AudiOn19s

this topic hits home...I'm REALLY opinionated when it comes to this stuff. Black is beautiful and menacing BUT it absolutely does NOT belong on a sports car. As Draco pointed out it hides too many of the lines of the car. Save it for big sedans and SUV's. Navy blue is horrible in every way. I'll personally never own another blue car ever. My truck in highschool was blue and I always wished it was black instead. Scared me forever I just can't stand blue cars now. I actually like some of the newer bright blue colors on the market right now but out of principal I wouldn't buy them. My default color for every single car I buy is white. It's pure and bright without being loud and allows the design of the car to be shown off. From there for daily drivers I'll go to the silver or gray side away from white depending on the car. Weekend / Toys also would default to white for me...actually I really wish my GT3 was white. For the weekend toys I'll gladly go the way of obnoxious look at me colors (which I clearly have with red and yellow) without worry.

Bag it, lay frame, prosper.

We drove a Guila in Europe last year. I will say the chassis was the most impressive part of the car really delivering where I wasn't expecting it. We drove a diesel so it was horribly slow...like get on the Autobahn and go flat to the floor and get passed slow. Interior was on the better side of OK. I hated the electronics package. Unless you are considering the 500hp hot one I doubt it's going to be the well rounded package you are looking for. I got more looks in that car than I do in my GT3. It's a good looking car.

Another important note. We've found that the staff at the resorts in Mexico seem to genuinely enjoy and be appreciative of their jobs. Make friends with a bartender the first day, carry on a REAL conversation with them, throw them an extra $20 at the end of the day and you'll be taken care of for the whole time you're there. Go to the Dominican or other islands in the Caribbean and the service level and general attitude of the staff in those areas is much different.

We go to Cancun / Rivera Maya like 3 time a year, in my opinion they have the vacation model down. It's cheap, great resorts, you don't travel a whole day to get there (though the further south you go from the airport the longer your bus ride will be) and we've never had a bad experience going with 4 star and above places. We book mostly through Costco unless we decide to go to a resort that they don't work with. In many situations you get a better base room and possible room upgrades for booking through them, also all of the ground travel is through vetted partners in nice vehicles. Plus for most places you get a costco cash card that I use for gas for the daily drivers. We're headed back in 4 weeks for our second trip this year, can't wait.

If you up your beater truck budget to 10-15k you can buy a nice enough truck that you won't hate spending time in it on a daily basis but you also won't mind using it as a truck. I've had a beater truck before that ended up not being capable to tow with nor nice enough to really want to spend any time in it, and I regretted having the thing around after a short period of time. I'm not sure I could spend big money for a top of the line new truck, but I'll probably forever have "nice enough" trucks in my lineup to use as a daily on crap days and tow stuff around for 6-8 hour hauls on the weekend still.

Tinman has done some AER stuff after he retired his RX-7 from NASA racing. He'd be a good reference here. I've been offered a couple of rides but they were last minute efforts that were literally being thrashed to be put together. As you'd expect they all failed to finish any of the races they participated in. I'm a preparation guy, I need to know everything is tested and vetted before I set out on an adventure. Heck I spend a good 8 hours going over my car prior to any track day I enter and have a yearly preventative list where I time out certain items so that hopefully I never see parts failures. I think that's my biggest fear of this type of racing...lack of safety due to lack of preparation. Possibly that's just a false perception but being proud of throwing something together with any means possible just to make the start of a race but not likely finish has no appeal to me. Running on abused and dated components that are well past their time is scary to me. The spread in driver talent in some of the series is also an area of concern though I think more and more that's becoming less of an issue. All of that said, I will likely hop in an AER miata at the end of the season as I know the builder of the car and it's very well prepared. Unless any other good opportunities pop up I'll just stick to thinking I'm fast at DE's :-)

I'm sure there will be TONS of opportunities to get on-track at Nelson as they run their own little lapping day events all the time, but they don't have their 2018 schedule posted so the only ones I have are the outside organizations that are going to be driving there. With what they are charging now for single day events I hope to see many more improvements this year to justify the experience.

I've heard the same but think it applies more to their festival dates where they do drifting and concerts and car show, etc. the Mid Ohio date is just HPDE and Track Battle (time attack). I'm fairly interested in running the track battle but I'd need to buy a set of tires for my car that I'd never otherwise use hence it looses some of its attraction.

