Saturday, race day dawns and I get up to go walk around while it is still quiet. I realize the light is a little odd looking, and look off to the west. Sure enough the skies are darkening. I hurry up and wake up Youngest. We do not have too many things to get out of any rain but next to us are Manny and Fabguy's car with about every tool they own setting out on an open trailer where they were working on it all day yesterday. Youngest and I run around and get everything under cover or in plastic totes before the rain starts. Right as we finish putting things up they show up from their hotel room and the rain starts pouring down. I hope this passes soon, We don't have windshield wipers. The old ones were vacuum powered on the 59 and we have not yet had time to engineer a new set up.

The rain moves through and the track starts to dry, we jump in and start getting the car ready to go. Normal race day stuff, I have already gone for ice and fuel. About then Chris shows up. He is our fourth driver for the race and he had obligations all Friday but drove down over night and just got to the track. He jumps right in and helps us prepare the car. We pull all the wheels and check everything. Right off we find an issue. The right rear axle seal is leaking grease. I am not surprised at all. We've seen a lot of Crown Vics in our shop over the years and axle seals are a common failure item. We checked those before we loaded the car but just a short time on the track has started one to leaking. Youngest slides under the car and checks the fluid level in the differential. (Always, always use jack stands, not only is it a Lemons rule it's also a absolutely vital safety practice and yes we did use them) We spray off everything on that wheel and brake assembly with some cleaner and check all the other vital fluids. I go borrow a torque wrench, ours is missing in action. Then it's time for the drivers meeting. We all don our matching shirts and head on down. On the back of these shirts they say "I'm here to drive fast and break things, (not necessarily in that order)" and on the front they have a 24 hours of Lemons logo with "the search for Edselance" written on it.

The drivers meeting goes ok, it is someone new doing the race. All good, they give us the normal information about where to enter the track and where to exit it and where to find the penalty box. They discuss the dreaded pink 35 mph all flag (which was never used all race weekend}

We get back to the car and get things all in order. Hood pins in and ice in cooler, radios checked and camera on. We get Ethan in and send him down to the pre check. About then I realize we never pulled the pin on the fire suppression system. The system has a safety pin that you stick in when not racing to prevent accidental discharges. In our haste to check everything over we forgot. I start to run over and do it but Youngest radios someone else got it pulled. I watch as they pre check him. There are several Lemons officials directing traffic and checking each car as it comes up to make sure the driver is supposed to be out there (wrist band) his gear has been checked (helmet sticker) and the car passed tech (windshield sticker with the lemons slogan "good enough") They also check the belts and head and neck restraints and make sure the fire suppression pin is pulled because you know people sometimes forget that.

While I am watching the pace laps Chris is getting his driver wristband taken care of. Later he will go to get his gear checked and approved. Mine all passed but after 11 races my shoes are starting to get issues with the soles wearing out, they passed but I was told this is the last race for them.

The race goes green and things are actually somewhat smooth for us. Other teams struggle at the start and there are a lot of early yellow flags and some full course yellows as the crews go out and pull the cars back in. One such victim was Manny's Miata which had a clip come off the fuel rail almost at the very first lap. They've been all over this car from front to back since the last race and a few things will need some attention for this race. It takes a while to find the weak spots and racing will quickly identify them. We are just waiting for our car to start doing the same. It would not shock me in the least, but I have been over the car from front to back and had several others do the same looking for things I missed.

Soon enough it is time to get suited up and fuel the car. We aren't going too long to start the race off today. Normally we would run an hour and forty five minute stints but to start off we are doing an hour and fifteen minute stints. One reason being we want to get everyone in the car before a possible breakdown. Another reason being we want to keep an eye on the car and if we see anything that needs attention during the stops. It will end up with us making more stops on the day but we don't think the car will finish without breaking anything nor do we think its going to be too competitive.

We swap out drivers with Racerguy going in next. He has to be out doing things for his job later that day so we planned that he would go second. Youngest wanted first since he had the majority of the hours in the build. I have the second most hours but I am content to wait until after Racerguy.

We catch our breath and log into the app that shows lap times. We realize the Edsel is actually not running too slow. Both Youngest and Racerguy both are reporting the car feels great except the transmission wants to "hunt' gears a lot. I was worried about this and wanted to lock out the overdrive but so far the crucial wire we are looking for remains a mystery where things were cut during the install. But so far in an encouraging turn of events, the car is running at a nice pace and things are not looking too bad. We are still waiting for something bad to happen, none of us will be surprised to be putting a transmission in tonight.

After Racerguy gets done it's time for my stint. After we fuel I climb in and get belted in. It was not a fast stop for us, the car is taking fuel at a slow rate. We need to make some changes to our fueling protocol to speed up things.

I head out on pit road and stop at the end to get checked for my wristband and to make sure I have my belts and all fastened tight. The official tells me "I love seeing this car" Then the usual,"keep the belts pulled tight!" I give him my normal thumbs up and head out. Here we go, my first time in actual racing conditions with the Edsel. To say I have not thought about this very moment a lot for the last three years would be a lie. This is it, what I have been working to achieve for nearly three years. A lot of planning, research and discussion have gone into nearly every part of this car. I leave pit road and stay left into turn two and when I clear the corner I hit the gas.

It is so much fun to drive. The V8 roars to life and the car gets right to it. Later I will describe what happens when the transmission kicks and the rpms go up as pursuit mode. The car flies down the straights and it actually is not too shabby in the corners either. I expected a lot of body roll, squealing tires and the car to push terribly and then snap or spin if you go too hard. Instead there is minimal body roll and the car kind of goes into a nice manageable four wheel drift if you go into the corner a little fast that you can power through. I do scare a few fools who tried to take me on the outside of some of the corners though, but that is mostly their problem. Guess they won't try again. No contact was made but I am sure things were close a time or two.

All too soon my stint is over. It was fast and clean and I bring in the car to turn over to Chris. Since he is the last of us four driver to go out it is decided to extend his time in the car and split the day with him running an hour and a half or so and Youngest running an hour and a half.

I get out and after we finish pitting I get cooled off and walk over to the Texans to see how they are making out. They have been by a few times this race weekend and we looked for a bolt they needed as well as some other things. We borrowed something from them as well that we took care of later when we made a parts run. A Miata team has been by and actually used our spare radiator that we had on the trailer until a new one came in. It's how Lemons works, nearly everyone is willing to help someone in their time of need, mostly because you might be the guy who needs help later. Anyhow the Texans are struggling with their V8 Ranger and I go to offer some assistance.

I'm not there too long when I hear the radio crackle. "Hey guys I'm not feeling too good"

Oh no, we saw this a few years ago, sometimes Chris getting to not feeling good in the car. It happens. I drove one morning at NCM about half nauseated and all I had to eat was a blueberry muffin. The g forces and all can kind of get you not feeling so good.

I head back to the trailer and get with Youngest. Racerguy is already gone to work so it's just us. We need to develop a plan, get Chris out of the car if we need to, figure out if we can make it on fuel from whenever he comes in and decide who is going out. It should be Youngest as I just got out of the car, but he is not wanting to go out just yet. He does not like doing extended stints. Right now if Chris comes in it will be almost two and a half hours to the end. Youngest wants to split the time remaining with me and each of us do an hour and a half. I will do anything but hate to do another pit stop. Chris radios back that he is feeling a bit better. We ask if he can stay out for a few more laps as we are getting things ready.

We grab everything and head down. We are trying to do the math. If we can make it work out I could do the entire remaining time. I understand what Youngest is saying about losing focus after too long in the car, but I actually do not mind doing long stints. I have previously done an two hour 15 minute stint to finish a day before. Racing to the checkers kind of keeps you motivated anyway. The question is if we have enough fuel. The car holds 19 gallons and fuel consumption seems to run about 8 gallons per hour. So to finish the race we need to not stop until at least 2 hours and 20 minutes to go and even then we are hoping the car picks up all the fuel in the tank. That is not a given, we have ran out in other cars with over a gallon in the tank where it just would not pick up that last little bit. We load our little pit wagon with fuel and ice for the cool suite cooler and wait to hear from Chris. It's a really hot day and running around in this heat is taxing. I lay down in the shade on the concrete while we wait just off pit late for Chris. Unbeknowst to me Youngest takes a picture of me laying on the ground and sends it to his sister and mother, causing a stir that I was possibly unwell or something. I was fine, just was hydrating and preparing mentally for a second stint not long after the first and trying to keep temps down while wearing all the racing gear.

The radio comes to life, Chris is coming to pit next lap! We jump up and head down to where we will make our final stop of the day. We plan out who does what, with Youngest adding fuel, I will add ice after we get Chris out. While we are getting Chris out a Lemons official walks up and looks the car over. I'm concerned and he tells me while Youngest is fueling and Chris is holding the mandatory fire extinguisher pointed at Youngest that they think we have a tire rub due to reports from the corner workers. I glance and don't see anything and he gives us the ok. I don't tell the official but I think what the corner workers are seeing is a puff of smoke when we come into a hard g corner and a little grease is getting on very hot rear rotors. I figure they won't be too thrilled to learn we know we are leaking a little axle lube, so I forget to mention that part. I have noticed a little smoke in the mirror coming off turn ten several times, that corner has a lot of brake and a hard right turn. I was going to add ice but that took up the time and so I go around to start getting in the car, Chris will see the bag of ice on the roof and add when he comes in the passenger side to help belt me in.

What happens next was one of those heat of the moment incidents. People later have asked why you did not do something different. Frankly I was in race mode. I was ready to go. But when I got to get into the car I realized that Chris had not just felt sick, he was sick. And he had tossed a few cookies in the car. It was not a lot, if you have ever had an infant spit up it was about that much. But it was on the seat belts. I brush off the chunks and jumped in. Here to race damn the torpedos! The smell was the worst, I spent a lot of time with one hand out the window getting fresh air. Not something I would normally do, I get dry heaves from taking the trash out sometimes from the smell.

I fire up the car and head out. 2 hours 15 minutes to go. Fuel will be tight, might just run out. Only one way to find out. Let's do this!

As always the car responds perfect when I ask it to. I start clicking off laps. I try not to look at the clock we mounted on the dash. No use making it worse by clock watching. I am running a good solid pace but not pushing the car over the limits. At one time I even start singing "16 Tons" as I make this long run to the end. Luckily the cool suite is working like a champ and the smell is abating.

At one time there are four cars stopped on the track in different places. I radio back and tell the guys in the pits what is going on as we go into a full course yellow. Normally one car stopped and off to the side will not cause a full course caution but two or more will. With four you just know they will have a lengthy caution pulling them all back. Most times if the car is mobile they will take a tow strap and flat tow you in. But in the case of a missing wheel or anything of the like they will use the rollbacks. We get warned every race about being courteous to the safety workers and to give them a lot of space to do their job or we will go 35 mph all around every break down. Normally on a one car breakdown you can start racing when you clear the incident and can see the next flagstand is clear. A lot of cars will miss the yellow and pass when it is waving and get a black flag and a trip to the penalty box to explain why they were not paying attention.

Then the car does something strange. Coming off two I get a lot of wheel spin then the car hooks and goes. But it hits hard when it does and the engine sounds different. It takes me a few moments but I realize the car is not revving as high as it was earlier. Normally when you come off a corner and mat the gas (or the Edselerator!) the car downshifts and revs right up to 5500 and takes off like a rocket. Well a really heavy old rocket anyway. But now it won't go over 3500-4000 rpm no matter what I do.

Out of concern I finally radio the guys and ask them to stand by with Manny's scanner. I am not wanting to do any damage to the car if something is hurt we can fix easily now that might be worse. I pull off the track and Youngest reaches in and plugs into the OBD2 port. Just a few strange codes but nothing showing anything critical is failing. I think we are activating some sort of traction control even though all we eliminated the ABS, the car is still detecting wheel spin and pulling the power out.

I go back out and the car runs great, like it was before I spun the wheels. Plenty of power again... until I spin the tires again coming off turn 2 and it dumps all the power again. By this time it's getting towards the end of the day and I just ride it out, just a little slower. On the cooldown lap after I take the checkers I drop back, turn off the power to the car and then restart it. Sure enough the power comes back after restarting the car.

I come back to our pit area and get out. I have been battling a few cars back and forth and having a great time at it. I go down and talk to the other drivers and they all were loving every minute of the battle too. One I passed three times and he passed me back two times. It's fun trying to match wits and use your cars strengths against another car that is better in other areas.

When I get back Youngest is at work tracing wires and Chris is cleaning the car where he puked. He uses the shop vac ( I brought a shop vac because every time we drive the car more rust, dirt, and crap like old seeds and walnut shells shake loose from who knows where. We have been over and over the car vacuuming every corner but still more appears) He uses some cleaners out of the camper and when he is done the car is acceptable. He also apologizes but things happen. Wasn't the funnest thing I ever did but whatever. Later that night he will find a cleaners and clean my jacket and his racing suit.

Youngest is on a mission to find that wire to the overdrive lock out. We all think the car will drive better with the OD locked out and the car not trying to downshift from 4th at times coming off the corner. This also affects the lock up on the torque converter. Youngest has a wiring diagram pulled up on his phone but finally just starts cutting wires on a educated guess. The second one works and we are happy to see the OD off light up on the factory dash cluster. Everyone will have to turn it on when you get into the car as shutting off the power will also reset the overdrive to where it is on.

Then we jack up the car and find that now not just one but both rear axle seals are leaking. I load up and go on another parts run, this time to a different parts store. Youngest starts pulling the diff cover and taking out the c clips and Chris heads out to clean some driving suits.

I get back and we find that the seals are not right. Youngest heads out to yet another parts store and I wander over to the Texans paddock area where they have promises of steak and the Bristol night race showing on the large tv mounted on the size of their hauler next to the built in bar. The team has a few older guys that have some nice things and they don't rough it at the track by any means. I think they might subscribe to the NASCAR racer Delma Cowart's famous quote , "I ain't never won a race, though I ain't lost a party., they are a great bunch of folks to hang out with and we enjoy hanging with them at the track. I do think they have won a Lemons race though.

Youngest and Chris get back and dive into fixing the car. A storm threatens to come through but it misses the track mostly. I'm about whipped by this time, I just don't do late nights like I used to after chemo. But they get the car taken care of pretty quick and we are ready for another day.

I start up the car for the first test drive and it hits me. This will be the farthest this car has driven in 55 years under its own power. The 4.6 makes a satisfying rumble as I carefully back out of the bay then go forward out of the shop. So far everything is working great, the brakes feel solid, the power steering is working fine, the transmission is pulling like it should. The shop is all watching, everyone has been waiting to see the Edsel roll again. I roll out the back door and into a large parking lot that the business behind us owns. I goose the car a little and it Edselerates nicely. I roll down to the end of the parking lot and come back up. A few laps of this and I tuck the car back into the shop, I am smiling from ear to to ear.

I text Youngest, he stops by on the way home from work. He jumps in and repeats the same drive I just did. There's still a lot of rough edges to work on but this car is so fun to drive. A few questions were answered that day. I have built a race car before and driven a few others and worked on a lot of things to make this car the best we could for a big heavy beast. It drives a lot better than I thought it would on the street.

One big issue is the brakes. When we were braking on the test drive we found that it was locking up the front brake on the left side every time if you braked hard. This needed to be addressed.

One of the guys started messing with it the next morning and soon announced he had stripped out and destroyed my brand new Wildwood brake adjuster. I shed a few tears and ordered a new one. By this time you might be thinking we are way over the 500 dollar limit on a Lemons car. First of all safety items do not count. So the cage, seat, brakes, fire suppression and tires are all exempt. Second we sold a bunch of stuff off, like the extra front suspension that we will need the first time we wreck, and all the body parts of the town car and crown vice. Still we have a lot more than 500 dollars but here is the deal. Lemons will give you wiggle room on something cool. I think a 59 Edsel rescued from under a barn fits that description very nicely. It's not like we are building this thing out of former NASCAR parts, nearly every part was stock off other cars or we fabricated ourselves. This car was built to be solid and reliable, later we will add the fast part if we want to go there. We scaled it and it is about two Miatas heavy.

After fixing the brake issue I decide it is time to go on a little faster test drive. I get out on the street and about the time I open up the throttle I see off in the distance the familiar silhouette of a Ford Explorer Police car off in the distance. "Oh bleep" I think as I brake and turn right at the next corner. I hurry the car back into the shop and get out. A few minutes later the police unit pulls up. It's the highway patrol, not a local town cop and he is one of the ones we normally service. I write him up for service and realize he must have been not even looking, he never mentions seeing the car. Probably was parked finishing a report. I relax, dodged a possible ticket there.

Not learning from the first episode, about 5 pm I try again. It's rush hour and nearly every officer on duty must be working wrecks from the sound of all the sirens. I cruise down to the end of the street and turn around and go full throttle. Whoa, this thing really goes! I also notice the sound increases a lot from partial to full throttle. Then something goes wrong and I loose the feeling in the steering and the alt light comes on. Great I think I threw the belt. I park it back in the shop and we pull the hood. Much to my surprise the belt is on. Looks like our new Ford reman power steering pump has broken right off. With no time left to get another Ford part I order a Oreilly reman and hope for the best. It's down to crunch time and the car goes on the trailer soon.

I get a trailer from Racerguy. We have plans to take the Miata as a back up in case things go terribly wrong we will dust it off, get it tech inspected and race it. It's in the enclosed and the plan is to take it, the Edsel and the camper all up to the race. This involves Youngest towing the camper, I am towing the Edsel up and Racerguy came down and brought his flatbed and took the enclosed back with him to Kentucky. He lives near NCM and will meet us there with the trailer. The Edsel sits low and so we use a few long boards to load it and watch the exahust closely. I throw the totes with all the things we think we will need and some things we most likely will not in the truck with four new tires and wheels for spares. It's a beautiful sunny day and I am leaving work early to head to the race track. Some days are way better than others.

