Going fast: The Texas Mile Spring 2013!

Speed.  For some of us, it's pretty addictive.  That rush of going fast, of the world blurring by, of the horizon rushing to meet you.  With really powerful vehicles, though, it's challenging to turn these loose on normal highways, even assuming a skilled driver/rider and vehicle in top condition.  There often isn't space to do so (at 100mph, a vehicle travels half a football field every second), and conditions are uncontrolled: other drivers, traffic, obstructions, and so forth.

So some remedies for street-legal cars have been created:  track days, open road racing, and standing mile "shootouts".  Track days organize groups of cars, with just a few safety additions, onto a race course for driving sessions at speed.  Wheel-to-wheel racing is discouraged, there are no "winners", just time tracking of lap times to allow drivers to improve their skills.

Open road races, held in some remote areas of the USA, block off a normal highway for a few hours to allow drivers to race against the clock and average some target speed (90 - 100 - 120 mph and so on) over a distance of 30-60 miles, without exceeding a "tech" speed (120 or 140 mph, depending on class).  Winners are determined by the amount of time they vary from a "perfect time" over the given distance; often the top 10 positions are all within a few tenths one another.  Remarkable.

Then, "standing mile" competitions.  Simple enough: from a standstill, how fast can your vehicle go in one mile?  Unlike a drag race, the course isn't timed, and vehicles don't compete side-by-side with one another.  Just the "trap speed" at the end of one mile is measured.  A popular version of a standing mile event is held in Beeville, TX in the spring and fall each year, so in late 2012 I started making plans to attend the Spring 2013 races.

Planning to run The Texas Mile

We have a MINI Cooper S and a Corvette Z06 in our garage, and we planned to take both of them to the Texas Mile.  The Corvette was an obvious choice: a special Corvette model with 505hp on hand, carbon-fiber bodywork, titanium suspension, and a factory rated top speed of 198.  The question we were most asked is: "How fast have you had it?".  Which, sadly, wasn't all that fast.  We picked up this car in Albuquerque, NM in Summer 2011, and drove it home across New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma.  On an early summer evening in eastern NM, somewhere on I-40, we had stretches of highway with 4+ mile visibility, and who wouldn't want to see if all 505 horses were under the hood?  So we did a few 4th gear runs to 135 or so, which sounded and felt great.  The thought of just turning this thing loose for a whole mile?  Yes, please.

But who'd take a MINI Cooper to the Texas Mile?  Well, no one really had.  A diligent YouTube and past Texas Mile record books found only one prior MINI visitor, a convertible that ran 126.  My MINI has a factory rated top speed of 145, and I'd crested 100 a few times just horsing around on the empty interstate.  But I was curious to see it "be all it could be" in a mile, and how close to topped-out I could manage.

The Texas Mile sells out every time, so I kept an eye peeled for the sign up date for the Spring 2013 session.    That was in January, and I entered both our cars online as soon as registration opened.  The safety rules for cars under 199 mph aren't too rigorous: add a 2.5lb fire extinguisher, all-cotton clothing, SFI driving gloves, and Snell-approved auto racing (not motorcycle) helmets.  Then, cars in good condition: no leaks, good tires, and so on.

With the event held on Friday-Saturday-Sunday, we planned to drive STL to Tulsa OK on Wednesday night after work, then a long day from Tulsa through Ft. Worth and Austin to Beeville on Thursday.  The opening driver's meeting was being held at 6pm that Thursday night, and we hoped to be able to attend it and thus make the first runs of the day on Friday morning, 8am.  The driving plan went well; we arrived in Tulsa at bedtime, about 10:30pm, got up in good shape, then made good time (and in some rain) through Ft. Worth with a lunch stop (at Whataburger, it had been awhile).  But then Austin: I hadn't been through there since the 90's, and traffic on I-35 *sucked*, about 45 minutes to an hour lost just sitting in creeping traffic.  There's a reason they built that mega-$$ new toll road bypass, it seems.  So that, plus the route south of Seguin being all two-lanes (even if posted at 70 & 75 mph, there were still a few small towns and stops) meant we had to give up on the early driver's meeting, and just go to our hotel.

