A group of people from work joined over a thousand other riders and rode from the Dulles Airport to the Pentagon today. The Rattle the Runway Ride was conceived to honor those people that flew Flight 77 on September 11th from IAD and crashed into the Pentagon. We staged at the airport behind the Air and Space Museum. As we left, we rode into the airport and through departures. We then proceeded up 267 to 66 and onto the Pentagon where we were able to spend some time at the memorial. The memorial has a bench for each person that died in the crash. The benches face in two directions: one for those that were on the plane, and the other for those killed on the ground. The benches are lined up by year of birth. The youngest victim of this cowardly act of terrorism was only three years old.
It was a nice ride and a nice way to pay my respects to those that lost their lives that day. May they and their families find peace.
I got my new TraqMate installed and used it in the MARRS 7 SCCA Club Racing event this weekend. The device is astounding. It uses a GPS to track your speed and a video camera to record what is happening in front (and optionally in back) of you.
This device will let me know how fast (slow in my case) I am entering each corner and what my exit speed is. This will help me compare to the really experienced drivers and know where to push it harder. The camera and GPS do not lie. And they record every lap and every missed shift. So this should be a huge help towards setting my new personal best lap record.
This Sunday’s SCCA MARRS race was a culmination of a number of year’s worth of effort. Back in May of 2006 up in Seattle, WA, I began my journey towards obtaining my SCCA Club Racing license. My job change and move across the country to the Washington DC area caused me to be sidelined for all of 2007 and most of 2008 aside from some PDX and HPDE type of events. (Photo below of MARRS 4 race weekend).
After attending day 1 and day 2 of my SCCA Drivers School in a “Spec Miata” that I rented, I attended the SCCA PDX and SCCA Club Trials in a “Spec Miata” as well. It was at this point that I finally realized it would be best for me to have Meathead Racing help me as my “Spec Miata” pit crew and support team for the 2009 SCCA Club Racing season. I bought a 1999 Spec Miata from Bad Al Bell and I was literally “off to the races”.
Sunday was my second official SCCA MARRS race and fulfilled my requirements for my regional license. I did qualification laps and the qualification race on Saturday to grid myself for the race on Sunday. On Sunday, I started in 31st position and finished the race in 24th. So I moved up and had an incredible amount of fun doing it. My fastest lap got faster in each of the three qualification and race events during the weekend. The key is to be safe, improve each week, and try not to fly off the track or bend any metal on either mine or the other driver’s cars. All was accomplished successfully.
On Sunday I joined up with a couple of co-workers and their friends and family and rode down to DC as part of Rolling Thunder to celebrate Memorial Day and our nation’s fallen soldiers. It was especially meaningful to me this year after my trip aboard the USS Truman. The complete photo and video album of my trip to Rolling Thunder is here.
Each year Rolling Thunder gets larger with some estimates of approximately 500,000 bikes participating. Below is a photo of just some of the motorcycles that staged outside of Patriot Harley-Davidson in Fairfax, VA.
Once we were in DC, we parked our bikes and looked at the Korean and WWII War Memorials. From there, we waited and watched the beginning of the procession of the official Rolling Thunder. Below is a video of the beginning of the event.
After watching thousands of bikes go by, we decided to head home and beat the traffic. It was a great ride, a great day, and a great way to say, “thank you”, to all that have fallen in the line of service to this great country.