Friday morning dawns and it's another great day. Last night I got to the track and then Racerguy showed up a few minutes later. We unloaded the Edsel and he helped with a few things then he zoomed off. His business has a lot of things going on this weekend and he is trying to get everything ready. About dark Youngest showed up with the camper and we set it up.

We get to work on the Edsel, there are a few things we need to do. Every race it is the same but this is different as this is the first time we are racing the Edsel. Fluids are checked, wheel lugs are torqued and radios are installed in the car and tested. Then air pressures are debated and when we agree on what to start them at, Youngest goes out and runs a few laps.

It does not take long to determine we have an issue. The main cooling fan has been wired to run all the time so the engine temp is good but the transmission temps are getting up there. We don't have a spare gauge but Manny is right next to us fighting issues with their Miata and we use his scanner to find we have 250 degree trans temps even after the car has set for ten minutes. This is not good. The transmission will not live long at those temps. A plan is made, I will run to the parts store that shows it has the parts while Youngest works on the car.

I get in the truck and head across Bowling Green. The track is located on the north part of town and apparently there are no parts stores near there. I have been in Bowling Green just enough to say I have no idea of where I was going. I go to Advance Auto Parts and am pleasantly surprised to find a parts person who has a clue. She gets what we are doing instantly and helps me grab a cooler, an electric fan about the same size and wiring for it.

I get back and Youngest is making a place for the cooler. The original cooler is the bottom of the ac condensor and we think the Edsel grill is blocking most of the necessary air flow to that area. His solution is to mount a second cooler to the right of that and up a bit higher. We literally cut a hole in the upper part of the radiator mount and sink the cooler in there and plumb it in. But not before we go to tech.

I grab the book of pictures we took of the build process in case they have questions. We bring some old boards along with card board to replicate the barn falling on the car when we get to the BS judging. Then we head up.

There's lots of great themes here and we are looking at all the others. Finally it is our turn to tech and the guy walks over. "Ah, the Edsel. I've had emails about this car" He looks the car over, checks the brake lights, main cut off switch for operation and points out a few places in the firewall he wants us to seal a bit better for driver protection. He gives us the ok and we proceed to the next stage of inspection much relieved. That could have been a lot worse.

BS judging and they love the car! The judges look it over, ask a few questions, bounce the suspension and give us C class zero laps. Just where we wanted to be. I tell the story of the barn and also about how the dent in the hood is actually from a cow. They love it all, the patina, the great story and appreciate the effort we put into saving the car and making it into a race car. It's been a steady stream of people all day looking the car over and saying they loved it. We do to, everyone involved has fallen in love with the car. Racerguy was dubious until the first time he sat in it. It's hard to say why, it just grows on you, this ugly rusted old survivor just grows on you.

After all that we scramble to install the cooler so we can go test again. Youngest jumps in and runs a few laps then we check the temps. 200, degrees a 50 degree drop. Earlier the transmission was so hot it was not even pulling at one part of the day. Now it is happy and we are too. Crisis resolved, but we are ready to install the spare transmission at any time. Racer guy makes a few laps too then we are all wrapped up.

Tomorrow is race day and we will see how the car does in competition. We haven't even tried to time the car, I was ready to one time but then I saw Youngest pull off to go back to the paddock. I have no idea how fast or slow the car is at this point.

But tonight we are happy. It's time to relax and we cover the car and head out to eat Mexican with the crew from Skinny Coyote, They are a great bunch of people and have brought four cars or three cars and a truck to be exact to the race track. We eat and head back to the camper. It's on for tomorrow. The first race. The beginning of the Search for Edselance.

(sorry about the short post, been super busy at work today, I will be back for more Monday)

So we knew what we wanted to build sort of. A Edsel that would compete in the 24 Hours of Lemons. Our car would need to handle decently, stop and accelerate and be able to be competitive on the road courses that series races on.

But we had about half a car to start with. No engine. No transmission. A rear axle from a different year Ford that would need modifications to fit. A steering shaft that would not pass safety inspection as it was a literal spear of death waiting to impale the driver in a bad wreck, unlike modern steering shafts that are designed to collapse in a wreck instead of transferring the force back to the driver. For a better idea of that, go to Youtube and watch the malibu vs the 59 Chevy video they posted the crash test video on it. It is scary how bad the driver of the 59 gets vs how much the newer Malibu uses all its crush zones to absorb all that energy and save the driver.

We had front and rear drum brakes on the car, the rears we never even checked as it was going to be a lot of work to install that rear axle. The rear leaf springs promised to be a challenge for racing, would they be up to cornering or would we have to change or stiffen them? And back to the brakes, I have had several four wheel drum brake cars and have no desire to ever race on such a set up.

Originally I started thinking of installing a front suspension from a later Crown Vic. It would solve our front brakes, our front steering issues all at one time and be somewhat easy to fabricate and install. Then I thought about converting the rear suspension to a four link like what I raced with back years ago. Coil springs would be easier to tune the rear suspension with and probably be a lot cheaper to procure different spring rates if needed.

We thought long and hard about engines. We toyed with the idea of finding a 460 or 429. It would be epic barreling down the straightaways four barrel open, drinking gas like there's no OPEC or high prices and hearing a big block at full song. I used to have a good supply of those from a guy up north but the state he lives in did not take kindly to his illegal junkyard and swooped in and crushed about a 100 cars. Like good stuff, 57 chevy 2 doors, 66 Malibus, 72 Cutlasses, a lot of nice project cars he was hoarding were crushed that day. They did send him a check for the scrap weight. He's still depressed over it.

I messaged back and forth with the tech director of Lemons. I had a thought about what I wanted to do and he originally told me that it was not allowed. I think he thought we were a bunch of idiots. We are, but in time I was able to convince him we were skilled idiots so he gave me the go ahead providing certain conditions were met. Thus we began a journey that would take the better part of three years and have many many phone calls, emails and at least one face to face meeting to discuss what we needed to do to make this car legal to race.

We bought a 2009 crown vic and rolled it into the shop the first day of 2022. We soon had the bumpers and hood and front fenders all removed. Then it was back outside where it got the same treatment as the Edsel, the body was lifted right off the frame.

The next step was to roll the Vic chassis under the Edsel body. April 2022 we were back at it. We had spent a while getting the Edsel body off the frame after cleaning all the junk out of the car and it was time to try to assemble the two cars for the first time. After we gently lowered the Edsel body, we realized it was not going to fit. Seems someone messed up on some research and the Vic wheelbase was way shorter than the Edsel. To be fair there is a 2009 Crown Vic option that is the right length, just that we do not have it. Someone really messed up on that. When we figure out who made that massive, epic, huge mistake I will let you know. The search continues. Anyhow the engine was shoved up against the firewall and the rear wheels were not where they needed to be. Just way too short of a car to start with. This was not happening. We stopped mid stream and raised the body by blocks shoved in to lift the body off the frame so we could move the whole mess around and pushed it off to the side while we studied what to do next. It was not a great moment in the process of building the car.

October 2022. Yeah we didn't work on the car much. But the summer months were busy doing races and lots of other things. Finally we are able to get back on the project. We decided to solve our problems by purchasing a 2005 town car from a local salvage yard. It was missing the engine, transmission and rear end but the frame looked to be perfect. It was three inches longer than the original crown vic and that was what we needed. Youngest hauled it home and with the aid of a tractor we rolled the car over to get to the frame. One fall day I went out back and took the bolts off and popped the frame loose and loaded it up on a trailer to take to work.

November 2022, I took the frame from home and put it up on jack stands at the shop. Next to it we lifted the Edsel body off the frame of the Crown Vic. Then with both frames side by side we moved everything from the Crown Vic frame to the Town Car. The rear end, suspension, engine, transmission and front suspension were all moved and bolted. Later I would fret that I forgot to tighten some vital bolt but have not found one yet. The stripped crown vic frame was loaded on the trailer and hauled home. The day was ended by setting the Edsel body down on the Town car frame. It fit but there are some serious tire rubs on the rear. A wooden block was stuck to keep the rear up off the tires and the car was rolled out so that we could get to work on Monday.

March 2023 Youngest has some time off so he is at the shop with the welder and using one of the bays. He's a good welder and fabricator and this part is critical. He measures over and over again then lifts the body off the car and starts making body mounts to bolt the Edsel body to the Town car frame. These mounts are heavy duty, boxed out of quarter inch thick steel and he builds and welds 6 or 8 per side. This process entails the body going up and down for measuring several times until he is happy how all the parts fit. The welding is a work of art and it's a shame no one will every see it.

April 2023 the car is now in our driveway. Youngest mounts the front fenders and radiator mount, the whole thing is one heavy piece and we have to lift it off a few times as he makes mounts for them. He also sorts out the steering shaft so we can finally steer the car and mounts the brake booster and gas pedal and cuts the hole for the factory crown vic wiring harness to go through the firewall.

Then he starts in on the wiring harness. We have tons of wires from the Crown Vic and much will not be needed. Wiring for the heater, radio, ac, interior lights all is unneeded. I order what we think is the correct length driveshaft. I come home one day to find about ten pounds of wiring and assorted tape in my driveway.

Youngest announces he will have the car running by the end of the week. The entire harness is laying in my driveway and it is Wednesday night. Bets are taken and he gets a few others in as well. By Friday afternoon I get a video texted to me of the Edsel starting up and going forward about ten feet. Still no brakes and the car does not have any coolant or radiator but it is proof the car will run. Excitement is building.

May 2023, the car returns to the shop where we work on the shifter cable, installing coolant and plumbing brake lines. The brake lines are a small issue as we have elected to eliminate the ABS. We install a earlier year Mustang master cylinder then plumb that to a manual brake bias adjuster we installed then plumb that into the factory town car lines. This requires some special lines to be constructed with metric fittings at one end and standard at the other.

July 2023, Cage Day! We meet out at a shop that is a friend of Youngest Son. We have purchased a bender and a notcher plus tubing and a cutoff saw for this operation. I have done some cage work in the past but for this day we have help from Fabguy. Ever heard of Brewco Motorsports or Ray Evernham racing? Fabguy worked for both of those as well as other places building and fabricating for racers. He has build many race car cages over the years and is there to help. He tells us to pay attention. "I will teach you how to build a cage today. By the time we get through you should know how to do the next one" Youngest and his friend start bending while I notch parts and Fabguy directs the whole operation. The cage comes out great, it is well built and safe. Since we have the option, we lift the body up a few inches to get those critical welds on top of the cage as well as those where the legs meet the frame. Makes for a perfect weld when you can easily access all around to weld. I have seen Lemons cars where they cut holes in the roof to get the weld all around. Anything less than a 360 degree weld will get you failed. Youngest and his friend did all the welding on the cage and it was all perfect.

Suddenly just when we were seriously thinking about finishing the car by the August Lemons race, tragedy struck. A young lady that Youngest is quite fond of and by all appearances is going to be my daughter in law (he has the ring as of this moment and should be proposing soon) had her father to end his life. He had a lot of health and mental challenges and it came to overwhelm him. If this is you right now, stop and reach out, there is help for you! Anyway racing suddenly did not seem so important. We stopped all work on the Edsel and focused on what we could do to help this young lady through this time. We actually raced in August with the Miata and took her with us to keep her occupied. She is a great photographer and got some nice action shots.

October-December 2023, I took the car to the shop and Fabguy helped install the seat mounts and I installed the tab for the master power switch. My welding is not as nice as Youngest's but this is not a load bearing part. His eye kind of twitches every time I get near the Edsel with a welder but he can't do everything. In December we meet the tech director of Lemons at PRI in Indy and discuss how he wants us to do the seatbelt mounts. We have a few thoughts on how Fabguy wants to do it and how I want to do it and we all come to an agreement. It's a minor part of a big project but I want things like the seat mount and seatbelts to be done 100 percent right. In a big wreck which we hope never happens, the last thing we want is a bad injury from improper or failed mounts.

Jan-June 2023. We did no work at all on the Edsel. We were busy with racing the Miata, wrecking at Barber and then winning the following race we entered at Hallett. Then we had other obligations come up, including the fact that Youngest has found a 30x40 red steel frame building at an auction. He purchased it and then took it down and hauled it to our backyard. He then has been building a pad to put the building up on. It involved scraping off the dirt, putting down gravel, leveling it, then framing up forms. He is going to have the building heated by water lines in the concrete heated by our outdoor boiler. It should be nice, though he has not yet agreed to install a two post lift.

Late July I go mow around the car and think, dang this thing is going on three years come November, we need to finish it.

Youngest wants to wait and finish it in the new shop. I want to race it at NCM in September. I load the car up and take it to work with me. The plan is I will go in on Saturdays, find a spare minute here and there during the work days and if I have a guy standing around doing nothing that I am paying he might get drafted too, but this car will get raced. Youngest is not thrilled but I tell him he can always redo everything I do that he does not like. He has a ton of hours in the car and is kind of a perfectionist. I get it but I want to race and when it comes to Lemons the standard is not show car, but "good enough"

And that is how it goes. We install a new shifter cable, the old one just was not working. I drill holes and install the hood and trunk pins. The wiring gets it's final install, it had just been draped over everything and all the grounds were held in place with vice grips. I get some nice power blocks and we run cables from the battery in the trunk to the cut off switch then to the under hood fuse box and pcm. We also install a second power block under the hood for all the grounds, I just don't trust the rusty body to be a great conductor. Air cleaner, battery hold down, seat belts are all installed. One day I am up front with a customer and I hear the car come to life. We had been struggling to start it and finally traced all the wires and realized we were missing the fuel pump driver. Youngest swears he never had it when he drove the car in the video. I have my doubts.

There's a lot you will never see on this car that we did. All the body mount bolts have the locking nylon nuts so they won't back off. I bought expensive racing brake pads for the front. We lowered the front by simply cutting a coil and a half off with a grinder. So much fab work was done in that last push I have forgotten some of it, but we patched and riveted in aluminum to cover some of the holes in the floor where it had rusted or where we had cut for the roll cage. I did this same job on my last car and I would have loved for Youngest to do this, not my favorite thing to do. When we thought we were close I pulled out the Lemons tech sheet and went down it. Brake lights? Ok, fix them again. The stock 59 brake lights were kind of crusty so I installed led ones. They set a little far in so my brother came up with a solution that involved cutting a piece of exhaust pipe and making spacers then we used long screws to hold them in place. We start the car and turn off the master power switch. To pass Lemons the car should cut off when the power is turned off. Guess what? Ours does not turn off. Ok rewire the alternator to feed through the master power switch. Is that antifreeze? Yeah we need to install water.

We installed heat insulating mat to keep the drivers feet cooler and also used some under the cooler we have in the passenger seat area that we use for the cool shirt the driver wears. I built the cooler months before the car was ready for it to be installed, just needed to wire in the delay switch and add ice and water when it was needed. We left the dash stock save for a small modification for the stock crown vic steering column, the stock dash is so cool looking we couldn't bring ourselves to part with it. It is nice having a tilt wheel. I welded up the exhaust one Saturday and took pains to get it as high as I dared without actually touching the frame to avoid annoying rattles., best welding I did on the entire car and no one will ever see. Right now we are still running the front cats, one of those trade offs we had to do to get the car finished in time. There were a few things like that we did, things that could be done better but best left until a later day. I figured we would find a whole list of other improvements we need to do after the car is raced the first time anyway. I traded a guy some favors and he came and massaged the wheel well openings, we have been working on those for tire clearance. Youngest mounted the rear bumper and I did the fronts. Somehow the drivers side bumper half is missing, luckily I have a pile of spare parts. Manny comes over one day and installs the fire suppression system, he just did one for his new build so he knows exactly what to do.

Finally as we are working down the list, one day it comes: The day I have dreamed up for a long time. (actually it was a lot of lists, just they got more and more detailed as time went on, like fix wiring when to find wire to brake lights) But finally it's time. Time to test drive this car. I am kind of worried, would it run out? Will the transmission shift? Will the brakes work? Is this car going to drive so bad that we race it once and never again? We are over 400 hours in the build, so that would be unfortunate. So many questions. Only one way to find out. The guys at the shop all are watching as I climb in the car. My daughter is filming. I climb in, turn on the power and turn the key.....

to be continued.

"It's back here somewhere. Let's keep going!"

I'm out for a walk in what looks like an small forest early November 2021. In reality it was a pasture that had not been mowed for many many years and now it's overgrown with bushes, thistles, probably a million ticks and not a few snakes. I have Oldest son and Youngest son with me. They think I might just have gone crazy this time as I told them we are looking for a barn in this mess but there isn't one to be seen. Finally we get to the back corner where I remembered the barn being from when I used to visit in my childhood.

What exactly are we doing? Well it all comes back to our desire to race in the 24 Hours of Lemons. Even though we race a Miata it doesn't excite the judges. Miata and BMWs are what they consider boring to race. We need to find something a bit more interesting which in lemons means something that absolutely should have never been on a track at all. And that is why we are wandering around an overgrown pasture looking for a car I remembered from my youth. But when I asked my cousin if he would sell it, he said yes but...the barn it was in might have fallen.

So there we were. We waited until after a few good frosts to kill off some of the things that keep you out of the woods in the mid south and went for a hike. And found a barn that was at least five foot tall. Yeah, the barn had indeed fallen. But maybe, just maybe....

