Exotic Car Tour 2011

I have been dreaming of participating in Club Sportiva's Exotic Car Tour. This year, I finally decided to go for it around my birthday. Actually, 3 of the 5 drivers were there to celebrate their birthdays.



The lineup of cars in the tour included the following:

Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder (520 HP mid-mounted V10. 0-60 mph in 4.2 sec)
Audi R8 4.2 (420 HP mid-mounted V8. 0-60 mph in 4.1 sec)
Ferrari F430 Coupe (490 HP mid-mounted V8. 0-60 mph in 3.7 sec)
Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet (385 HP rear-mounted Flat 6. 0-60 mph in 4.5 sec)
Lotus Elise S (195 HP mid-mounted I4. 0-60 mph in 4.7 sec)
Nissan GTR Black Edition (530 HP twin-turbo V6. 0-60 mph in 2.9 sec)

Before we were allowed to drive the exotic cars, each of the drivers were put into the Ford Mustang Shelby GT for a driving test around the block with Travis, the tour guide for the day. Even though I haven't driven a stick shift for over 10 years, I passed the test and received my license to drive.

The first key I received was the key for the bright yellow Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. As I tried to open the door gently, the door handle cover fell off. The lady next to me shouted, "he didn't break it!" Travis snapped it back into place to fix it and said, this sometimes happens.



Everyone hopped into their cars for the moment and the parade of 6 exotic cars started to travel across the town with a lot of engine roar. The Lamborghini and the Ferrari attracted a lot of attention along the way.

The Lamborghini is such a sharp looking car. The interior (dashboard, center console, etc) has nice yellow stitching that matched the exterior color. The seats have diamond-shaped stitching that's great looking. It has a 6 speed manual gear box. In order to shift to reverse, one has to push down the shifter. I released the clutch very carefully and tried not to burn the $2000 set of tires. The shifter's travel's so short (in order to reduce the time it takes to shift through the gears) and precise. It was the loudest and most masculine of the 6. It shouts "Watch me in the yellow Lamborghini convertible. " and it emits a bad exhaust fume. People alone the street stopped to admire the car. Drivers on the highway honked to get my attention. It's a real eye catcher. I felt like I was a celebrity while driving it.

We drove across town then on to highway 17 toward Los Gatos, then through twisty Saratoga mountain roads, passed by Saratoga Springs, and arrived at our first stop of the day. It's a parking lot around Saratoga Gap Open Space Preserve.

We took a short break and switched cars. Next up for me was the Audi R8 without the Audi emblem on the hood. It's hard to tell that it's closely related to the Lamborghini Gallardo Sypder. The engine is silky smooth and the roar is so much quieter. The engine whirl is jet-like.



I drove the Audi R8 through the mountain roads and arrived at Alice's Restaurant in Woodside. We parked all the cars across the street from the restaurant. Backing up each of the cars for a photo pose.



We spotted another yellow Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder and a Porsche GT3 at the parking lot.



After lunch, we gathered on the parking lot to switch keys. I received the red Ferrari F430. The car that matched properly my red Ferrari jacket. People started to notice the cars and came taking pictures and chatted with us and commented how nice these cars were.

This Ferrari F430 has a traditional 6-speed manual gearbox with gated shifter instead of slower-shifting and more complicated puddle shifter. I inserted the key into the ignition, depressed the clutch, rotated it to the ignition position, then pressed the red "Start" button on the steering wheel to start the engine. The engine sitting behind the seats is loud and powerful, but not as loud as the Lamborghini Gallardo. There is a Manettino dial on the steering wheel that can adjust the various performance characteristic such as suspension settings, stability and traction control thresholds. I set the dial to "Sport" mode. I practiced shifting it through all gears to get a feel of the gear positions before hitting the road.

The engine is smooth and powerful and makes a nice screaming tone as the gas peddle was pushed hard. From the driver's seat, I can see the engine as I looked back. This was my favorite car for the day.

We drove through more twisty roads to highway 1 around Pescadro and parked near the beach. The next car for me was Porsche 911 Carrera S.

I got tired of shifting, so I let the tiptronic auto transmission take care of the shifting business. Hmmm... Not so exciting... Maybe I didn't push it hard enough.

