas near the Oak Tree turn. Pretty cool place. The track is challenging, there are a lot of turns

12 June 2007 After my nephew Eric’s graduation party Diane and I jumped in her car and headed south and east to Virginia and Virginia International Raceway, the next track on the tour. The plan included sightseeing via a route that added ten hours of driving but featured excursions in the Grand Tetons, a peek