Month: January 2009

Car Photo(s) of the Day, last of the wet.

I’m leaving town tomorrow, headed south for (hopefully) warmer climes. San Francisco for Macworld Expo. I’ll still post while I’m gone, but I am going to wrap up the “wet classic” theme with a couple of photos of my own car, the beloved 65E, looking a bit moist on a dewy morning on the Oregon Coast.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen, playing in the mid-day snow.

Oddly, I received a Press Release from a friend the other day. Not something that happens very often! 😉 It included the photo above. That smirking brit on the left trying to look like a Rock Star is our very own John “Mad Dog” Morrow and his PR states the following:

Seattle Mini Owner to Compete in 2009 Monte Carlo Historic Rally Race

Seattle-based Mini Cooper owner, John Morrow will join forces with renowned
British circuit racer, Bill Richards, in the 2009 Monte Carlo Historique rally race.
The team will campaign Morrow’s 1965 1293cc Morris Cooper S. The car is a very
close replica of the fabulously successful vehicles built by BMC Competitions
Department in the 1960s and which won the Monte Carlo outright on three
separate occasions. Richards, who runs a well-known engineering and A-series
engine tuning business in Kent, UK, prepared the car.

The team, comprising driver Bill Richards, co-driver John Morrow and service
crew members John Griffin (also Team Manager) and Adam Cooke, will set off for
the start of the event at Reims, France, on January, 29, 2009.

This Monte Carlo Historique is one of the most gruelling rallies in the world and
the team will have to cover 2500 Km including a number of special stages over
narrow, snow and ice-covered, mountain roads before they reach the sunshine of
the Mediterranean. Richards and Morrow will be competing against 350 other
classic cars including several Minis. This will be third time the duo has competed
in the event; on the 2008 event they were leading their class when a broken
steering rack put them out of the running. Co-driver Morrow says, “2009 is the
50th anniversary of the Mini and there will be a lot of interest in how the car can
perform against its rivals half a century after it was first produced; the Monte is
an extremely competitive event but we are very well prepared and are hoping for
at least a class win”.

So I did what I usually do when John sends me an email… invite him out for a beer!

We’ll have that beer in a week or so, but let’s all wish John & Bill (and the Mini!) the best of luck in their coming Le Grande Aventure!

What Brown Can’t Do For You: Deliver a package on-time!

Once again, I’ve been reminded why United Parcel Service are a bunch of complete morons.

If you recall, they once decided my house was “too rural” for Saturday delivery, despite the fact that we’re 4 miles from a sizable town and perhaps a mile from a major state highway. This compounded by what was likely my worst ever customer service experience ever, has basically lost me forever as a customer. I will never willingly use their services.

So what happened recently to bring this all back?

Every year my mother arranges to send us a christmas wreath for our home. It is something of a family tradition. She used to source them from a family-run business in the unpronounceable-to-all-but-Washingtonians town of Puyallup. Unfortunately, like our neighborhood tree-farm they closed up shop a few years ago. Since then my mom has sourced her wreaths from various commercial outfits. This year however, no wreath ever arrived. I thought that perhaps she had forgotten.

Until yesterday, January 2nd, 2009, when I came home from work I found our 2008 Christmas Wreath sitting in a box on the front porch! Thank you UPS. Once again, you have dazzled me with your incompetence.

But of course I’d neglected to take down the wreath from the year before… though it is looking a bit… dead.

My favorite Car photo of 2008.

While not as dramatic as some of my past work, this image is my favorite one from the past year. Once again, as in 2007 the chance to make it was afforded to me by Dr. Philippe Reyns. This photo was snapped from the passenger seat of his pre-war SS100 Jaguar as we ambled toward Libby, Montana on the 2008 Going To The Sun Rally.

Merci Philippe!

As I’m considering my plans for 2009 I think I’ll have to skip the GTTSR this year. All of my potential co-drivers have not been able to commit. Perhaps this year instead I’ll grab one (or both) of my boys and just go for a father/son road trip… follow our noses somewhere. I’ve done this before and I think it is time to do it again.