The next car for me was the Lotus Elise S. This car was built like a race car (or a go-cart). The interior looks very spartan with bare metal on the floor and it's an extremely light and low car. It took me a while to crawl into the car. Also took me a while to try to use the racing harness belt. This car is all about pure driving. Every little imperfection on the road was felt on the small steering wheel. The firm suspension made the car felt like it was riding on rails.

Travis warned me that this car did not have any sort of traction control, so I should be careful accelerating, braking, or shifting when going into a corner. Anyway, I was driving very carefully on this car. We stopped back at Saratoga again to switch cars. While trying to crawl out of the Lotus Elise S, I had a cramp on my right leg! Ouch! I gracefully paused for a few seconds and nobody noticed I had a cramp.

The final car for me was the Nissan GTR Black Edition. This is Nissan's supercar. It's twin-turbo V6 and 4-wheel-drive setup runs from 0-60mph in 2.9 seconds. This is the final car for the day and we started to head back to San Jose. Due to the heavy traffic, I did not get to push the car hard. I was only able to do some occasional linear acceleration tests. I lost the cars in front of me when merging into highway 17. So, I pulled over to the side and programmed the MapQuest app on the iphone and got me back to San Jose club house.

There was another party being hosted at Club Autosport on that afternoon/evening. But I was ready to call it a day after hours of intense driving with full concentration.

This was really an exhilarating experience everyone should try it at least once during their lifetime! Before you try it, make sure you can drive a stick shift.

Web2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008

This blog was exported from: http://blogs.sun.com/miko/entry/web2_0

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AUTHOR: miko
TITLE: Web2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008
DATE: 04/27/2008 16:24:17
PRIMARY CATEGORY: Sun
STATUS: publish
ALLOW COMMENTS: 1
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BODY:

In the past few days I temporarily put aside the never-ending day-to-day work and attended the Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 with free Expo Hall Pass. The pass allowed attendees access to Keynote Sessions, the Expo Hall and Sponsored Sessions. Even though it doesn't provide access to Technical Sessions, it allowed the attendees to gain insight to more than an overview of the Web 2.0 technologies.

Some people tagged the static web pages that people browsed as Web 1.0. It was comprised of static pages linked together. There may be forms to be filled out that get sent to the server, but it lacked real-time interaction or feedback to the users.

In contrast, Web 2.0 is highly interactive. The users don't just browse the web pages anymore, they interact, or even create the web contents. A few examples of Web 2.0 include online maps and social networking sites.

Tim O'Reilly praised Sun Microsystems's vision "Network is the Computer" from a decade ago as foresightful. Sun's vision of being able to do anything or run any applications over the network has already become a reality years ago. Today, Jonathan Schwartz (and also other speakers) talked about a different concept, "Data is the Currency". For a detailed transcript of the interview of Jonathan Schwartz at Friday's Keynote session, please look at this unofficial page.

There are a few buzz words that have been mentioned again and again during this event. For someone who is not yet an expert of Web 2.0 technology, "mashup" was the word of the day for me.

According to wikipedia, "a mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source".

On the Expo floor, Microsoft was demonstrating their popfly application. In the demo, it was used to mashup flickr pictures with "beach' keywords and google maps to create a new application that can display pictures taken on beaches around the world shown on google maps.

Another mashup example was demonstrated in a Sponsored session where a social networking site was mashed up with product review site so that the user can request user reviews of cameras from their contacts who were known to be camera users or photo lovers. The reviews get posted to the product review site for all to view, but they also represent more trustworthy opinions for the particular user who requested the reviews.

Friday's keynotes also included a hilarious session from Fake Steve Jobs where he talked about how he became the Fake Steve Jobs and did his job to make fun of the famous. He was funny in a goofy sort of way. The session was a success. It helped the audience to get energized again after 2 days of dry technical sessions. For the video of this session, please check this out.

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: NewsBlaze Breaking News
EMAIL: support@newsblaze.com
URL: http://newsblaze.com/web2.0.html
DATE: 04/27/2008 20:00:42

Good post.

I made videos of several of the sessions and will be posting them over the next few days at http://newsblaze.com/web2.0.html

At least you get what 2.0 is - CNET completely missed the point and in a story says Web 2.0 is mature!

