Weekly Roundup: Those Are Rookie Numbers Edition

The final single released by Jimi Hendrix before his death, Stepping Stone, ends with a kind of intensity crescendo followed by the squeak of a pick (or hand) on his guitar strings, the click and buzz typically intended to suggest a cut-in from the recording booth to the studio, and a voice, not Jimi's, saying "...made it."

That's how I felt at about two o'clock today when Danger Girl crossed the line to finish her first NASA sprint race. All day on Friday and Saturday we had struggled with a random cutout at speed that eventually became a misfire which eventually became the car running on just three cylinders. After no small amount of drama and hassle, I traced it to the trigger wire for the coilpack which had melted inside the intact housing and coil clip.

Naturally, the parts were only available back home in Columbus, so we missed Saturday's race. And just as naturally for Ohio, today's qualifying session was a rain-soaked mess. DG elected to start at the back of a 50-car race group. She didn't finish last and she did not have the slowest lap times. We are going to call that an unqualified success. She also set her personal best lap for Mid-Ohio's Club configuration in the middle of some unpleasant Spec Miata traffic. Finally, Marilyn the MX-5 Cup Car rang the Dynojet to the tune of 148 RWHP after our quick-and-dirty wiring-harness fix. All good news.

Let's catch up on the Week That Was.

TTAC is still catching up on the backlog of posts I've submitted, largely because they have a variety of new-car press-trip reviews from Tim, Chris, and some other people. This week you can read last week's post about the future of the Ford Ranger.

Brother Bark took some flak for his positive Pilot review, but I'm afraid the Pilot, like the RX300 and the short-bed crew-cab full-sized pickup, is more or less exactly what customers want at the moment.

Ten years from now, I wonder if anybody will remember that I wrote pretty much the first post anywhere on WaveSense autonomous tech? If it works as advertised, it's the last piece of the puzzle for automated cross-country trucking, even in foul weather.

This week I'll be prepping for, like, totally the most important thing I've done in years. At least it feels that way. More to come about that, but in the meantime would all of you cord-cutting Millennials out there figure out to get the CBS Network on your flatscreens? It might be relevant to what's coming.