Beeville is population 12,000 or so, so it's a real town with everything.  It's more than an hour northwest of Corpus, and maybe a bit more than that southeast of San Antonio, so it's far enough away to be self sufficient.  That meant we found a very nice self-serve car wash to erase road grime memories from our cars, and were able to select from a good half-dozen "Taqueria (Fill in Family Name Here)" restaurants before tucking ourselves in for the night.  A long day, it had been a good day for sightseeing.  That road from Seguin to Beeville included brahma bulls, flaming oil derricks, the aforementioned 75-mph two lanes, pear cactus, and countless white crewcab pipeline company pickup trucks all hauling ass.

At the Texas Mile / Racing a Corvette and a MINI Cooper S

The Texas Mile was held at Chase Industrial Park Airfield, which had been the Chase Naval Air Station and a place to train pilots during World War II and just after.  It is *not* the same place as the Beeville Municipal Airport, a fact that became very clear when we drove to the airport and found just a few lonely Cessnas, not a few hundred race cars.  This Friday was a little gloomy, with a fog / mist / dampness (no one wanted to admit that it was actually light rain, since "it has never rained at the Texas Mile").  Anyhow, it was starting to clear some, and we got seats under the Driver's Meeting tent after checking in and getting our materials.  We drove our cars to the pit / parking area, and found an unused spot.  Due to a mix-up on the hotel reservations, we ended up having to move hotels each night, and had all our "stuff" with us.  The "stuff" had to come out before we raced...we thought to ask someone if we could stash our gear under their trailer for the day.  About then, Steve Jones, a Beaumont, TX Mustang Boss 302 driver, pulled in next to his 5th-wheel car hauler and was kind enough to help us with our plight.

We used shoe polish to put our entry numbers on the windows, then lined up for our first runs.  It took awhile.  A couple of cars had issues, which closed down the track until corrected, and we were almost ready to run when they broke for lunch at noon.  So our first runs didn't get off until early afternoon.  It was still cool, and cloudy, and with a pretty strong headwind straight down the runway.  That wouldn't bother the Corvette much, but my small-engined little box of a car wouldn't like it at all.

The Z06 should run 170-180 or so, but as novice drivers (I'd also signed up to drive the Corvette, who wouldn't?) we each had to make a qualifying pass over 140 but under 160 to be cleared for 160+ driving.  My wife got her qualifying run on her first pass, 153mph, easy to do.  With my MINI, I'd calculated that I'd use 5th gear to finish the mile, probably almost at redline, so 130 mph or so.   Even so, with the headwind I only managed 125, very disappointing actually.  We both pulled around for another run, with again a long wait.

But with these long waits in the staging lanes gave us a chance to check out the other cars, almost 300 of them!  A first takeaway: we were likely the only two completely stock vehicles in the competition.  Probably half or more of the cars came on trailers, and almost all of them had some level of modification: open exhaust, intakes, camshafts, oversized injectors, running nitrous, running methanol.  Most sounded *serious*, and were.  Over 40 Corvettes, a dozen CTS-V Cadillacs, fifteen Porsches, a half dozen Ford GT's.  A much-modified Ford GT set the record last year at 263 mph (and broke that record this year with a 267 pass!).  Many Mustangs, Challengers, BMWs, Mercedes (eerily quiet when running, a CLS AMG ran in the 180s, and an opened hood revealed: lots of expensive German hotrod stuff!).

My wife made another run, this time 160-something, she missed a shift and wasn't pleased.  My second run was a 127 something, and now I was concerned that I wouldn't break 130 for the weekend.  That would be very disappointing after driving all this way.  Stacy set a goal of running 170+, somehow.  And that concluded our first day at The Mile.

We had hotel reservations in George West, TX for Friday night, about 30 miles west of Beeville.   George West is mainly an interstate exit with a couple of hotels...it took a while to even locate a restaurant, and I had to give up on thoughts of a nice steak dinner.  Just another night of that great TexMex food at a family restaurant, then some rest.