Youngest climbs under the mess carefully. He sends pictures back. The car was not bad off. Side windows had long since been broke by neighborhood kids, but the front and rear glass was intact. Roof was slightly dented but not crushed. This car might work. This car might live to see another day. This car might just be the perfect Lemon.

A few weeks later over Thanksgiving break Youngest and a few of his friends armed with a Kubota and a few chainsaws extract the car from the barn. The old tobacco barn was built out of cedar poles covered with metal sheets and was very lightly built to start with. A few hours of work and a few broken tail lights and one tractor tire repair later and the car was on the trailer.

The back story on this car was that my cousin found it on a car lot back in 1969. He drove it home and took the engine and transmission and rear end out. His 56 Mercury had blown a freeze plug and he wanted the engine for that car. What was left of the car sat there and patiently waited and waited. Kids came and broke windows. A cow got on the hood and dented it. A large snake that the family named Seth took up residence in the trunk. It might have been a harmless black snake. It might have been a rattlesnake. No one stayed around to ask questions, the trunk was his when he was there. I saw the car first when I was around 12. My cousin was off in the Army but his dad saw out on the front porch and told me the car was painted "panty pink and brassiere white" Years later I would be disappointed when I would find out that the factory colors were not those, instead it was Talisman red and some similar disappointing name for the white.

We took the car to our truck shop and started in. Later we determined that we removed a cubic yard of assorted crap out of the car. I mean really nice stuff that the local wildlife had drug in, walnut shells, old seeds, racoon droppings, old car parts, rotted carpet it was great. The seats were not horrible but out they went. Soon we were down to the floorboards and the trunk floor. Since the car was inside the rust was not too bad but the trunk floor was in bad shape. It was going to need a lot of patching.

With a lot of effort we pushed the car up on the four post and removed the front and rear bumpers. Then we took out the steering box and steering shaft. Those cars are noteworthy about the unsafe design of the steering, the shaft, box and steering wheel are all one part and in a bad wreck the driver eats the steering wheel. Our plan is to seriously upgrade the steering, brakes and suspension. Since we are missing a lot of the car already, why not go a bit farther? I wasn't even able to save both front drums, one was so rusty that I had to break it open with a sledge to get that wheel to turn.

Pulling the car back outside we took the Kubota and our trusty shop forklift Luigi and lifted the body off the frame. Plans were afoot, we were on our way to build a truly epic car to compete in the 24 Hours of Lemons. One that is instantly recognized by most car people. One that had been abandoned for over 50 years in a barn. One that made several people very upset that we did not restore it. There's a Lemons saying for this " Y U Ruin Classic?" A project that would take us a lot longer to get to the track than we ever envisioned. Another common Lemons saying that applies "we do this not because it was easy, rather because we thought it was easy"

Anyway I am going to do this in three parts: The acquiring of our "new" race car, the building of the car and the first race. But this is the story of our 1959 Edsel Ranger 2 door. Or the beginning of our search for Edselance. Part 2 will be out shortly, stay tuned!

Firstly, I am not a mechanic. I have done many repairs on my own vehicles over the years, but nothing too involved, so forgive me ignorance if I use any incorrect terminology or leave any blank spaces.

My wife's '06 Trailblazer LT (straight six, overhead cam) was misfiring. I pulled the coils and noticed water in the first two plug holes. Found a couple of places I suspect water might be getting in and it's parked downhill on the drive so presumably it was pooling around those first two plugs. No biggy, it's past due for plugs and at least I hopefully found an easy fix for the misfire.

Wrong. The sixth plug (don't know the actual firing order), being the one furthest back by the firewall broke in half. The motor was hot but I think it was over-torqued by whoever changed them last. I bought it with 72k miles and it's sitting at 113k. Either way, I'm immediately out of my depth.

Tow it to a mechanic, two days later they call and said yea, it'll be $2k to pull the head.

I don't have that kind of money.

Tow it home and reach out on Facebook. An old friend mentioned his dad could help. He's helped me in the past but it's been a long time, I wasn't aware he was still doing his thing in peoples' driveways (he used to work at Pep Boys a long time ago but has been a driveway mechanic since, doing odd-jobs).

We talk it over on the phone and I sent some pictures. The ceramic and collar were almost flush. He said hell, go fire it up and try to pop the ceramic out, so I did, and it did.

We spent a few days trying different ideas to avoid pulling the head or damaging the threads/anything else. He grinded an allen wrench in a specific L-type shape to try and slide down and catch the ground strap on the bottom of the plug to use that to thread it out. This bent the strap.

A couple days of brain-storming. Ultimately we ended up using minimally incremental sizes of drill-bits to wear it down to the exact point he wanted and then tapped a few threads in. We drove in a bolt (I think it ended up being 3/8ths...maybe) with some solid torque, gave it some wraps with the side of a hammer and then he told me to pull it out so we could send the scope down and see what it looked like.

It was taking forever to unthread. "Well that'd be cool if the plug came out with it," he said. Sure as shit did! Got it out, new plugs in and she's running great.

The guy is a damn wizard. Half the time I wasn't even sure what he was doing or thinking but I just did what he said. He's up there in age so he did the thinking and I did the working.

Today was a good day.

I'll keep this a long story short. Last February my Camaro went in the shop with a blown up transmission and the shop did a rebuild for $4,000. I immediately took it back 2 or 3 times (twice documented) stating it still wasn't shifting correctly only for it to never see a lift and be told I was imagining it. Fast forward to now the transmission blew up again 2 months ago and I've been running on a rental ($400 a week currently at $3k total) and the car has been to 5 different shops including the one that rebuilt it and it sat on their lot for 3 weeks without being touched. Where it's at now its getting another rebuild for $3600 and he says the 1234 clutch pack was assembled upside down causing the cushion spring to not work properly resulting in it breaking and that a check ball is missing. I have documentation of invoices, print of rental transactions, gas for the rental, tow truck transaction. Do I have the ingredients for a lawsuit?

"Isn't this the car that hit the wall at Barber?" A Lemons judge inspecting our car Friday afternoon, about to put us in either class A, B or C.

Us, not wanting to reveal too much until we know where this is headed: "Possibly" Privately we joke that without Manny or Fabguy driving this weekend we might have a better chance on staying on track. Later on a epic series of photographs will show up on social media where it shows snap by snap as Fabguy leaves the racing surface at Hallett, gets about forty feet off track in the grass, drives it on and best of all no black flag was thrown. Lemons says to always come in when you screw up. I mostly do, but if there's a change no one saw it, I'm like Ralphie in a Christmas Story when the teacher is asking who told Flick to lick the flagpole. Never admit anything. Sometimes you get flagged for things you never did. They tell us that it makes up for the ones they missed. It mostly works out.

Judge: "I watched that video so many times" Great, I'm glad we entertained someone. FYI Barber has a room where they have cameras on nearly every part of the racing surface and use that to call cautions and spot wrecks as well as contact.

Judge" Yeah, you should have seen it!" One problem being that we are told this room is strictly off limits. Next question from a Lemons photographer. "Why are you and your teammate wearing those costumes with oversized balls?"

I tell him how I am a cancer survivor and am using racing as an outreach to try and convince people to not skip out on getting tested regularly as early detection is important in surviving. Racerguy and I are displaying our large testicles as a tribute to the Johnny Dangerously movie as well as the importance of getting checked. Our shirts say "Men's Health is no joke, get checked before you croak!" I think Manny and Fabguy slide through with no theme, some teams got tagged with a label "error 404, no theme detected" and told to do better.

Something works, either our previous poor performances, our whacky costumes or a combination of both. Class B. Many Miatas get A. Because they can be fast in the right hands. Most of the fast ones are modified or have way better drivers. We are competing against a ecto tech swapped Miata and a Honda swapped Miata that are both very fast. The honda swapped Tow Mator Miata blows either the clutch or the transmission up and are loaded and gone Saturday night after attempting repairs for several hours. Very few of us Miata teams are campaigning well worn 1.6s. I continue to be impressed by ours. We crank it all the way up to redline every lap, lap after lap. 7400 rpm. Race after race, now on 11, not counting track days, not to mention all the races it had before we purchased it. You just know one of these days it will be one redline too many. But the car has so much heart. The Lemons photographer gets Youngest on video saying "this might be a Class A car someday, but we will never be a Class A team"

Saturday night, our car is tucked in our trailer and we are all in the camper less Fabguy who is heading east at a fast pace to be rested up for work Monday. The rest of us aren't that smart, we are sticking it out knowing Sunday promises to be rain all day. We had a great cookout with the other Lemons team and the burgers were great.

About midnight a storm rolls through. It gets kind of nasty and lightning hits nearly on top of us. I try to sleep and not think about what would happen if a tornado were to come through. The camper would offer zero protection. A week or two before the race a tornado relocated several buildings in the southern part of Oklahoma and injured several. The storm abates and we sleep on.

The next morning dawns, kind of. It's one of those cloudy days where it rains off and on and never really seems to stop. I take a extremely cold shower and don my racing gear. If I am going to race in the rain, I want to go out first. Some days you have to play the car owner card. No one else objects, they are all happy with the arrangements. Youngest has already called last stint and I leave Coach and Racerguy to figure out which of those two are going when. It's kind of risky calling last, you never know if there will be a car running by the end of the day, you can either break or get parked due to too many black flags. But Youngest likes the last stint as typically there aren't as many cars on the track and he can usually run the fastest laps of the day.

Who is Coach? Well it's like this, Coach is a friend of a friend. I was telling an old family friend about our racing and he told me that Coach does this type of racing if we ever need another driver. With Manny and Fabguy driving their own car and Blackbeard and our other previous drivers unable to drive to the middle of nowhere and race, I called him and he was in. He co-owns a BMW that they used to run in a series similar to Lemons. It has been parked for a while so he was ready to get back on track. You are always a little worried anytime you are letting a new driver take your car out on the track, but he was smooth and fast and ran just about the same times as everyone else did over the weekend. Best of all he did not go off track and rack up any black flags. He used to be a football coach at one of the local high schools, hence the name Coach.

Back to the race, I roll up to the grid. I think they have some sort of plan in mind as they point to a hole in the line of cars and I stick the Miata in it. At some races they pull the top ten in each class and start them first the second day. This race might not be as important as bringing the top thirty cars to the front doesn't make much difference in a race of fifty cars. I don't pull up a line up and check where we are, just happy that we are ahead of the cars we know we are racing. One being a Chrysler Crossfire. Yes there is a Crossfire in Lemons. It was a junkyard build and they posted the pictures and such of where they had to find and install a complete front clip, hood, nose, fenders and all. It's red and the rest of the car is white. We were battling them all Saturday, along with a Camaro that is run by a bunch of nuts out of West TN. They are running a wild west theme all weekend complete with Sheriff, his wife, a lady of possible ill repute, along with a portable jail and even the head stocks to restrain any offenders. The third car we are competing against that has risen to the top of our challengers is a Mercury Cougar, one of the last of the bigger body Cougars before they downsized. We've competed against them several times in our Midwest races. One time they had a epic battle with another smaller newer Cougar. They typically run well and clean, best of all is their team name, "Nothings Hotter than a Cougar" We are actually two pits away from them and chat a bit back and forth. Great guys, not a huge team. They have manual swapped their car.

My job this morning is not to screw up and not to let any of those cars outrun us. We are so far ahead of the rest of the field we should not have to worry about any of the other cars unless we break or get so far off we loose a ton of laps getting towed out of the mud.

We roll off in a light rain. Right away I notice two problems. One is that the wipers are moving very slowly. I know what is going on there as they inch slowly across the windshield at a snails pace. When we swapped the alternator Youngest put a larger pully on it. It should in theory help the life of the alternator not being turned so many rpms, but the down side is that we noticed is the alternator will not energize until it sees a good amount of rpms. Once I finally get enough room I gas it up and the wipers start working at normal speeds and all is good.

The second problem is more ominous. The car does not want to go when I hit the gas. I'm not too worried as it did this earlier at a race and cleared up. I think that we might have outsmarted ourselves when we installed our version of ram air that takes air from below where the headlight used to be on the drivers side. Water can shoot straight into the car and I think that it's getting something wet and the car is not happy about it. Last time the car came out of it after it got warmed up. I circle under the pace laps and realize that the problem is not going away. So to get it to run every time you slow down and go around a corner, and remember this is a road course with ten corners every lap, if you try to ease into the gas the car stutters and stumbles and nearly dies. The only way to get it to run is to mat and I mean mat the gas pedal. It pauses and then roars to life, then you can back off the gas and then accelerate to the next corner. It being wet out the normal thing to do is not flooring it hard off the corner, typically you have to ease into it when coming off the corners as traction is limited. Hallett is especially traction limited as the racing surface is very worn and slick. It's a exercise in car control, cars get behind you and the car lags and then takes off. The good thing is if the car is straight, it pulls straight, you just have to wait then fire off. It's some very challenging driving and you really have to pay attention. I'm trying to battle, turn in good laps, not slide off the track and keep it wound up as much as possible. I find going outside off three is very slippery, I nearly loose it there. You have to search around and find the better places on the track. I do and try to stay inside through that corner. I'm battling the Crossfire, he gets around me and then I realize I am faster so I run him down and after several laps I get around him. I see the Cougar exactly once. The Camaro is having traction problems in the rain.

The first car that I see spin is a Mustang in two. No shocker there, the turn is slippery with the new patches and it is at the end of a long straight. And Mustangs are going to do Mustang things. Next is a Mercury Bobcat we have raced against several times, also looping it in two. Then coming off six my friends Miata ends up sideways across the track and it's a wonder no one hit him right in the door. I avoided his car as well as the rest of the pack of five or six cars I was around. It was crazy. And I was having a blast.

A little later I see the same Miata closing in on me. I've passed the Crossfire and am pulling away. There's some cars running way faster than I am, but none of them are in our class so no worries. I see the Miata coming up and I am pulling hard out of turn 9 at full throttle. We are as fast as anyone on that part of the track so I figure he will catch me going around turn ten where I slow down and deal with the car hiccup before it takes off. I go inside on the corner and leave room for him and another car that are both looking like they are going to pass me. I hear a car shift and rev up and I am on the gas again heading down the front stretch. Once I have a chance I check the mirrors and no Miata in sight. Hmm, someone had a issue apparently.

Once I come around again and see the yellow flag I am amazed. The Texans Miata went straight off 10 and is not only off track they are sitting with the front end up on top of the pile of tires that mark the outer barrier. Ouch, I hope the driver is ok, and the car is not hurt too much. It takes many laps for them to pull the car out and then extract one of the loose tires that became wedged up under the car during the entire process. The car is able to leave under it's own power. Later I talk to the owner who was not driving and he points to a guy in the corner cleaning tools. "I told him what we expected, now he's cleaning stuff for the rest of the day." Apparently that was not his first boo boo in the car that weekend. He was told to go make safe laps and not screw up. I think it was the same driver who was sideways earlier too. They actually rack up so many black flags that day they are put in time out for a while and get to know the judges really well while they have to do something mildly embarrassing.

We swap out and I pull Racerguy off to the side while Youngest is fueling and Coach is holding the fire extinguisher. I tell him about how treacherous turn three is outside and how the car is stumbling. We have radios but sometimes it's hard to have detailed conversations. I also tell him the ice scraper with a rag is not working great as it's soaked and the helmet blower is better than nothing but still having some fogging issues. He shows me a squeegee he brought. Would have been nice having that. He later tells me once he used it once it was a near perfect drive.

As soon as he goes out we check and we have lost three laps to the Cougar. Ok, we are still up and they are not catching us with their lap times. Racerguy actually gets one lap back. But they haven't pitted yet....

Racerguy keeps going and going, running a nice pace. And the Cougar is not pitting. We realize they are making a long run. Will they pit? Fuel mileage is way lower during the rain, we are putting in about half as much as normal. Just how big of tank does a Cougar have? Can they make it the whole way without pitting? Surely not.

We start to strategize. Do we run Racerguy longer and go for one less stop? We can do that with the fuel mileage we are getting. Right now if they don't stop at all and we stop twice, it would be neck and neck, we project the amount of laps to do the two stops will take up every bit of our lead.

Coach being a team player offers to not drive the car today and give up his stint in the pursuit of a class win. He's new to our team but a total team player. It could have been entirely different going hundreds of miles away with a near stranger for the first time but he fits in well with our team and gets it. I am moved by his offer.

I and Coach are all about going for the win. Youngest acts unconcerned. And do we want to win anyway? A win would mean that we would be bumped out of Class B and into Class A in the future.

We make a decision. We race as a team. Normal stops. Everyone gets their time. Let the chips fall where they may and if the Cougar does not stop we will have to deal with it. We are going for the win together.

We put Coach in the car. Even with us doing a super fast stop we lose a few more laps. We are now three laps ahead of the Cougar which shows no sign of stopping, With the slower lap times we are loosing about 2.5 laps per fuel stop today. The stops are faster as we are not taking much fuel. The next stop to put Youngest in the car could potentially put us neck and neck with the Cougar if they don't stop. Surely they will stop at least once. I admire their strategy but maybe next time they could do this to someone else? It's like a game of chess, so many variables. One thing we do know we aren't running out of fuel today. If only we would not have run out yesterday we would have enough cushion that it would not matter.

Finally, Youngest calls out. "there they go!" The Cougar is pitting. What a relief. We did not think they could make it all the way but you never know. We time the stop and count laps. We gain three laps. If we have a clean stop we will be in position for the win. No pressure!

Another problem arises. We have no communication with Coach. In our haste to get him out we failed the radio check. He was looking for a thumbs up which another team member gave him and he took off. I was trying to get a response on the radio but it was too late. So we need to get him in to pit. We get ready and make a plan and a alternative plan. I am going to tell the officials to black flag the car if we need but first we try our original plan.

