We finally ran our first event today at Watkins Glen, and unfortunately, we still
don't have the results, as we'll only get them tomorrow morning at Gateway, near
St. Louis. The car ran really well, however, and is certainly an eye-catcher. In fact,
the car's caught a few of the wrong eyes, too, and we've now been "protested" for being
in the economy class, which is defined as "cars under $12,000". Rumor has it that our
Neon as well as a 200sx have been moved to "Mid-Priced Sedans", a class which the Neon
is obviously not suited for. In addition, the three other Neons in the event are all
in economy class, so it is obviously ludicrous to have our Neon, simply because it
is an R/T (and consequently, not much more expensive than the similarly equipped
ACRs!), moved into a class in which it doesn't stand a chance.

  That aside, the car's running absolutely wonderful, and it pulls super well. We got up
to just shy of 120mph on the S's along the backside of the Glen, and just a bit shy of
that down the long front straight before turn 1.

  The strangest thing for me is to have to run the car at full speed on a track that I've
only run 3/4 of a lap on before. Consequently, because I did not know the Glen at all
before, I lost quite a bit of time in some turns where I wasn't going fast enough
through, and in some turns, I'd go in a bit too hit. The Carbotech pads are working
wonderfully, and obviously, the engine package from Nemo is working great!

  The body kit attracts a lot of attention from everyone - often times spectators will look
at the Neon before the super-Porsches and Corvettes. Certainly good for a chuckle! :)

  I've taken over 100 pictures already so far, and there will be plenty more over the next
few days. I'll update tomorrow's page with the results from the Glen, and hopefully we'll
be ahead of the other Neons (despite the 200+ extra pounds we're lugging around with the
very luxurious R/T! :) Enjoy the pictures, there's certainly quite a showing of beautiful,
extremely fast cars. We'll definitely try to show them what the Neon is capable of, but the
majority of the courses we're running today are high-horsepower courses. At least we should
have an edge over the other Neons with noticeably less horsepower.

  See you tomorrow! Jim will run the Neon for the first time on a track, and based on his
previous experience, it should be a joy to watch him toss the car around and clean up the
class (whichever one we're in! :)

P.S. Thanks a lot Leor for supplying me with a login and password to update these pages with
from the road, you're a life saver!

- Emmanuel Crouvisier
  "Twingles"

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The schedule (well, at least times of arrival) at some of the tracks so you can come
visit if you'd like:

Gateway, 5/31/98
  10:00am

Pikes Peak, 6/1/98
  8:00am

Poenix International Raceway, 6/2/98
  10:00am

Memphis Motor Sport Park, 6/3/98
  9:00am

Michelin Test Track, 6/5/98
  1:30pm

Watkins Glen, 6/6/98
  4:00pm