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After the better part of two years I am finally back in my race car! Why the hiatus you say? Well for the past two years I have been working hard in turning my once daily driver; a 2003 Nissan 350z from a nice weather sports car to a dedicated full time race car. It has been a lot of blood, sweat, tears and money but it is done! (well not done, are cars ever “done”?) but done enough to get it back on the track.

I will spare the details here but you can check out my build progress in my posts:

The Z transformation pt 1 – Prologue
The Z Transformation pt 2 – Autocross and Racing
The Z Transformation pt 3 – Road racing and Track Days
The Z Transformation pt 4 – The Build Begins
The Z Transformation pt 5 – Race Ready

First we had to pick up the car from my fabricator over at Izzy’s Custom Cages because the final work just got finished on the car for it to be ready. Its always a pleasure to get the car back from Scott @ Izzy’s because he does great work! Loading it on the trailer is always kind of nerve racking but all in all it typically goes on just fine.

We always drive up the night before a track weekend because typically we need to be at the track by 7AM so even staying at a hotel it tends to be a very early morning. This time we decided to stay at the Doubletree by Hilton in Collinsville, IL. The hotel was really nice and had a great restaurant/bar downstairs that we decided to hit up and relax.

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Jessica is won over by the cookies

The alarm at 5:00AM always comes way too soon and from there it is kind of a mad dash to get cleaned up and get out to the race track. While the morning was quite chilly at least it was dry which was an accomplishment considering most of the rest of Missouri was under some rain, and even some snow!

While I get the car inspected and attend mandatory driver meetings, Jessica typically uses this time to catch up on some Zzzzzz’s in the car.

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Today was the season opener for NASA (National Auto Sport Association) Central region. The atmosphere was great and everyone was really ready to get on the track after what seemed to be a never-ending winter.

Since it had been a long time since I had driven last, and the car had a plethora of new parts and work done to it, it was my intention to use this first track day to “test and tune” and work out any bugs or problems that may arise. Thankfully I did not have to deal with any problems at all!

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Here are some photos from the day:

My cousin Austin also visited and took some really great photos as well.

nkohler's 3-23-2013 GMP HPDE album on Photobucket

Here is some video with my new camera setup that also gives you guys some information about how fast I am going and where I am on the track! I hope that the video is more entertaining with this new information.

3-23-2013 Gateway Motorsports Park HPDE from Kohler Created on Vimeo.

Best lap was 1:20 in this run. Had a ton of fun and the feedback on the car now is ridiculous. I can feel everything that is going on right on the tires. The scrub and slip is right there in the steering wheel. I cannot wait to get to the next track day and begin to really push it because the car has a ton of potential. The new Brembo/Carbotech brakes are absolutely inspiring that they will be there when you need them, the stiffness of the cage, and it goes on and on…

I had a huge grin at the end of the video when the back came around at 15:25 and how much feedback the car gave me and it was no drama. The whole day made me feel like I was really racing and it really makes me want to get that competition license soon.

After 5 20 minute sessions I was pretty tired but very happy with the car’s performance as well as my driving. I hope that this is just the beginning of many many posts covering my track days!

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Looking Legit

by Neil on July 23, 2012

in Automotive, Neil, Racing

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It has been a while since I did a car post, so I guess I will take a moment to explain why. In 2011 I took the year off of racing to transform my 2003 Nissan 350z from a street car into a full-time track car. If you are an automotive enthusiast you will know that this is no small feat, both monetarily and the immense time investment.

There is a good rule of thumb that says when you consider taking on such a project, begin estimating the time and money required, and when you arrive at a total, just go ahead and double it, and you will then be close to the actual time and cost by the end of the project. This has held true here.

I am been proud to say that outside of my roll cage fabrication by the epic fabricator Scott Rhea at Izzy’s Custom Cages, I have done all of the work on the car myself, and typically all by myself (Jes is willing to help if I need it). It has definitely been a labor of love, blood, sweat, tears..

Motivation is often hard to find to get down and dirty and work on the car. Especially with our lives being so busy. I have a regular 8-5 job, and then we have our freelance web development business, time at the CrossFit Gym, yard/house work, cooking, blogging, and my other hobbies such as computer gaming, hiking/backpacking, and social events with friends. It is like I am an ambitious adult or something, how the fuck did that happen?

But anyhow before this post gets too off topic I will say that progress on the car is picking up!

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Recently Jes and I painted the roll cage with some POR15 brush-on paint. POR15 is an anti-rust paint that is guaranteed to never rust. Installing it consists of 2 parts. The first coat is the POR15, a kind-of sealing paint that bonds to the bare steel of the cage and protects it from rusting. Because POR15 is UV sensitive, it then requires a “topcoat” to finish it off.

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For that purpose, we then installed several coats of POR15 hardnose paint. This topcoat earns its name as it is very tough when it dries, almost like a powder coat. You can literally take a wrench to it and bang on the metal and this paint will not chip. This is ideal for the roll cage because when you are entering and exiting the car you can often ding the cage with the metal harness buckles and other things and cause chips on a traditional paint.

Brushing on POR15 is easy, and it is a “self leveling” paint so even though it may look to have brush streaks at first, it levels itself out and turns into a smooth coat. We think it turned out great!

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This past weekend I spent some time finishing up a few little things. First I added some SFI Roll Cage Padding. This fire retardant padding is intended to soften the blow of your helmet or extremities in the event of a crash. It feels very hard at first, but when you consider the velocity that your helmet or arms may be traveling during a crash you will need something very dense to absorb that energy.