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: miko
EMAIL:
URL: http://blogs.sun.com/miko
DATE: 04/28/2008 10:27:27

Thanks for your comment. I will be sure to check out your posts in the next few days.

Who Killed Electric Cars?

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AUTHOR: miko
TITLE: Who killed electric cars
DATE: 02/19/2008 11:28:17
PRIMARY CATEGORY: Personal
STATUS: publish
ALLOW COMMENTS: 1
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BODY:

Do you know that electric cars were available for lease to consumers 10 years ago in California? Between 1998 and 2003, over 4000 battery powered ZEVs were placed on the road of California by major automakers. There were GM's EV1, Toyota's RAV4 EV, Honda's EV Plus, Ford's Ranger EV just to name a few. What happened to them? Some of them were crashed and recycled, some of them shredded into small pieces. Not many of them survived. Who killed electric cars?

There are a few main suspects.

Consumers: Car companies blamed comsumers for not accepting the increased cost and decreased driving range. In reality many consumers were unaware of EV availability, due to car company's proposterous negative advertising and many consumers only needed to drive an average of 30 miles per day, and there are already charging stations in many places such as Sun's campuses and Costco.

Batteries: The early EV1's have limited range of 60-70 miles per charge. Then improved to 110-160 miles per charge on the second generation. According to studies, Lithium Ion batteries would have allow EV1 to reach 300 miles range at a higher cost.

Oil Companies: There is approximately $100B worth of oil still to be drilled from Alaska. Fearful of profit impact, they bought pattents of the more advanced NiMH batteries to prevent car companies from using them on their cars.

Car Companies: GM officials claimed that they stood no chance of ever making a profit on the EV1. Each EV1 costs about $80,000 to research and build, but GM was leasing them out for between $299 to $599 per month, based on the suggested retail price of $34,000 to $44,000. Furthermore, car dealers make a lot of profit from their service departments. With fewer moving parts to go wrong, the 5000 miles service for EV1 only required tire rotation, adding washer fluid, and safety inspection. There's no oil or oil filters to change, no smog inspection, no transmission service, no engine repairs.. It's a losing proposition for the car industry.

California Air Resources Board, who established the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate of 1990, caved to industry pressure, and also lost the law suit from automakers, oil industry, and George W Bush administration to revert the ZEV mandate.

So, who is guilty of killing the electric cars? The oil companies, car manufacturers, and the government all had their priorities toward their own profitability and lost their interest in EVs. Only the consumers and batteries developers still were willing to continue to flight for EVs to become a mainstream reality. So, we have a verdict.

Consumers- not guilty.
Batteries - not guilty.
Oil companies - guilty.
Car companies - guilty.
California Air Resources Board, and federal government - guilty.

Even though the previous generation of electric cars are dead, I am glad to see a new generation of electric cars being developed. If the production cost could be reduced, there is still opportunity for electric cars to become a reality for most consumers.

PS: this is a partial summary of the movie "Who killed electric cars" to fit a 5-7 minute speech for Toastmasters International.

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Nico
EMAIL:
URL: http://blogs.sun.com/nico
DATE: 02/19/2008 12:04:19

Economics. Battery technology and prices then vs. oil and gas prices then -- there was no match for oil then. Now things look different. We'll probably not see cheap oil for long enough that economies of scale for hybrids, plug-in hybrids and maybe even all-electric cars will have a chance to set in, and if that happens then even if oil prices come way down the hybrids and electrics will be here to stay.

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Bill Rushmore
EMAIL: bill@rushmores.net
URL: http://rushmores.net
DATE: 02/19/2008 13:37:51

I would only blame one suspect for killing the electric cars, the Prius. Before the electric cars only made sense for people in urban areas on the coasts. Here comes the Prius at a reasonable price and a technology that will work for a wider set of people. It's pretty tough for electric cars to compete with that.

Soon we'll see plug in Hybrids which gets things a little closer. Then as technology advances and costs come down we'll see a comeback of the electric car.

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: miko
EMAIL:
URL: http://blogs.sun.com/miko/
DATE: 02/20/2008 17:56:01

Thanks Nico and Bill for your comments.

I agree Hybrid is now more mature and practical than pure electric cars. At least it's much more affordable.

But I still have a feeling that there was conflict of interest and also conspiracy among the government and auto/oil industries.