Saturday, we didn't get to the track and soon as we hoped, so only got in one run before noon.  With the headwind gone, my MINI ran a 130.2, now *that* was more like it!  My wife ran the Corvette, another low 160 pass, and was determined to shift at higher RPM on her next run.  We staged the cars, then had some lunch during the break, and got ready for the afternoon.  That's when it got weird.  My wife said she was having a great run, but then at an indicated 165 or so, her power/rpms just tailed off, and finished in the low 150s again.  She was understandably concerned, had something failed?  And this far from home?  Sheesh.  We took the Corvette off the grounds, on TX221 nearby and tried a strong run in 2nd gear to check it out.  It seemed fine.  We agreed that I'd park my MINI after my next run (I ran a 132.3, very happy), and I'd take the Corvette for *my* qualifying run and I could see how it acted on the track.

I staged for my qualifying run, just needing to get something from 140 to 160, and I'd also get to see if something was wrong / failing / failed with the car.  My run started, my first time driving the Corvette in a month or so, and I did strong pulls in first and second...seemed to be running fine!  With my quick shift to 3rd, I missed it entirely, and kept going in 5th.  Oh swell.  But a couple of things:  I just floored it in 5th, and this car is such a freak that it still ran a 153 after missing 3rd and 4th gears entirely!  And also...nothing seemed amiss, it felt strong / well / stout.

So at that point, we needed to do some re-planning.  We'd planned to leave for home Saturday night, making an overnight stop in San Antonio to visit Sandra, Ellen, Daisy, and Alec, our former next-yard neighbors who'd moved there in 2012, giving up the Sunday race day to make a short driving day on Monday to get back to St. Louis.  But then: with the Corvette's goal unmet, and news of snowpocalypse forecast for St. Louis (a freak storm in late March, it actually snowed 14" in our part of STL!) we decided to come back to Beeville Sunday and race again.  We'd race, then pack and leave late afternoon to go north to Dallas, hopefully, Sunday night and then finish the drive to STL on Monday.  Good plan.  Oh, and also, discover some explanation for the weird "165mph shutdown" that my wife had experienced.

I'd wanted to take my wife to the RiverWalk in San Antonio for a while, and that worked out for us.  We walked for a while in the upper 80's sunshine, saw the Alamo, navigated through throngs of Final 16 / Great 8 / something fans who were also in town, downed a Patron margarita, and met our friends for dinner at Acenar.  Modern place, I thought very tasty, I ordered a goat dish (my first) which ended up being a type of goat stew, so it was indistinguishable as goat, just a good stew.  We said goodbyes, then back to our hotel for some rest.

And research!  From a Corvette forum, we learned that the recent Corvettes with stability control / traction control left in "street" (normal) mode will have it intervene.  At 165mph.  Thinking you've gone off a cliff, the deep end, something.  Anyhow, the description matched *exactly* what had occurred with Stacy, so we were convinced we'd found it.  That was good news for sure.

Sunday, we arose a little later than planned (too much Patron) and drove the 1.5 hours back to Beeville and the track.  Uneventful, we found Steve Jones again and offloaded our overnight gear, then added some tire pressure and made ready for our first runs of the day.  This day, sunny but cool for Texans (low 60s), also featured a nice *tailwind* that should make for some good runs.  For everyone, not just small boxy MINIs!

My wife ran first...and achieved her goal, a 171.4mph pass!  Atta girl, I heard her results in my car since they were broadcasting the PA system over FM locally.  I got ready for a pass in my MINI...and ran it without mistakes, shifts at the redline, a 135.9!  It was a little puzzling to us where the speed trap / measurement point was at the end, so we both had chosen to keep our foot in it until the first set of flashing red strobes past the mile marker.  At that point, my Garmin GPS showed I'd reached 140, pretty close to maximum speed altogether.  I was thrilled, and done at that point, mission accomplished.