When we first got there and unloaded Manny parked his rollback by the fence in turn one. If you go watch any in car video on Youtube from the race you can actually see it there. He turns on the emergency light on the top of the rollback and Coach gives thumbs up as he drives by. He acknowledges the signal to pit we all went over in case of loss of communications. Our emergency plan actually worked! I'm sure there have been plenty of creative ways Lemons people have used for communications but I am guessing using a 100,000 dollar rollback is one of the more expensive methods ever used!

So I go over with Youngest the plan. He just needs to not get passed by the Cougar. Don't mess up and get a time consuming black flag. Typically the last stint is when he tries for a personal best lap time and to get fast time for the team for all the weekend. That will not happen here. Keep the car on the track. I might have said that more than once. The rest of us just need to get a good stop in. No pressure.

Coach comes in and I dive in the passenger side to unhook him. At least we have not needed the cool shirts all day, which speeds us up a few seconds by not having to add ice to the cooler nor unhook the lines to the system. I find that the radio harness is unplugged, there's why we could not talk to him. Mystery solved.

We bust out a fast stop and send Youngest out. We get our stuff up and then all look at the standings. We have just under a three lap lead on the Cougar. The Crossfire and Camaro have faded back. I 'm now about as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room of rocking chairs. I alternate from packing up things to checking the standings.

In a terrible sequence of events our friends in the Magnum wagon get a black flag and then the accelerator cable breaks. They fix it quickly but their lead and dreams of winning Class C are gone in just a few minutes. You are reminded often of how in an instant in racing dreams of winning can evaporate over a broken part or a driver error.

"They won't let me pass" Youngest has caught the Cougar but they are blocking the pass. I can't blame them, I would too. It's to put them three full laps down. We tell him just to fall in behind the Cougar and stay there. I do the math. With our lead we could break or pull off and still win when the clock gets down to about five minutes to go. The time goes by slowly counting down. With five to go we give Youngest the green light and he gets around the Cougar which follows him to the checkers with the Crossfire right behind them.

We start walking to the track off exit. Lemons has a tradition of where everyone lines up and cheers every car as they come off at the end of each day. We take a couple of water bottles and wet down Youngest. Then we line up our car for the ceremony at the end of the race along with the BMW that won class A and the Pinto Wagon that won class C. It's surreal getting our picture taken. We donate our winners check to the Lemons of Love, a charity that provides care packages to those on chemo, as do the other winning teams. I still can't believe we won, there are teams that have run a 100 races in Lemons and not won.

Any rumors that I slept with the trophy cradling it like Ralphie did with his Red Ryder BB Gun are totally mostly untrue.

"You should go to Hallett. We went last year and it was fun. A good track for Miata's"

My friend Gerry the Texan who along with his team brings several Miata's to races all over from Road America to Houston to Seibring. It's a great bunch of people who are having a blast racing Lemons. He told me that and it got me to thinking. We wanted to go to a new track this year and after the disappointment at Barber going somewhere and having some fun sounded good. Also Hallett is noted for having a smaller field so we could be competitive. I always say that Barber is more like a pro level Lemons race in that it attracts the faster and better prepped teams. Road America was like that too.

But first we have to fix the car. As typical, we wait until the race is almost upon us to start. There's the matter of how bad the car is bent from the last race where Manny hit the wall. They thought it was good but we need to check this.

After pulling the rear sub frame in hopes of replacing it we learn that a 90 is a bit different than a 91 subframe or a 2001 subframe. Supposedly it all interchanges but after looking over the differences, Youngest adds a few reinforcements at places the internet gurus say are the weak points and we put the rear end together and put it back in the car. Then we check the alignment. To my great surprise the rear camber and caster is spot on. I was shocked, but the crew did a great job that night fixing the car while it was up on jack stands. Using just a tape measure they got the car really close. Toe was out but the borrowed porta powers got the bent subframe where it needed to be.

We changed the oil and brake fluid, bled the system where we took the rear apart to drop the subframe.

Another project we attempted was to swap in a larger fuel tank. Manny who has been helping with the repairs found a article on the internet that said you could bolt in a NB fuel tank out of a 2001 or so Miata and gain a gallon of fuel capacity. Yeah, that is not possible. The tank has a hump where the car does not and would involve cutting a hole in the car which would be a bit noticeable. Not worth it for such a little gain. Good news is I now have two extra NB tanks if anyone needs one. A gallon would not seem to be that much but we are still dreaming of two stopping the car at certain tracks, stretching our mileage to only stop every two hours and 25 minutes and make a seven hour day with one less stop. It's not all about raw speed, strategy can make a difference. One less stop per day could potentially add ten laps in a weekend of racing at certain tracks.

After we got the subframe in and the car aligned Youngest pulled it all apart again. He was not happy with the bushings holding the rear differential in place. The rear has to move a bit so it is not solid mounted, it actually can pivot a slight bit. He felt the bushings holding it were letting it move too freely.

Once again we put the car back together.

All during this time Manny and FabGuy have been working hard on a new car. Manny got a little crazy on Co-part. First one Miata shows up at our shop. Then another. Then another. I started joking with the guys "Hi I'm Manny, I might have a Miata addiction". Yeah. So after a lot of looking we have three wrecked cars, one being a automatic that was absolutely destroyed. It had zero good body panels and even the front subframe was pushed back where it had got up on something in a wreck. I think the only things we saved off that car was a rear axle, engine, transmission and the hard top which was cracked but usable.

We then robbed enough body parts off of one to put on the other so we ended up with a mostly maroon car with a drivers side red fender, red door and silver hardtop. I say we but all we did at the shop was to take the cars apart, everything else went to Manny's garage where he and FabGuy installed the cage and built the car. They did bring it over a time or two to put in the air to install a few parts or when we aligned it. The build and fitment were top notch on the car, lots of nice parts went in, like a better seat and belts than we use on our Miata. Like most builds they were literally bolting parts to it the night before we loaded the car to head west.

Finally both cars are prepped and it's time to get on the road. Manny has a business where he uses two rollbacks and moves cars mostly to and from car lots and auction lots. So he gets the newer one of the two trucks and shows up at the shop Thursday morning. RacerGuy and I are already there and have hooked our camper to RacerGuys truck. I am leaving my trucks at home, but taking our race trailer and our camper. The plan is to hook the camper to RacerGuys diesel F250 and hook the race trailer to Manny's newish Chevy 4500.

The plan nearly goes off the rails when Manny shows up and I get to looking at his truck. Being in the business I can't not help but look at tires. His drives are terrible, two are bald, one is soft and one showing wire. I go to air up one of the bald ones and it's not having it. Air is leaking out as fast as it was going in. In Manny's defense his employee was driving this truck and Manny had not seen it in weeks. I had already loaded tire tools and extra spare tires for every truck and trailer in the caravan except RacerGuy's truck and I would have got a spare for it too if I had thought about it. With nothing else to do, we all jump in and start busting tires. Forty five minutes later we have four new drives on the truck and we are in a much better spot to make the long drive. I hadn't done any big truck tires for a long time, sold that part of the business. Still got it, just like riding a bike.

We find I40 and start clicking off miles. Manny has already told us the limiting factor which is that GM put a really tiny fuel tank in his truck so we are forced to stop every 160-180 miles for fuel. It slows us down but it's not all bad, we find a roadside BBQ joint that looks like a camper up on blocks that has a huge parking lot and a ton of customers lining up. Of course we try it out, the best BBQ comes from little places like that, not the ones with massive buildings.

We cross Arkansas and I think it was the first time I ever went that way westbound on 40. Came back the other side when we brought the box truck back where we bought it in California. We finally make Oklahoma and bent north to go to Tulsa. Did not see the Tulsa King anywhere, stopped in a Super Walmart and stocked up on groceries for the weekend. Hallett is in the middle of nowhere, so we are planning on eating at the track.

We get there and make our way into the paddock. This will be the first time we have every camped inside the track. They have a cross over with gates that close during when the track is hot and a tunnel for access when the gates are closed. The tunnel looks kind of tight, I'm happy to not test the posted height limits. It says our trailers should fit. Yeah we will wait.

We hustle to get the camper leveled and the generator cranked up. For the next three days it will run non-stop to keep the fridge cold and our lights on. We run the a/c but for the most part temps are very nice.

The next morning we are up and on the road after the drivers meeting. We go to Pawnee, take in some sights then hit Stillwater for some parts and pieces at a hardware store. We also gas up all our empty gas cans so we are ready for race day.

Back at the track Manny and Fabguy are unloading their car off the back of the rollback. It was nice carrying one and towing one car. They go out and practice a bit, come in and make some changes then go out again. It's a new build and everyone has realistic expectations about the car. We are all expecting issues as it takes a while to find the weak spots and fix them.

We get our car out and practice. We send three of the four drivers out and have them run a few laps. I'm about to get ready and go out when RacerGuy comes in and says he felt something pop. We get to looking and the adjuster is gone off the alternator. Look a little more and the bolt has broken off in the alternator. So we have a spare motor in the trailer but it is missing the adjuster. Looks like we need the adjuster, the bolt and the alternator. We make a few visits around the paddock to look for parts but none of the other Miata teams have what we need. Youngest goes into the trailer and in a small miracle finds the adjuster laying under the spare motor loose. He and Coach head into Tulsa on a parts run while Manny agrees to put me into their car for a few laps so I can get a feel for the track. I've watched a hundred laps on Youtube but nothing is like actually driving the track. I go out and don't push things too hard. It is a very worn surface with some patches, particularly in the groove of turn two. Manny's car drives a lot different than ours, you can really tell you have more power and grip. Their tires are a lot wider as well as having 30-40 more hp. They have been working on the car all day and just finished taking off the lines where they installed a remote oil filter, they were not Lemons grade and were leaking.

Just before dark Youngest gets the parts on the car. We also install a helmet blower, we are going to try to use the air to defrost the windshield. All reports indicate rain is coming Sunday.

Then it's dinner time. Our friends from Minnesota have brought pure Lemons art down in the form of a Chrysler Magnum wagon powered by a slant 6 that is mid mounted. It is a engineering feat and runs out nicely. Adam the team leader and I have been planning and they are cooking for us for tonight and we are cooking for them Saturday night. They show us up by putting on a feed with steaks and salad. I'm feeling bad about the fact we are serving hamburgers, coleslaw and potato salad the next night. It was great.

Saturday morning dawns and we are up and moving around. I give up waiting on a shower as the line is too long inside and try the outdoor shower. It has no roof, just walls. It was ok. The next morning I tried it again and it was freezing, no hot water!

I skip breakfast and get ready to get in the car. I want to get on the grid early as I still am not feeling great about the track. The laps in Manny's car did not give me much to make me feel really attuned to the track as I was learning both the car and the track at the same time. I want all the practice laps I can get in our car. The line up is me, Youngest, Coach and then RacerGuy bringing up the finish for the day. FabGuy is gridded about ten cars behind us and he is under team orders to take it easy to start the race.

We get out and start doing pace laps. Soon enough it's green and the race is on. A few laps in Fabguy blasts by me. So much for taking it easy. Going into turn 2 I see a car off track. I mean he's not a little off the racing surface, he's 150 feet off the corner and just about in the tree line. I wonder what happened there. I am starting to get the hang of the track and pick up some speed. Then I mess up early on and miss the line completely going into turn 9 from 8 and run off the track. I fire the car back up and quickly exit and head to the penalty box.

"what happened?'

"I missed the line and ran out of asphalt and talent all about the same time"

The judge kind of laughs, "keep it on the track" and sends me back out. Youngest has made it to penalty and looks the car over from my adventure in the dirt and grass and gives the go ahead. If you are going to mess up do it right at the entrance to pit road, it really cuts down your time off track!

I run clean the rest of the stint. I tiptoe around the corner I went off but run hard the rest of the track without pushing so hard I get off again. Then Youngest, then Coach. We are having one of the best days we have ever had at the track. Besides my adventure off track no one else has messed up. Our stops are clean and quick. Our times top to bottom are very similar and consistent. Something strange is happening. We are in the top 15 overall and since we managed to get put in B class we are doing very well. Only 50 cars at Hallett this weekend, the smallest Lemons field we have ever competed against.

Fabguy pulls off to go to the gas pumps. We are fueling on pit road but they are going to just fuel at the pumps this race. They aren't planning on winning anything so why go to all the trouble of getting all your gear on and doing hot pit stops? Fabguy comes off a little hot and the officials come over to tell them they were over the ten mph paddock limit. Manyy drives the car up to the penalty and Fabguy comes up and they are told they are good to go. Later Manny gets off the track and goes to penalty. They start in on him not serving the penalty for going too fast in the pits. "we served that penalty" The judge goes off "do you really want to argue about this" Later when they realize the team was right and the previous judge had not marked it off the offenders list before going on break. In a first the judge apologizes to them.

With about two hours left in the day their Miata is towed off. The engine is super hot and will not crank. All signs look bad. Later it cools off and will crank, but cranks with ease, signs of a engine that has lost all compression. Their weekend is done and Fabguy heads out to get a headstart on getting to work early Monday. The rest of us will pull an all nighter after the race Sunday.

I start doing the math and realize it's going to be very tight. We make our calcuations based on a normal 7 hour race day. Today is a 7.5 hour day which is a bit longer than normal when racing Lemons. I figured out the stints and got it wrong. We realize our mistake and run Coach a bit longer before we put in RacerGuy. It's going to come right down to the limit of our fuel mileage. We start planning dinner and cleaning up the paddock with about ten minutes to go when all the sudden we realize the car is not out there. We run to the pumps and find Racerguy there. He ran out and limped the car to the pumps but could not get all the way there. By the time we get the car pushed around to get fuel the race is over for the day. I feel like a total idiot, I could have ran another five minutes easily in the car in the morning and not had this problem.

But the good news is that somehow even after I went off the track and and then we ran out of gas was that we were still very good on the day. We had enough of a lead on the car behind us in Class B that we still had a 7 lap lead even after running out of gas. Even better our paddock mates in the Chrysler are putting a shellacking on Class C as well. Their Magnum wagon is running a Richard Petty scheme, they all have uniforms and the requisite trademark Petty cowboy hat and STP logos, only this time it means "Slow Through Paddock" signs and all. They actually shouted this out when doing the morning driving meeting when they were going over the rules. "STP, Slow through Paddock!" every time the officials discussed that rule in the drivers meeting.

We put everything away, rain is moving in. We are in shock about how well everything is going. Surely we will find a way to loose this race tomorrow. Will other cars be faster in the rain? Will we shoot ourselves in the foot and have poor driving and get multiple black flags? Will something break on the car which has been running great all day long? And who the heck is this Coach guy? All that and more when we wrap up this in the next part of this story. Stay tuned!

Things have been busy here so I thought I would catch up on our two latest race adventures.

It's time for another race, so I hook up to the trailer and bring it to work. The Miata has been in the enclosed trailer since I ran it through the Christmas parade, but now it is time to wake it from it's winter slumber and start preparing it for Barber, our 10th 24 Hours of Lemons race.

The car should not need much as we ran nearly flawless at the last race at Road America. We had one spin and the wing mounts broke but that was about it.

I get it to the shop and we hurry up and start in. I already have one bay tied up with the next car we are building (more on that later, it is epic) and can't afford to tie up a second during business hours. Youngest jumps in and rebuilds the entire wing assembly. Manny comes by and drives the car to his place and keeps it there until a few more parts come in. It's a block or two away from the shop, we can nearly see it from the front sidewalk. No plates, no insurance, no problem.

Next we change out the brake pads, front rotors, front brake hoses and rear pads. We also change the timing belt after a debate on exactly how many race hours the old one has. Change the oil and the car is ready to load.

Racerguy comes down and we leave out Thursday night. I am driving a little fast as the website shows the gates close at 9 and our gps says we are expected to get there at 9.01. A quick fuel stop and a brisket sandwich at Buccees off I65 in Alabama and we are rolling on through the night.

Finally we get to Barber Motorsports park in Leeds Alabama. Just before 9pm we get in line and get signed in. The team ahead of us is just realizing they lost a wheel off their enclosed sometime on their tow in. The way I was driving before we stopped for fuel I could have lost the car out the back like in the movie Cars and not noticed. Luckily everything seems to be in one piece, we give everything a check over and drop the trailer and head off to the hotel which is thankfully just across the street from the entrance to the track.

The next morning we are up early. No Gill this race as he has had foot surgery and is out of commission, which means we are sorely missing his cooking skills. So we take advantage of the breakfast at the hotel and head over to the track. After we unload the car we have a discussion which ends with us moving across the paddock to the far side as the side we have had for the last few years is shorter and we can't park the trailer in that area as the new trailer is about ten foot longer than the old open trailer.

After the first of two drivers meetings of the weekend (many tracks do the practice day and hold their own drivers meeting to explain their own rules, then the next day Lemons runs the race and has their drivers meeting) we load a driver in the car and send him out to practice. Rinse and repeat until we have sent all the drivers out for a few laps.

By then it is time for inspections. First off all the tech inspection. They have a big crew this race but our favorite inspector Dale Strimple is there. He's knowledgeable, affable and very popular among all the racers. Every day is also his birthday, a story best told later. He and the other tech people soon pass our car then it's time for BS tech.

We have gone all out this race for our theme. This has been a long time thought of mine, it just took a while to get it enacted. So for context I am a cancer survivor and we are always doing crazy themes to try and draw attention to the importance of early detection in cancer improving your chances. In the past we have done free colonscopy tests with huge antique cameras and motor oil for props which thankfully no one took us up on. Later we have done dinosaurs with the inflatable dino costumes to bring home the point that that "dinosaurs never got checked and now they are extinct" which is also on the side of the car. It was popular, I mean who doesn't like to see a inflatable dinosaur walking around?

