Duane Black
Curbs go brrrppp
Settle down, kids. This story is about will power, dedication, determination, resolution, and commitment. And yes, these are all synonyms... but theres a reason
This was REALLY f***ing difficult.
It starts on a smokey North Carolina day... Canada decided to burn itself and send its smoke south in a chemical attack against the United States, victimizing our lungs, eyes, and visibility for the whole trip to Indianapolis, culminating in a massive rain storm. We spend the night with my co-drivers relatives in Indianapolis this evening.
We viewed historical artifacts from the Civil War that night and noted a full moon, both potential causes for our hexed trip.
We leave Indianapolis and realize the gas station is only a station, as it has no gas. No bother, we have enough... on to Champaign-Urbana...
Champaign-Urbana does not have a fully functional building. I need to take a leak, amd the car needs gas. Since cars dont run on urine, I need to find a place....
Stop 1) no power, all employees outside... my bladder is relaxing and it cant go!
Stop 2) only gas, no attendant, no building... onwards...
Stop 3) gas, but no functional bathroom...
Run over the highway to Stop 4), restaurant with no functional mens room nor a functional a/c... well at this point I can be a woman long enough to use this single stall bathroom.... and my co-driver may never admit it, but "they" also used it.
On to Route 66... and onwards to Chicago. Spitting rain and cloudy skies follow us.
We meet up with my co-drivers best friend from High School... however, someone forgot to mark us as friendlys on the attack mutts radar and my co-driver is bitten! Not badly, but blood is drawn, and after a fainting spell, we decide it's better safe and off to urgent care!! Dog attack forms are filled out, bodies are examined... and we are off to a pharmacy with a pizza in tow for a tetanus shot....
The next day sees a smooth and beautiful ride to Elkhart Lake. We survey the track, check out the original street circuit, and return to the hotel... where in the late afternoon hours, my co-driver wants to check how the communicator system, hans, harness, and helmets all interact. I begrudgingly give up time watching tv and relaxing for this, and discover the RIGHT REAR BRAKE LINE IS LEAKING!!! I begin a rushed yet careful to maintain stopping distance run to Milwaukee where I figure surely someone will have a brake line... and they do! We provide pre-firework entertainment to a crowd gathered as the sunsets, as they watch me swap a brake line and direct a bleeding procedure... but I am paranoid of the other line, and we flee deeper into town for a second line for the other side, which we would replace the next morning.
In session 1, the first brake line ruptures entering T3! Fortunately, I was taking it easy with freshly bled brakes, and it would be discovered it rubbed thru when I swapped to smaller diameter race track wheels. I had installed the new line "upside down" and excess hose was hanging up where the 19" street wheels never hit it, but the 18" track wheels rubbed through... chock one up to a poor judgment call made in a hasty replacement the night before.
I scour the paddock, desperately crying for brake lines. I find 2 sets for other cars, hoping just to find something I can drive home on... no works. I find a front set for S197... (the kind with the little round banjo thing) they work! Alas, they are long, and I carefully route and wire tie off everything... we can drive home, but I decide a careful session will be had before ruling out the day...
I roll to grid only a minute or so late, and proceed to track. The outlap is okay, I step it up for lap 2... lap 3 is going well....
But exiting carousel, tragedy strikes... on the upshift to 4th, the automatic transmission locks up, apparently going to 1st, and with rear tires locked, I slide off the track, later limping to the paddock....
We let the car cool and swap tires. We look at rental rates for a tow truck home. They are closed, and expensive anyway....
We take the car for a stroll to town, where it makes one big hiccup before allowing us more or less unimpeded use of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears. At 4000 rpms, we can run about 55 mph....
We pack everything, anticipating a drive to the hotel and the rent a vehicle tomorrow, but the most brazen of ideas occurs to me... speed limits are low in construction in the cities, I know some back roads and have maps... so I propose a wild idea to my co-driver.... lets limp to Indy, where truck rentals are $600 cheaper, and if we can't make it, perhaps the attack mutt in Chicago has his radar flipped and we can rest for help there... we decide to go for Indy and potentially rent a truck tomorrow, and see how the car acts along the way.
I give a sob story at the hotel, getting us out of a night's rental on the hotel, and we proceed south at 50 mph... brakes working, engine screaming, the anticipation of when or if the car will die at any moment and where it may strand us...
We are thru Milwaukee... on to Chicago... and Chicago is FLOODING! Our phones receive warning messages not to travel, several roads are closing and impassable... so we limp around the suburbs... we limp thru Indiana.... but quick and heavy interstate commerce is making me feel unsafe limping along at 50ish mph, so I resort to some backroads through Indiana. We encounter a closed back road and end up limping back to the interstate, but its getting late, and traffic is lighter... we make Indianapolis by 10:30 p.m.
