Races within a race at the Gatororama. (Page 3 of 3)

2 Sundays, One Cup

Our bodies are ready!

The 2 Sundays, 1 Cup Cup is almost ready. Well, Ben needs 1 more weekend to add some more crap to it. But it will be ready-enough for the race.

Nobody knows the direction yet, but we've always run CW except for last year when Jay had us do one day CW and one day CCW. I'd guess CW again, but who knows.

I really need to get some of the unsellable 944 parts out of my floor.

Can I make a second trophy to be handed out to whoever I darn well please? I love glitter, BTW. GLITTER EVERYTHING!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZUA9lVjb4I

SWEET. It will be plasticky and aircon-y.

(Glitter works!)

Let's do that for the Two Sundays, One Cup Cup too. $20 per car, 4 cylinder vehicles only eligible. I'll be in a garage between pit in and pit out.

Maybe we should just put the signups at tech or at Nick's sign-in area along with the stickers and the donate bucket? We should coordinate this. I'll talk to Nick tomorrow to see what he thinks would work best.

Der Porschelump must regretfully withdraw from the 944 Cup race. I'm not sure what we'll be hooning yet, but it's not going to be Der Porschelump. We've gone past screwed all the way to "Is it 2014 yet?"

See, earlier this year, I bought an awesome 944. Looked as great as a beat-up, backwards-engined Audi reject can look. A little tired, but meh. I went ahead and entered it in the September Lemons race as soon as I heard it was a full 24-hour.

Then it got t-boned in the first hour of a Chump race. First race I entered it in. I never got to drive it fully set up for hoonin'. Cage failed, tub done, get a new one. 'k.

So, I found a new rolling shell, but the friend who offered to help swap the running gear from the old car didn't want to bother with swapping '83 stuff into a post-refresh '87 car. I don't know enough to do this on my own, so I was stuck either being out of help or buying a new shell, but at least they're easy to find.

So, I found an '84 manual transmission car. Everyone bailed on the idea of swapping the original car's engine over, so we used the existing stuff from the new car. Not good.

Then I ran into people problems. Most of the people who were like, "oh, it'd be fun to help with your Lemons car!" couldn't make it to actually work on the car.

Then someone made an illegal left turn immediately in front of my daily driver, totally busting up the front of my car and effectively taking me out for a couple weeks. I still can't use my right wrist for very long without it bothering me. The scaphoid tendon's pulled. Even when I started feeling better, I was working primarily with one arm because the injured one is just too weak.

A friend had referred me over to one of his friends who was looking to offer some engine help in exchange for some marketing help for his shop. Sounded good--I was too hurt to deal with my car very well, and we have a team ready to run it. I let him know that I was very busy, but would have more time after I got the Lemons car out of the way. Straight trade, expertise for expertise: you help me make a crusty engine run, I help you find customers.

The car sat untouched for a week right when I needed the most help putting it together, so naturally, that deal went south. Then the guy demanded payment to release the car since I wouldn't be offering him ANY help after that, and I had to pay $2000 to get my own property back. I felt the need to bring a sheriff along because the guy initially demanded cash only when I knew he takes alternate forms of payment and kept changing his terms for me getting the car back. That was Monday.

I really needed the help, and everyone else bailed on me. This guy seemed like the only option left for wrenchin' help. Now I wish I had just tried to single-handedly single-hand everything with my non-bad hand from my carport instead.

So, now that we got the car back and the actual dedicated crew guy on the team could help me take it apart, we noticed that ZERO actual work was done to the engine, and instead, all the little things like adding hardware to mount the seat, swapping shocks and brake pads, and the like that I said "oh, if you have time to help with these, too, go ahead, but I can take care of them, no prob" about seem to be most of what was done.

We just kept finding unpleasant surprises on that car. Many of the seals on the calipers that came with the car were dry-rotted. Congrats, Guy I Just Paid $2K to Give Me My Own Car Back, you recommended that I swap my brake pads into calipers that would've failed during a race and likely put my team or others on track in danger--when the known working ones from the previous car were also handed over for you to use.

The new engine came with a failed water pump. My team's crew member flew in this week and we got more done in a half-day than that guy claimed to do in the three full days he billed me for, and we still keep finding so many little problems here and there that there's no way we could guarantee that it would be ready and safe to run this week.

I feel horrible for my team. I feel horrible. I feel ripped off and betrayed. I feel like I've gotten bad advice after bad advice, and been taken advantage of when I got hurt. If it was just my car, I'd probably be less frustrated and chalk it up to "I'll know better next time," but since my whole team is knocked out by this, I'm absolutely livid.

I live in Austin. I need technical advice. Reliable technical advice. Someone who lives near here. I bought this car to run, not sit around broken. I am stubborn. We are close. It must run, and run as well and reliably as a 944 can, dang it.

I also probably need a lawyer if anyone knows a good one 'round here. One who specializes in auto accidents. Thanks.

tl;dr--I'll still probably make that glitter trophy if the 944 cup still needs one. Goodness knows, I have broken parts. Glitter!

Try john long   northside at automotive specialist   he is the miata whisperer but a genuine good guy and damn good wrench

Who was the dude who screwed you all