Michael LaGrasta

So on Saturday the 16th the San Diego Porsche Club hosted the first Autocross of the 2010 season. It was an interesting track set up in the west half of the Qualcomm parking lot. I managed to improve my times steadily throughout the day and then knocked a full second off my time on the very last run. It's always nice to end with your fastest run of the day. (Which still only got me a 3rd place.) I attached my GoPro HD camera to the front bumper and shot some video. You can see it on youtube.com and I have embedded it below, but it looks like it's getting cut off. I suggest you watch it in HD here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG4qra1ulz4

Yup, you read that right. I have traded in the Mini Cooper and am now the proud owner of a 1999 Porsche Boxster.

After some soul searching and number crunching, I came to a realization: I really didn't want to continue paying $400 per month for my nice clean Mini just to thrash it on the track (which also made it uncomfortable on the street). So that meant finding a dedicated race car. But I also thought it would be ridiculous to have three cars for just me. So I swapped the Mini and it's monthly payment for this Boxster, with no car payment.

And it's perfect for the track because it is rear wheel drive, mid-engined, manual transmission, and engineered for handling perfection. Not only that, the Porsche clubs run so many great driving and racing events that I can go as often as I want and still stay pretty close to home.

I will definitely miss my Mini. I learned so much about myself and about driving from that car. But I think I've made a sound and exciting decision here.

P.S. I've got some spare Mini parts for sale if any one is interested :-)

This weekend's scheduled Mini track day at Spring Mountain was canceled, leaving me in Vegas with plenty of extra time for gambling and sight seeing. So I have no news about the qualifiers for the North American Mini Cooper Challenge. I did take some time and drive up to the Valley of Fire state park. It's Nevada's first state park and it's full of these crazy red rock vistas. Apparently, it was once all underwater.

Well, after a brief but annoying shipping delay. The Mini has got a new set of wheels and tires for the street. They are 18" Motegi Racing SP-10's in Hyper-Black...whatever color that is. So after so many years of wanting to buy aftermarket wheels for one of my cars, I have finally done it. All it took was a catastrophic failure of an overpriced OEM wheel

So I'm minding my own business driving down the road and all of the sudden this huge piece of broken concrete bounces out from under some semi truck and right at my car. I had nowhere to go and got on the brakes, but it still ended up getting under my front tire. The was a huge bang and instantly my tire pressure sensor lit up. After being towed home on a flat bed tow truck, I was able to pull the wheel and inspect the damage. This is what I found.Wow! That is one bent wheel. So I guess I'm finally going to be ordering some aftermarket wheels like I've always wanted to.

I'm back and the weekend was great! The track day was huge fun and everyone stayed safe. I came home with extra money in my pocket from the BlackJack tables. And there were soooooo many Minis!

Here's a couple videos I put together for anyone who might like to see.

The first one is edited together from some photos and videos that my Dad and I shot on my D90. I suggest watching it in high def (hit the HD button) and be sure to turn up the volume!



The second one is my timed competition lap as shot by the camera I mounted on the roof of my car for the event. It's not real exciting, but you can see what the track looks like. By the way, the time on this lap was 2:05, which is decent for a mostly stock MINI Cooper on street tires.

I'm going to attempt to coin a phrase.

"Even the smartest man can learn something from an imbecile."
- Michael LaGrasta, November 2008

Despite the possible lack of originality there, please allow me to explain.

I take a little pride in my ability to work with a wide range of coworker personalities in a pretty smooth manner. Years ago I learned that I don't need to agree with someone, or even enjoy their company, to treat them with respect and to be productive together. In fact, with one sad notable exception, I have never had a problem with a co-worker that I couldn't work out. Here's where the new quote comes in. I was thinking about how important it is to learn from others. How valuable and diverse your knowledge can become when you learn from others who have had experiences so totally different than your own. Or even having experiences exactly like your own, but handling them in a different way. Surely, there is nothing I've written so far to change any one's world view dramatically. But here is what I want to challenge myself to do:

Learn something from everyone, even if you think you are smarter than them.

Yup, even if you think they are as dumb as dirt, find something they can teach you. Even if you disagree with them completely (which may also lead to the dumb as dirt assessment) learn something. Oh it's easy to pay attention and learn from some brilliant individual that you agree with. Sure, they'll keep your attention and you won't even question the value of listening to every word. But what about when someone challenges you with thier bad attitude or poor communication? What can you learn from them? I can't tell you that, but you'll find it if you really look.

Perhaps you'll learn nothing more than your colleague hates mexican food. At least, you'll know where not to take him to lunch on his birthday. But maybe you'll learn more. Maybe, you'll learn why he loves that program that you hate so much. Maybe you'll learn some new shortcut to bypass that crowded on-ramp. Or maybe you'll just learn more about who you don't want to be. My point is, you CAN learn something from every single person you will ever meet. Don't let those opportunities pass you by.