Official blog of the Golden Gate Lotus Club
A quick reminder to sign up and reserve your place at the gala GGLC Holiday Celebration at Ristorante Don Giovanni in Mountain View. Don’t miss out on the wine, food, door prizes and the annual GGLC White Elephant Gift Exchange.
Click here and sign up by Dec 6th (Sunday).
Press release from Lotus:
The iconic British sports car manufacturer opens its doors for an exclusive behind the scenes tour of the site and a virtual drive around the famous Lotus Test Track.
Lotus invited Google to record a testing session of selected Lotus cars and to give fans of the legendary British sports car brand a chance to look around normally hidden areas of the Lotus Headquarters in Hethel, Norfolk. On the Lotus test track, sharp eyed Street View users will spot the Lotus 2-Eleven being driven quickly and enthusiastically (just as it is intended to be!), a research and development Lotus Exige 265E which is fuelled by sustainable, environmentally friendly ethanol and a number of prototypes of the new Lotus Evora.
Nigel Marshall, Head of Facilities Management for Lotus said, “We decided to give Street View users an opportunity to look around part of the Lotus HQ and to virtually drive the Hethel Test Track. Only a select number of drivers have driven the Lotus circuit over the years, but now anyone can get a closer look at where some of the most iconic British sports and racing cars have been tested and developed. To see some dynamic track driving of the Lotus 2-Eleven just check out the North Hairpin!”
Matthew Prestopino, Google’s Head of Street View Operations in Europe said, “Being invited to come and drive alongside some of the UK’s coolest cars was a real treat. This is the first ever circuit in the UK to be photographed for Street View and car fans are going to love taking a virtual tour and locating their favourite Lotus cars in action on the track”.
The Street View of the Lotus Headquarters can be viewed here:
http://3.ly/LotusCarFactoryGoogleStreetView
Users can access street-level imagery of the Lotus site by zooming into the lowest level on Google Maps, or by dragging the orange “Pegman” icon on the left-hand side of the map onto a blue highlighted road such as the Lotus test track.
At the meeting Friday the attending members were asked to raise their hands, which they did… and then it was announced that Dave Ellis was elected as the 2010 GGLC Prez!!! Congrats Dave!!!!
Next half the attending members were asked to raise their hands, to which about 1/3 did…. and then it was announced Rob Dietsch was elected the 2010 VP! Congrats Rob!!!
The election was followed by a few announcements which included:
1) Toy Rallye 12/5. I need 1 or 2 more people if possible
2) GGLC Dinner on 12/12. Please RSVP by 12/4. Reminder about white elephant gifts and new “Spencer Rule (non-toxic and CLEAN)” gifts pleazeeeee….
3) Evora tour comes to the bay area.
Report by Kiyoshi
A charity A-B gimmick rallye on Saturday, Dec 5, 2009. Presented by the Golden Gate Lotus Club & The Rallye Club.
Start is at Larry’s AutoWorks at 2526 Leghorn St, Mt View CA just off San Antonio Rd.
Registration at 12 noon
Beginners School at 1pm
Finish at local restaurant by 5 pm
A gimmick rallye is not a race. A gimmick rallye is a fun puzzle that tests your ability to follow instructions along a predetermined road course.
No experience is necessary. 1st-time rallyiest are encouraged and will receive extra help.
Entry Donation per car: One new unwrapped toy (worth at least $15) or $25.
Bring: one or more friends, pens/penscils, paper, a clipboard and any type of car.
Awards in six classes – 1st-timer, Beginner, Novice, Senior, Expert and Master Expert.
Click here for flyer & info
VOLUNTEER WORKERS NEEDED!
Email Kiyoshi at webguy-at-gglotus.org
Sign up and reserve your place at the gala GGLC Holiday Celebration at Ristorante Don Giovanni in Mountain View. Don’t miss out on the wine, food, door prizes and the annual GGLC White Elephant Gift Exchange.
Click here and sign up before Dec 4th, 2009!
We will meet at 0930 at Sonoma Valley Bagel & Café, located at 350 Rohnert Park Expressway West, Rohnert Park, anddepart at 0955. Fill your tank before the start –plenty of stations are nearby. For those members who miss the start, or are coming from further south, we will have a scheduled stop at the Marin French Cheese Co., AKA Cheese Factory, AKA Rouge et Noir at around 1045 where we’ll stop for about 20 minutes before continuing on our routeto John Kenner’s place. After lunch, return home via Hwy 101, just 10 miles east, or take the fun route
home!
