The question of the day…

Can you pig out at a vegetarian restaurant???

I’m back online…

It’s been a busy few months.  Working, travelling the country, taking care of all sorts of stuff.  It’s been keeping me busy and off line.  Hope everyone is well and doing fine. 

There’s a few posts below to give you a quick look at the last few months.

R.

A few pic’s from the Sebring 12 Hour

For the Sebring Race Fans out there… Here’s a few pic’s.  I’ll have the final edits for all of my pictures up on the Flickr site in the next few days.  Enjoy.

       

     

Icy Road To No Where

Icy road to no where.  Actually, this is the road to Virginia City, MT from Ennis, MT.

How deep is the snow on the side of the road???  This deep…

Hummer H3’s Suck….

On a recent trip out to Montana to play in the snow, I got the opportunity to drive a Hummer H3.  Never drove one before and was curious.  When the rental car agent heard me make the comment I had never driven one and wanted to try it, she fixed me up.

Overall, it drives pretty well.  Smooth ride, power when you need it, and needless to say will roll over most things without too much trouble.  Of course, that’s when your driving on warm, dry pavement.  When you get into the snow/freezing rain, that’s another story. 

First, the rear door seam is in the wheel well.  So, when you get a build up of ice, the rear doors tend to freeze shut.  We almost ripped the rear door handles off when we tried to open the door.  After a day of running through the snow and wet roads, we had built up about an 1 1/2″ of ice.

          

The other issue we had is that with the standard all season tires, it isn’t worth a damn in some situations.  We were driving down a dirt road and came across a drift of snow and I decided to plow through it.  It was only about 15 feet wide (went across the whole road) and only looked to be about two feet deep.

I guess the snow had melted and refroze a few times because instead of going through the snow, we went over it.  Until we got half way across.  Then we heard a crunch and we cracked through the top layer of ice into the snow down to the dirt road.  If you look closely on the left side of the picture, you can see that top layer of frozen snow is about 2 - 3 inches thick.

Well, long story short, it took us about 20 minutes to dig the thing out and get going.  Rocking it back and forth and the usual methods of getting a truck out didn’t really work.  It was a dog.  It should have been able to dig through something that simple.  I’ve done it with other vehicles, no problem.

The H3 seems to just be a fancy soccer mom (dad) truck and made for the dry weather.  Using it in the cold, snowy weather is a waste.  I don’t even think changing the tires would help much.

Oh, for you tall guys, no matter what you do you’re going to whack your knees on the steering column when you get in.  Run away!!!  There are other options better suited for this type of environment..

R.