US-1
Banned
Ever have one of those trips????
Didn't get out of town until Friday due to more crap than I care to recount. Went to pick the car up and it is not ready.....and it's noon on Friday. Great. Two hours later the car is loaded and Mikey & I are on the road. He isn't feeling well at all so I changed my route in order to drop him at his grandmother's place in northeast Texas so she can take him to his diabetes doctor in Tyler. Fifty miles from Houston we lose one trailer tire. And just as luck would have it......the sponsor's trailer has no spare. Nice. Two hours, one road call out, and $245 later we're back on the way. Drop Mike off around 8pm then headed out on Hwy 20 towards Shreveport. And then..........
..........the rain started. From Shreveport to Jackson, Mississippi it rained and I couldn't drive faster than 45 mph. At Jackson I decided to turn south to see if I could get away from the rain. Hell no. Ended up driving right into the rain. At Hammond, Lousiana I decided that enough was enough. Found a rest area and waited. Three hours later the rain died down and back on the way. Right before Biloxi I lose another trailer tire. This is getting really boring. Luckily, it happened right before an exit. And right at this exit is a tire store!!! Another $155 and I'm off again. However.....more rain, severe wind, and a tornado warning through the Florida panhandle. Talked to the FFW people on the phone and decided that I would not make it to the track in time for qualifying. Decided to use my "champion's provisional" (a one-time per season gimme for defending champions) and just get to the hotel on Saturday night.
Sunday morning shows up with dark skies and one of the bleakest forecasts I've seen in a while. Took the car out of the trailer for tech and it won't idle. Tried to drive it around and it won't come up on boost. Decide to take it for a drive outside the track to see if it will clear up. No way in hell. Decide to change plugs to see if that will help. Remove the HT0's and they look like shit. Swap in a stock set of Motorcrafts but no luck. Still running like crap. Remove the mass air meter and I find it covered with something that looks like a Starbuck's latte. At this point I finally realize that nobody cleaned out the intercooler after the engine swap. We check with the FFW officials on the weather and find out we have 45 minutes before the rain hits. So, Danny Towe and Shane Williams jump on the front end of the car, remove the bumper cover and old intercooler. I have a rolling display engine/turbo system that we use for our vendor booth and there is a shiny, new intercooler mounted there. Not anymore!!!
So, 40 minutes later we have the car back together and I test drive it up and down the lanes to see if things work. Seems like it's fine. Still a little hesitation at an idle so I figure the mass air meter has some gunk still in it but it will work. Get back to the trailer just in time for the rain. Nice. Watched the rain, told a bunch of racing stories, snacked for a while. Once the rain delay and track cleanup were done we finally got to race. In the semi's I draw Bobby Barrick from the NMRA. Car seems to work fine in the burnout with the new line lock. He turns on a bulb, I follow; he goes in the second bulb; I bring the car up on the converter and while it burbles at me once the idle clears up and I get the second bulb on; Barry goes deep and I follow. His side of the tree hits and he's off..........then mine just rolls about two feet.
Seems that along with not cleaning out the intercooler nobody bled the brakes either. At this point, I made sure there were no women, children or serious church go'ers in the nearby vacinity and the cussing began in earnest!!! After throwing one of my better hissy fits I started looking for beer. Lots of beer. And I found it too.
So I'm sitting here at the hotel in Orlando waiting to hear from Mikey's doctor to see if I am staying here in Florida for NMRA or if I'm loading up and heading back to Texas. Have a few things to do to the car.....like a new mass air meter. Oh yeah....did I mention the truck had a short in the headlight switch Saturday night so I had no dash lights or trailer lights??? Yeah....along with the brake pedal going almost to the floor.
The word "Clusterfuck" comes to mind........................
Didn't get out of town until Friday due to more crap than I care to recount. Went to pick the car up and it is not ready.....and it's noon on Friday. Great. Two hours later the car is loaded and Mikey & I are on the road. He isn't feeling well at all so I changed my route in order to drop him at his grandmother's place in northeast Texas so she can take him to his diabetes doctor in Tyler. Fifty miles from Houston we lose one trailer tire. And just as luck would have it......the sponsor's trailer has no spare. Nice. Two hours, one road call out, and $245 later we're back on the way. Drop Mike off around 8pm then headed out on Hwy 20 towards Shreveport. And then..........
..........the rain started. From Shreveport to Jackson, Mississippi it rained and I couldn't drive faster than 45 mph. At Jackson I decided to turn south to see if I could get away from the rain. Hell no. Ended up driving right into the rain. At Hammond, Lousiana I decided that enough was enough. Found a rest area and waited. Three hours later the rain died down and back on the way. Right before Biloxi I lose another trailer tire. This is getting really boring. Luckily, it happened right before an exit. And right at this exit is a tire store!!! Another $155 and I'm off again. However.....more rain, severe wind, and a tornado warning through the Florida panhandle. Talked to the FFW people on the phone and decided that I would not make it to the track in time for qualifying. Decided to use my "champion's provisional" (a one-time per season gimme for defending champions) and just get to the hotel on Saturday night.
Sunday morning shows up with dark skies and one of the bleakest forecasts I've seen in a while. Took the car out of the trailer for tech and it won't idle. Tried to drive it around and it won't come up on boost. Decide to take it for a drive outside the track to see if it will clear up. No way in hell. Decide to change plugs to see if that will help. Remove the HT0's and they look like shit. Swap in a stock set of Motorcrafts but no luck. Still running like crap. Remove the mass air meter and I find it covered with something that looks like a Starbuck's latte. At this point I finally realize that nobody cleaned out the intercooler after the engine swap. We check with the FFW officials on the weather and find out we have 45 minutes before the rain hits. So, Danny Towe and Shane Williams jump on the front end of the car, remove the bumper cover and old intercooler. I have a rolling display engine/turbo system that we use for our vendor booth and there is a shiny, new intercooler mounted there. Not anymore!!!
So, 40 minutes later we have the car back together and I test drive it up and down the lanes to see if things work. Seems like it's fine. Still a little hesitation at an idle so I figure the mass air meter has some gunk still in it but it will work. Get back to the trailer just in time for the rain. Nice. Watched the rain, told a bunch of racing stories, snacked for a while. Once the rain delay and track cleanup were done we finally got to race. In the semi's I draw Bobby Barrick from the NMRA. Car seems to work fine in the burnout with the new line lock. He turns on a bulb, I follow; he goes in the second bulb; I bring the car up on the converter and while it burbles at me once the idle clears up and I get the second bulb on; Barry goes deep and I follow. His side of the tree hits and he's off..........then mine just rolls about two feet.
Seems that along with not cleaning out the intercooler nobody bled the brakes either. At this point, I made sure there were no women, children or serious church go'ers in the nearby vacinity and the cussing began in earnest!!! After throwing one of my better hissy fits I started looking for beer. Lots of beer. And I found it too.
So I'm sitting here at the hotel in Orlando waiting to hear from Mikey's doctor to see if I am staying here in Florida for NMRA or if I'm loading up and heading back to Texas. Have a few things to do to the car.....like a new mass air meter. Oh yeah....did I mention the truck had a short in the headlight switch Saturday night so I had no dash lights or trailer lights??? Yeah....along with the brake pedal going almost to the floor.
The word "Clusterfuck" comes to mind........................
