Perhaps the most significant happenings on Tarmac & Gravel in 2008 happened only within the last couple months. Sister site DR1665.com was initially created as a project log dedicated to my personal journey from rally racing fan to rally racing driver. Late in this year, it was suggested that there might be merit to separating the cars from the driver. It was mere coincidence that I had this second domain collecting dust on the web. Turned out to be one heck of a relevant domain name.
An Early Setback. Swedish Salvation.
Early in 2008, after a weekend spent turning wrenches, I found myself tired and headed to AutoZone on a rainy Monday evening to pick up a new axle for 195. This axle marked the last mechanical repair the car needed. The engine had been rebuilt about three months prior, the transmission was shifting like butter, and I even managed to get the AC working again. This was February 4th and, several months later I would make the connection, the two year anniversary of my taking delivery of 195/2000, my project rally car.
Less than a mile from AutoZone, some kid in a Kia, upon seeing the light change, opts to attempt a last-second left turn on yellow. Even though he couldn’t see me, a car length back from the crosswalk, doing better than thirty, with no chance of stopping for the light, he still went for it, blindly, and two of his siblings spent an evening in the emergency room as a result. 195 pushed the B-pillar four or five inches into the cabin of the Kia, before bouncing back into the middle of the intersection.
Don't go into the light!
It was almost April before I managed to raise enough hell to warrant an adequate check from his borderline shady insurance carrier, but by that time, Vanessa and I were moving into our first house and there were plenty of projects in need of immediate funding. I did manage to pick up a 1986 Volvo station wagon with no radio or air conditioning to get me through the summer. I am now thoroughly impressed with Volvos and recommend them highly to anyone.
Missed Connections. Meaningful Motivation.
After missing out on the DSM/EVO Shootout in 2007 due to inability to get time off from Enterprise Wreck-A-Life, I was eager to make it back out to Norwalk, Ohio to party with my friends from 2GNT. In a cruel twist of irony, I was informed by the Northwest Airlines website that it was impossible for me to check in for a flight that had just left fifteen minutes prior. Ouch. About $1500 later, Vanessa and I were on a plane to Indy by way of Philly (where they would keep our bags for the weekend, actually). By April, we should have Greg and Nicole paid back for those tickets.
Greg told me that it was important that we be there for the Shootout. He was right in more ways than one. In addition to the therapeutic effects of my annual (sloppy) drunk in the company of the best of my friends from across the country, I was surrounded by the fastest and most beautiful Mitsubishis in North America. To see all these brilliant machines prowling the streets of Norwalk and Milan, filling the hotel parking lots, and roaring down the quarter mile at Norwalk Raceway Park was a shot in the arm for me. My rally car project had been sitting, totaled out by the insurance, all dilapidated in the garage at the new house for almost eight months. I knew, as our plane departed Indy en route home, the rest of 2008 would be productive.
This is what I started with.
I spent nearly every weekend in August and September out in the garage, enduring the worst of the Phoenix heat, cutting this and bending that, until I finally had 195 back together. If you’re interested in all the details of what happened when in all that madness, how I fixed this, solved that, or ended up having a buddy use coat hangers to weld an entirely new front end on the car one night. I’d start by reading “Home From the DSM Shootout.” If not, here’s a teaser pic from the day I got started with my “Serious Tools.”
"If 'some' Sawzall is good, 'more' Sawzall is better."
Press On Regardless. I Will Always Remember Daisy.
If there’s one motorsports event that I never, ever miss, it’s the Prescott Rally. My good friends at rallynotes.com introduced me to this event back in 2005, which was actually their first year as competitors at the event. Prescott showed me that rally racing actually happens in my area and inspired me to find my own rally car project. I purchased 195/2000 as a direct result of attending this rally in 2005. Perhaps, then, it’s fate that I spotted 464/1000 at the Prescott rally this year.
Daisy and Driver circa Christmas 2006.
I had owned my 1997 Eagle Talon since new way back in 1996. When I sold “Daisy” this past November, I had enjoyed more than 210,000 miles behind the wheel of that car. She taught me just about everything I know about cars and, what’s more, got me involved in online communities like 2GNT, which technically led to my present job at Toolbox.com. Daisy sold within 24 hours on Craigslist and the trusty old Volvo station wagon I had bought on Craigslist back in March to get me around after the accident (Daisy wasn’t street legal) went to my father-in-law, who retained me as chief mechanic.
With the proceeds of those sales, I bought 464/1000, a very well preserved Galant VR4. Now I own two of a special edition car, only 3008 of which were ever sold in North America – one for daily driving that I endeavor to keep clean and one for pressing on, regardless, where the pavement ends and rally begins. This is Tarmac & Gravel.