There was time left for another run; Stacy was satisfied leaving with her own mission-accomplished goal of 170+, so we staged the Corvette for a last pass.  My second time driving it that weekend, of course so different in feel / size / capability from my MINI, but I'm an long-time hot rodder who thinks he can drive anything.  Anyhow, with my helmet on, my head did firmly contact the roof, and that made for a pretty "jarring" ride through the course.  I remembered to switch off the traction control, and then was pretty cautious in leaving the starting line...we'd just bought new tires for that car last year, the rears are $550 each!  So no smoky burnouts for me.  Good pull in first, really going in 2nd, careful shift to 3rd then plant it, fast into 4th, then 5th till the finish.  WOW this seems fast, speed thrill indeed...then the marker, and easy onto the brakes.  Over the FM:  "Car 574: 171.4 mph".  Just like my wife's run!  How bizarre, *exactly* the same speed, but she kicked my butt in the half mile, 143 to my 130-something, I'm a little more careful about her tires than she is, apparently!

So: both goals accomplished, a great weekend of racing.  We said "thanks", and goodbye to Steve Jones who'd been so kind to us, but not before he wrangled a good friend over to speak with us about the Big Bend Open Road Race this fall.  West Texas?  Average 100+ over 50 miles or so?  Might be fun!  Finished packing, removed our racing numbers, and began our drive to Dallas for the night.  A great weekend of racing...though on reflection, that was a long trip there and back just to run about 10-12 minutes at speed.  Yes, we're that addicted!

I sharpened a pencil today

It had been a while.

I'm not an artist; and, I don't often write in my planner or journal with a pencil since they tend to smudge, and you have to keep resharpening. But there was a a time...

 ...when I was pencil-writing all the time.

When I first started in IT, I was a "programmer", usually termed a "developer" these days, and we wrote "code". In pencil, on paper, with gridlines intended to help guide writing things properly.

Wow, when you think about it.

I'd sit at my desk, coding, thinking out and writing down the program instructions to tell a computer what to do to solve whatever it was I was asked to. Control trains on railroads, at first. Then, later, telephone business problems, like producing bills for printing, or reports of customers and what they spent, what they used, what they had installed. In pencil, on paper.

I went through a lot of pencils, and erasers, of course. ArtGum or PinkPet, both worked pretty well. What didn't was the eraser on the end of the pencil, too abrasive, it'd go right through, or at least also erase the lines of the printed form.  Especially after two or three times.

I'd switch back between using a wood pencil, with it's sharpening ritual and wonderful just-cut wood smell, and a Pentel mechanical pencil, one of those .7mm blue ones, when it got hot & heavy, and I didn't think I could spare time to get up / down for a visit to the copy room and pencil sharpener.

We'd write all the code for a program, on paper. You learned to leave space for additional code in case you forgot something. You learned to use "subroutines", modular code, to perform functions, and coded on separate sheets of paper, again to leave room for modifications if these came up.  Funny to consider now, but composite design, object orientation, and these other modern notions may have had their root in people just getting annoyed at having to erase and rewrite so much stuff when they ran out of room.

What's with all the pencil & paper? For developing computer software? Why didn't we just type them in, you ask?

Because...no one had a workstation, at least not one of their own. You'd code on paper, and when ready, reserve time on one of the handful of "terminals" so you could use a text editor to type in your code. Then, run a "compile" to turn the code into an executable program or find your coding or typing errors. If you were able to get a clean compile, you'd use the workstation to run and debug your program.

It was considered bad form to sit there and hog a terminal if you had lots of changes & fixes; you were supposed to get a printout and return to your desk to work out corrections, new logic, whatever. With more pencil and paper.

Wow, you say. They really did it this way, back in the day? Dang. How old are you? Where they didn't even have PCs yet?

Pretty old, I guess. Because: working with pencil & paper, and typing things on one of a pool of shared workstations, was a huge improvement over working with punched cards.

Punched cards? Seriously?

Well, yeah. When I was learning "computer programming" in college, you'd write up your code on paper, but then sit down at a punch-card machine and type in your code. Each line went on one card. If you had a typo, you'd toss that card and try again. When you were done, you'd have a deck of cards with your code. It was not good to drop them, or get them out of order.

