Petersen Automotive Museum Breakfast Club Cruise-In

On Sunday, Dan and I joined our SoCal Smarties group at the Petersen Automotive Museum's monthly event, Breakfast Cruise-In. The event is held on the roof of the museum's parking structure and is open for the public to display their personal collection exotic, classic and special interest cars. As a participant, we were given free parking, 2-for-1 tickets to the museum and coffee/donuts. Great deal!

We brought Hopper, our new Electric Drive Smart and arrived at the event a little early, meeting up with a few members, including the event host, Victor. Thanks for planning a fun event Victor!

Even if you don't own a special car, it's worth visiting the Petersen Automotive Museum during the monthly event as it essentially adds another area of the museum to visit. It's free for anyone who happens to be visiting the museum (technically you don't even need to go into the museum, just walk up to the roof of the parking structure) and was advertised throughout the museum. Some of the cars brought to the event were even more impressive than the museum's collection.

There was a lot to see at the cruise-in. We had a medium sized turn out, but I think that we had the most amount of cars for any single club at the event.

A few of the many Smarts at the meet, Hopper is the white and green.

There were so many beautiful cars.

The most unusual vehicle by a long-shot was this old fire truck, that had been lovingly restored and modified. I love all of the details, especially the bee.

We went into the museum when it opened at ten. In the section displaying early cars, we saw the first electric vehicle, a Detroit Electric. The Detroit Electrics started being manufactured in 1906 and like our Electric Smart, it was a quiet drive!

The museum has three levels and we took about an hour to go through it. We were a bit on car overload and ended up rushing it, as on previous visits, I spent over two hours enjoying the Peterson. It's a very well done museum with highly immersive displays and education slickly snuck in among the fun exhibits.

Dan likes to give his son Hot Wheels and the kid has amassed quite a collection. I knew that Dan would like the Hot Wheels section of the Petersen, where they have on display every body model ever made.

There were several signs promoting the Breakfast Club Cruise-In event.

On the third floor we found a picture opportunity. I've joined the police force to bust people for parking Non-ED vehicles in ED Charging stations. We had some issues this weekend and it's our new crusade!

We wrapped up our visit to the Petersen with lunch at Johnny Rockets, located on the first floor of the museum. We had a great time at the meet-up and I enjoyed introducing Dan to another new place in Los Angeles. The Petersen does a great job with hosting the monthly Cruise-In and I highly recommend the event.

SoCal Smarties Meetup - Brackett Airport

On Sunday, Dan and I went to the SoCal Smartie's Cars & Planes at the Brackett Airport meet-up. It was one of those perfect Southern California spring days, so we took my Smart (Freddy) and drove with his top down to the Smart Center in West Covina.

We have a bit of good news. Saturday night we met with Kamaal Petersen and put a down-payment as a reservation on a new Smart. If you're looking to purchase or lease a Smart, I highly recommend going to see Kamaal in West Covina. Not only is he super nice, but he is also a multiple Smart owner and has a wealth of knowledge regarding the brand. Plus, the West Covina dealership has a great selection.

There are some legal issues holding up the dealerships in California from selling the new Electric Smarts, but if all goes well, our new car should be home with us this week. We are excited to have an electric Smart in our family and I will write up another blog post after it is officially ours.

We have named him Grasshopper..or Hopper for short.

We spent about an hour having donuts, coffee and catching up with friends at the Smart Center. They had a bunch of the electric drives out on display, as well as gas fueled Smarts. As always, it was fun to check out the other cars in our group. We are so used to have the least interesting cars in the group, that it will be nice to finally have a car that is a little special. Although, the range of the electric might prevent us from taking Hopper to many meets. We may have to organize a meet near Glendale!

One of our group members attached a camera to a remote controlled helicopter to get some aerial shots.

We drove in convoy to Brackett Airport along the roads in the beautiful hills of West Covina and San Dimas. We've taken part in many Smart Convoys and I don't think that Dan will ever get bored of seeing so many Smarts on the road. Giddy is the best way to describe his reaction to it.

At the airport, we were met by one of our group members, Hal, who is a member of the airport association. Hal co-hosted this meet, along with Bob who did a great job (as always) at mobilizing the group and getting us from the Smart Center to the planes. He brought the much appreciated coffee and snacks.

We checked in and were given displayer badges. Along with the airplanes on display, there were also classic cars and scooters.

Here is a shot of our cars on display.

And a lovely picture of Lilly taking it easy in the shade.

Our club got a new sign.

Dan took a few panorama shots with his IPhone.

There were many beautiful vintage planes on display. This is a great monthly show for anyone interested in aircrafts. Hopefully we will be able to take Dan's parents to it the next time they visit us from England. I couldn't help but be reminded of the gorgeous Timothy Oulton furniture that we have been lusting after for the last several weeks.

There were two planes in particular that had traveled long distances.

There were also some paramotors on display, two from our group members Hal and Jeremy. Jeremy even brought his to the event in his Smart, thus proving a point that all of us Smart owners already know, there is plenty of storage space!

There were a handful of classic cars on display. The paint jobs on the cars was amazing, they were all so vivid and saturated in color. I really liked the shiny orange truck.

There was even a scooter on display.

We ate chili dogs for lunch in the pretty park area adjacent to the airfield.

Three dollars- Hot dog, chips, drink and brownie..can't beat that!

I liked how they had an airplane themed play area for kids.

A big thank you to Bob and Hal for co-hosting a great event.

Our First NASCAR Race- Auto Club 400

Dan and I have spent our relationship without cable. This isn't normally a big deal for us, as we can get most of what we want through iTunes, Hulu and Netflix. The only major problem that we have come across is getting our NASCAR fix. We've tried watching races at various bars, all a very distracting experience. Just finding the race at a bar is a challenge, because Los Angeles is not much of a NASCAR town.