I am glad that other than the $100,000 Tesla, I am able to find converted used Porsches EVs for between $42,000 and $66,000 offered by a company.

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: GD
EMAIL:
URL:
DATE: 04/12/2008 13:30:24

The New York Times recently published a short article by Eugene L. Meyer about a U.S. community that is filled with electric carts, rather than cars: "Drive Carts, Not Cars"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/realestate/keymagazine/406hspeach-t.html

As long as people can afford to buy gas-guzzling cars, we'll have them. But if communities can build roads that are best for slower-moving motorized vehicles like golf carts and bicycles, even people who own cars may choose the slower, cleaner, and cheaper alternative.

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: miko
EMAIL:
URL: http://blogs.sun.com/miko
DATE: 04/15/2008 17:14:39

That's interesting idea and much more affordable EV option than the $50-100K EVs. I have also looked into this option (Chrysler GEM), but they only travel up to about 25mph, which wouldn't work for my trip to work that includes both highway and local roads.

Sun's Menlo Park and Santa Clara campuses have EV charging stations. I have only seen 1 EV being charged there, a RAV4 EV produced by Toyota many years ago.

Electric Vehicles

This blog was exported from: http://blogs.sun.com/miko/entry/ev


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AUTHOR: miko
TITLE: Electric Vehicles
DATE: 10/05/2007 17:57:14
PRIMARY CATEGORY: Personal
STATUS: publish
ALLOW COMMENTS: 1
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BODY:

Marcos's informative speech about plugin-hybrids and electric vehicles at speakeasy@sun Toastmaster's Club led me to the Electric Auto Association's Rally in Palo Alto in late August, where I witnessed various electric vehicles first hand.

My favorite EV from that Rally was the Tesla Roadster (pictured below). It reminded me of the Lotus Elise.

The Lotus Elise (below)

These two pictures were taken from roughly the same angle. The overall size and shape are similar. The light at the rear wheel arch looks the same. On Tesla Motor's FAQ page, it mentioned: "Lotus Cars is assembling the Tesla Roadster under contract to Tesla Motors. Tesla Motors has also hired Lotus Engineering for certain design and engineering tasks". No wonder!

The Tesla has many attributes that attracted me. First of all, it looks stunning! The look is not only skin deep. Behind the sharp look, it has a zero emmision motor that is capable of pushing the 2-seater from 0 to 60 mph in under 4 seconds, with a top speed of 125 mph and a range of 245 miles.

Now, the negatives. The base price of the car is $98,000. That's more than twice the cost of a Lotus Elise (sticker price was $48,880 for the 2005 model pictured above), and it's not available yet. It's scheduled for delivery in July 2008.

Anyway, I can see potential success for this EV. Even though $100,000 is a lot of money, but there are a lot of people who can afford $100K+ cars, especially for a car that can reach 60 mph in under 4 seconds, which is an acceptable price point for such performance.

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: ST
EMAIL:
URL:
DATE: 10/08/2007 10:27:38

I was interested in getting a Tesla, but the 125 mph top speed was a deal breaker. Plus, there's an issue about the battery life and the cost for replacement. I think there's a better place to spend the $100k.

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: miko
EMAIL:
URL: http://blogs.sun.com/miko
DATE: 10/08/2007 11:37:48

Thanks ST for your comment. I can imagine the lithium ion battery can be expensive to replace. Well, the Tesla will probably be a toy for the rich or the environmentalists who wouldn't think about the maintenance costs :)

Since you are interested in bikes, you might find the Yamaha Lightning E1 or Vectrix ($11,000) interesting, though they cannot compare with your Ducati:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1141/1244260215_60d3587ffc.jpg?v=0

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1167/1244260147_431f6b3de9.jpg?v=0

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Love the EV technology
EMAIL: someone@somemail.net
URL: http://www.goss132.com
DATE: 07/23/2008 22:54:36

tesla motors is nice and all that, but i can get goss132 for a quarter of that

price. what a great company! love you goss132! what a relief actually.

i'll have more money for clothes, and my sons sports! hope they will sell a bunch

of them in miami!