Today we have again upped our game. We are taking a scene from one of the funniest movies I have ever seen, Johnny Dangerously. There's a part where Micheal Keaton's character is counseling his younger brother not to have sex until he is married, which is funny in itself because Micheals character is always surrounded by a crowd of ladies who apparently are all competing for his affections. Anyhow he shows his brother this video of all these poor guys who are suffering from poor choices that have caused them to have severely enlarged testicles. Like basketball sized. Watch it sometime, it's hilarious. So we made up special pants to hold some dodgeballs and shirts that said: "mens health is no joke, get checked before you croak!" We got a lot of attention for that and even made the wrap video. Walking in those pants with the dodgeballs was not easy!

The next day it's race day. It could not be a nicer day in Alabama. Temps are great, sun is shining. We get through the drivers meeting and line up the cars. Racerguy is going first, we are trying to balance our drivers so that everyone gets one start or one finish for the weekend. It's fun to finish the race or the day and fun to start as well.

The flag drops and we are off. It was a complete fiasco at the start! Someone oiled down half the track on the pace laps and the track was not ready when they dropped the green. It was an immediate yellow but cars where stacking up and passing then realizing the yellow was out. Race control messed up that one pretty badly. It took another ten minutes to clean the track. Finally it really is time for a start and we go green for real. Racerguy is driving smooth as always and moving up. He brings the car from 87th out of 131 cars there to a respectable 39th when the first incident happens. A car spins and hits our rf wheel. Racerguy didn't think much of it but they flagged him in anyway. While in the penalty box we realize the rf is going flat. I did not see it then but by the time we get the car up to our spot in the paddock the wheel is destroyed. We slap another wheel on and send him back out. We lost nearly all the spots we gained, dropping to 78th on the board. Sucks but it happens.

The rest of his stint goes great and he brings the car back to pit road and we put in Youngest. He is running great and the car is showing no signs of any issues from the earlier contact. He starts making up ground and we get all the way up to 54th. Then I get a radio call. "The car is on fire and stopped running!"

What?!!! I radio back asking if he needs to get out of the car. "I'm trying to decide that" Ok, maybe not such a big fire then? We have to wait for more information and in a few minutes the rollback shows up with him in the car. We have had a wiring fire from the passenger side floorboard where the stock PCM harness is. I immediately think the car is done but after Youngest gets some fresh air he jumps in and cuts all the burnt wires out and patches it all up. Start to finish we are off the track an hour and a half and drop to 90th.

I suit up and take the car out to see if it will run or not. It struggles and will only get up to 45, so I bring it right back in. Youngest thinks he knows exactly what is wrong and jumps in again and patches one more wire. I go out and the car is spot on. I start clicking off laps and trying some things the guys said to do to improve on my lap times. There's a few parts where I just need to be more aggressive and roll through and trust the car more. I pick up about four seconds off my best time and am pretty pleased by that. The car runs flawless for the rest of my stint and I bring it back to pit road for the crew to fuel and driver change. We put Manny in the car and send him out. He's running some fast laps and really pushing the car. All the sudden we realize we do not see the car going by. One of the other teams say our car is in the wall on the front stretch. Manny comes over the radio "I FUBAR'ed it" Great, The front stretch at Barber is one of the places I have noted will bite you pretty hard. I have seen a few Lemons cars get really messed up there including a 63 Valiant last year. I am expecting the worst when the roll back comes by with the car for the second time this day.

It's pretty bad. The nose is knocked sideways, the steering is all out of sorts, a closer look reveals the lf tie rod is broken. The right rear is all messed up, the wheel is pushed so far forward it is into the quarter panel and won't even turn. We put the car up on jack stands and look it over. Not good. But there's glimmers of hope. The radiator is not broke. The engine is still fine. The core of the car seems square. And we have almost an entire Miata in parts in totes in our trailer. Maybe we can fix this. I start dragging out parts and we start changing them. The tie rod on the front is soon changed and we now have both wheels pointing the same direction. Youngest takes the nose off and straightens the brackets that hold it and the splitter in place and adds a whole lot of zip ties.

On the rear it just keeps going and going deeper. We change the knuckle, the lower control arm and the upper. We spend a long time saving the bolt that goes through the lower control arm and knuckle, we do not have another. This one is bent and has questionable threads too. In true lemons never say die fashion we beat it out of the bent parts, straighten it and when we cannot find the correct die to chase the threads we use one that is close and pray it works. It does, but then we get it all back together and realize even with all the parts replaced we still have two inches of rear toe. Just a wee more than the 1/16th we started with.

Turns out the rear subframe is bent, so we all go out and start walking the pits looking to borrow a port a power. This small hydraulic jack comes with rams and other attachments and has a pump attached to a hose so you can jack and bend parts that are bent like ours. We actually end up borrowing two after searching almost every team that is still around. It's getting dark, rain is moving in after midnight and the clock is ticking on the car being done. Is it fixable or is the damage terminal? There are three guys under the car jacking and measuring and I am handing them parts and tools and making a run for food.

In a dramatic fashion, they pull it out. I run for food and they finally announce the car is perfect. I think they worked until nearly midnight, but everything they measured was on the money. It was an amazing effort and a huge comeback. We all fall into an exhausted sleep wondering if the car will drive good tomorrow or did we miss something important.

The next morning dawns and as expected its raining. And colder. I cannot emphasize enough just how wet and cold it was. All day long it rained and I think the temps dropped. Made for a miserable day, pretty sure even a duck would have been unhappy.

I go out first, I had called this stint early on. Sometimes you have to pull the car owner card. It's a two hour stint then a quiet hour then the race resumes.

We gas up the car and I line up. The car seems to drive straight, but it is raining and the track is slippery so who really knows? The car stumbles a bit on accel and I wonder if we outsmarted ourselves with our home made ram air system that sucks air from right below where the left headlight was. It keeps on doing that for a few laps then finally gets better.

Driving in the rain is not without it's challenges. You have to drive very carefully and not push the car too hard. The fun part is the Miata goes straight when you floor it so anytime I get a chance I gas it up and go hard to the next corner where I slow down and ease through it. Soon enough another issue arises. The windshield starts fogging up. It gets real bad on yellow flags where we all slow down then gets better if I have a good run at speed, but there are times a smart person would have pulled off as you cannot see much at all. But most of us aren't real smart. I can't reach the windshield or I would try to wipe it. The temptation is there to loosen the belts and get enough room to reach but even I am not that crazy. I keep the belts tight but do take off one glove and give it a few swipes under a long yellow then hasten to put the gloves back on. There's probably not much chance of a fire in these conditions but no sense chancing it. I've seen pictures of burns from race car incidents and they aren't pretty.

On one corner I make a mistake, I get off line to let a really aggressive car go by. It's the Party Girl car and they are hyper aggressive. If you would think they would wait to pass until you get through a critical part you'd be wrong, they typically will jam their car in wherever they can and go on. Other fast cars are a bit more respectful and do a better job on the give and take. Not wanting to make an issue, I get over and promptly realize there is zero grip outside on this corner and slide through the grass. I go to penalty and explain what happened. The judge asks if I learned anything, I said "Yes, next time to be a jerk" I might not have used that exact wording but I meant it. The same car also was what indirectly caused the wreck the day before, their aggressive driving was what caused Manny to get the red mist when they did the same thing passing him. He over drove the car after that and lost it. Mental note to drive them the same way going forward, we both can be hyper aggressive and see where that leads. We have a few more cars to build in the driveway if need be.

After my two hours are up, I bring the car in and explain about the terrible fogging and vision issue. Manny goes out after the quiet hour and slides off the track for black flag number two. It's just very nasty out there and cars are going off all the time. We fix up a ice scraper with a rag tied to it to give the driver a method of clearing the fog. It's primative but way better than nothing. The drivers report they used it quite a bit the rest of the day. It's just gloomy and the race is going on, but cars are hydroplaning if they get into the water which is starting to pool on parts of the track. The rest of us are watching from inside Manny's car with the heat on, it's gotten that cold and wet.

We are so far behind now we aren't bothering to suit up and go to pit lane. Rather we bring the car up to the pumps, get the driver out and fuel and put the next driver in. It's still raining and not having to get anymore wet than necessary is a plus. Racerguy gets flagged in after he's run about half his stint and he has no idea why. Apparently the cameras show what they thought was contact in the corner, he says he got real close and braked hard to avoid it. The car shows no new signs of contact. The judge tells us one more flag and he's parking us for the rest of the day. Over contact that someone thought they saw on camera that apparently never happened. (I went to look this up on our go pro footage but the chip glitched and we had no footage)

Racerguy goes out and finishes. He reports the same as Manny, the track is getting increasingly treacherous. Very few cars are getting around good, if you have a front wheel drive with skinny tires, today was your day. I saw a escort wagon running laps as fast as us and later the Dodge Caravan passed us.

Youngest goes out and after about 15 minutes I notice the lap counter is not updating. I look outside the trailer and he is in the car, sitting there. We go out and he announces he cannot drive the car anymore, it's sideways all the time. I ask if he wants to load the car and he said yes. I don't object. We race for the fun of it, and at that point none of us were having fun. We loaded in the rain and left before the race was over. Many other teams had already done the same. Some were gone before the day ever started. We have raced in the rain before but this was the worst conditions I have ever seen on the track. Barber is a top notch facility, it was just such a lingering rain and the temps being below 40 made it miserable. The vision and grip levels seemingly got worse as the day went on and the water built up and the temps dropped. We saw a lot of big problems and overcame many. Probably if we were not so exhausted from fixing the car and were in the hunt for anything we might have stayed until the end. As it were, we dropped from 65th to 67th or so. Time to rebuild and get dried out and ready for the next race.

Can your employer change your hours worked from 40 to 13 hours worked if you worked everyday and completed 40 hours on commission pay? My husband is 58 and he is having trouble keeping up with the other younger mechanics. He is working so hard and even trying to work 7 days a week just to make a descent paycheck.

What are the things related to your shop that bothers the SH*T outta you?! Or things that gets in the way of your success? By all means, this is an opportunity to vent! But after reading these posts, I think that's the point of this sub. So other than people, what other things bother you and/or prevent success as a mechanic or shop owner?

I've got a few stories that have a common theme, even though they are all unrelated. I got paid for diagnostics for every last one of them (whether or not the customer paid for said diagnostics isn't my department), and all of them could have been fixed if the customer had remembered 4 simple letters. RTFM. Read The Fucking Manual. Here they are, in no particular order.

Story #1, Transit Connect

Customer brought in their Transit Connect with a complaint of a whirring noise above their head when the engine was running. I get in and start the engine, sure enough, I can hear a whirring noise coming from above and behind my head. It sounds just like a blower motor (aka the HVAC fan). I bring the van inside and look at the back of the center console to see if it's got rear HVAC controls. Sure enough it does. I turn the fan control on the back of the center console to the "off" position, and the noise goes away.

Story #2, Subaru Outback

My (now ex) wife called me up and asked if I could check the windows on her car when she came home for the weekend since they weren't working. I thought this was rather odd, since Subaru window regulators never go bad (at least I've never had any complaints about them in the 20+ years I've been doing this professionally) so I doubted that there was anything wrong with the windows on her car. I asked her if she had hit the window lockout button by accident. She assured me that she hadn't hit the button by mistake. I asked her to go outside and check it just to make sure. I heard her go outside and open her car door, then I heard the click of the lockout button and the whir of the windows working. She got mad at me for making her feel stupid by diagnosing a car from an hour and a half away over the phone.

Story #3, Ford Focus

Customer brings his 2016ish Focus to my shop. His concern is that the "wave your foot under the rear bumper and open the trunk" feature doesn't work. On certain models (The C-Max, Edge, Explorer and Expedition come readily to mind, there may be others) there was an optional extra you could get that would put a sensor in the rear bumper so that you could wave you foot under it and open the rear hatch. Ford has only ever put that on cars that had rear hatches that would open all the way up electrically. The Focus never had that as an option, and I'm not sure if such a thing could even be adapted to a Focus chassis. The customer got angry with me when I explained that Ford never gave the Focus that optional extra.

Story #4, Toyota Corolla

Customer has her Toyota Corolla towed to my shop with a crank-no-start condition. We push the car inside and I notice that the fuel gauge is on empty. As a test, I get the shop gas card and the gas can, go and buy a gallon of gas and dump it in the tank. After a slightly extended cranking time (since the fuel system had to repressurize itself), the car started and ran just fine. I happened to overhear the conversation between the service adviser and the customer when he told her how we fixed the car; "Ma'am, your car's all fixed, it just ran out of gas. We only put in a gallon so you're going to want to go directly to a gas station and refuel it". She responded "You mean I have to keep buying parts for this piece of shit? I thought Toyotas were supposed to be reliable. No one told me that I had to keep buying parts for it. This is ridiculous. I'm going to sue General Motors over this." She took her keys and left, never to be seen again.

As I review these posts, I'm wondering if/how do you get your repair data (repair instructions, trouble codes, TSB, labor times etc..)? It seems that this info. would help answer some of these posts or make things easier? Please elaborate if I'm wrong?

So we do a lot of work for a local car lot. They bring a ton of incoming cars to us and have us check them over. Most cars they fix whatever it needs like tires, brakes, wipers etc. A few need more than they want to sink in and those go back to the auction to get resold. Some have major components needing replacement and in those cases they go into arbitration with the auction to see what will happen. It's a good steady stream of business right now.

So the other day a guy shows up with a 2017 Ford Escape. He bought it from the car lot months ago and he has seen a leak. We put it up on a rack and see that the outboard axle seal is leaking on the side of the transaxle. I take him back there and show him.

His first question is are we going to fix it for free? Umm, why exactly would we do that? He says it is clear (to him) that it was leaking six months ago when we inspected it, that we clearly missed it and should step up and fix it.

I tell him that A) No it is not clear we missed anything, if it were leaking we would have heard about it long ago. B) That we did not do any work for him, our ticket is with the car lot and they apparently do not have an issue. (They cover stuff for thirty days and we will work with them on problems) and that C) he signed an AS-IS when he bought that car and it did not have a warranty. Every used car in our state is sold with such. And D) we aren't going to do anything on a Escape transmission anyway, those have a reputation and we send all such out to a local transmission shop anyway.

The guy comes unglued and starts saying how when he was in the Coast Guard if he inspected it and it wasn't right they would take care of it. I started to point out that he was not personally writing the check, rather the taxpayers were taking care of his bill, but whatever.

It got better, he was going to tell every one of his friends not to come to a shop he never spent money with in the first place, he was going to get all over social media (never happened) and give us bad reviews and he was going to contact his lawyer and call the local TV news channel. I gave him my card and told him to do what he needed to do and to have a good day.

I haven't been on the news for a long time, hope they get my good side when they come!

I have a 2013 Hyundai Sonata that needs a tow to a town 10 minutes away and then a repair for a new alternator. I wanted to know if this quote sounds reasonable or not because I’ve called around to a few other places and they either only fix auto body, or they don’t have a tow truck or it’s just gets really complicated where this place has a tow truck and a repair shop all in one. They said the tow would be around 150. Then the repair around 550 for a new alternator and the labor and this was just a rough estimate to me. The seems pretty pricey because the alternator is around $100-$200 so just wanted to see if this sounds like a fair price to everyone else?!

Yall tell me the truth…. Do the mechanics mess tiny things up so I can go back 🫢

I recently had a customer bring their 2023 F-150 in for a check engine light. The truck has almost 8000 miles on it. There are codes for a misfire on cylinder 4 and an oxygen sensor voltage stuck low. I open the hood and find a critter nest on top of the intake manifold. I take a picture of the nest, put on a mask (I already had gloves on) and remove the nest. Into the trash can it goes. I use compressed air to blow the rest of the debris out from under the hood. I found several chewed wires, one of which is going to necessitate replacement of the connector for the number 4 ignition coil since the wire is chewed off right at the connector. The other broken wires are repairable.

I write up the estimate with a bunch of pictures to show that I'm not making this up and charge 5 hours to repair all the wiring. Several of the wires are nearly inaccessible without disassembling half the engine first which is why I'm charging so much.

I send the estimate off to the parts department who price out the connector I need, then they send it off to the service adviser. He then calls the customer, emails them the estimate and the pictures, and then he gets complained at by the customer because "It's a new expletive truck, it should be fixed for expletive free. You all are a bunch of expletive expletive rip offs who should all be arrested for scamming people"

Of course, the service adviser is an absolute legend who simply let the customer whine and moan for a while then they said in a very calm voice "Sir, Ford didn't install the mouse, so they're not going to pay for the damage to your truck."

The customer declined to have us repair their truck and insisted that we give it back to them. I'm guessing that they're going to attempt and repair it themselves, or they're taking it somewhere else for repairs. Makes no never mind to me, my car runs great and I really didn't expect them to have us fix their truck anyway. This customer has bought a bunch of cars from the dealership where I work over the years and has spent <$100 on repairs in the last 5 years. All they ever come in for is recalls/warranty work and the occasional state inspection if it happens to be due when they're in for something else.

What’s the hardest part about taking your car into the dealership for any repair?

Back about 7/8 years ago I worked in a Backstreet garage in a village that was adjacent to my home town. We was always busy and had a good reputation. The boss was called Blue. He was an awful, chain smoking, 6”4, miserable, reprehensible bully, just all in all a vile man.

