Weekly Roundup: Introducing "Spike" Edition

It's been five and a half years since I ran in a professional series --- in 2012, I drove a Mazda2 in both Grand-Am's Total Challenge and in the Canadian Touring Car Challenge, and in 2009 I ran in Grand-Am's Koni Challenge. With a little bit of luck and some effort on my part, that is about to change.

Meet Spike, my new Pirelli-World-Challenge-spec Honda Accord. It was built by Andrew Rains and Honda of Alabama three years ago and it has a few top-ten finishes in World Challenge.

With more than 290 horses at the front wheels, straight-cut gears in the box, and a trick front diff, he's pretty enthusiastic on-track. I took him for a brief warmup at NCM West on Tuesday and beat the last time I set in a brand-new, water-injected BMW M4 GTS on Sport Cup tires.

Not much expense was spared in the construction.

ABS is switchable, there's full brake bias control, and it's wired with the in-car yellow-flag system used in World Challenge. I'm also hoping to run him in Honda Challenge and whichever SCCA class applies. We won't be running in AER --- we have Marilyn the MX-5 Cup car for that, and the running expenses for Spike are MUCH stouter than Marilyn's, right down to the 103 octane fuel that costs $9.50 a gallon.

More on Spike as the situation develops. Why is he called Spike? Well, because my grey street Accord is Gizmo. Some of you will get the joke. Alright, let's catch up on this week's contributions.

At TTAC, I offered some advice on a car purchase. Brother Bark discussed an auto-averse Millennial.

For R&T, I explained how anti-diesel laws might affect modern gasoline-powered cars.

This was a relatively unproductive week, mostly because I was traveling for a few print features. More information on those to come in the near future, but here's a hint: What's faster than a Z06? (No, it's not a World Challenge Accord!)