Ron Bauer, Doug Chase, and Kevin Dietz (all local) are contestants in this reality show airing on Speed. Tonight was the fourth (of six?) episode. At first it was pretty much typical reality show stuff, but once they started racing it's been really quite good.

What was even better, though, was watching the show with Ron, Doug, and Kevin. They are meeting up at about 7pm every Wed at Bison Creek Pizza in Burien. The show comes on at 8, and they mute during the commercials and discuss what just happened.

They were there, of course, but this is the first time they have seen the resulting show.

It was great fun. Check it out.

(ps. $6.99 for all-you-can-eat pizza. Better than Tacos, but not by a huge margin.)

 

Yeah.. it's a interesting show. I also know Jeremy and have raced with him in California. He can drive and last night's episode clearly shows that. I think he got screwed with the black flags though. The first one was deserved, but not the next one. Why didn't Ron get one for hitting Jeremy?

IMO, the big bald guy needs to go home.

 

I thought it looked like Jeremy left the inside of the corner open, Ron took the opportunity, and then Jeremy tried to come down on him and close the door, but he left it too late. Hard to tell for sure, though. But anyway, it wasn't at all clear who hit whom in that incident, and the show editors clearly didn't care anyway.

This is a reality TV show, not a race series. They are more interested in drama than in playing fair. Inverting the starting order was so obvious that I had expected they would do it sooner.

[The next paragraph is based only on what was shown on TV -- keep in mind that because of the editing the show can spin things and make it look like whatever they want to make it look like.]

I think they gave him the black flags for much the same reason they give people black flags in novice races -- to see how they will handle it. He didn't handle it very well. Clearly the guy was in control of himself when he was close to the front, but he didn't seem to handle adversity very well, especially when it was unexpected. It's clear that he has excellent car control skills. Not so clear about his "driver control skills" though. His dad sure didn't help him during the second black flag, feeding his emotions by telling him "looks like they don't want to let you win" over the radio. He should be trying to calm him down and focus him -- that's not the way to do it.

I also have to say, watching the show at home was mildly interesting. Watching the show at Bison Creek with 50 other people and some of the folks who were in the show -- that was fun. They haven't actually seen the show either. For some of these on-track incidents, the drivers themselves are getting a chance to see the footage for the first time.

 

ps. I just checked the Speed TV schedule, and it appears there will be no "Setup" next week. So I assume the next Bison Creek get-together will be May 23. (Same night as the Alfa Club.)

 

..... so I take it we'll not be seeing you at the track that evening

 

I'll probably drop by both. The Alfa club starts at 4pm, right?

It will be a long night of bench racing and bs-ing.

 

ran into banannie the other day at barrier porsche

i remember the last time i ran into ron... it was on 520 with my s2000 crumpled up and hwy patrol questioning me and an arsehole lady telling the cop i was going way too fast for the conditions

 

Last time I saw Ron was on the way to work morning. You can't miss his car with all the stickers that adorn it.

 

Annie's sister worked in flight test with me so it was fun to watch Ron and Annie
progress in auto X with 3 S2000. Maybe the reason I got one in 1999.

Cheers .. and keep pushing it.

la

 

After some talk of moving to a different venue, it was announced that the viewing party for the final episode will once again be held at Bison Creek. It's becoming hard to get in there -- about half the restaurant was taken up by the "Setup" crowd.

They are down to four teams. Supposedly the next race is a winner-takes-all finale. Ron/Kevin/Doug are still in it.

People start showing up about 7pm, and the show is on between 8-9 pm. There is an earlier showing of the show (5pm) but people who attend the showing at Bison Creek are requested not to watch it. Next Wed, May 30.