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Sam
EMAIL: sirshoelace@gmail.com
URL:
DATE: 07/25/2008 20:06:06

I live about a mile away from Tesla headquarters in San Carlos, and work only a few blocks away, and so know quite a bit about the tesla cars. you should indeed be reminded of the lotus elise, because the roadster is built on a slightly longer lotus elise chassis. In fact, it is built overseas in the lotus factory for now. in the next year or two, however, they are planning on putting a dedicated production facility in the san francisco bay area.

Taste of Lexus

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AUTHOR: miko
TITLE: Taste of Lexus
DATE: 08/23/2007 12:52:33
PRIMARY CATEGORY: Personal
STATUS: publish
ALLOW COMMENTS: 1
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BODY:

In the past few years, I have always been too late to register for Taste of Lexus event. The open slots filled up quickly. This year, I didn't plan on going, but when I logged into the registration web site 2 days before the event, much to my surprise, there were still 3 open time slots available. I immediately grabbed the Saturday 4:00 pm slot and registered a guest.

The event was held at Alameda Point, a former Naval Air Station. When we arrived at the entrance, it was about 4:15 pm. A few new guests were arriving and signing the waiver forms.

After the registeration, we were directed to a small group introduction area where the speaker introduced the layout of the site and the rules of the event. There were Hybrid, Luxury, Performance areas, and some entertainment and food areas.

Because the event ends at 5:30 pm, we didn't have a lot of time to explore all areas. We decided to go directly to the Hybrid area to learn and test drive the hybrids, since it's new to us. There were 3 models for test drive: RX400h, GS450h, and LS600h L. We were able to get on the appointment to test drive LS600h L and RX400h.

First, we waited in the line for LS600h L since it was the shortest line at the time.

At over $100,000, it was the most expensive car from Lexus. "h" in the model name stands for Hybrid, "L" stands for extended wheelbase. This particular car has a 4-seat package where there were only 2 seats at the rear. One of the seats has power footrest and massaging feature.

Then, we went on to wait in the line for RX400h. The line is much longer.

Here is the picture from the rear seat of the car.

After the drive, we still have a few minutes left, we quickly went to the Cucima cafe to get something to eat. The choices were certified angus sliders, grilled lamb, or grilled organic vegitable & goat cheese focaccia. The food was much better than at the C Drive. No wonder the event included the keyword "Taste" in its name. It's quite tasty.

We quickly finishing up our mini dinner and went through the different areas. We only had time to experience about 20% of the event. Next time, we need to register early and grab the earlier time slots. We could spend the whole afternoon here.

My overall impression of the event: food is great, but driving course is short and most of the time is spent waiting in the lines. I prefer the 15-20 minutes of Street Drive from Mercedes C Drive where you get to drive the car for longer and your passenger get to play with the toys inside the car.

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: NJ Lexus
EMAIL:
URL:
DATE: 09/22/2007 17:51:11

I attended the Taste of Lexus event today at Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ.

Got to drive all the hybrids, and the reservation system was brand new which gave the impression of the lines being shorter.

Food was just okay, and allowed only one meal.

The big disappointment was no free gift at the end. The very first year that Lexus had "Taste of Lexus", they gave a way Coach Leather CD case.

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: miko
EMAIL: michael.fang@sun.com
URL: http://blogs.sun.com/miko
DATE: 09/24/2007 10:49:21

Thanks for your comment. About the gift, Lexus representative told me instead of giving gifts, they are donating in participants' names to organizations that help to improve the environment.

2008 Mercedes C Drive

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AUTHOR: miko
TITLE: 2008 Mercedes C Drive
DATE: 08/08/2007 16:10:01
PRIMARY CATEGORY: Personal
STATUS: publish
ALLOW COMMENTS: 1
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BODY:

In recent years, automobile manufacturers have been promoting their new products with a new kind test drive experience, the kind of test drive events with no sales pressure, freedom to push the cars hard on the track, and party like ambience and food. Lexus has been sponsoring "Taste of Lexus" and Mercedes has "The C Drive" and various other events.

This year, I have been invited back to the Mercedes event, the "C Drive". The event is a little bit different this time. Mercedes used to host test drive events at the Alameda Point where there is space for multiple track courses, and this time, it's at the "Left Space Studios" in San Francisco. It has a "Street drive" and a "Close-course performance drive". Unfortunately, I attended the first day of the event, and they were not ready for the "Close-course performance drive", blaming the traffic between the Studio and the AT&T Park.

