Well the event here was pretty small -- Rex showed around 11:30, Rodney and Steve came up around 12:30 or so, and Dan showed up shortly thereafter in the Suburban(which worked out well).

Rex and I ended up toying with the SOHC motor's head for a while...I'll be doing some work on it in the next 2 weeks to eeek a bit more power out of the thing.

After a quick trip to Tognotti's Auto World to buy Rex some random stuff(and I bought a cool red interior dome-lamp replacement -- cheesy as it may seem, it will make looking around in the car at night (while driving) much easier on the eyes), we went and had a late lunch...my eyes nearly popped out of my head and I left a trail of drool checking out all the cute waitress types at the local Chili's....uGh. After lunch back to my place.

We hung out for a while till it started to get dark. Dan took off and Rex, myself, Rodney and Steve went out looking for drag races and to Gtech the cars. Rex turned some oddly horrible times(low 16's 1/4 mile, and mid 8's for 0-60) with him and myself in the car. The weather was cool, a bit damp, and the run area was flat. We did 3 or 4 runs each. Steve's times were better, but not by much. We say a few cars cruise by the somewhat desolate area we were in, but nobody really stopped, so we left to go look elsewhere. On the way to 'elsewhere', Rex and I tried to race a Z3(no luck), another Neon with two guys in it(they sorta tried, but wuzzed out. Note, after Rex stomped them off the line, they pulled up next to us and held a package containing a large latelx penile sex toy against their window. I was afraid. Rex was laughing. Rodney could only comprehend the term "rubber dong"). On the way to the freeway a few blocks later, we pulled up next to a V-6 newer Mustang. Rex and I ran 3 or 4 1-block, light to light, of-the-line runs with this guy. Rex bogged almost every launch and still toasted this poor guy in his ego-mobile. A newer Grand Am got in on it(mind you, the passengers laughed their a$$es off when Rex continually dogged the Mustang), and the driver did little more than smoke his clutch pretty badly(stinky!). After that, we arrived at elsewhere and found nothing.

Back to the original place(for those wondering, this is National, over by old Arco Arena, about a mile past Fry's off Northgate Blvd.) We showed up around 9:30 or so and there were several dozen cars and probably 60-90 people there. We saw everything from a couple turbo'd Civics(newer), to a Viper(lowered, no less), a newer 'Vette or two, some Pontiacs(newer) and some older stuff - mostly tricked out 70's cars(all American) and a good number of FAST trucks. We watched the racers for an hour and a half. Most of them were unimpressive, but we did see the Viper waste a nice shiney red Vette, and saw this older Chevy(?) type truck(sort of like an older Bronco, but bigger and not Ford)waste some serious a$$ on several cars. About 11pm da' cops showed and everyone scattered. Let me tell you, getting out of there was a royal mess. Everyone and their brother was drinking or drunk. Now imagine 50 or 60 people running for cars -- tripping, falling, hopping in the cars and 30 cars all trying to leave in a hurry, doing burnouts, etc. Yeah, big freakin' mess. I can see why people get killed at these things, but I'll chalk that up to Darwinism-in-effect.

We took off, evaded the cops, and drove like good little boys. We came back about an hour later to see what was up and about a dozen cars were BACK. Unfortunately, there was a cop sitting, blacked out, down at the 1/4 mile point, so no one was racing. They were all just sorta hanging out.

We split, Rodney and Steve went home and Rex and crashed for the night.

Notable funnys:

Roomies g/f came over and (while we were out with Dan in his Suburban/Urban Assault Vehicle o' d00m!) parked her VW Bug behind our Neons. Uhm...stupid girl. So we opened the car, and pushed it in the street. Sadly, the steering wheel locked, so we pushed it back into the fence between my driveway and the neighbors driveway and left it there. Later that night we returned and the car was parked 'correctly'. :) Serves her right.

A Suburban full of white, middle class males driving around with homies and such looking around and Dan disabling the windows/doorlocks emotely so none of us could get into any trouble. :)

Almost having my head explode everyime I saw that certain hostess (with the mostess!) walking around Chili's - ARGHHHHHH <sound of head eaten against table>. :)

Rex and I almost passing out from degreasing the SOHC motor internals with any chemical we could find....wooooooooooo...how we stayed conscious, I'll never know.

Rodney's "rubber dong comment" <---a true classic, if a bit understated. :)

Rodney's "...but the wheels are sorta gay" comment as the large and rather drunk owner of said fast Chevy truck was standing no more than 10 feet away with several large friends.

The laughing Grand Am dudes that saw Rex and I toast the V-6 stang many a time. Bwahahahahah...

The rubber dong dudes...I'm still wondering...

Fleeing from the races and my insistance that Rex follow Steve being the only thing that saved us from meeting up with several of Sacramento's Finest. ;)

Overall it was a good time. Anyone in Sac who wants to check out the races, I know where they are and I know how to get into the area safely. We, along with many other people, ended up entering the strip itself at the far end and had to be careful not to be run over. It was pretty cool to see all the cars out there, and it kicked butt to see the Viper run...sweet car, that's all I can say. Keith, I gotta get that job...I need me one of them. ;)