We must also thank said co-drivers relatives, who graciously hosted us not just Thursday, buying us dinner, but allowing us a late night arrival at their home before buying us breakfast at Cracker Barrel before sending us on our way with well wishes for a safe return home.
The transmission holds 1st gear for a long time before resuming normal operation thru 3 gears each time it is restarted. We resolve to keep the car idling, one of us standing guard over the wounded Mustang each time we stop for gas or a potty break, and we make Beckley. We noted a bad rotten egg smell at each stop, and upon shutting the car off, all power is lost... its as if it doesnt even have a battery. I had a spare, which is as dead as the original! We got the "spare" battery jumped, but noted that it smelled even worse than the original. I buy a replacement battery in Stuart, VA... only 150 miles home or so....
With rotten egg sulfur fumes clearing out of our lungs, we proceed home ... I finally have an emotional breakdown talking to my dad on the phone outside Martinsville, Va on a backroad selected to keep us off the busy 40/85 corrider in NC... the co-driver takes over.... but we limp onward, where we narrowly miss hitting deer and HORSES (yes, HORSES along the full moon lit road)...
But after 2300 drama filled miles, the car was at my parents... it had done what no one, save myself, anticipated it may do... it had limped home, after 2 brake failures and a transmission failure AND a battery failure... and somehow arrived safely...
And now the rebuilding saga begins. A drive to Georgia for a transmission/engine combo revealed a cracked block in a potential replacement, a crack in the threaded holes where the mounfs would rest. We did negotiate and take just a transmission...
...and to add insult to injuries, the ignition coil dies in dads pickup 3 miles from home, and we wait 2 hours for a tow truck to tow us in.... that was definitely a bad omen for transmussion #1, which didnt work, because...
....it's a 2016 transmission... and as it turns out, those don't work with a Gen 1 car.... so I end up getting an LKQ transmission and that guy of course isn't interested in buying his crap back, so that was all just a learning experience. I was told confidently an $800 valve body will make it better, but I am not interested in putting that into an unknown transmission, and coincdentally, a used transmission thru LKQ from a 30k mile convertible car can be found for $600 with a one year warranty. And 18 days after the car limped to my parents, it left with another transmission.... and a wild story of the most expensive 4 laps of a track event I've run in my whole life....
This was REALLY f***ing difficult.
It starts on a smokey North Carolina day... Canada decided to burn itself and send its smoke south in a chemical attack against the United States, victimizing our lungs, eyes, and visibility for the whole trip to Indianapolis, culminating in a massive rain storm. We spend the night with my co-drivers relatives in Indianapolis this evening.
We viewed historical artifacts from the Civil War that night and noted a full moon, both potential causes for our hexed trip.
We leave Indianapolis and realize the gas station is only a station, as it has no gas. No bother, we have enough... on to Champaign-Urbana...
Champaign-Urbana does not have a fully functional building. I need to take a leak, amd the car needs gas. Since cars dont run on urine, I need to find a place....
Stop 1) no power, all employees outside... my bladder is relaxing and it cant go!
Stop 2) only gas, no attendant, no building... onwards...
Stop 3) gas, but no functional bathroom...
Run over the highway to Stop 4), restaurant with no functional mens room nor a functional a/c... well at this point I can be a woman long enough to use this single stall bathroom.... and my co-driver may never admit it, but "they" also used it.
On to Route 66... and onwards to Chicago. Spitting rain and cloudy skies follow us.
We meet up with my co-drivers best friend from High School... however, someone forgot to mark us as friendlys on the attack mutts radar and my co-driver is bitten! Not badly, but blood is drawn, and after a fainting spell, we decide it's better safe and off to urgent care!! Dog attack forms are filled out, bodies are examined... and we are off to a pharmacy with a pizza in tow for a tetanus shot....
The next day sees a smooth and beautiful ride to Elkhart Lake. We survey the track, check out the original street circuit, and return to the hotel... where in the late afternoon hours, my co-driver wants to check how the communicator system, hans, harness, and helmets all interact. I begrudgingly give up time watching tv and relaxing for this, and discover the RIGHT REAR BRAKE LINE IS LEAKING!!! I begin a rushed yet careful to maintain stopping distance run to Milwaukee where I figure surely someone will have a brake line... and they do! We provide pre-firework entertainment to a crowd gathered as the sunsets, as they watch me swap a brake line and direct a bleeding procedure... but I am paranoid of the other line, and we flee deeper into town for a second line for the other side, which we would replace the next morning.
