Grassroots Motorsports: The Hardcore Sports Car Magazine

Scott, Gabe and I went to the MC Chris show last night. It truly rocked. I would go see him again.

I fear that I was probably the oldest person there, and I certainly didn’t have a retro-chic or so-nerdy-it’s-cool T-shirt on. Scott wore his Penny Arcade shirt with FF2000, but I’m glad I didn’t wear my Homestar Runner T-shirt…that’s too popular, therefore, it’s not cool anymore.

I did get a kick out of one of the two goth-lesbians. One of them was wearing a Guns’n'Roses T-shirt, one of the reprints that they’re now selling at Hot Topic in the mall. That clearly makes me old, I saw them in concert when the opened for Iron Maiden.

Vince fits the main X into the rear of the Subaru

The rear downtubes are reinforced with an “X”

The front of the cage is starting to come together.

Here’s a detail shot of the front foot as it ties into the sill.

a little tweaked

a lot tweaked

I’ll tell you what, that thar bus racin is fun with a capital F! Granted, I ain’t the 2006 Crash-A-Rama school bus figure 8 race grand champion. I didn’t come home with the extra $1k in my pocket. However, in bus racin, what is just as important as winning, is providing the crowds with the best possible crash, and carnage. On this score, good ole’ bus #13 did a fine job!

Ya see, after my bus stalled about halfway through the race, the backwoods hillbilly in me (let’s call him Leroy) got a little impatient, and anxious to get back to the front of the pack. Leroy was doing just fine, passing on the inside, avoiding most major collisions, while using the buses mass to push others off the racing “line”. In fact, after the early stall, Leroy had gained back about 5 or 6 positions, but then the great God of Crash-A-Rama called good ole #13 home. Ya see, Leroy had built up a good head of steam coming off of the high banks, and a look toward the “X” revealed another bus coming on, foot on the floor, pedal to the metal right at #13. Well, Leroy figured he could shoot the gap in the “X”. It would be close, but he’d make it, especially if the other bus lifted a bit. Well, another unseen bus smacked into #13’s passenger side slowing it just enough that the approaching bus nailed us T-bone style going through the “X”. This caused a major impact, and a very entertaining roll all the way over, nearly back onto #13’s tires. The bus blew out it’s windshield, jettisoned it’s battery, and came to a stop on it’s passenger side, with Leroy, dangling from a very useful 4pt. harness. The nice safety worker released Leroy, who then exited the bus to greet the enthusiastic cheers of the 7,000 or so, very sophisticated race fans in attendance. The front-end loader flipped the bus back rightside up, and Leroy was soon inside trying to get it started. It was then that the safety guys started screaming something about fire, and blowin up, so Leroy being the big sissy he is, got out of the bus, and watched the rest of the race from the emergency truck. All in all, it wasn’t a bad race……well at least not for Leroy. Good ole #13 has seen it’s last race though. Only six more months till the next Crash-A-Rama! Time to look for a new bus.

Oh yeah, and the whole thing was caught on in-bus video footage (until the camera got thrown from the bus). The computer savvy types down here at GRM are fixin to put the video up on the web if we can…..stay posted!

MC Chris is going to be burning down tha house in Orlando this evening, and we’ll be right there trying to keep up with the lyrics. If you aren’t familiar with the high-pitched one, what exactly are you contributing to your society?

His backpack has jets.

The Miata now has some retro-minded shoes: the American Racing Silverstone R. Here’s the wheel with a polished lip.

And here’s the car with the all-silver Silverstones.

Here’s a close-up of the wheel. The center caps have a retro touch to them, too. By the way, the tires are Kumho ECSTA SPT in a 205/50R15 size.

Okay, our Miata has its new shoes, as it’s now wearing a set of American Racing Silverstone R wheels. So, what do you think?

Some quickie specs: 15x7 inches, 42mm offset, all aluminum with steel inserts for the lugs, available Teflon coating. Weight of each wheel is 14 pounds, 5 ounces. Standard colors will be the two options shown here, but what says the peanut gallery? Would anyone want them in gold, dark anthracite or something else?

These wheels will go on sale to the general public very soon. (And hopefully we’ll have some pricing info soon, too.)

Since Per was down in Naples over the Thanksgiving holiday, we dropped the 92x off at the local Saab dealer (we don’t have one in the Ormond Beach area) for its free 7500 mile service. The service advisor didn’t realize that the 92x gets free service (including oil changes) for a few years, but after that was sorted out, we handed him a 5 quart jug of Mobil 1 and released the car into his care. The car was done in about 20 minutes (enough time for us to go to the parts department for a bottle of touch-up paint) and we were on our way. Not, however, after we asked for the remaining oil. The mechanic said, “Oh, it used all 4 quarts (it takes 4.2)….let’s do the math….that was a 5 quart jug….Anyway, now we’ve got to drain a little bit of oil out of the engine so we don’t have any problems.

