So Get Fast was on the road for nearly 6000 miles through 17 (?) states in less than four weeks.

On May 29-Jun 2 we went to Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, IL with TrackDaze to put on their first HPDE in that region (neat facility and great people, but definitely an Alan Wilson course design.) We drove straight through, rented a trackside condo, put on the event (Jon worked control/grid/announcer/etc), then drove straight home… all in Eric’s beautiful new ‘08 Tundra with his gorgeous ‘78 Scirocco towed behind it. This ended up being 1600+ miles through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois - in under 92 hours total - all the while burning about $550 worth of gasoline.

Then we loaded up a brand-new crew cab Triton-powered F150 (April ‘08 production with literally 16 miles on it the day we left) for what was one of our most favorite “working road trip with fun on the side” adventures to date. Jon left town on Tuesday June 10th with Dawn D riding shotgun and pointed south for a few days of Florida relaxation, with a test drive autocross for “MINI Takes The States 2008″ at Homestead-Miami Speedway in between. This leg of the journey sent us through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the entire state of Florida (at one point we were ~90 miles from Cuba.) We managed a crew of ~8 great staff members down there, mostly local NASA members and/or Homestead flaggers, and got to put several new turbo MINIs through their paces in the process. We were honored to work with the legendary Ron Nelson & Stu Hayner, from The Driving Connection. We also went to Key West and the Everglades (much like we did in late January except hotter this time), and ate sauteed alligator in Florida City. We blasted home from Coconut Grove in Miami on Monday, a 950-mile straight shot, then slept for 18 hours straight (or until the phone started ringing on Tuesday morning, whichever came first…)

Barely 48 hours later we were back on the road to Boston MA to put on another MINI test drive autocross - in the almost-still-brand-new but quite filthy truck, with different crew except for Jon (this time we took Chris E & Brett C along and met Dale & Regina B up there, with assistance from some very friendly local autocrossers and more professional fun with Ron Nelson/Stu Hayner.) This leg sent us back through Virginia and Maryland, then through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and of course Massachusetts. The site was UMass on the water in Dorchester and it was gorgeous. We went to F1 Boston to get some karting in but the line was too long to suit our schedule. We also got to catch up with our friend Tim Suddard, owner/publisher of Grassroots Motorsports magazine, at a tavern near the event site. Hard to believe his son Tommy is almost driving these days!

Total for the first two legs of our MTTS ‘08 test drive autocross adventures, including all the side exploring and soforth: just over 4000 miles and roughly $1100 worth of gasoline. It really stinks to have to pay $4+ a gallon these days (especially at ~14mpg), but how else can we make these things happen? The amount of gear we have to carry is significant at times. In both cases we had 300 cones in the bed, which can’t easily (or cheaply) be shipped or rented.

Unfortunately in the process Jon had to miss NASA-MA’s biggest event of the year, aka Hyperfest @ Summit Point, because he was in Boston. James, however, not only went and worked T&S for that event among other things, but his ‘93 325is Spec3 racecar #242 made its official race debut!

Jon hated missing Hyperfest but had some grand adventures regardless…