I also added the driver side window net. This keeps your body in the car in the event of a crash or roll over. The last thing you want is your arms flailing outside of the car and getting crushed or worse.

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And there you have it, the car is really starting to look legit now and that even further motivates me to get it finished.

If you got this far reading, thanks, and I hope you enjoyed the post. If you would like to see or know more about my racing or the car please let me know in the comments and I will perhaps make more posts off of the feedback. Also if you like posts like these let me know as well. I always like hearing from our readers!

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This weekend went fast, but thankfully, we maximized every minute of it. We had kind of an ambitious list of to-do’s. Training runs, workouts, car painting, a client website go-live and some hefty yard work. I worried we might have set our sights high with the hot weather in the forecast, but we pushed through, and even though I think we set some new lows in personal hygiene, we arrived at early Monday morning with almost everything done.

Saturday Run

Saturday morning started bright dark and early for me. Because the weather was supposed to be hot and super humid, I wanted to knock a run (the #Blend5k) out early, before the heat could literally stop me dead in my tracks. I know I’ve talked about my struggles with endometriosis in fitness but I also struggle with extremely low blood pressure. While most people would be happy to have low blood pressure, and I’m certainly not complaining, it does sometimes make endurance exercise difficult, especially if it’s hot out. I get very dizzy and disoriented — not good.

Since I was on a mission to beat the heat, I cranked out a 4-ish mile run around my neighborhood in about 45 minutes. I mapped the route the night before on MapMyRun. How did I just find out about this app last week? As you can see on the map, we live in a neighborhood with lots of twisty little paths, and when you collect them all together, you can crank out some good distance runs without even leaving the neighborhood. Perfect to liven up my routine morning run route.

Came home from my run to this scene...

I arrived home to this comfy scene. If I wasn’t so sweaty, I probably would have climbed back into bed, but instead I started the coffee and hopped in the shower.

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Neil and I had made plans to hit the Farmer’s Market early Saturday. You have to go early, or they sell out of everything fairly quickly. We also like to beat the crowds and peruse a bit before making our decisions. However on this day, everyone seemed to have the same idea, the market was packed!

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Since we made the mistake of arriving hungry, we grabbed a breakfast burrito to share. They are usually one of the first things to sell out, and now I know why. So good!

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We picked up a few new herbs for the garden. My basil and cilantro have been ravaged by slugs, so I need to eradicate and slowly replace. So bummed. I also picked up some parsley and thyme.

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While we were there we came upon this awesome display of bees that reminded me of Chrissy. So jealous of her urban homestead!

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To eat, we picked up huge bunches of spinach and asparagus, a dozen eggs, and fresh garlic. Quite the haul!

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After returning home and taking a short nap, we made a few stops around town for some new workout gear and swim trunks for Neil. Since it’s getting hot, I decided to purchase a few Reebok sports bras to work out in. I’m still a little self-conscious about bearing my pale programmer’s skin to the world, but it’s too hot in our CrossFit gym not to.

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Once the sun started to go down, we ventured out for some yard work. I took to trimming back (read: hacking to pieces) shrubs while Neil mowed.  The yard is a jungle of every native flowering and invasive species imaginable. It boggles my mind that anyone thought this was landscaping. This little patch took me an hour to weed and chop.

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Sunday was paint day for the car. Over the past few weeks, Neil has been prepping the car to paint the roll cage. He’ll talk more about it in his post, but essentially, painting the roll cage prevents undesirable rust from forming. Because of the nature of the rust preventative and paint application cycles, you have to kind of schedule your whole day around applying, waiting and painting. We applied two coats of the rust preventative, and three coats of the paint. Definitely sweaty, smelly work. More pictures to come!

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In between coats, I managed to clean the house and catch a short nap so I could stay up late for the client implementation. We went live with our latest client’s website Sunday night, and I couldn’t be more happy with the outcome. I love how a single process can create such a variance in the different solutions and aesthetic elements that emerge with each of our clients. It’s just a fun thing to see.

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To top off our Sunday, we also had a HUGE dinner comprised almost entirely of these steaks. Being a former veg, I used to hate steak, but once you have fresh grass-fed steak, it’s impossible not to want it every day. It doesn’t hurt that Neil is an amazing grillmaster. He gets the crust on the steak just how I like it every time.

So that was our crazy weekend, how did yours go?

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A Texas-style Bon Voyage to Blake

April 28, 2011

I don’t think any of us were in doubt that eventually the day would come when Blake would move away. You’re in a long distance relationship, you decide to look for jobs and eventually the right one comes along. And although Blake and I have always had a very surprising, non-traditional relationship (he’s my high [...]

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The Z Transformation pt 5 – Race Ready

April 1, 2011

If you’re new to my posts on the Z’s transformation, check out the lead-up here, here, here, and here. After scores of weekends prepping the Z and even having to take a day off work to get it done in time, it was finally time to send it off to the cage builder. With help from [...]

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The Z Transformation pt 4 – The Build Begins

March 25, 2011

I think that any amateur racer, or weekend track day warrior eventually comes to a decision point in their hobby. Do you continue down the road of using your street car to do track days, maintain the status quo and stay within your comfort zone,  or do you jump in head first, take the next [...]

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The Z Transformation pt 3 – Road racing and Track Days

December 10, 2010

If you are new to my little series, check out Part 1 and Part 2 After a couple years of autocross I was totally consumed with racing fever. Autocross was fun, but I was wanting more. I did my research and found that the next step up from autocross would be Road Racing. Road Racing [...]

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