Anyways one day a local lady brings in her diesel Vauxhall vectra claiming it was low on power and not sounding right, we deduced it was a blown boost pipe, while I was rooting my hands around the engine as it was running I couldn’t find the source of the leak. The boss being his typical awfulness responds with something along the lines of “useless cunt”

He proceeded to get in the car revving it, increasing the revs each time with a sour and angry expression on his face, not quite sure what he was trying to achieve but I took some steps back whilst thinking to myself “this isn’t going to end well”

The noisy diesel engine went from sounding like a diesel to a broken diesel (later come to conclusion he over revved the engine and slipped the timing belt) anyways with he car running albeit terribly he sped it off the ramp and put it behind the building, went to the office to sulk and rang the lady that it “broke on the ramp”

She had to buy a new car at her expense

We get a call at the Auto Repair shop. "Hey we are just across the street from you" (not actually but not far) "and my moms car won't start. Can you come start it? I think it just needs a jump"

So of course they don't have the keys with them so we have to wait until the next morning for the keys to be with the car. We send a guy over and the car will not jump off at all.

I call back and tell them the car will need to be towed. We will do minor repairs off site but that is as far as it goes.

The customer agrees and a few hours later the car is towed in. I get it pushed in to a bay right before closing Thursday and there it sits.

Friday we play with it some more and the guys are about to call it a starter but something still bothers me so I want a few more checks. I was asking for a guy to verify voltage to the starter when you hit the key but we were so busy Friday that never happened. Been burned before over something stupid like a fuse or relay.

Monday the shop manager is back in after being off Friday and he gets right to the heart of the issue. He plays with the car and finds the correct diagnosis. The car is flashing a security code when it won't start. If you flip the key around and hold it just right the car will start. Looking at the key it is easy to see the issue. The key looks like they ran it over and zip tied it together. It must have a chip hidden somewhere in it and if you get it close enough it will start.

I call the customer and give them the update. I give them a range of prices based on past costs but emphasize that the car will need to have a new key built if they don't have a spare key. They do not and give me the go ahead to call in the mobile programmer that builds keys for us.

The key guy shows up and looks at the mangled key in all its glory. "Yeah, I can fix this"

He gives the shop manager two options for building the key, a cheaper option or a more expensive option with more bells and whistles. The shop manager and he both pause and look at the customers car. It's a 06 Mazda 6. The bumper cover is held on by zip ties. The only panel without a ding, shallow dent, scratch or damage is the roof. It's leaking some fluid on the floor where it sat since Thursday.

"I'll build the cheaper option"

"Good call"

Well, I'm writing a much longer story about my first project car, but it's taking a lot longer than I thought. Thing was a real pile. Anyway, before that, I have some stories from the college shop.

A student walks into the auto tech shop and asks for the instructor. One of us gets him, and he goes into his office with the inquiring student. A few minutes later he comes out looking a little frustrated and we get the story; apparently this student's car wouldn't start and it sounded funny while cranking. Just started happening after her classes this morning. He pretty sure it's a timing belt but the student wants to be sure.

So we push this 2001 Kia Rio into the shop and just from looking at the thing, you can tell that the most maintenance it's ever seen was an oil change. It's been in the student's family since about 50k and it now has almost a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it. Student had never gotten the timing belt changed. Sure enough, you can see an end of the belt poking out if you look underneath the car.

Student still wanted a new timing belt just to see if the engine was okay, because it happened while cranking. Instructor agrees but warns that this is an interference engine and it's likely dead. Mike, Dan, and I go ahead with the replacement. I was pretty much just moral support because as it turns out, it's really difficult to jam more than four hands into one side of the engine bay of a car with a transverse engine. In the span of two classes, the timing belt is duly replaced and we're ready to crank it over.

We're rewarded with a repeating zwee-pop-THWOOMP-zwee-pop-THWOOMP as the Rio skips two cylinders entirely, fires on one, and blows hot, fresh combustion out of the throttle body on the fourth. Student, and a particular classmate, had neglected to mention that they just kept cranking on the thing in the parking lot when it wouldn't start.

We briefly considered yanking the engine out of the school's 2003 Rio, but decided against it as we didn't see much point if it was going to get the same treatment. Props to whoever made the original timing belt, though, because it was original to the car at something close to three times its replacement mileage and nineteen years past its date of manufacture.

We are watching a truck pull up. It is one we know we have worked on before. I recall it needed a ton of work and they did part.

So we speculate, is he here to get the rest done or is he here because something is wrong?

We learn the answer when he comes in and complains that we did a lot of brake work and now the truck is beeping at him and the brake light stays on.

The service manager goes out and releases the parking brake. Which we did not set. Noise and light are now gone.

Just another day......

I know we must have some crossover. 🙂 Any Fleet folks out there? Feel free to chime in over at r/talesfromgovernment.

Sunday morning dawns. Another gorgeous Wisconsin morning. We arrive after buying enough fuel to make it to the end with extra as well. The team gets to getting the car ready again. Everything is checked again, the hub bearings, the brakes, the fluids, tire pressures, it all gets a look. We go over the car looking for loose bolts. After a discussion we rotate the rear tires side to side. When you go through the chicane that is designed to slow the cars through the kink it really unloads the chassis and you spin the rr tire. It's the first time I have really wanted a limited slip rear differential in the car as it sucks when you are spinning the tire and cars are pulling away from you.

I had originally thought we would start with Chris but he and Manny trade out. Manny wants to drive and Chris is good with whatever.

Manny is making an adjustment to the rear wing angle and the front wing mounts both break. They are aluminum and no one is surprised. We are pressed for time and break out the heavy duty zip ties. The front wing mount braces hold the wing up and the zip ties hold it down. It should work right?

We get Manny out on the track and while they are getting the cars out there I dash off to the gift shop. I bought a set of matched old Murray bicycles his and hers to ride with the wife when she is able too and started taking one to the race track. It helps as some days my feet still rebel after a lot of steps. It is part of the after effects of chemotherapy. Neuropathy is no joke. But I am still alive to tell the story. I ride down and buy Road America sweat shirts and get back to the trailer to monitor the racing.

Manny is running some fast laps and we are watching the car as it goes by. The wing looks kind of funny but it is holding in there. Until it wasn't!

I radio Manny "Hey you are losing your wing!"

"What?"

"You are loosing your wing!, Can you make it two laps?"

"Ok"

The wing is barely holding on but now three of the mounts have let go and it is flopping around.

Manny radios a half lap later, "Coming in, they are black flagging me"

Darn. We had hoped to run a bit longer and do the fuel stop all at the same time. Manny first must go to the penalty box to see about the black flag. He reports he has to come back after we remove the wing. We meet Manny at the trailer and remove the wing. We also remove the tall wing brackets that FabGuy built, no need for those to be flopping around with no wing attached to stabilize the brackets. We also take a battery sawzall and trip the flits which attach from the air dam and go up in front of the front wheel wells. The reasoning behind this is to try and balance out the down force as we reduced the rear downforce by taking off the wing, we want to reduce the front to balance the car and also remove a bit of drag.

Then Manny goes back to the penalty box and makes a lap while we hustle down to the fueling area on pit road. He comes in and we are waiting on him and we fuel the car and put Alvin in the car. It is a popular time for fueling and we struggle to get a spot, Manny has to wait for a car to finish so we can pull in.

Alvin goes out and he is running fast consistent times and even gets down to 3.26. Just off the average we are running for Sunday which is a little faster than the day before. Less cars and more familiarity with the track.

Then another team meets with misfortune. A team running a older Volvo, (like 60's model, rounded but very fast) looses control and hits a wall coming out of the carousel. He flips two or three times and ends upside down. An announcement is made as the track goes full yellow then they flag all the cars off track. "Driver is out and ok" A collective sigh of relief is made. No one wants to see anyone hurt at these events ever. The driver will actually post later on FB. The car is a total, they will be building a new one. Lemons has a rule that if you flip over, the driver cannot race again in their series for a full year. It sends home the point that you are to be in control and not over the edge of your abilities. I am not sure how they enforce that rule on incidents that the driver did not cause like someone hitting you causing the roll over.

All the cars are on the pit road and waiting as they clear the wreck and do a repair to the wall. Even the teams that were on pit road have to leave their cars and stop the fueling process until the red flag is lifted. We look at how things are situated and think hmm.

We radio Alvin. "hey if they let you turn hard right and let's fuel and change drivers. If not go make a lap."

If we can stop right there we can make up some valuable seconds. Will they let us fuel or will they make us go around. A few other teams have figured it out as well. We all line up and look at each other wondering if we can pull this off or will there be too many teams for the open stalls.

Finally the red is lifted. We jockey for position and another team and we make an arrangement right at the last second for who goes where but it works! We get Alvin out and pull off a fuel stop and driver change. The only thing that goes wrong is that one of the crew inadvertently burps the fire extinguisher. You have to have one for every stop and a crew member pointing it at the guy hold the gas can from a safe distance. After the stop he was setting down the fire extinguisher and it went off for a half a second. I look at the gauge and that little bit was enough to put it in the red. I toss it and grab a new one out of the trailer for the next stop. Good thing I ordered a few new ones for the race. They don't check but you would feel pretty stupid holding one that was dead if you ever needed it. A little extinguisher is only enough to get the fuel guy enough time to run away anyhow, more would be needed if it was a big fire.* See bonus story

When Manny came in we dropped to 48th Since then we have been floating around that 45-46 place position all day. I'd be happy with that but it is in our nature to always want more. I would love to leave here in the top 40. Out of 142 cars that would put us solidly in the top third of the field.

Chris puts in a solid run and while he does not beat Manny's fast time of the day he does beat mine from yesterday by several seconds. I am torn between being mad that I am now third overall fastest in my own car and thrilled on how much he has progressed in only his third race. I still have one more stint, maybe I can catch him yet.

Chris comes in 44th overall and we knock out a good stop. I leave out 46th. There's few yellows and some knots of traffic but I run a very consistent stint and keep putting laps down. I battle with several cars including a red Honda that I am faster than but keeps blocking me every time I get a run. With a Miata it's hard to power past him, I need a run into a corner and to keep my momentum up. But he blocks me several times. I try not to get frustrated and run my race. No need to do anything stupid. I get a few clean laps in but the best I put down is still two seconds slower than Chris. I know I can run some of the corners faster, it is just hard to put everything together and run them perfect. That is the joy of racing. It is you versus the track. And every lap is a different story. If I brake earlier, shift later, turn in later, it all matters. Sometimes it is hard not to bleed off too much speed rolling into those corners at Road America.

Only too soon I get radioed that time is counting down. By my count I get two or three more laps. I come up on the red Honda one more time and he has slowed. Don't know why but I power past.

"Checkered in the air, bring it home!" I love to be in the car to see the checkers. It's the end of a fun day and I had a great run in the car. They radio that we finished 39th. We are pumped. I take the cool down lap and wave at the flaggers. Can't race without the great support crews like them and the track workers who go out and tow our stuff back off the track when it breaks.

Coming back in I go through the gauntlet of the Lemons crews who are lined up giving the cars and drivers coming off the track a ovation. I high five Eric and a few others on the Lemons staff and a ton of the other crews as I drive through.

We load up everything and I learn I picked up that last spot on the last lap. We are happy with where we finished and can't say enough good things about the Miata. It ran perfect this race. Best of all I learn the racing software we installed lost most of the days data where everyone else had raced. I restarted it when they were belting me in, so it recorded my top speed of the day at 110mph. The day before with the wing and extra downforce was only 108 and we did not see any real loss of lap speed without the downforce. It's a learning process to be sure with the down force. I'm just glad I get to have bragging rights about something even if it was due to loss of data.

Manny and I head south through Milwaukee and then Chicago. It will be 12 hours until we arrive home at 5 am. We will switch off driving and make our way south, stopping for a second to pick up my wife and leave off some tires my nephew ordered for the farm.

Going through Chicago I see the red Honda ahead of us on a trailer being towed by a F150. I pass them again.

​

***BONUS STORY

So my Dad is a mechanic now retired. He used to be the night shift at a truck stop off 57 in corn country. He was there one morning and witnessed this happen.

A guy in in a hurry and drives off from the pumps with the hose attached to the car, pulling it in two. A fire breaks out and another employee runs up with a fire extinguisher. He empties it and another guy tosses him a second. He empties it and the same guy tosses him a third. After it was all said and done the guy tossing the extinguisher said "I sure as h___ wasn't going to jump in there and fight that fire and risk the gas blowing up, but as long as he was going to stand there I would throw him fire extinguishers all day long" It's all about perspective.

Another story from those days. A guy jumps in and drives away with the nozzle still in his truck, pulling the hose in two. This time no fire. He rolls down the window without stopping and yells "send me the bill, I'm in a hurry!"

We are up early Saturday morning. Race day! We gather everyone and head to the track. Again driving through that part of Wisconsin is so nice. Apparently there is a ferry where we are too, but I never see it. I am locked on race mode and I am not sure if I ever saw Lake Michigan the whole time I was there. It's par for the course, there is always something to be done. I have been to Barber twice and never saw the museum which I hear is really cool and I have been to NCM over a dozen times and have yet to see the Corvette museum.

We fill our gas cans up on the way to the track. I am driving first but make the decision to risk eating a breakfast bagel. Most times I forgo eating as nothing sucks more than having heartburn in the car. I drove once with terrible heartburn from a Blueberry muffin that Gill made of all things. (Gill is battling a bone spur in his foot which will require surgery so he has had to miss a few races) Normally I don't have issues but in a race car with everything going on, it is a different world. Youngest won't eat for hours before he gets in the car either. Chris had to cut his first stint in the car short due to not feeling well and takes antacid before he gets in now with a couple other things. Learning how to manage your issues takes a race or too. All the adrenaline, g forces, fumes and vibrations affect you differently when you are belted in the car for a hour or two. Today this choice works out, Sunday I will forgo lunch as I am getting keyed up to drive later in the day that day.

We get to the track and get to work. We unload the car taking out all the parade items, strip the lights off, and put it up on jack stands. We have a routine for race day and this is no different. Different crew members check for loose parts, check the brake wear, check the wheel bearings for looseness, check all the fluids and then today we swap back to the race tires from the set we put on the day before to parade. We top off the fuel tank and install the radio and Go Pros. Everything is done and the torque wrench is brought out to tighten the wheels. The last step is to set air pressures and we are waiting for a team to return our air pump.

We go to the mandatory drivers meeting and get mostly the same information as we always get, paddock speeds, what the flags mean, where we are exiting and entering the track today. Trouble is brewing and no one knows what is about to happen.

We get back and still no air pump. I go to the team next to us who is rocking a cool patriot theme with a S10 Blazer and borrow their air tank. We get that set, strap me into the car, start the Go Pro's and check the radios. We are running cheap radios which only reach part of the track and we usually end up "repeat that, we did not understand" Some teams don't even use radios, just tell their driver to come in at X time. We do that as a back up as well, we tell the driver to be back on the pit road at a certain time.

I am driving first for a few reasons. One being we thing the start will be a bit crazy with 142 cars out there. That number is dropping fast however, a few ran into issues on practice day. Some more literally than others, a Miata with a Caddy engine found a wall somewhere and are trying to bolt enough parts on the car to get back out there. A Mini Cooper that came all the way from California is putting a engine they borrowed from another Mini team in their car, a job that they worked late into the night on. They will make it back out after lunch. The Miata will only make a handful of laps all weekend while the Mini will run all weekend after the engine swap.

I pull out to grid the car and they check that I have all the required stuff. The sticker on the car shows it went through tech. The sticker on my helmet shows I went through gear check for all my safety gear. My wristband shows I am registered to drive. They also check my seatbelts and make sure my neck restraint is hooked up properly. Lastly they check to make sure someone pulled the safety pin on the fire suppression system so that if I need it it will work. I then get a fist bump for Eric and tell him to warm up the penalty box. He laughs and promises to be ready.

I am in the early bunch of cars so we sit there while more and more cars filter out and get checked and then grid. The Lemons staff is on it and they have two lines of people checking the cars to get out to grid due to the high turnout for the race.

Finally it is time for us to roll out. Lemons starts are always challenging, you go out and circulate and when it gets to the appointed time on the clock they drop the green whether you are on the front stretch or not. That is one thing you want the radios for so someone can call the green. Nothing is worse than getting caught and being passed by a few cars before you can recover. We get the green and we are off.

As expected the start of the race is crazy. Cars start breaking from the very start. I take the green and don't even get back to the flag stand before getting a yellow flag for a car broke down. There were times where there are two or three cars off track at the same time, mostly all from mechanical issues. Then we get all black flag which means leave track, something is broke. I pull off and about half the cars do, the other half keep going. I hope they did not get a lap up on us due to the fact we know what the flags mean and the other drivers went another lap before they figured it out. Turns out a car a Ford Thunderbird by the looks of it, has put down a ton of oil and they want to clean the track properly. I shut off the engine so I don't have to ride the brake and can relax. After about 15 minutes we get the word to crank up and go again.

That first stint wasn't anything to write home about. It was incredibly difficult to get a clear track to run a entire lap without catching slow traffic or having to make room for the faster cars. Later we download the data and find out our top speed attained was 108mph. The Miata was running great, just that we don't have the top speed others do. I hear of top speeds of 131 and 141 from other teams on the long straights, and I can tell you some of them were catching us in a big hurry on the straights. You learn to make sure you are clear before setting up to pass a slower car lest you pull right in front of a car doing twenty miles an hour faster coming up behind you. I run a 3:22 and for most of the day that stands as fast time.

