Hello! It has been a while! I want to kick off by apologizing for disappearing for a few weeks without notice. Finding the motivating to write has been difficult while I grapple with the uncertainty of being unemployed. I want to thank everyone who reads this for their patience while I re-kindle my writing spirit.

I would love to say a lot has happened since my last post, but that's not entirely true. When I lost my job, everything just sort of froze. I frequently label motorsports as an expensive hobby, which it is, so any plans I had of getting the car out to the track sort of dissolved when my income stream stopped abruptly. I also come to the conclusion that if I didn't have anything that I wanted to write about, I wouldn't write. This will likely affect the consistency of my posts for the worst, but hopefully increase the quality for the better. Maybe.

I fear that this post might turn in to an open rant about the current state of the job market, political climates, and other factors affecting my ability to generate income, but I'll try to stay away from that as much as possible. The first thing I want to bring up is the blog.

I'm looking for some input on what you guys are interested in seeing on here over the next few months. My reason for asking this is than the fall and winter seasons are quickly approaching, and the season of gas and rubber is coming to a close. So what does a motorsports enthusiast do during the winter? I would imagine that those who have the space to do so would keep working on their cars. Maintenance, body work, installs, and rebuilds are all things you might do through the off season. My issue with that is that my garage is barely big enough to back the car in to, let alone do any work on it while its in there.

I have been making an effort to not post about sim racing. My relationship with my driving sim ebbs and flows, but in the summer I generally try to prioritize outdoor activities. Living in a part of the world where it's only warm outside for 4 months out of the year, I've adopted the mentality that if the sun is out, so should I be. Except for right now of course because it's nearly 40 degrees outside and my balcony has no shade.

Recently, though, I've rekindled a bit of my love for the sim by borrowing a VR headset from a friend. Something about the immersion of VR makes all the money I threw at my triple screen setup feel like a waste. I never felt I was able to get the level of immersion I wanted from screens, and having depth perception in a VR headset adds a little more crossover between the sim and real life.

This is not a "Should I buy a VR headset or triple screens" post. This is just my personal opinion. I originally moved away from VR and bought screens because I was attempting to reinstate myself as a twitch streamer, and I decided I wanted to prioritize the audiences perception of me over my actual racing experience. This was not a good idea.

Last year I went to an ice racing event in Minden Ontario. As much fun as I had at the event, the drive from Ottawa to Minden is treacherous to say the least. Made worse of course by the white out conditions we drove through the night before the event. This isn't something I plan to repeat.

So that begs the question, what happens to the blog from November to May? Most likely I'll just post when something cool happens.

For the next few weeks I do have things to write about. Two weeks ago was Ontario Time Attack's 3rd School and 4th competition event. My plan was to attempt a full write up in my next post, although I'm not sure if enough stuff happened for it to be a very captivating read. This is not necessarily a bad thing. And of course, as expected, I took no pictures.

I would have gotten to making this post last week but found myself very busy. After coming home from OTA on the sunday night, we spent the day on the beach on Monday with a few friends, then had 2 days to rest before Calabogie's HPDE duo on the Thursday and Friday. Then, last Sunday, I spent the day at Calabogie again for an invite only event for Toyota owners and employees, where I got to lead a pod of GR86s around the west track in a Mustang race car with no AC in 40 degree heat.

Basically what I'm trying to say here is it's hot, and I'm tired.

All that said, I'm still in love with my BRZ. After a long, weird delay of waiting on specialty parts and trying to find someone to help me install my camber plates and line the car up, I finally got it back on the road.

I did learn something pretty important about my car at the OTA School event where I volunteered as a couch, and in turn got to lap for free. I learned that these cars actually pull timing on 91 octane gas. I had always run 91 thinking the engine was tuned for it, but I ran in to some weird issues which I'll talk more about in my next driver journal. I'm sure many of you already knew this, and think this is a big "duh" moment. And you're right. But I'm sharing for the select few of you who, like me, made an assumption about what gas you should put in your car. Imagine putting the wrong fuel in your car that only makes 200 horsepower at the crank and as a result you're making even less power. So 94 it is from now on.

Also, when I got my car back from Jeff (Certified race car guy. If you're in Ottawa and need race car stuff done, email me I'll put you in contact with him.) He said that two of my stock rims were bent. So that's great.

My assumption is that the giant curbs at Mosport DDT track are the culprit here. I assume this because of stories I've heard of other drivers bending their rims at this track. Don't let this discourage you, the track is still great. Just don't launch the car over curbs and you won't end up like me. Still though, they aren't bent enough to be a detriment to my driving it, so I don't think they need to be immediately replaced. (Or straightened, apparently that's a thing.)

It's unlikely that I'll be doing any time attack in the near future, so my plan for wheels and tires for next season is to put a thick set of Indy 500s (or other 300+ treadware tire) on my 17x9 track rims. This frees me up to drive to whatever track or autoX event, do my thing, and drive home without swapping tires. It also frees up a lot of space inside the car for my long hauls to Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. As far as tire wear goes, the car is setup very conservatively right now, and I will likely leave it that way. In my last Driver Journal I was running a more aggressive alignment, meant to maximize track performance. My second time lapping at the Grand Prix track at Mosport this year I had a mostly street alignment (less than -2 degrees front and back and a bit of toe in.) I'll dive more in to the difference in my next journal.

I'm pleased that I managed to get through all that without turning to a rant. I know those reading this may not actually get anything out of it, but I felt it was important to talk a little bit about where I'm at.

AutoX with Motorsports Club of Ottawa annoyingly seems to always conflict with something else in my schedule, but it's likely something I'll write about as it happens. And for next year, I'm hoping to get involved in Calabogie's GT challenge, which is an entry level, door to door racing series that doesn't require a racing license. (Because it's point to pass.) So make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss my racing debut!