You'd take your deck of punched cards with your code, insert them in the right spot into a "compiler deck" (a huge stack of cards, usually in a box), then load the entire stack into the card reader to compile your code into a program. If you got a clean compile (no typing or syntactical errors), you'd combine the compile deck with more cards to actually execute it against test data. And it this case too, you'd return to your desk with your results printout, and work through the errors and changes. On paper, with pencil. To return again to the card punch to make changes, and go through the process again.

All this, from sharpening a pencil today.  In this very visual, workstation-enabled world we have now, it really does seem like...ancient history. 

Simply...amazing.

We recently took a road trip to Milwaukee and back, visiting my brother and his wife, and giving our two big dogs a chance for some fun on the lakeshore. And I had some thoughts on the long drive.

We're traveling in a 2.3 liter (140 cubic inch) 6-passenger "microvan" that's cruising along with interstate traffic between 75-80 mph. With a cargo of two humans and a couple of 100-lb dogs, it's capable of 26-28 mpg at these speeds, 30-32 mpg if speed is reduced to 60-65 mph. Should the opportunity present itself or be required, it's fully capable of operating above 100 mph for extended periods, with probably 120-125 mph as a maximum. On just it's small, 4-cylinder engine.

At the moment, it's being kept to a particular speed, 78 mph let's say, by its "cruise control" function, a set of sensors that monitor speed, engine loading, and other factors, and one or more microprocessors (computers) that make sense of these inputs and regulate the engine so that it maintains that speed. A tap on the brakes turns it off; I can tap the controls to increase the desired speed up a mile-per-hour, or down one.

Elsewhere: another set of computers is controlling the engine's operation. Sensors are providing feedback about exhaust gas temperature, water temperature, fuel mixture, exhaust gas composition, throttle position and movement, and other factors to a set of microprocessors that control when the spark plugs fire, when the fuel injectors open and close to provide the right power for this combination of factors. Subject to change in the next split second.

Still more: I'm not using the brakes at the moment. But they, too, have sensors that will monitor brake application and wheel rotation, sending signals to a microprocessor that can interrupt or limit braking force to a wheel that's stopped rotating, or skidding: anti-lock brakes. In slippery conditions, these sensors also feed into the engine controls and interrupt or limit power when a wheel is spinning more than vehicle speed would indicate: traction control. Combined with these, other sensors detect sudden or unacceptable pitch or yaw motions, and feed other microprocessors this information to enable control of brakes or power to assist getting the vehicle back under control: vehicle stability control.

That's not all.

On the console is a small, half-pound device made of glass and alloy. Inside it are more microprocessors and circuitry that are doing some amazing things. For instance, I'm listening to a radio station, and I have a choice of hundreds all around the country because I'm using a "streaming audio" capability. As we drive along, this device is connecting and re-connecting to service antennas over and over again, maintaining a broadband/data connection to allow the radio audio to be transmitted into this device and amplified through the vehicle's sound system.

While we're listening to the radio station, this device is also helping us with directions. It's displaying a moving map of where we are at the moment, what is our next turn and when/where will we need to do so, along with when we should arrive at our destination. It contains maps for the entire country, and is communicating with 3 or more orbiting satellites to receive GPS data for our location as we drive along, and intrepret this data into our speed, direction, and location.

Should someone want to reach us, it can receive their phone call and let us talk to whomever. We can hold this device up, take a photo, and include it in a message to someone, or post it onto a social networking site to share with all our friends. If we tire of the radio station, we can choose another one, or pick from hundreds of songs we may have stored on it and listen to that instead. If we're tired of watching the map, we can have it play a stored TV show or movie for us; well, safely, only for the passengers :-). Or, play a game, solve a puzzle, or read a book whose pages are stored inside it.

All this...is magic. It really is. None of this capability existed when I was born. So many things we use routinely now are so...smart, I guess. So capable, anyway. And so accessible to so many of us. I found it...well, amazing.