I come in and we fuel up the car for Chris. We realize then our math is all wrong. The car is taking way more fuel than we planned. It has to be the long straights where we are on the gas so long. Many tracks you do a lot of on and off the gas but this track has several parts where we are on the gas in fourth gear and are holding it against the rev limiter for several seconds before you lift. Manny experiments with trying fifth gear but reports at times it's hard to get back into fourth and third. I don't need the distraction, my driving is bad enough so I limit my shifts to third and fourth gear with the exception of the chicane they installed to limit our speeds around the Kink. Rolling up on that I brake hard, slam the car into second and turn into the chicane. Not a few cars miss that turn and end up out on the grass during the day. After the hard left you turn back right and it's a slight right turn to get back to the track. The Miata does not have a limited slip and it really shows here, I am hard pressed to get power down in second as the car is light on the right rear and wants to spin.

Anyway we look at fuel usage and do the math and realize that if we did not have the 15 minute stoppage and all the yellows we would have ran out of gas. We will need to adjust things for the rest of the race but we dodged a bullet there!

Chris runs his stint and he runs clean. I am pumped for a few reasons one being I still have the fastest time of the day.

Then it's time to put Alvin in the car. Many times we only run rookie drivers 50-55 minutes for the first race stint. But we just refigured everything and really need him to run about 25 minutes more. He's up for the challenge. I look over and he is eating chili cheese fritos with thirty minutes before he gets into the car. Chris and I both had told him about not eating anything that might upset his stomach before getting in the car but he isn't worried a bit.

Alvin goes out and proceeds to show us there was nothing to worry about. He soon is running race pace laps only ten seconds slower than what the rest of us were averaging, a huge improvement over the day before. It's exciting seeing how much he has progressed. He runs a clean stint and comes in without any issues, car or stomach.

It's Manny's turn and we watch the lap times as he slowly gets faster and faster. It's a combination of him being more aggressive and also there are fewer cars on the track than any other time all day. I hold out hope my time will stand but Manny proceeds to tie it then beat it by a few seconds. He then gets pushed off the track enough to get flagged avoiding contact. He goes to the penalty box and usually a first time offense gets you a short talking to then permission to return to the track. He later recounts that they were seemingly too busy to bother with him and he just sits there for a couple of minutes. Something is amiss.

About that time I get a call from FabGuy. He has found a livestream of the race and has been watching from afar. He tells me that the livestream also has a monitor of Race Control where you can hear the calls for cars to be pulled off the track, debris on track, any wrecks and the black flags when someone messes up. This livestream is from another team and FabGuy can hear them discussing the record number of teams who have gotten black flagged and sent to the penalty box for passing under yellow. He is calling to warn us before we get busted for the change in procedure.

Here is what happened: Lemons has typically ran the rule where when you see a yellow flag you immediately stop racing, try to get in single file until you clear the incident. Most times it is easy to see what the yelw, car off track, parts fell off car, track truck hooking up to pull car in etc. Once you are past the incident you are clear to resume racing unless you can see a yellow at the next station. What gets you in trouble is when you fail to see the yellow and you pass a car or two that did see the yellow and slowed up. That will get you flagged and a good talking to in the penalty box. Typically I wave out the window when I see a yellow to let the car behind me know not to pass or hit me when I slow up.

What happened at Road America was that the flaggers were under the impression they were running on a different set of rules Saturday. They were flagging you if you passed before the flag station after the incident. We never got busted because our car is not fast enough to pass cars in that short distance, it takes us a while to speed back up. But I heard through the grapevine there were a ton of teams that got flagged for that issue and were very upset about it. I think Lemons got caught unaware of this until it was going on and I believe it was fixed by Sunday as I did not hear anything more about it. But for some of the teams who got caught I can understand why they were upset. Typically the flagging crew are independent contractors who are hired for each race and live locally. The practice day which is ran by the track used the different rules and no one followed up to make sure the flaggers knew apparently. Good times.

Anyhow Manny comes back after finishing the day. The car ran great. The drivers all did great. One black flag but that happens. We are all excited how things went, so far it has been a lot better than the last two races. We gather up Chris's and Alvin's parents and Alvin's family and head out to eat after checking the car over to make sure it's ok to race.

Before we can leave another Miata team comes over. They are a fellow NA team and somehow they came up to Road America with no spare brake pads or rotors. We have the carbotech pads on the car which are wearing great, plenty of friction material left for Sunday, and a spare set of brake pads on the car. Then I have an entire tote of stock 1.6 Miata brake parts including new Hawk pads and Centric rotors. I pull the tote out and they nearly come to tears of happiness. I end up selling them everything they need except one caliper for whatever I paid for them. They do not realize they need a caliper until the next morning. I have one but it is rusty, they loose several hours getting it fixed and get out there Sunday. It's great to be able to help another team, that's how Lemons rolls.

to be continued....

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Road America. Wow. We pull in and even though I am prepared, I am still impressed. This is one of the biggest tracks we have ever raced on. And it is both the largest and has the most amenities of any place we have raced to date. The gift shop is huge, there are many concession shops all over, (only one was open) and the whole layout is open and so user friendly. They are also hosting some sort of fright night events at a part of the grounds we are not using for the race. It's Thursday and we are waiting with a huge crowd of racers to get in. We are 91st in line but not everyone ahead of us has a truck and trailer, that number accounts for every vehicle in line. Manny and I get signed up for the practice day Friday, our other two team members are not here yet.

I wander around the crowd and meet old friends and talk to some new teams as well. One guy I only know through FB and I have been picking his brain over our new build which might get finished someday, so it was good to see him in person. He races with his wife and they are racing a new build for them this weekend with a great theme. They brought a camper full of their kids and the theme on their Trans Am was "failed contraception racing" Later at the block party they will have a person dressed up in an inflatable condom costume. Good times.

We get released to go into the track and they start sending in three vehicles at a time. We wind our way in and find a really great spot to set up, just almost across from the start finish line and right on the fence where we can watch cars go down pit road and watch them go past on the front stretch on one of the faster parts of the track. I wander around and see a few other teams we know and think again, this place is huge. Manny points out there are interior roads to different places in the track, he learned the layout when he was there spotting for the Xfinity race. It makes for some great spots to go view from the inside of the track where most places we race you are limited to a few spots from the outside only to view the racing action. Part of this is the fact that the track itself is so long. Over four miles, the longest track we have ever raced to date. NCM full course is 3.15 and this is 4.048 nearly a full mile longer. We look around and try to get a feel for where the important things are like drivers meeting, track on entrance and track off and where they will do the inspections and have the penalty box, hopefully we will not visit said penalty box at all this race!. We unhook the trailer and chock the wheels, not in that order and head to the hotel at the end of a long day.

About the hotel: Manny booked it and faced with staying closer or driving a bit farther for a nicer place we opted to drive another ten minutes or so and stay in a place with higher ratings. For some reason I think he booked us into a place in Fond Du Lac when actually we are in Manitowoc and it throws me for a loop the next morning when we are bearing south and west when in my mind we should be heading south and east. It's like Saturday before I figure that out and get straight in my mind.

Friday morning we are up early and headed to the track. The countryside in this part of Wisconsin is absolutely beautiful, rolling hills, farms with corn ready to harvest and more than a few dairy farms. The leaves were turning as well. Another plus was I went all weekend and only saw one person wearing Packers gear. Now before you start I grew up in the era when the Bears were actually good and watched that Superbowl with Ditka, McMahon, Refrigerator Perry, Walter Payton, etc. Another thing I was happy about was the local Mcds has those Steak egg and cheese bagels which we don't get at home. Probably a very good thing considering how greasy they are, you can nearly hear your arteries hardening with every bite.

We get to the track and start unloading the car. Chris shows up with his younger brother Alvin. We had an opening for this race when Youngest decided he needed to do something with his long term gf. He had made plans with her long before we finalized this race date so he thought it might be in his best interests to not come along. Needing a driver and being somewhat pressed for time I ask Chris if he wanted to bring his brother along. I can supply gear from Oldest son to solve that issue if they can get him registered at the last minute. The other option was to advertise on one of the sites for a driver, which we could have done, lots of interest in driving Lemons at Road America. The turnout for this race is huge. 142 cars have signed up for the race, the largest field we have ever competed against.

So Alvin was all in and we got him signed up no problem. Here is the beauty of Lemons: you don't need to have any experience to race. You literally can sign up pay the fees and race. You do have to have a current drivers license and get a license with 24 Hours of Lemons. That's just another thing to think about when you are out there with potentially 141 other idiots who have no prior race experience.

Alvin had never driven in a race before. Which is nothing new for us, this is race number 9 for us and to date including Alvin we have had ten drivers in the car and 9 of them had never competed in wheel to wheel racing before, though several of us did a track day or two before.

But to give someone their intro at Road America with it's super long straights, and higher top speeds is going to be a real baptism of fire for a first time driver.

You might think it's as easy as driving on the freeway in rush hour, but it is very mentally taxing those first few times out. There is so much to process, shift points, brake points, finding the line into the corner, passing slower cars, trying to make room for the faster cars, watching the flagging stations, there is a reason why you don't put a rookie out there for longer than an hour at a time. Their brain is in overload when they come off.

But we have a plan for Alvin. We go to the mandatory drivers meeting for the practice day. The majority of the track days are hosted by the track and not Lemons and this is no different. We paid an additional 395 to practice this day. Some teams elect to save that money but we want to get some experience on this track. It's worth the money to get a feel for where the corners and what the speeds are going to be like.

We send out Manny first then Chris then Alvin. Every driver is given the same instructions. Go out and run three or four laps and get a feel for the track. I often tell people "you can't win the race on practice day, but you can darn sure loose the race" No need to run over your talent level, keep it on the track and make some laps.

Alvin goes out and he is terrible. I mean he is running laps a full minute slower than anyone else on the team. But he is doing exactly what we need him to do, not overdriving the car until he gets the hang of it.

I go out and run around. I am running like 80 percent. Wow, this track is fun, but those straights are so long. Once you run the front stretch, you run a short turn then hit the downhill part which is not as long as the front but in a reverse of the front stretch this one is a downhill run. You can get a big run going into turn 5. Like we can hit the rev limiter in fourth long before you hit the brake point. Unlike many tracks where I drive more by feel, I really have to watch the corner markers where they say 400,300,200 etc at several points on this track, particularly turn five and Canada corner. The front stretch is different, the markers are in a different spot where you don't see them so I was watching a Youtube video for track tips and the driver coach there advised using a access road as your brake marker for turn one. It really helped me on that corner. Some people are using high dollar racing sim rigs to practice for the race but we aren't that high dollar.

After lunch we do it all again, Alvin is quite a bit faster during the afternoon session than he was during the morning. The plan is working. Before we send Manny out for the last practice session, we swap out the tires. We practiced on the tires from the last race at NCM but we want some laps on the tires we are going to race on. The last few races we have been running Falken 615, we have used Dunlop Direeza, but they are going to be discontinued. I think the Falkens are a bit faster but the Dunlops seem to be more consistent. The Falkens need a lap or so to recover if you get them hot in a slide or anything of the sort.

Right after Manny comes off for practice, it is time to tech the car. Typically they tech and then do the BS Tech where they class the car. This event is different, we tech then they will class the car later. Manny drives the car up and they look it over. Since it is our fourth race of the year and the same people tech nearly every race they look things over and pass us. With the large amount of cars this race they have additional people helping out and it shows. We also get our gear inspected, helmets, gloves, shoes, driving suits etc. I love how Lemons checks all that stuff, I literally raced on a track before with the wrong gloves, shoes, helmet and a driving suit that was held together with duct tape. Yeah it was incredibly stupid but I guarantee others with the same desire to race are doing that today somewhere.

Then we change the tires again to the used tires. Like I mentioned before we are doing things a bit differently. To get our classing, we have to drive the car into town for a parade/block party. Details are kind of hard to pin down on the particulars of this but Lemons really wants a good turnout. So we take off our new tires and put the old ones back on. We think we are doing a parade after we get into town so we take off the roof for more riders. Which was a mistake. We give the car a wipe down to make it look as good as possible and throw most of what we need in the trunk of Chris's Caddy so the rest of the team can meet up in town to get ready for the judging.

So I line up for the parade. We have added some magnetic lights for the parade the fronts are on the top of the windshield and the rears are hung on the wing high up but very visible. After we all get lined up, which was quite a sight, we get a police escort into town. We find out that the mentions of only one person in a car was only a suggestion, but it doesn't matter for us, we don't have a second seat. But other cars have two and sometimes four people loaded up. We get to town and it is very nice, downtown Elkhart Lake turns out. There are people everywhere waving at us as we go by. We finally get where they want us and park. I finally figure out what the plan is, we are parked here doing a block party and the parade part was just where we got the police escort into town. Cool, not exactly what we were thinking but we can adapt. About then Eric comes by in his role of head judge wanting to start judging for class. I politely explain my team was still making their way in with the parade traffic holding things up and I was missing a few things. He understands and goes on to say he was in the dark about as much as anyone and would come back later. Just then the team shows up and we get things set up two of us don our dinosaur costumes and work our "get checked or go extinct, Beat Cancer theme" the other guys get Eric when he finishes a few cars down. He comes back and gives us B class zero laps. We have now been B class for three races. The first two have been frustrating with lots of lost track time. Hopefully this race will go better. Eric finishes up and advises us to circulate a little in the dino suits. No problem. Chris and I work the crowd. I'm not sure how many of the 142 entries are here, but it is a vast majority of them. It's a very impressive line up that goes down the street on both sides then wraps around a corner all the way to another corner. The turnout from the town is great and the police were great about closing intersections and blocking things off for the event. We give numerous high fives through our long walk through the crowd, with kids, random people, other team members, etc. We pass Eric working one side of the street and another team of judges working the other. At one time we get to a team playing Margaritaville and we both break into a dino dance and the crowd starts clapping. Good times.

Finally we make our way back to our car. We take turns getting out of the dino suits. There is a nice little place across the street advertising the best sandwiches around. They are also doing a business in adult beverages and have live music. I go over and find the line to use the restroom is 15 minutes long. The wait for food is over an hour so we send a few guys out in search of something faster. They return with some great subs from a local place down the road. It starts to rain, which kind thins the crowd. We planned ahead to a point and brought the roof so we put it on. It's aluminum and held on with five Dzus fasteners. Which we forgot to bring. But we do have lots of zip ties and duct tape.

Finally the rain ends and the police come back. I am first in line going back and it's easy following the police escort. After they get back on the track grounds it is a bit harder finding the path as they route us off the main gate through a smaller road. My parade lights are not aimed well for this so I struggle a bit then make it back to the paddock. Fun stuff. Next year we will have a better plan if we do this again. Tomorrow is race day!

To be continued....

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Road America?

Manny: "We have got to go! It's incredible, I was just there spotting for an Xfinity team and it is an experience you do not want to miss."

HK: "Umm, I am not sure I can get approval for another race. Let me see.."

Wifey: "You can drop me off at my parents and pick me up in three days? Sure"

Well heck yeah, we are heading northbound to the land of cheese to race on one of the iconic race tracks in America. There were lots of obstacles to overcome, one being that Fabguy lost focus and put the Miata up against the guardrail at NCM the race before. https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromAutoRepair/comments/1775ywu/a_short_lemons_tale_race_8_the_miata_runs_into/

I literally told Youngest as he was going back out post wreck that I plan on racing this car in two weeks and please do not damage the car anymore. But we have two weeks to the race. Wait, we have a week and a half to get the car ready? Hoo boy, we got to get busy

Day one:

Monday the day after the race we are surveying the damage. Our shop foreman who is amazing and Bear who is a fix anything guy dig right in hammering and bending the rear quarter straight. They love backyard body work. Manny is on the road to a local guy who sells Miata parts. We already bought later model brakes off the same guy so Manny knows the way. He gets a right tail light, a bumper cover and a trunk lid. The trunk lid is white like the car so that is good, the bumper cover is blue.

Day two:

I think about it and go into my storage unit and find I actually have a white rear bumper cover. Pretty soon the rear of the car looks somewhat presentable. You can tell it was wrinkled but it's a race car. Gives it character.

Day three: We get some paint and touch up some of the area of the damage. I even take a sharpie and touch up some of the decal where it got damaged. It sounds cheesy but unless it's Daytona or Talladega, many of the cars you see on the track are not as slick as the camera makes them out to be, especially in the lower tier divisions.

Day four:

Fabguy makes up some new wing brackets and they are much taller. The thinking is that the airflow on the back of the car is all dirty air right above the lid and if we want to get any downforce we need to get the wing up to roof level, In an attempt to be funny I write a note on a small piece of paper and tape it to the quarter near the tail light "fabguy was here" before he shows up to mount the wing.

He laughs it off, we get to work and mount the wing and do a few other tweaks on the car.

Day 5 and 6: We don't actually touch the car, instead we do something needed. Youngest and I sort all the stuff in the race trailer. It is slowly getting better, Youngest built a nice rack in the front of the trailer before NCM to hold the totes. We sort through every tote, label them and take about a thousand pounds of things out of the trailer, mainly new and used brake parts from the original braking system we used. I would replace the rotors and put the old parts in a tote. Same with wheel bearings. We weed it out to where we have only one set of new pads and rotors for the old system which was a stock 1.6 Miata brake setup. I figure we could use these parts in a pinch or we could help out a fellow race team in trouble if need be.

So we get it down to where we are taking a complete suspension set up, a spare rear center unit, a spare transmission, two spare engines because I was too strapped for time to pull the one that was in the trailer for the one that is a better match to the engine in the car. We found that out at Autobahn when we wanted to rob a cam sensor and realized it was very different. Not sure what exactly that engine is but I just strapped a second engine into the bed of the truck to take them both. Four spare mounted tires and then lots of stuff like tape, zip ties, tools, torque wrench, fluids, etc.

