Portland Race Prep

Our home race is coming! Derek and I have had such a busy week! I started working with my life coach to help me get out of my head all of the things I have to do rattling around in there! Derek is still working on figuring out crash damage and what the rest of his season looks like after the unfortunate incident at Virginia International Raceway. On top of that, it's Mother's Day weekend and we have all the normal challenges of every other family to work through. The highlight of this week so far has been our trip to Portland on Tuesday to meet with Pirelli World Challenge staff and the Portland International Raceway team to shoot some track laps and start planning for the Portland race!

Derek and I left at 6am to catch a flight to Portland. I packed my run and gun gear kit to take up with me plus Derek's Replay camera and Haylee's Go Pro. I've been working for years to get the right gear that is easy to use and produces a quality picture. Of course, I'm comfortable with Derek so at some point he ended up carrying some of my gear and some of his! Thank you honey!

We grabbed an Uber to Porsche Beaverton. I was surprised at how easy and quick that was. It took us about 30 minutes to get there. We had a wonderful greeting and great conversation with Larry and his staff there.

They are big thinkers and were excited to share ideas about how we might work with them during the race weekend. I enjoyed doing a little dream shopping for Porsches while we were in the showroom. I especially liked the grey 911 Targa with the roof that opens. I think I could drive one of these!

The Porsche Cayman was ready for us. Ally, Porsche Beaverton's Social Media expert joined our team for the day. We made a quick stop for coffee at Starbucks, decorated the dash with our brand, and then it was off to the track!

We pulled into the track late morning, ready for action. Derek installed the cameras in the Cayman. We met Gary Bockman, President of Friends of PIR, a racer himself with an obvious passion for the sport and E.C. Mueller, the track manager of PIR.

Derek and I interviewed them for some fun and informational history about PIR and the series. We'll be adding this content to our site to get you excited for the race!

Then it was to the fun part! Taking the car for some laps around the track!

Derek and Gary did a track tour-a few laps with Gary showing Derek. Derek then had some practice laps of his own. Then I got to hop in the car for Derek's track narration. Now that was fun! That back straightaway or the "banana' as they call it, it's not that straight, was super fun! As was the braking zone at the end of it. It's a short track. Justin Wilson holds the track record of 57.597 To compare, a fast lap at Circuit of the Americas is around !:37.7 almost double the time it takes to get around PIR!

We wrapped in the early afternoon, just as my Canon 60D's lens broke. Unfortunately I had a little meltdown at that point. My computer, which is what I edit on, and my camera were now broken. It has been quite clear to me for a while now that I need to upgrade equipment. I just haven't wanted to spend for it. Now, along with our air conditioning unit going out at home, in the same week, I was forced to do the most fun shopping ever! We returned the Cayman, chatted with the team there, left feeling excited that there was a possibility to work with them during the Portland race weekend. Once I got past what it would cost me to upgrade my gear, the car ride to the camera store was like the night before Christmas!

I found the perfect person at Pro Photo Supply to help me, a filmmaker himself and bought a great Sony A7 camera, lenses, and a DJI Osmo for stabilization of my iPhone. I am super excited to use all of it. We ended the day with some fun-dinner at Bar Mingo in NW Portland, one of our favorites!

I'd say the day was a success! We have quite a bit of news coming your way this next couple of weeks. A new contest that will be announced on Facebook, some new video content, and some new changes to our website including a calendar of events you can follow along with that will include information on how you can purchase tickets to the Portland race in July and be part of the behind the scenes action with Derek!

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