Finally had a few minutes to start putting things on paper. By no means is this a comprehensive list but this is the list of dates that I'll pick from this year when I choose which events I will or will not attend. 2018 DE Dates Mar 3-4 – CHIN - VIR April 14-16 – Gridlife – Mid Ohio April 20-22 – NASA – Mid Ohio April 21-22 – 10/10ths - Putnam April 28-29 – Auto Interests – Nelson Ledges April 27-29 – MOR PCA – Mid Ohio April 27-29 – CIR PCA – Putnam Park May 4-6 – Potomac PCA - PITT May 11-13 – NOR PCA – Mid Ohio May 14 – Auto Interests – Mid Ohio May 18-20 – NNJR PCA – Mid Ohio May 18-20 – NASA Mid Atlantic – VIR **Ultimate Track Car Challenge** May 28-29 – CHIN – Mid OHio June 4-5 – Auto Interests – Mid Ohio June 8-10 – OVR PCA – Mid Ohio (will be at F1 canada) June 23-24 – Auto Interests – Nelson Ledges June 23-24 – 10/10ths - Putnam June 30- 7/1 – Auto Interests – PITT July 7-8 – Auto Interests – Putnam Park July 13 – 10/10ths – Mid Ohio July 20-22 – US Audi – Mid Ohio July 27-29 – ARPCA – PITT July 28-29 – Midwest track day – Putnam Aug 10-12 – NNJR PCA – Watkins Glen August 13 – Auto Interests – Mid Ohio August 24-26 – NASA – Mid Ohio August 24-25 – Metro PCA – Watkins Glen August 31-9/2 – MVP Tracktime – Mid Ohio Sept 1-2 – Auto Interests - PITT Sept 7-9 – ARPCA – Mid Ohio Sept 12-13 – NNJR – Watkins Glen (advanced) Sept 14-16 – MOR PCA – Mid Ohio Sept 15-16 – Auto Interests – Nelson Ledges Sept 22-23 – CHIN – PITT Sept 24 – CHIN – Mid OHio Sept 28-30 – NOR PCA – Mid Ohio Sept 29-30 – Midwest Track Day - Putnam Oct 5-7 – OVR PCA – Mid Ohio Oct 13-14 – CIR PCA – Putnam October 26-28 – NNJR - VIR

I'm starting to put together a list of events that I may or may not attend so that I can plan out my track season. I'll post stuff here once I get it all compiled.

you hit it on the head...granted both of my 911's have had factory LSD but while it may make the care more fun, it doesn't really make it any faster....hence my comment it's not necessarily needed. They're just not traction limited given power figures and placement of weight. I've driven plenty 996 and 997 cars at the track that didn't have LSD and there's still no issue putting down the power. 996 GT3's were notorious for not having enough preload from the factory in the LSD unit and in a street car it'll be worn out within 20-30k miles. When I pulled mine to rebuild it the thing had less than 7 lbs of preload on the unit making it basically useless. I did a 1K rebuild with the best of the best and my lap times changed....NONE. It felt better under braking and felt a little different when it would lock under power but the net result was zero lap time change.

that's cause most 911's don't need them :-)

Buy a wrecked truck with an LS in it. Strip the motor harness etc out of it, scrap the truck and then sell the tranny since you won't need it either. Used 4L60 won't be worth much but every bit counts. Buddy did this last year for an LS swap into a '64 caddy. Wrecked truck was $750 and after it was stripped he still got like $250 for scrap value. Takes some effort but it's the cheapest way to source the motor and harness

The GT3 is my absolute favorite car of all time. I distinctly remember reading about them when they came out in 99 and then drooled over them in 04 when they finally came to the states. Owning one has been a dream come true and it never fails to put a smile on my face. That said, I think we tend to overlook our current cars when thinking about favorite all time and give more credit to cars that are no longer with us simply because the option to use them is no longer there. As such right up there at the top with the GT3 would be my old M3. Man I really did love that car. M3 by Andrew Kutscher, on Flickr

I should have known Roser...he's the one that turned the yellow bird lap at the ring which is one of the most amazing videos ever. The other two I wouldn't have been able top pick out.

Balboni in the Lambo was a nice play in my opinion. Not sure if we're supposed to know who the other drivers are but I don't.

There's ALOT of that going on right now, some pretty interesting builds that come out of it too. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1982-porsche-911sc-4-2/

What car is it in? 1.8's get a lot of hate out there but I can't help but think it's just people who don't maintain them. I put 260k miles on an early, small turbo 1.8 in my '99 A4 that was still running strong when o got rid of it. Be proactive with timing belt replacement, keep on top of oil changes (some claims of sludge issues). I had a lifter go bad at 240k that took a lobe of the intake cam with it. Junkyard cam and new lifters and it was back in the road running strong again.

Ikea has a pretty good range of foam and memory foam Mattress as well, many come rolled up when you get them making them both easy to transport and move. Foam isn't for everyone, but the good news is they are local now so you can go try them out and see what you like or don't like Their pillows are pretty good too.

How far removed from the networking stuff are you, what platforms are you comfortable with on the networking side and what certs have you obtained. We've got a support group here but because we are an infrastructure provider our support really stops at the desktop / user level where it seems you have most of your experience is focused. I'm on the build / delivery side of the organization.

Matt, sucks about the deal falling through. What's next?

You'd be surprised...I've interviewed 2 this year and both weren't great. Something I should have mentioned earlier is getting practical experience with these certs. I realize this isn't always as easy as it seems but find a mentor that's a high level network guy and force yourself into their projects volunteering your time to help out and get experience. Find a leader of that group, state your intent to get practical experience based on the training you are pursuing and get involved as much as possible. There are plenty of book smart people out there with certs out the ying yang that don't have real world experience at a high level with these technologies. They know how to apply the principals in an ideal situation in a lab not in a network that's been bastardized by engineer after engineer over the years. Also a follow up on my comment on multiple vendors. As others have stated you need to really examine what you want your path to be. If you want to get top dollar in the market you need to either head down a consulting path or work for a MSP. In those situations being fluent across multiple vendors is key to $$$. IF you're going the enterprise path understand what they are using (it's going to be Cisco) and focus on that specifically. Enterprise employers won't put a lot of value in the fact that you know Juniper or Palo Alto if they have no intent to ever use them.

Skip the BS entry level certs. Focus on CCNA, JNCIA, JNCIS, etc. Multiple high level certs across vendors shows diversity and drives more $$$ Go get some certs then send me your resume.

it's hyperlinked in his post.