Charlotte(Focus ST), The Series: Episode 1/"Week 1"

"K-Roll-PorscheTamer" (k-roll390)
03/29/2014 at 14:08 • Filed to: Focus ST, Charlotte

I'm gonna make a series about my time with Charlotte, my ST. I think it'll be a fun thing to do every now and then along with my PollTime posts(which I haven't done in awhile, but will have one for tomorrow). And I find having a turbocharged, 6spd manual car to be a very exciting and fast learning experience coming from a very slow, automatic Astra.

(The Photo above was taken by one of my car enthusiast friends who is an excellent photographer, credit goes to him!)

With all that said, on to Episode 1!

Fri. March 21

Where to begin. Well, as most of you know, I picked her up from one the 2nd nicest dealer I've ever been too, Dean Sellers Ford(second only to Fred Lavery Porsche!). Had a great time there, great service and very nice people. A very professional dealership in my opinion.

Being my first manual car, you can easily imagine how many times I stalled out on what should have been a 20 minute drive, heh. On the way to my house, I stopped in my old high school parking lot to practice stop and go clutch-work. And when I was finally able to stop and go with minimal stalling, I went on my way home!

After getting home I remembered that I had to meet some friends at our weekly car meet-up place(Woodward); I made it the whole way there without stalling out! And then as I triumphantly pulled into the small parking lot, revving the engine, I slipped the clutch and tragically stalled out surrounded by about 20 car enthusiasts who all went "awwwww!" as I frantically restarted Charlotte and pulled into the last spot at the end of the small lot; it's my first manual and many people there knew that so I got off the hook easy that time. A fun night of epic hooning followed, testing my minimal abilities with a manual, all was good.

Sat. Mar 22

Drove her to work, didn't stall out the entire way there and back; until I got to my driveway and stalled out pulling up. I was slowly but surely getting better with the clutch!

Met up with my buds again and hung out in a parking deck, after which we went on a cruise.

Sun. March 23

Nothing interesting happened...

Mon. March 24

Parked next to an SVT, clutch-work is getting better! Then I almost killed myself!

Basically here's what happened, was that my friend and his WRX were curious to see how the ST would pull against him from a roll(the answer was obvious but he wanted to know how obvious).

We get on the freeway and from 50mph I drop it in 3rd and overboost way past him; with 20psi of boost you get power really whenever you want it! Before I know it, I'm in 6th gear and pulling 130mph! It was strange, because it felt as though I was still going 60mph, I was literally floating on the road. Those 15 seconds were probably some of the greatest I've ever experienced in a car because I'd never been that fast in any car, and I was driving it!

Unfortunately we weren't prepared(read as didn't know) that there was a slight corner/bend and incline, the WRX was taking it at 105 and I at 130mph. I, having no experience at such high speeds and the ST also being my first manual, I had only seconds before it hit. instinctively, I tried to lightly tap on the bakes, but being still new and very touchy, I almost locked them up as I began to swerve between two lanes, apparently coming pretty close to a semi-truck. I don't really remember what happened next, but I was back in my lane going about 45 and back in 4th gear as if nothing happened; somehow I put the clutch in and decently downshifted into 4th while swerving and both Charlotte and I were fine, though my heart was racing like I had a heart attack or something. To say the least, I don't think I'll be going that fast again outside of a track(or at least where there's open road and no bends!)

Was it stupid? YES! but was it a learning experience? ABSOLUTELY!! It sure was one helluva way to find discover my extreme limits...

Tue. March 25

Intagraming!

Wed. March 26

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!

Thur. March 27

It snowed a bit...

Fri. March 28

Took a pic next to the "Super Pinto" and met up with my buds and did some more cruising; also hung out with a girl, in my car for 4 hours! A good day indeed! :)

Also got my focusst.org swag!

Sat. March 27

At work watching Top Gear and I'm asked to go get lunch. So I head over to Burger King to grab some snack wraps and guess who I saw across the street at the intersection:

Shirley, my old Astra, the only Twilight Blue 5-door in the area, was waiting to turn across the street. God I miss that car... but she's with a good family :)

Anyway that's it for Ep.1 of the Adventures of Charlotte! Hope you all enjoyed my first week of adventures!

For my next future posts:

1. Why The Porsche 964 is Actually Beautiful

2. Another PollTime