on friday, W and i flew out to salt lake city to go to a NASA racing event at the brand new miller motorsports park in tooele (just south of SLC). i was asked to go by our regional NASA directors so i could train with the control guy from california, but really, i just wanted to check out the new track. it was amazing! the track is long, just under 4.5 miles. the facility is awesome, with a ton of garages for the cars to use, and the coolest control tower ever! the track is pretty flat, so from control, you can see just about 80% of it (the cars disappear for a bit between turns 1 and 3, and again between 16 and 19). the track will have 22 cameras (there were only 4 set up), which we can view from the 7 plasma screens. they even have wifi! and timing and scoring is right next door, which is very convenient when you need to know who the leader is. we had about 230 cars out this weekend, with several races. my favorite was watching the formula TR guys race around the track. it's hard to believe these kids are only 14-16 years old! each weekend costs them about $10k, and they can easily spend $125k a year doing these races (and that's on the low end). one kid has already been invited by nascar to race in july at daytona. whoa. that's some serious talent. it's just amazing watching these kids zoom around the track! so W and i spent the weekend working the event, since we didn't want to make the drive out there to then drive some more on the track. i had a great time, learned a lot, and even got to meet mr. larry miller, who made all this happen! he's the owner of the utah jazz, among many other business ventures in utah (i think he owns pretty much the whole state). he was very down-to-earth and extremely friendly. i only wish he was able to do this in colorado (which he apparently tried but couldn't make happen...damn coloradoans). this track was built with world-class intentions, so they're hoping to get formula 1 races out there in a few years. and i thought i met dave brown, who used to drive my favorite opak-spoon integra type r (right hand drive, i actually sat in it at one of our last thunderhill track days...soooo cool!!!), but it was his racing partner, dave bon giovanni. darn. but W got to chat with the actual dave brown at the grid, which is still pretty neat. :) dave brown now drives an evo. oh well.

anyways, here are some of the few pics i took...

this was my view from the control tower!


here's a view of the inside of the control tower...see the plasmas?


the paddock area


formula TR kids, they're only 14-16 years old!


so that was our fun-filled weekend in tooele, utah!

okay, was anyone else totally disappointed with the "will and grace" series finale?? it fast forwarded thru the next 20 years of their lives. it wasn't funny at all. it was just stupid. i hate this time of year...all the season finales. oh well, i guess it's better that i don't watch so much tv. :P but i was extremely happy with both "america's next top model" winner and the winning team on "amazing race." yea!

well that's about it for now. hopefully pfoto doesn't go down again, sheesh.