Flocktoberfest

This weekend I went to Flocktoberfest. What the heck is that? The tagline was “Racecars, Beer, and Chickens”. Yup, that about sums it up. The event was held at Faster Farms, a chicken ranch owned by Gavin and Kristen Hembree. It was co-organized by Cathy Fuss, the owner of Lucky Dog Racing. The property has lots of chickens and lots of racecars. Various teams store their cars there. In addition to a few endurance cars, I saw a couple Spec-944s and Spec Miata. People also brought their cars to the event. The iconic UDC (upside-down Camaro) was there along with Tinyvette and the Faster Farms land yacht (pictured)

The event was a gathering for endurance racing folks. Lemons, Lucky Dog, and ChumpCar drivers and cars were there. I met some new people who share the same (silly) passion. I also got lucky and won a couple raffle items. One was a car wash kit. If you know me, this is either the best or the worst gift ever (I never wash my cars). The other was a framed print of the event poster. That’s a nice commemorative piece I’ll be happy to hang on my wall.

IO Port racing had a truck there, and I bought a new window net. They also did a safety demo where they burned various kinds of material. I had never seen what happens when you put a blowtorch to Nomex. It just turns brown, but doesn’t burn. Try that with cotton, nylon, or polyester and you get a very different experience. Cotton burns clean but the plasticky stuff makes a drippy mess.

Flocktoberfest is supposed to become an annual event. I hope so. Attendance was pretty good (maybe 100) for a first year, and I expect it to get bigger and better. I’m not a beer drinker, but I’ll return for the tacos, band, raffle, cars, chicken, and most importantly, the camaraderie.

Upcoming

Next week will be the first race for my Yaris. I’m taking it to the Lucky Dog event at Laguna Seca. I’m very excited to finally race it, but I’m also more nervous than usual because I don’t want it to get damaged.

Looking over the page statistics, the most popular posts are on how to drive faster. Well, the next series of posts I have planned are on passing, but after those I’ll get back to technique. Oh, and also more crashes.

Obligatory video

Apparently the Brits love MR2s so much that they have a racing series for all 3 versions. The second and third versions are about the same speed. After the POV car spins out near the end of the video (due to on-track praying), you can see the AW11s at the back of the pack.