In session 1, the first brake line ruptures entering T3! Fortunately, I was taking it easy with freshly bled brakes, and it would be discovered it rubbed thru when I swapped to smaller diameter race track wheels. I had installed the new line "upside down" and excess hose was hanging up where the 19" street wheels never hit it, but the 18" track wheels rubbed through... chock one up to a poor judgment call made in a hasty replacement the night before.
I scour the paddock, desperately crying for brake lines. I find 2 sets for other cars, hoping just to find something I can drive home on... no works. I find a front set for S197... (the kind with the little round banjo thing) they work! Alas, they are long, and I carefully route and wire tie off everything... we can drive home, but I decide a careful session will be had before ruling out the day...
I roll to grid only a minute or so late, and proceed to track. The outlap is okay, I step it up for lap 2... lap 3 is going well....
But exiting carousel, tragedy strikes... on the upshift to 4th, the automatic transmission locks up, apparently going to 1st, and with rear tires locked, I slide off the track, later limping to the paddock....
We let the car cool and swap tires. We look at rental rates for a tow truck home. They are closed, and expensive anyway....
We take the car for a stroll to town, where it makes one big hiccup before allowing us more or less unimpeded use of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears. At 4000 rpms, we can run about 55 mph....
We pack everything, anticipating a drive to the hotel and the rent a vehicle tomorrow, but the most brazen of ideas occurs to me... speed limits are low in construction in the cities, I know some back roads and have maps... so I propose a wild idea to my co-driver.... lets limp to Indy, where truck rentals are $600 cheaper, and if we can't make it, perhaps the attack mutt in Chicago has his radar flipped and we can rest for help there... we decide to go for Indy and potentially rent a truck tomorrow, and see how the car acts along the way.
I give a sob story at the hotel, getting us out of a night's rental on the hotel, and we proceed south at 50 mph... brakes working, engine screaming, the anticipation of when or if the car will die at any moment and where it may strand us...
We are thru Milwaukee... on to Chicago... and Chicago is FLOODING! Our phones receive warning messages not to travel, several roads are closing and impassable... so we limp around the suburbs... we limp thru Indiana.... but quick and heavy interstate commerce is making me feel unsafe limping along at 50ish mph, so I resort to some backroads through Indiana. We encounter a closed back road and end up limping back to the interstate, but its getting late, and traffic is lighter... we make Indianapolis by 10:30 p.m.
We must also thank said co-drivers relatives, who graciously hosted us not just Thursday, buying us dinner, but allowing us a late night arrival at their home before buying us breakfast at Cracker Barrel before sending us on our way with well wishes for a safe return home.
The transmission holds 1st gear for a long time before resuming normal operation thru 3 gears each time it is restarted. We resolve to keep the car idling, one of us standing guard over the wounded Mustang each time we stop for gas or a potty break, and we make Beckley. We noted a bad rotten egg smell at each stop, and upon shutting the car off, all power is lost... its as if it doesnt even have a battery. I had a spare, which is as dead as the original! We got the "spare" battery jumped, but noted that it smelled even worse than the original. I buy a replacement battery in Stuart, VA... only 150 miles home or so....
With rotten egg sulfur fumes clearing out of our lungs, we proceed home ... I finally have an emotional breakdown talking to my dad on the phone outside Martinsville, Va on a backroad selected to keep us off the busy 40/85 corrider in NC... the co-driver takes over.... but we limp onward, where we narrowly miss hitting deer and HORSES (yes, HORSES along the full moon lit road)...
But after 2300 drama filled miles, the car was at my parents... it had done what no one, save myself, anticipated it may do... it had limped home, after 2 brake failures and a transmission failure AND a battery failure... and somehow arrived safely...
And now the rebuilding saga begins. A drive to Georgia for a transmission/engine combo revealed a cracked block in a potential replacement, a crack in the threaded holes where the mounfs would rest. We did negotiate and take just a transmission...
...and to add insult to injuries, the ignition coil dies in dads pickup 3 miles from home, and we wait 2 hours for a tow truck to tow us in.... that was definitely a bad omen for transmussion #1, which didnt work, because...
....it's a 2016 transmission... and as it turns out, those don't work with a Gen 1 car.... so I end up getting an LKQ transmission and that guy of course isn't interested in buying his crap back, so that was all just a learning experience. I was told confidently an $800 valve body will make it better, but I am not interested in putting that into an unknown transmission, and coincdentally, a used transmission thru LKQ from a 30k mile convertible car can be found for $600 with a one year warranty. And 18 days after the car limped to my parents, it left with another transmission.... and a wild story of the most expensive 4 laps of a track event I've run in my whole life....
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