Day 7 and 8: we are hopping busy at work and nothing gets done on the car. Pressure is slowly building. At home I make sure all my gear is loaded as well as borrowing Oldest sons racing gear. He has missed all the races this year. He started his own business and is doing that and some other things but says if we go to Gingerman again he wants to race with us. So we should see him in the car again, if he wants to race Gingerman we will try to make that happen. But for this race we are using his gear with his permission. I also load the radios and charge the GoPros.

Day 9: It's go time. I bring the trailer with me to work. We need to get the car prepped and loaded as we are going to be on the road by 430 the next morning. I have researched the drive and been advised we need to get through the 294 in Chicago by 2 and through Milwaukee by 4 to avoid the worst of the traffic. I am not looking forward to trailering through Chicago with a trailer but I have done it before.

We get the car on a rack, change the oil, set the trans fluid correctly where they overfilled it at the prior race, change the brake fluid, change the rear diff fluid which is nasty. I can't recall the last time we changed it so it was needed. We also change the front hubs which I try to do every other race or so. Then we check the rear wheel bearings and also check the brake wear. We used to use Hawk Blue pads but now that we are going faster and using more brake the upgrade was needed. The larger rotors coupled with the Carbotech brake pads and the cooling ducts are holding up great. They did not get in a full race at NCM but the pads show virtually no wear. We are happy to see how great they are wearing. We put the car on the alignment rack and find the rear is slightly out which is expected after the guardrail incident, at least nothing is bent on the suspension and the front is out a bit too? Not sure why but all was easily fixed.

Finally we wipe the worst of the dirt and grime off the car and load it up. There is always something more to do but time is running out. While we were messing with the last few things on the car the guys were checking over my 2500 to make sure it is all ready to go. I still have my 2003 cat eye but recently bought a 2011 with a mere 120,000 miles for some of these long distance adventures. After all the fun we had with our shop owned 2012 Duramax that only cost me a mere 4000 dollars to fix so I could sell it, I went with another 6.0 gas engine. For all the trouble the diesel gave us I can buy a whole new motor if this acts up. Not a fan of DEF and deleting them is getting to be a risky proposition anymore. Seems the EPA made a circuit of all the local diesel shops and promised if they ever did another delete and the EPA caught on, they would pull enough paper and do 10,000 fines for every truck they could prove the shop had ever done. We never got into that deal but I am sure not going to be asking anyone to delete a truck for me anytime soon either.

Day 10: We are up way too early and on the road. I gassed up the truck the night before. I throw Christy's bag in the bed of the truck and Manny throws in his bag and we are off. One thing this truck came with is a bed cover that rolls up if you don't need it. For this trip it is super handy as we can drive and not worry about things blowing out or getting wet. At the hotel I will lock the tailgate and no one will run off with anything we have there. Yes someone could cut through the vinyl but the combination of not being easy to get to and not being easy to see is great.

We drive up I65 for hours and hours. Manny drives part of the way through Indiana, which is good. I have seen it all many times and try to sleep. I can sleep during some of the boring parts which is everything north of Indy for sure. Instead of going all the way up to Interstate 80 we cut over on 24 to start making our way up to meet up with the inlaws.

We catch up with them in Kankakee. Actually Bourbonnais where my SIL was taking them to a appointment. By a huge stroke of luck they were next door to my most favorite pizza place on the planet so I call ahead and order to go. We drop off my wife and pick up the pizza, reset the anti sway bar that popped loose in the parking lot and fuel up and head north to Chicago.

We are still on schedule by some small miracle and heading north on I57. Traffic is not bad so far and I know the route. I regale Manny with stories of growing up in corn country and he tells me of race teams he worked with and races they should have won. It makes for some great stories and the miles pass away.

294 is not bad to start but as we roll north the more we go the heavier traffic flows. Another truck and enclosed passed me and I start to chase then decide I really don't want to run 80 the rest of the way and I ease back to the 72-75 mph pace I was running. There's a few times where some idiot chops across our nose but pretty typical for Chicago driving.

We cross the border and keep heading north. Most of this now is unfamiliar ground. Several years ago we went to a Cubs game with my sister at Wrigley North (Miller Park) in Milwaukee and tailgated then watch the Cubs play. I don't remember going down this particular road then but I was not driving then. My sister and brother in law might have taken a different route then too, who knows?

We run into Milwaukee and traffic gets heavy again. Not helping is construction that is causing narrow lanes which is fun with the trailer but finally we make it through and find a nice four lane headed northbound to Elkart Lake. Manny is on the lookout and has us to stop at a nice cheese shop just a few miles from the race track. He is gushing about the place, seems he stopped there last time he was in Wisconsin. He treats and I get a cone and then we jump back in and keep heading north.

A few turns and we arrive. Road America. We check in and get our wristbands and pull into a large field already a quarter filled with Lemons people. There are trucks, cars, campers, car trailers of every shape and size including not a few UHaul car haulers. We are given a sticker of the order we are pulling in when they open the gates. It's 430, 45 minutes before the gates open and we are 91st in line. We can see cars on the track from a track day event that is going on. We drove 12 hours nearly exactly to get here. This place is huge! Road America we have arrived!

to be continued

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So many of you already answered the question. Should I race on my wife's birthday if she doesn't want me to?

Yeah, I might not be the brightest guy but even I picked up on this one. I did not race this next race. Instead I was in charge of putting on a party for my wife's birthday and it was a big deal. I think I nailed it, she was very pleased. I even snuck in her sister from out of state. We were watching TV and eating and her sister drives up our long driveway. I can tell she did not recognize the car and ask her if she was expecting a delivery from Amazon? Then I go out back to grab our lab from bothering the Amazon driver. (she already has some trained to throw her ball) I start hollering back into the house that I need a hand with the puppy and my wife comes out back and is totally surprised to see her sister. Perfect. The rest of the weekend went great and as planned with spa day, bonfire, cake etc.

In the meantime..

Youngest, Fabguy and Manny have taken over the car. They asked if I had any objections to trying a few things out and I approved. So they installed a air dam and splitter and flicks in the front of the car, as well as air ducts to the front brakes in the hopes it will cool the brakes and result in longer brake life. Both Fabguy and Manny have hands on experience with NASCAR Cup, Xfinity (then Busch) as well as ARCA and Truck teams and have taken part in real world track and air tunnel testing. So we are doing a few things they learned from those days. Will it work on our application with lower speeds and hp? You never know until you try right?

Also upgraded is the brakes. We go to a bigger rotor package off a later model Miata with some high dollar race pads. I have been using Hawk pads and the stock rotors which are very small. The car gets new rotors, pads and calipers all around and a manual proportioning valve installed that was getting bled seconds before the car was loaded up.

All that front grip needs some sort of balance on the rear and a cheap wing is found and installed on the rear trunk lid.

No one else likes the steering wheel angle and placement and so they drop the column a inch with a spacer and put a spacer in the steering wheel as well. I guess some of these guys have shorter arms and want better angles to drive more comfortably.

Also addressed were a oil leak and a new clutch. Fabguy had reported he felt it was slipping at Autobahn so a new clutch disc and pressure plate were sourced and installed.

Another thing we do is to put the car up on the alignment rack and check. We were shocked to see how far out the rear had gotten after 7 races. Both rear wheels were pointing to the right which would account for how good the car felt turning one way but not the other. That was easily fixed.

Doing the math they decided they were going to run a bold strategy at the next race. Kind of how NASCAR teams run the road courses they wanted to only stop twice per day. They crunched the numbers and I did too and it could possibly be done. The X factor was that the three drivers they were going to use instead of the normal four we typically take are three of the faster drivers who will have higher fuel consumption. For several days we debate the fuel tank size, gallons per hour used and length of time each driver will have to do to make it to the checkers without running out of fuel. Can it be done? We will see.

Finally the day comes. Youngest and Manny take off with two of my trucks towing our camper so they can stay at the track, the enclosed trailer and the race car. In turn I get to drive home from work in Manny's Prius. At least it isn't blue.

NCM Day 1

They got the car out for practice day and made a few adjustments. The new brake pads require break in so they did two sets, going out and running laps hard on the brakes and then swapping out pads. Also they dial in the bias. After it is dialed up all the way it still could use a bit more rear brake. But it is drivable. They tech the car then go out for practice again. I get a call, the throw out bearing is making a terrible noise. I find another clutch kit and send it up to Bowling Green with Youngest when he drives back down. He had to make a marathon drive to attend a wedding. They work late into the night but the car is running in time for the start of the race.

NCM Day 2. They start the race and the car is good. All the parts and pieces seem to be working great. Then they have to stop as the new air dam is not letting enough air into the radiator and the car is running hot. They also remove the thermostat. They send the car out again.

And that's about when things start going wrong. Manny spins the car and goes into the penalty box. After getting his talking too for poor driving he goes to put the car into gear and realizes that the clutch is acting up again. Awesome. They put the car on jack stands and start pulling the transmission for the second time in two days.

They finally determine the clutch slave was applying pressure all the time to the throw out bearing. I have never replaced that part yet, but apparently after we changed the clutch before the race it decided it was no longer happy. Keeping the throw out bearing slightly applied was causing a quick failure when we are running laps and constantly hitting 6-7,000 rpm. They replace every part of the clutch system, master, slave, line, pressure plate and disc and of course add the torched throw out bearing to the pile of carnage.

Also somewhere during the day before the final clutch shredding, they also managed to run out of fuel and had to be towed in. They are all puzzled as the numbers showed they should have had enough fuel, but the car was dry sure enough. They did use the opportunity to verify how much fuel is in the car when it stops picking up. Turns out that is about 10.5 gallons. So we were trying to run stints of over 2 hours like two hours and twenty five minutes but with a five gallon per hour burn rate of fuel that isn't going to work. Some tracks have less full throttle time and take less and some drivers burn less fuel but as I said, this is three of the fastest drivers we have and none of them are saving anything on the track.

They work into the night and get the car put together. It's given a short slow drive through the paddock to see if everything is right and then they call it night.

NCM Day 3

It's the final day of the race weekend. Typically Lemons does tech and optional practice the Friday of the race. Practice days are not included in the entry fee and often are put on by the tracks for an additional fee. The race starts Saturday morning and usually we race 7 hours on each day. So really it's the 14 Hours of Lemons not the 24 hours as advertised. Sounds like false advertising to me, Where's Lionel Hutz when you need a good attorney anyway?

Sunday a subdued team rolls the Miata out. Many, many laps down they are still battling. Really we enter these races not planning on winning anyway, it's the sheer exhilaration of competing wheel to wheel at speed with all the other cars out there. It is so much fun to be out there battling and mixing it up with the other cars, especially when you have one that is about your speed and you can pass them after having to work on it for many laps.

After lunch I get official permission to head up to the track to retrieve the camper. I had one of the trucks so I needed to go anyway right.

I get there just in time for the worst part of the weekend. One of the other racers asks me about the car, I had just seen it out on the track? He tells me it was sitting backwards against the wall just a minute ago. Great I go back to where we are parked and find the team looking at the Miata.

Fabguy was going up the hill at the fastest part of the track when the car started getting a little loose. He saved the car from wrecking, got it straight then totally lost focus and failed to slow for the next right hander. When he finally realized his error all he could do was lock up the brakes and hang on. He backed the car in and got the right rear against the guard rail. He drove the car back in and was explaining what happened. He apologized for wrecking the car, but I can't get too worked up. I have had the Miata way out of shape many times just managed to avoid hitting anything with it. Not that we want it torn up but that is the risk you run with any race car when you take it out on the track.

Looking at the Miata it isn't too bad. Caved in the quarter behind the wheel. No visible damage to anything besides sheet metal. The rear wheel looks perfect. No suspension damage. RR tail light is mashed, the wing mount got torn up on that side and the trunk lid is bent up but somehow still opens and closes.

We send Fabguy to penalty without the car to serve his time for messing up. He reports back that without the car they made him don a plastic car shaped hat and reenact the wreck. I wish we could have video'ed that!

I check with the officials about if the car is legal with only one working brake light and it is, we thought so. We remove the broken pieces of the other one, remove the wing which apparently hit the wall pretty hard trashing some of the mounts and bending the trunk lid. Surprisingly the side plate of the wing is bent but the rest could be saved.

Youngest gets in the car and for a second I smell fuel. I think it must be due to the wreck but we do not see any problems. I go tell him that I intend to race this car in two weeks and please do not wreck it again!

A bit later he radios in saying he can't drive and the car is full of fumes. He makes his way back and we look again. This time the fuel smell is stronger.

Turns out they had installed a fuel pressure gauge and where they had spliced the part that sends the signal to the gauge was leaking a fine mist of fuel. This would probably account for some of the record poor mileage that they had been experiencing including one time where the car ran dry after only a hour and a half with Manny driving.

After fixing the leak we test it and it is completely dry. It's fortunate that it did not ignite and burn up the car. It's funny how often you find ways to beat yourselves at this. Youngest however wants a bit more time so Manny takes the car out to see how it handles without the rear wing for a few laps and brings it in. Finally after a bit of air Youngest gets back in the car and finishes the race. I don't even go down to watch him get off the track, we load up and head home. It was a tough weekend and while we think we have the car all fixed from all the issues we now have wreck damage to fix. Fabguy apologizes again and promises to fix the damage. I assure him we are all good and we will get it fixed.

As we head home we are already working hard on repairs. In a show of understanding on how hard it was to watch and not race, my wife approved that we need to make the next race. It's a haul but I go right past my wife's parents both ways so she gets dropped off and picked up after spending valuable time with them. Manny has been lobbying for this ever since they added it to the schedule.

Next stop Road America!

​

So no I haven't been posting lately because things have been super busy. Lots of stuff going on mostly good things!

Where were we? oh yes, I get in the car, go to get out on the track and instead get sent to the penalty box. I haven't even gone out on the track yet, what in the world?

Turns out Fabguy spun the car and never got a flag due to a big wreck. Lemons tells you to come in and self report when you do something like that. Sometimes we do. Sometimes if you think it wasn't too bad you might try to see if they saw you. He kept racing to see if they flagged him in or not. There was a bad wreck that took their attention and they simply waited to catch up with us. So we changed drivers as they towed in a much shorter Fiero and then when they saw our car, oh hey send us that one, we need to have a chat.

I pull into penalty. The Judge starts in on me. I stop him. "I just got in the car, I haven't been out on the track"

Judge: "Ok, who was in the car?"

Me, showing zero loyalty: "Fabguy"

Judge: "Just how good a friend is this Fabguy?, can you call him up here?"

Me on radio: "Hey guys I need Fabguy to penalty box"

The Judge goes on to tell me that this is our second black flag of the day and that a third flag will result in the car being parked for an hour or more. I guess they had the word out to crack down on the teams and keep things in hand.

Finally the Judge releases me and I go out on the track. I was running some great times but not record setting times to be sure. After hearing that we were on the edge of being parked I ran just conservative enough to make sure I had a near perfect stint and came back in with no problems. Not to say I never got out of shape, there were a few times I got invested in racing with another car and nearly missed my line or once I got to drag racing a car down the long back straight and was sure the Miata was going to end up fifty feet past the hard right corner before I slowed enough. Once again the Miata bailed out my poor driving skills and we made the corner. It is so much fun to drive that car.

I bring the car back and we put Youngest in the car.

While I was driving Fabguy was busy. He had to answer why he spun then did not come in. Knowing that we were on our last flag of the day he went ahead and bought some insurance. Lemons will give you a one time pass if you donate to a charity. There are only so many free get out of jail passes available for each race. The charity that we see at most of our races is Lemons of Love https://lemonsoflove.org/

Check them out sometime. As a survivor I highly endorse cancer charities and Lemons racers have donated around 250,000 dollars to helping send care packages to people currently undergoing chemo.

So when Youngest went out we had one more flag to use before we were parked. An hour being parked would have been bad since we only had two hours left in the day. Turns out we would need that black flag...

We are in the paddock and keeping an eye on things while packing up when Youngest radios in.
"I hit another car, I am coming in"

So we watch as he comes off and goes to the penalty box. He clears the judges and comes back to us slowly. Between the brake failure and our new get out of jail pass they let him off the hook, making contact with other cars is a serious issue in Lemons. We apologized to them later, no visible damage and they understood it was not intentional.

Turns out the car is out of brakes literally. The front brakes are completely worn out. He was pushing hard as he normally does and the car just would not stop. We jack up the front and carefully pull the front wheels and swap out brake pads. It was very hot so we had to work carefully as it was hot as blazes. But we got it done and put the car back out on the track with about 15 minutes to go to preserve our record of running at the end of each race.

We loaded up after long and somewhat frustrating weekend. We found some speed but were also down in the standings after significant time lost. The car was much faster than the year before for every driver who got it. We have never used a set of brakes up before but we account that for the fact we were all driving faster and using more brake.

One thing I love is getting to see old friends we see at some of these races. We made new friends too, the fuel pump we took out of our car ended up in another Miata and they got to finish their race. A third Miata team also was there and we had fun seeing the differences in their car. I found I could pull them on the straights which was odd as they should have had an identical car.

We left out that night with plans on how to improve the car and make it better for the next race. I won't get to drive in it however. Seems it's my wifes birthday and she told me "it would be a very poor decision" if I were to race on her birthday. Hmm, should I do it anyway?

I bought some on eBay. China ones and 7 months later, about 3k miles on them one side of my truck is supper sagging. Anyone replace there oem struts with these? They had very good reviews. You can see the driver side is normal but passenger side big difference. 2016 Sierra 1500 Denali.