After checking in and signing a waiver, we were given a badge to wear around the neck. It was made with JavaCard technology for data storage. It was later used for accessing the survey and claiming of the gift pack.

Unsurprisingly, the event attracted a crowd of young attendees, who are the main customers of the entry level C class models.

Most people went for the food as they enter the studio. There wasn't a lot to choose from this year :(

Then, we stayed for a brief presentation of the features of the new models.

This year, besides the 2 different engine options (C350 and C300), there are also 2 distinct models "Luxury" and "Sport". The model on stage is the "Sport" model. It features the bold AMG aerodynamic package and AMG wheels (optional). There are C300 Sport and C350 Sport models available to choose from.

The most distinctive feature is in the front end. The grill has been replaced with the style that's found on other Mercedes coupes. It has a big Mercedes star and a flat emblem atop the hood instead of a standing star.

The other model is the "Luxury" mode (the silver car in the photo below)l. It features the traditional sedan grill and standing star. The Luxury model is only available in C300 engine size.

Now the "Street Drive" began. The attendees got into the test cars (pre-production cars, as pointed out by my friend's friend who works for Mercedes as regional manager). Each fleet of five cars were led by a pacer in the front, communicated with walkie talkie. The pacer ensures that the cars following him knew the next turn ahead of time.

Two drivers were assigned to each car. They switch seats in the middle of the course. My co-driver was cut off by a big rig toward the end of the street drive. We couldn't see the car in front of us and missed a turn. We used the walkie talkie to communicate our location with the pacer and he found us quickly and took us back to the finishing point.

We went back into the studio and hanged around for a little while. Guess what's going on inside this booth?

My guess was a massaging stand. Last year, Ritz Carlton Spa was providing massages on site :)

Here's the correct answer.

It's a photo booth provided by Nokia. The face of the person has been blurred intentionally to protect his identity.

Will I trade in my current model for the new model? Probably not. I need a bigger car :)

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR:
EMAIL:
URL:
DATE: 09/13/2007 13:30:37

6

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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: co-driver
EMAIL:
URL: http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/Pallas-Chen/
DATE: 10/07/2007 14:32:43

I like the C-drive but I like Lexus more this year.

BMW Ultimate Drive

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AUTHOR: miko
TITLE: BMW Ultimate Drive
DATE: 06/19/2008 18:03:50
PRIMARY CATEGORY: Personal
STATUS: publish
ALLOW COMMENTS: 1
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BODY:

BMW Ultimate Drive is a fund raising event that donates $1 for every mile driven to Susan G. Komen for the Cure to help fight against breast cancer. The goal is to raise $12 million through the drive across the U.S.

On 6/8, the fleet of BMWs arrived at Concord BMW dealership.

Most of the model lineups were available for the drive: 1 series, 3 series, Z4, 5 series, 7 series, X3, X5, and the new X6.

There was a route map on the cabin of each car that took the participants through about 20 miles of combination city streets, highway, and scenic routes.

Since the X6 was a new model, I took one out for a spin.

That's me behind the wheel.

The X6 is a 4 passenger luxury sports activity coupe. It rides high like a SUV (BMW calls it SAV), yet, the interior gives an intimate feeling of a sports coupe. The engine smothness and handling was first-rated. However, the rearward vision was almost none. The rear view mirror shows you a small strip of rear window, due to the highly sloped rear-end. Even when I turned my head left to watch out for the blind spot, the vision was also extremely limited. It does have a fancy backup camera and parking sensors to aid parking. Some kind of blind spot sensors or collision avoidance sensors would be useful on this car.

We also drove the X5.

It has more interior space, and the outward vision is much better than the X6. We missed a highway exit and had to drive about 10 extra miles to get back to the dealership with the help of the GPS. The iDrive joystick (or what Motor Trend called "Tumor") took some experiment to program the GPS to take us back to the dealership.

Due to the waiting line and the hot weather, we only drove the X5 and X6 and contributed about $50 of fund rasing to support The Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

The event will be happening at Washington state during the weekend of 6/20-6/23. Then continue to Minnesota (6/26-6/28), South Dakota (6/30), Iowa (7/2, 7/16), Nebraska, and other midwest states and the rest of the country.