The old 1964 VW Beetle has been sitting for a year. I drag it inside and get it up in the air to find a plethora or broken, bent, and worn shit that needs fixed. Almost every suspension and steering component is fuct. Victom of a few ditch surfing incedints over the past couple of years. After a week of hammering shit back into shape and using floor jacks chained to roll cage points to re-index the crazy german engineered torsion springs I am sitting in the cacoon at the starting line of this countire's 3rd oldest car race behing the Indy 500 and Pikes Peak. I make a clean run and am glad that I have not forgoten how to drive the 60 year old car. I remember to not let my foot flop under neath the go pedal when I am heal toeing it on down shifts as the pedal has only gravity holding it down against the crude roler atached to a throttle cable I made from scratch. Still working. 3 years after creating my Frankenstien. My first race car. By the end of the weekend we are putting in respectable times behind a Porsche GT3 factory rally car and a stage rally BMW. Come sunday my last race run has me pushing too hard, I cook it hot into a hair pin or two, jabbing at my e-brake handle like a falling ice climber hoping his axe can stop a freefall of certain splatter. In the popular Bob's Knob corner I make spectators dive like chipmunks crossing the highway. And then as I shift into 3rd gear I find a bonus nuetral. 3rd gear has left the party. A $100 lottery transmission I pulled out of a dirty shed 3 years ago has done real well. No complaints. As I limp it back down to the pits the smell of burning engine oil is strong. I slow at my pit and am engulfed in a smoke cloud. The piston rings have also left the party. Well. The 160K mile subaru engine has also done me real good. I payed $400 for the car it came out of and sold the car for $500 after I pulled out the engine. No complaints at all. The end of the last run. 3rd place in the Rally 2wd class. Not bad. And in the Motorcycle class I bagged another win. I think that is number six now at land's end. Pretty un-eventful other than a buck deer crossing my path in practice but that is hill climbing in the Rocky Mountains...
someday...
