4/11/00 Lotus USA headquarters in Atlanta. Picking up the newest toy, a Lotus Elise Sport 190. Not quite sure if I should be doing this yet....

Yes, I'll take this one please! (biggest check I've written in my life ;). Happy early b-day to me. This is the only black Elise in the country, one of 39 total.

The interior is all business. If you want carpets, stereo, AC - look elsewhere. Takes some practice and agility to get in and out. About 1600 pounds, 190 horses. No distractions needed here. The chassis is a high-tech bonded aluminum structure:

4/30/00 The Lotus is in the driveway. A temporary permit lets me drive it to/from events while working on getting a "special interest" registration. Less than a week to first track day, have to go put on some miles!

5/5/00 First track day for the Elise, exit of turn 9 at PIR. It rained for two of the sessions. Slides are very controllable :)

M Roadster in hot pursuit - no fair, I only have 550 miles on the odometer and can't use full power.

5/26/00 Elise track day #2. Better tires, more miles (950), getting a bit faster! Did a 1:34 with the chicane, not too bad considering the 11% (!) weight 'penalty' of carrying a passenger. Of course Indy cars do 1:00 laps here... Will be interesting to see what I can do solo, after some practice.

6/10/00 Track day #3 for the Lotus, a BMW/Alfa/Porsche club event at PIR. It's a fast track, with the Elise getting up to about 125 mph on the back straight and 135 mph on the front. Of course it rains after the second session. Put on P-Zeros in anticipation of foul weather, but they really don't like the new camber settings in the wet. The first session in the rain I take two laps, mostly sideways, and call it a day. Just as well, as the next lap is black-flagged when a 911 Turbo goes into a wall. Some birthday present from mother nature. And nobody sends me pictures of my car, either :(

7/23/00 On the track at SIR (this is Elise track outing #4, now with 1500 miles on the clock). Challenging layout, many blind turns and elevation changes. Turn 1 at the end of the straight (see map) is especially interesting. A blind right-hander at just under 130 mph. Simply aim for the edge of a concrete wall and keep the foot down. FUN.

8/5/00-8/6/00 Bible Creek Hillclimb in Central Oregon. A long, hot (95F) drive from Portland. First day problems with timing equipment delay start from 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM. Only get one run and go back to the B&B, exhausted from a day of waiting around in the sun. Sunday things run smoother, although another timing equipment malfunction means i get an extra run, as they don't get a time for my first one. About mid-day an MR2 goes off into the trees. The driver is OK, the car looks totalled. A tree stopped him from plunging a couple hundred feet down the cliff. My last run for the day I am a bit more conservative, but still get a better time. Good enough for a resounding class win, and third-fastest on the hill (behind two formula cars with wings and race slicks). A 400+ hp Camaro came close to my time after a remarkable 10-second improvement, but still fell short 0.2 seconds of my best effort.

Quite an eclectic bunch of cars showed up, twenty-five total, with Lotus represented by my Elise, a beautiful all-original Europa (even paint is original, after 26 years!), and a couple of Elans - one of which fried a clutch and didn't run. The F40 didn't run the event either - just came by to check it out.

8/25/00 A BMW club day at PIR. Weather is perfect, finally starting to use the Lotus to its capabilities. Didn't get a lap time, but seemed faster. A 'fellow' Elise owner brought two of his many toys...

He followed me around in the 340R for a while, and mentioned that my inside rear wheel is off the ground sometimes. That explains the back end feeling a bit floaty. Judging from other pictures of my car (and the way the car feels in the turns), I gather that the inside front is levitating as well. Hmm... I couldn't run away from him. All I know about his stints in the F50 is that he didn't pass me, which is good enough for me. When I took a passenger for one of the sessions, the gentleman mentioned that going into turn 1 I was letting off the brakes at 80. Going into the turn I couldn't get a peek at the speedo myself... but I know i was getting on the brakes at about the 400-foot marker at 130+ mph. Yee-ha!

9/1/00 A lotus club day at PIR. Got four good dry sessions (decided to sit out the couple rainy ones, it's just too stressful and not so much fun). A few interesting cars showed up, including a street Elise, a Group B MG Metro rally car, a genuine Porsche 959 ...

And of course the usual suspects, along with a bunch of varied Loti and other neat machinery.

Overall I'm getting faster still, at least subjectively. Passing quite a few people in the advanced group now, while only a couple passed me. The Lotus runs comfortably with most streetable Porsches, even ones with gutted interiors and R1 tires. The F50 of course still runs away, though I was able to keep it in sight for a while by getting the most out of my brakes and holding the throttle open as long as I could manage. It takes a bit of practice holding the gas pedal down at 125+ until 400 feet before a sharp 50-mph right-hander (unlike the previous track day, we were using the chicane, which puts a sharp right-left-right wiggle about 2/3 of the way down the front straightaway - turns 1-2-3 on the map for 6/10/00 below). On the back straight it's even more fun, as much as 135 (according to a rather impressed passenger, I wasn't exactly looking at the speedo in that spot) up to the 200-foot marker before a fast but scary-looking left hand turn (9 on the map).

11/5/00 A Porsche club track day at PIR, the last of the season. It's cold, with ever present threat of rain (which thankfully never materializes). The tires are getting a bit hard from the heat cycling of all the track sessions over the summer, and the cold doesn't help. The result is an anxious moment or two in some of the faster turns, but I manage to stay on the pavement (except when a 911 spins thirty feet in front of me in the middle of turn 5, at about 70 mph - I had to put a couple of wheels on the grass to get around him). I'm running within less than a second per lap of a modified Porsche 911 (a 3.2L Carrera motor and huge Hoosier race tires in a late-70's narrow body), about 1:30 with the chicane. We have quite a few entertaining 'battles' while working our way through slower traffic. A couple Motorsport Elise cars show up, the first ones I've seen in person. Sweet. Sadly I forgot to bring a camera and did not get any pictures... But there's always next year. Instead, here's an aerial view of the track, with Mt. Hood in the background...