Total drive time with one stop will be about 2.25 hours, so we’ll end up at John Kenner’s place at about 12:25. Please RSVP without fail.
Greg Tatarian (1971 S4 DHC) designed the route and will lead the drive. You can email Greg for more info or download PDFs of the flyer and map from his website.
We will end our drive at John Kenner’s place: 5190 Vine Hill Road, Sebastopol at about 12:25. John will be serving excellent BBQ’d marinated chicken, potato salad and fresh vegetables from his garden at about 12:30. Bread, desert, and beverages are potluck.If you don’t eat chicken, bring something else. A refrigerator will be available.
John will open his rustic Lotus Barn (and Triumphs) for you to look around. This is not quite the scale of the one in Pennsylvania that’s been on Lotuselan.net lately, but it’s different, and fun!
PLEASE R.S.V.P. SO JOHN CAN HAVE SUFFICIENT FOOD AVAILABLE!
JOHN KENNER:JKENNER@TAMCAB.COM CELL: 415 806 2457
GREG TATARIAN: gtwincams@gmail.com CELL: 707-570-5808
A GOOD TIME WILL BE HAD BY ALL!
For the final event Oct 17th, the paper work is signed and we’ll be trying out a new site. The Centennial parking lot at Great America, in Santa Clara. Where the 49er’s hope to be playing in a few years (and right across the street from their HQ and training faculties).
Courtesy of our sponsor, Silicon Valley Auto Group, we will have a nice BBQ cooked on site (tri-tip and chicken and garden burger for the veggies) along with all the trimmings, heck we’ll even have chairs and tables so everyone can sit down and enjoy it. Also thanks to SVAG we’ll have the trophies to give out to the season winners. Both Andrew and Jordan will be there. I’ll let Andrew address it the day of but they are planning a unveiling of the Evora shortly.
Registration is now open at:
http://www.motorsportreg.com/index.cfm/event/event.advert/uidEvent/A9E96E5E-C771-7F8E-FBB23B03B928E9F1
Thanks,
Larry & Alex
GGLC Event Chair
Congratulations to GGLC Club Members Shelly Monfort and Ben Martinez for winning their classes at the 2009 Tire Rack SCCA Solo National Championship. Shelly won her 3rd national championship in the Super Stock Ladies class in her Lotus Elise against heavy Corvette opposition while Ben took the D Street Prepared class in his Merkur XR4 Ti. Additionally club member Jesus Villarreal was the runner-up in C Prepared while autocross series regular Elise Sias finished 3rd in the Street Modified Ladies class.
Full results available at here (SSL) and here (D Street Prep). Photos by Norcalturbo
We are now half way through the Golden Gate Lotus Club, autocross points season. Registration for both the August 30 (Sunday) and September 19 (Saturday) events is now open. Club members only, will be allowed to sign up, for the first week.
For our final event of the season in October, we are looking at a change of venue. Most likely it will be a few weeks before we get everything worked out. The site is where the 49er’s hope to make their new home. The Great America parking lot in, Santa Clara. It’s quite a bit larger then the Marina location with some elevation changes thrown in. Still a TBD…
Thanks,
Larry & Alexander
Event Chair
At the last GGLC autocross Alex and I decided to try out a little experiment to see how your heart rate changes during the race. We used a Polar S720i to record his heart rate, an iPhone for video and a DL1 data logger to record G-force and speed readings. I used some simple PHP magic to sync the two data files together and used the Chasecam Dashware system to create this finished video.
You can see the speed, heart rate (BPM), longitudinal G (acceleration + braking) and lateral G in the dashboard on the top of the video. His average heart rate was in the low nineties while on the grid and rises to to 101 just before the start of the run. As the run progresses you can see it quickly rise all the way to 145 bpm by the end of the 45 second run. Just as interesting is the way his heart rate falls as soon as the run ends and drops to the low 130s just 10 seconds after the run. So now if anyone asks you why you autocross just say its for the health benefits 😉
Unfortunately the video quality is not as perfect and the heart rate only updates every 5 seconds but all in all it was a successful test of the system. I have already ordered a Polar RS800CX (1 sec resolution) and I plan to run this same setup for the duration of the Lemons race at Buttonwillow next month. So stay tuned for the health benefits of endurance racing 😀