On visiting 1971 France

Many of you are aware that I'm a complete gearhead: I've long had a love for anything with an internal combustion engine, and most activities that involve them. Go-karts when I was very young, then minibikes, cars, motorcycles, airplanes.

I have the first car magazines that I bought with my allowance at Katz Drug Co., from 1965, and used to save all of them (before the internet). I devoured all such cover-to-cover, knew most cars & models by sight. I participated in my first autocross 4 months after turning 16, and in my first drag-strip bracket race a couple of months later.

The movie "Grand Prix" was a revelation to me, and my auto-loving friends, when released in 1966. A major Hollywood film, with billboard-relevant actors (for the time), and a huge budget for all the on-location filming and CGI-free racing action. But on subsequent viewings (at the drive-in, and years later on TV), it did/does suffer some from a few quirky technical novelties (multi-screen splitting, where double/quadruple/and more images are presented at once) and a too-drippy love story trying to be woven in. Still though: for me, those 66-67 Formula One cars were the zenith of that series (combining the 3.0 litre engine in cigar-shaped bodies devoid of all the later aero add-ons) and it was/is nice to be able to view them in motion, not just in period photographs.

And all this brings me to 1971, and Steve McQueen's movie, "Le Mans".

So many enthusiasts were waiting for this film, having read snips of pre-release info while it was being made, and with the motoring world just coming off the epic Ford/Ferrari battle for prototype-racing supremacy. McQueen had never been more popular; "Bullitt" was so recent, and indeed its success led to McQueen having the financial wherewithal to get "Le Mans" into production. And, upon release...we were all just blown away. Not a lot of sappy plot for distractions, the stars of the movies were the *cars*, just a we'd have wanted it. The Ferrari 512, and Porsche 917, in their early iterations, howling and dicing on this ultimate circuit for prototype sports cars. 200+ mph straights, incredible soundtrack.

Last winter, Amazon announced pre-orders for "Le Mans" on blu-ray, and I signed up. But what would this be like? Here's a 40-year-old film, now getting recorded on blu-ray with it's ability for incredible detail rendered on modern HD televisions. This film shipped recently, and I got a chance to look at it last night.

"What's it like" is: being transported back in time.

To 1971 France, at Le Mans. And it dawned on me I'd never seen this movie with this clarity of presentation. Not at the box office (how well-focused was the projector?), not at the drive-in (seriously?) and certainly not on TV up to this point. Now, watching on a 1080P fast-scan TV and blu-ray, everything is so sharp. They *did* know how to focus the camera(s) back then; the scenery, cars, people are so sharp, literally "just like being there". Count the rivets in the car bodies, blades of grass, bricks/mortar in the buildings. Astounding.

What does this pose for the future, for folks wondering what it was like "back then"? It appears now we can look back in HD quality, perfectly.

Of scammers, and Corvettes

A few years ago, in 2011, my wife at that time and I were really wanting a Corvette. Specifically, a Z06 Corvette, that aluminum-framed, titanium-suspended, carbon-fiber-bodied version that performs like a 1/3 price Lambo. Yes, that one. They've made the C6 version of it since '06, so some of those, and the '07s, were drifting into price-of-a-loaded-new-Camaro territory by mid-2011. New Z06s are expensive, so they typically go to owners who care for them, a lot, versus falling into the hands of "Fast and Furious" types who flog them. In other words, many/most Z06s have spent a lot of time being cared for and garaged, and that makes for a great used car when they move on.

We had created and saved internet searches where the example in question had fallen into our price range. At the time, we had enough going on with a home sale, and home purchase, that springing for a new car wasn't high on the list for a few months. But one "hit" really grabbed our attention, a 2008 Z06  "9,000 miles, one-owner, never wrecked or abused, garage-kept" at 2/3'rds of it's correct market price. Hmmm.  We discussed among ourselves...how bad is the flood damage, who in Nigeria is selling this car for his brother who's in Switzerland but the car is in New Jersey, and so on.

But the ad looked good. The car was in Wisconsin, had a VIN # listed, CARFAX report available, the owner's email id and phone number listed, all on the up and up. I agreed to call the guy and see about it.