On Sunday, March 24th, we drove out to the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana for the Auto Club 400. This was our first experience attending a NASCAR race and we tried our best to prepare for the day. We read up on recommendations regarding what to wear and bring, which caused us to spend a good chunk of Saturday running around town attempting to acquire items. Now having experience, here are some tips that I can impart to fellow NASCAR newbies.

1. Unless you already own a seat cushion, don't bother buying one in advance. We went to several stores around Los Angeles and couldn't find anything appropriate. It turns out, they sell them for ten dollars at the race. We thought that is was good deal and it gave us a cheap souvenir.

2. We read that we should pack a lunch and assuming that the prices were going to be outrageous like at other sporting events, we heeded the advice. The Auto Club Speedway has tight regulations on the size of the soft sided cooler that you are allowed to bring. They allow a 6x6x12 cooler, which isn't very big! We didn't have this and spent twelve dollars for one at Target.

In the end, I wish that we had skipped bringing food. It was a hassle and it was so sweltering hot, that some of the food spoiled before we could eat it. It turns out that the food (and beer) are fairly reasonably priced at the Auto Club Speedway. Twenty bucks would have kept us full, happy and not lugging around a personal cooler!

3. Don't buy alcohol, even if the price is reasonable. I suffered greatly from drinking a beer while sitting in the hot sun. I spent 1/4 of the race underneath the grandstands in the shade, because I felt so sick.

4. Bring bottled water and keep hydrated.

5. If you plan to buy food there, buy it early. Several stands sold out of items. This included water and drinks.

6. Apply and reapply sunscreen. I came home with a prickly sunburn.

7. Bring ear protection. It's much louder than you think it will be. I felt like getting ear protection was more important than the water or sunscreen. Surprisingly, lots of people don't bother protecting their ears or their children's ears. It was awful seeing young children without the proper protection.

We rented Fan Vision, which came with two sets of headphones in which we could hear race and driver commentary. It was entertainment and protection together. The price was around seventy-five, but it was well worth it. It's much more engaging to be able to hear the race commentary. The Fan Vision came with a monitor, where we could watch videos and keep track of stats.

Ear protection is sexy!

Fan Vision

Ear protection is sexy!

The parking lot opened at five am, but we decided to sleep in and get there around ten. There was a massive queue to the free, dirt parking lot, but the attendants were super efficient and we didn't wait long. There were many people having tailgate parties in the lot, some were very elaborate set-ups. It gave me the urge to buy a kiddie pool and fill it with beer!

The long line to the parking lot.

Finally parked. The dirt got stuck to our sun-screened bodies and we were filthy!

Flags in the parking lot. Lots of flags and tailgate parties!

Next time, we would probably opt to pay for the close parking in the paved lot. The walk from the dirt lot took about twenty minutes and was probably about a mile. They had a shuttle bus making runs, but we opted to hoof it.

Once we got inside the of the gates, there was a lot to see and do. We decided to check out our seats first. This being our first NASCAR event, we relied heavily on internet advice to pick seats. We ended up in the middle of the grandstands, close to the end of the pit lane. A good location that we would likely pick again.

concessions under the grandstands

The entrance.

Looking to the right.

Dan in front of our section. Note the small bag that he is carrying, that was our lunch bag.

Looking to the left.

The view from our seats.

We regretted not spending the extra thirty-five a ticket for pit passes. It would have been cool to get a close-up look at the pits and cars, but that's something that we can look forward to the next time. We headed out of the stadium to the massive field on the property to see the exhibits, concessions and merchandise.

The Jack FM bustache

Fox Sports

Auto Club Race Car

Auto Club Smart Car!!!

The Danica Patrick merch booth was by far the most crowded.

Race car interior

Jimmie Johnson's Merch. I was rooting for the cute local boy!

Event map.

Auto Club Speedway

Speedway fountain/sculpture thing.

Dan with his other girlfriend.

We got to our seats about twenty minutes before the race was set to start. It's amazing how quickly the grandstands go from empty to packed.

Fly over

The cars are starting to line up.

What would a sporting event be without the Goodyear Blimp?

Danica Patrick

Surfer car

I found watching the pits to be the most interesting aspect of the race. It's amazing how fast the pit crews work.

almost done

tires off

And back in the race. All done in the blink of an eye.

Danica Patrick pulls into the pit.

We were told via multiple source to make sure to bring binoculars. We had them on the dining room table and completely forgot them. It was bit of a bummer and sometimes hard to see all of the action, but Dan brought the good camera and managed to take some great shots of the race.

Go Jimmy!!!

restarting

Danica on the backside of the track.

The big screen was easy to see from our seats.

Dan took a lot of pictures of the GoDaddy car.

The race was mostly uneventful until the very end when Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano made contact in the last lap, causing Hamlin to take a hard crash into the wall. They two were vying for first, when the crash opened up an opportunity for Kyle Busch to take the lead and ultimately win the race.

Hamlin and Logano has a contentious relationship prior to the race and took the feud to the track. Apparently, Logano also had beef with Tony Stewart. After the race, Logano got into a fist fight with Stewart on pit row. Stewart felt that Logano had blocked him during the final restart. NASCAR is better than ice hockey!

Smashed up at the end of the race.

Logano and Stewart fight.

Busch's victory burn-out

good look at the damage

Busch celebrating

winners circle and final tally

Winner's Cicle

Our first NASCAR race was a ton of fun. We went home sunburn, covered in dirt and elated. Hopefully later this season or next year, we will be able to travel to different state for another race.