While we were waiting, we noticed that there were no 92x’s on the lot, nor was there any sales literature on the car. Looks like the 92x’s future is very uncertain since GM dumped its small share of Subaru.

I hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Whether or not you subscribe to the concept that it’s actually just a white man’s holiday, it was nice to have a few days to decompress. Kim, the dogs and I spent it down in Naples with my parents. We had some good food on Thursday (no Turkey for Kim, but plenty of sides) and had some awesome Thai food at Thai Basil on Rt. 41 on Friday (ok, the Tom Yum soup gave Kim food poisoning, but otherwise it was great!) and then some of the best burritos on Saturday for lunch (Taco Ardiente on Pine Ridge) that was followed up by some good pizza on Saturday night (Lenny’s on Rt. 41)

Despite the caloric overload, I don’t think Kim and I gained much weight over the weekend, we ran 3-4 miles on Thursday and Friday. It was nice to run around different neighborhoods, especially in the “Teardown District” of Naples. They’re tearing down good small homes and building gigundous houses in their place.

On Friday night, we were witnesses to a non-injury collision on 41, a pick up pulled out in front of a Passat, which clipped it and then jumped the center median. Luckily, it didn’t make it into oncoming traffic. I guess that was our consolation prize for missing Joe racing buses at Crash-A-Rama.

I also finished up an interesting book, “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton. Despite my contention that “Lost World” was written as a screenplay and not as a novel, this book was actually kind of compelling. It discusses environmental terrorism as the primary plot, with a subplot on our culture of fear. The Military-Industrial complex has been replaced by the Political-Judicial-Media complex which continues to feed and feed on our fears. After the fall of the Berlin wall, there is no fear of the Red Menace, we’re now worrying about the ocean levels rising (Crichton points out numerous studies that show they are not), global warming (it might be, but he points out many other studies that show that it’s more likely that its a warming trend after the Little Ice Age, which lasted from the 13th century to the mid-1800s. Crichton’s novel certainly is interesting no matter which side of the environmental bandwagon you’re on. He even included all of his references…many, many pages worth.

Rods of genres were there, from gasser to rat to billet.

We’re guessing that these guys are often the lives of the party.

We saw lots of rat rods tonight. These seemed among the more genuine kind.

Lots of rust, patina and attitude.

There were actually a lot of VWs there. The finish on this one was interesting: It looked like clear over scuffed bare metal.

Five windows are just cool.

Don’t tell anyone, but the dirt was airbrushed on.

And of course, the coolest rat rod ever.

This weekend is the 32nd Annual Daytona Turkey Run, which fills Daytona International Speedway with ‘57 Chevys, ‘32 Fords and other cool creatures. When the sun goes down, lots of cars can be found cruising the appropriately named Belair Plaza. Here are some photos from this evening. By the way, most were shot in natural light without a flash or tripod, which added some challenges. (Some do look cool, however.)

The rumors are true. I will, once again be racing a schoolbus in a figure-8 race at the spectacular Crash-A-Rama event on Friday, Nov 25. Tim was nice enough to let me sneak outa the office yesterday to resurrect the bus. That’s one nice thing about working for gearheads, they understand the importance of Schoolbus racing, Indy 500 trips etc. I doubt if I worked for an accounting firm that they would understand. They would probably just give me that puzzled “you’re doing what?” look that I get from some folks who don’t quite understand why a guy like me, with fancy book learnin and all, would want to risk life and limb by racing a dilapidated old bus.

I do it for the chicks….pure and simple. The ladies love them schoolbus racers! Ok, Ok, that’s not true, they actually are repelled, but that’s kinda fun too!

Anyway, I get down to Bithlow (Orlando Speed World) yesterday, and the track guys had pulled my old bus from it’s resting place in the swamp. They also were nice enough to yank the front end out so the radiator wasn’t hitting the pulleys. (there was a bit of a front end collision in my last race!) Unfortunately, the bus had been sitting for the last 6 months or so without a hood. It’s pretty amusing to pull a spark plug, and have water come GUSHING out. This happened in 3 of the cylinders. A little CRC Screwloose, a little dollop of Marvel Mystery Oil, a little swearing, and praying, and the motor turned and blew all the crap out of the vacated plug holes. Then a little more mystery oil, a little more Screwloose, re-install the plugs…….and ………she fired and RAN!! The beastly old motor even idles smoothly, and has good throttle response!

Now onto the flat tire, and radiator repair. The hard part is over though, she runs, and will make the show!

If you are in or around Bithlow this Friday, come on out, root me on, meet the GRM staff in various levels of intoxication, and let your inner hillbilly run free! I’ll be the idiot in the #13 Yellow schoolbus. You’ll be able to see the GRM number panels, and stickers. The gang usually hangs out inbetween turns 3 and 4.

The first welding on the car is the footboxes for the main hoop.

After the main hoop is welded to the footboxes, the rear foot plates are welded to the strut tower.

After the plates are welded to the chassis, the pace of the work picks up. The first of the downtubes is welded to the main hoop.