Fluge Global Adventures

Unlike in the past many years - there’s no one, (let alone 000’s) of people moving through my office / buildings, creating wonderful and exciting innovations. Maybe that’s because I no longer live in Chicago! I don’t even have to wrest a place to park. But like weeks in the past, this has been eventful and complete with many wonderful discussions, creativity, and accomplishment.

To many, this week was probably just like any other, however, to avid followers of Fluge Global Adventures, this was a critical week to set the stage for the 2007 “Adventure”!

Monday and Tuesday found me in Orange County in California meeting with my good friend and Great American Run organizer, Tim Maverick Porter and his stateside assistand Lisa. Great people and a great time. (They just start early and finish late!) Not much sleep for the “Adventurer”.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Steve Saleen, his daughter Molly and many of the Saleen team at the factory in Irvine. Ryan, Justin, and Matt were particularly helpful. I picked up the first Bad Boy Saleen (of 25), 600 HP and Bad on Black.

And of course the drive from Irvine (w/Tim in his ‘one off’ red extreme Saleen, and me in my Bad Boy Saleen), from Irvine to the Mojave Desert and the Streets of Willow Springs, took us from the crawl of LA traffic to freeway speeds near Palmdale of 155MPH!

WebRidesTV were super in their filming and interviews (over 10 hours)! From Amber (the host who could do without the desert heat and who likes her lunch on time), to all the many (and I mean many) film crew and directors, it was a real blast. Of course seeing 8 of the greatest Mustangs on the planet was not exactly without interest either. Great job WebRides!

On Wednesday, Shaun Wallace, arrived at my house straight away from San Diego. In between building high altitude rooms for the likes of the Green Bay Packers, other pro athletes, Nike training groups and even now a Nascar Motor Home, he’ll be placing a high altitude room in my house by June 1 to help me acclimatize up to 15,000 feet (beyond the 9000 feet which most athletes train at). I need all the extra help I can get.

But here’s the real big news of the week. Thursday was track day for me and my race driving mentor and FGA race car team partner Todd Harris back at Portland International Raceway. I can brag a little about turning 2 seconds faster in practice than I’ve done before thanks to the tutelage of Todd Harris, and mechanical genious of Steve Gatrell and Pat McFall and others on the team. (Also thanks to Kristen of ProDrive - who allowed me to use her laptop between runs to keep up with my latest Fluge World Forum emails). However, the REALLY BIG NEWS is that Todd came out in the Fluge Global Adventures new Derhagg Corvette and set what many would consider one of the best lap times ever at PIR (with the Chicane in place)! His 1:11.9 was outstanding - especially given he was using slightly older technology, shaking down the car, and on a relatively poor conditioned track. Imagine when we have the “Rose Cup” engine in place and other tweaks of perfection. I really don’t think that any driver in America can beat him in this race and am considering a winner take all type of purse to put the challenge out to America.

Come forward now and register for the Rose Cups (early June - SCCA racing at PIR) or forever hold your peace!

Last night concluded with a SCCA Board Meeting (I’m on the PR Committee - who would have thought it)? As usual, I was honored to sit along side of the many people who are legends in the race community - (that and the Mai Tai’s made for a great evening).

Look for our next big Press Release later today about the Speed Challenge Vipers (Lux and White) at the upcoming Long Beach Gran Prix in mid April. Also on Monday we tell the world about our Global Forum challenge of “Showing us your Fluge” sign in some unique global locale.

That’s it for now - guess it’s just Friday though - still a lot to do.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Snow fell on Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, for the first time in 63 years on Wednesday, stirring excitement and curiosity among residents and their children. “I have never seen it snow in Kathmandu in all my life,” said 45-year-old housewife Manju Shrestha, playing in the snow with her young children. Weather officials said the brief snowfall, which lasted only a few minutes, was the result of a “westerly disturbance” over Nepal that earlier in the week caused heavy rains.

Though the Himalayan country is home to Mount Everest, Kathmandu, with a population of 1.5 million people, is situated in a valley and has not had snow since January 1944, according to Independent Kantipur television.

Closer to home in the United States many people were wondering if this was an early omen of ‘challenge’ for the Fluge Everest Trek team scheduled to make their journey to Base Camp in October. While the Trek lies eight months in the future, this freakish snowfall when coupled with its proximity to the 7th and greatest of all mountains: Everest, causes me a bit of thought - but I have to admit, revs my adrenaline.

I have yet to begin my first actual 2007 adventure: SCCA RoadRacing. And while my recent SCCA exhibition for the Portland Auto Show and GSF Charity Poker events were enjoyable, the Everest Trek which looms in the future will be no cakewalk for me and my yet to be named team of adventurists. My Trainers Yelena King and Troy Carter, no strangers to fitness training, armed with degrees and knowledge in fitness, training, and nutrition, and skilled in athletics through respective successes in volleyball and soccer, show little worry.

They believe I am progressing in my training and am on pace to successfully tackle Mt Kilamanjaro (summit) in late August and then follow with the assault on Everest Base Camp in October.