Hmmm...the phone number listed didn't work. Maybe a misprint.

But I was doubly wary. That car was priced too low...way too low. Its seller isn't someone's aunt who inherited the car and posted it in the local paper, but someone who's savvy enough to post on Autotrader, knows to list the VIN, etc. And so, is entirely capable of knowing that car's real value. And now, this second strike...a "bogus" or at least non-working, contact number.

I went to work on the VIN next, googling "decode GM VIN number" to get to the official GM site for their codes. GM? Corvette? 08? LS7 V-8? Built in Bowling Green, KY? All these checked out, looked legit. The seller had a CARFAX to share, and of course, there's a CARFAX link right on AutoTrader to check it out. I linked there and typed in the VIN.

Zero records found.

Okay...hmmm. There should be something; the car was sold, was registered, paid sales tax, was serviced by someone, somewhere, was licensed. Something. But this car had no records at all. That's troubling.

I emailed the seller about 10am, telling him the car looked great, and I had a few questions for him (actually, at this point, more than a few), but the phone number he listed in the ad wasn't working.

He mailed back about 4pm, all cheery. The car was still available, he has the clear title, it's in excellent condition, no ding/scratches, all original, never smoked in. He thought he had it sold for a bit more, however that buyer's financing fell through, so he posted a sell-it-quick price since at this point it's the car or his house. So he needs a cash buyer, he says, and if I'm going to be financing then he can't wait that long. He didn't mention the bogus phone number I'd mentioned.

Cash only, eh? Oh boy. (That's not necessarily a deal-stopper, but with the other stuff so far, you can start to see where this is going).

Then, there was what came next. In this not-cheap purchase, you'd think there'd be talk of where the car could be seen, what were my questions about its condition, when did I want to take a look at it, and so forth. He didn't talk about any of that.

What he did talk about was that he had signed up with Google Checkout for protection on the sale, and if I'd email him my Google information, they could set up the transaction. (He also said this would allow me time to come and test drive the car, and provide a 7-day inspection period before they would release the funds to him...I'd missed that part yesterday, and it's complete hogwash, of course).

At that point, I was done, and chuckling. He's a scammer, all right, this is a fake car/offer/whatever.

Out of curiosity, I thought to check out the CARFAX report image he'd sent along with 27 pictures of the car (that he probably got off Ebay last month, when some legit person was selling a snow-bound Corvette). I started looking at it, basically a screen shot of a CARFAX screen display, with much of the images "X"d for not downloading properly. This report said the car had *4* records; how could that be, I'd just run it myself that morning? The four records were all for original sale, and follow-on maintenance, at a Chevy dealer in Puyallup, WA. Really? Oh, so he musta moved to Wisconsin since.

What's that VIN # again? Hmmm...I looked at the report he'd sent, it was off by one digit/letter from what I checked from the AutoTrader ad this morning, an "X" replaced the "5" that it had for the "check digit" value. I tried that new number at CARFAX: "incorrect VIN entered", meaning the check-digit didn't match the rest of the number. So it was a fake VIN on the report, but I mostly knew that already.

One final note: one of the few things that did print on his "CARFAX" report / screen printout was a blue ad box in the left column. It read, "to find other great values in the Clearwater, FL area, contact....". Florida? Um, no.

So I called my wife about 4:45pm to relay this last part of the discussion. We'd been texting off/on a couple of times since that morning, and were already very suspicious that this was a hoax/scam. We concluded that it would be a good karma/samaritan/right thing to do to let AutoTrader know there were some issues with one of its ads. I clicked the original Autotrader link, to get the ad number for my report: gone! "This listing has been deleted by the seller". Guess he got cold feet and moved on, or something.

So the scammers are out there, still, trolling. We didn't bite. I guess he figured there'd be someone willing to toss many thousand dollars into Google Checkout for a great deal on a sight-unseen Z06, that person confident they'd have 7 days to get to Wisconsin to check out the car before the sale was finalized (which: they would not have). But that wouldn't be us.