Burning fuel

Fighter jets and race cars — what could be better?

Blue Angels

The Blue Angels were in town this weekend and put on three awesome shows.

I saw the Friday and Sunday shows from the boat (Friday with Backshop clients and Sunday with the family).

For the Saturday show, I watched it from a deck under Coit Tower in North Beach. The Blue Angels were in town for Fleet Week — a celebration/promotion of the U.S. military that includes an air show, a parade of ships and tours of navy ships.

Fleet Week is held every October on Columbus Day weekend, and it has been a San Francisco tradition for years. Great event.

View from the deck in the city:

View from the boat near Alcatraz:

VCARC

While they did not burn quite as much fuel as the Blue Angels, the Vintage Car Racing Association of Canada had a race the last weekend in September at Mount Tremblant, Canada (1 1/2 hours north of Montreal). The race track, known as Le Circuit, is 2.65 miles long and is known as one of the best road courses in the world.

I was there because my wife’s uncle, Lee Talbot, was racing a 1967 Ginetta, a beautiful English-built race car. Lee Talbot has been racing for over 60 years (he is 80 years old!) and he kicked ass, coming in second place. The kids got to ride in the pace car — a Masaratti — and sit in the Ginetta:

Check out the video of the start of one of the races that shows all the different types of cars. Lee is driving the red second car out of the paddock and onto the track. What an inspiration.

— — —

Jim Flaherty is CEO of CMBS.com and the creator of the Backshop loan origination system. He is a trained credit professional with experience installing enterprise underwriting systems for commercial real estate lenders, rating agencies and investors.

www.cmbs.com

www.backshop.com