August 1st was our 16 year wedding anniversary
and we celebrated with a yummy steak dinner at Saltgrass. While it sounds like a long time it has flown
by.
August 3rd weekend – Saturday began early with
Susan’s alarm going off at 5:30. She
took the dogs out while I relished that early morning period where one is
slightly asleep and slightly awake. Soon
I was also up and about. Susan was
acting as the Chief of Timing & Scoring for a rallycross and I had my
annual preventative exam to go to. Thus
we were both out the door before 7:00, Susan to Quint Valley Fairgrounds and me
to Conifer Medical.
My exam was uneventful.
There were no medical revelations which was fine by me. I went straight back home after it was over
and found the joint like I left it.
We’d finally gotten around to washing off the rally wheels
we wanted to sell and I had listed them the night before on Facebook. One person was adamant about purchasing one
set of wheels and I set about boxing them up before dropping them off at the
local UPS Store for shipment. My
productivity potential reached for the day and I plopped myself on the couch to
hang with the pups and watch TV and videos on my computer.
Susan’s day rallycrossing went alright. Fortunately a lot of folks showed up so she
didn’t have to work a normal work assignment and instead just had to make sure
the timing system was set up and functioned.
Besides the RS acting a little funny the Subaru drove well and she
finished in fifth place in her class. Our
pal and new RX Director Dan Hipwood didn’t have such a great day. Besides filling multiple duties (including
driving the rally bus to and from the event) an oil line on his MR2 came apart
on his last run and the engine seized up.
Some events are tougher than others and Dan had a tough one on
Saturday.
Susan was a saint and picked up dinner on her way home which
we ate on the couch with the pups supervising closely. We finished out the evening watching TV and
playing games.
Sunday was a slow day.
It eventually started with coffee and we hung out and chatted about this
and that. Lunch was Jimmy Johns and was
soon followed by Dan coming by to swap his car trailer from the rally bus to
his truck which he’d left at our house.
He hung out for a time talking rallycross-shop and venting about the day
before. I sympathized as I had many
similar days myself when I was in a leadership role in the group.
Dan left and we made our way back to our favorite spots on
the couch. It was hot and for some
reason I was unmotivated to do much else.
While I have no doubt much could have been accomplished I do treasure
our hangout time on the couch. It was a
nice way to end the weekend.
August 9th weekend – Friday night we decided to
have a mini date-night which entailed Qdoba for dinner and watching the newest
Spiderman movie at the Parker AMC. I had
reserved the best seats in the theater which was great. The room was surprisingly full as the movie had
been out for a few months. It was a nice
time for sure.
Saturday had us up earlyish to have coffee before an old
CONOC friend Luis came by to check on our roof.
Susan had found a piece of roofing on the ground next to the house and
remembered that Luis does roofing and messaged him. It turned out that the offending material
came from our cat shed and the roof was in fine shape. *phew*
In any case it was good to see and chat with Luis.
Our next appointment was at 11:00 at Centennial Airport to pick
up a pug rescue. This pug-chihuahua mix (Winston)
was flying in from Arizona via a private plane.
Yes, the private flight was only to deliver said dog. What a world!
We arrived a little early, parked, and walked over to the fence where we
could watch the people debarking from their planes. We recognized the doggie-plane from messages
Susan had previously received and made our way through the little
terminal. Winston was skittish but
friendly enough and we were soon on our way back home.
We had some time to kill so we spent it unpacking the PA I’d
bought to donate to the Pug Rescue and testing it out. The guest-doggie hung outside with us as Mel
was simply too oblivious of her overbearingness for Winston to handle. When it was time to go we loaded the PA and
Winston into Flo.
The foster family was located in a nice neighborhood in
southern Parker and it took us almost 20 minutes to get there. We’ve known the foster-mom for years as a
main volunteer person from the rescue and evidently the foster-dad also has
been in the pug-scene for some time though neither Susan nor myself recognized
him. We chatted for a time in the hot
sun before making our exodus.
The last productive thing we did for the day was to stop at
Walmart on the way home for food stuffs.
We then went into “hangout mode” with the pups for the remainder of the
day.
Sunday we slept in and didn’t do much. It was glorious. We cooked up a chicken alfredo dish with
zucchini from scratch for a late lunch which was utterly fantastic. This was a nice and relaxing weekend.
Monday night we ventured outside at 10:30 to watch the
meteor shower. Unfortunately the moon
was incredibly bright and we only saw one streaking meteor. We sat on our front stoop for a half an hour
talking about little things which was fun in any case.
August 17th weekend – Saturday we were up at an
almost early time for coffee. We had
things to do outside and were hoping to beat some of the day’s heat. Our plan worked ok as we unloaded Scrappy
from the trailer and set about preparing for the upcoming Lemon’s race. Susan taped on number “1s” (I signed up too
late to secure our preferred “3” so we were “31” instead) which I vacuumed
Scrappy and did this and that.
We had to make a run to the hardware store and settled on
Home Depot where we spent an exorbitant amount of time figuring out what to buy
to construct a vent in our trailer for our stand-alone air conditioner.
Once finished we stopped at Texas Roadhouse for a steak
lunch. It was as tasty as always with
the only peculiar thing that the family behind us all ordered non-steak
things. If Susan and I were going to get
cheeseburgers I think I’d probably go somewhere besides a steakhouse to buy
them. Then again, perhaps Texas
Roadhouse has killer burgers.
Back home and I attempted to use our new hole saw to cut a
hole into a 2x6 board. It was
approximately two minutes after Susan exhorted me to put on shoes (I was
wearing sandals) when the saw bit and was ripped from my hands and across the
top of my right big toe. There was some
blood but fortunately the damage was minor – more like several parallel
paper-cuts than anything else. Soon I
was bandaged up and we were off to Lowe’s to purchase a jigsaw.
I’ve never used a jigsaw but the cheapo Black & Decker
we bought was simple and made short work of the 2x6 and, soon thereafter, the
floor of the trailer. It took us some
time but eventually we were happily done fabricating and installing our air
conditioning vent.
We celebrated by loading Scrappy into the trailer and
packing up some other racing stuffs before hitting the showers.
My plan was to just relax-away the rest of the day on the
couch but Susan reminded me of a birthday party invitation we had. Thus we found ourselves driving to Dan and
Alina’s house to join them in celebrating their dog Pixel’s third
birthday.
Upon arrival we were ushered to the back of the house as a
slight doggie-medical emergency was being dealt with in the living room. Pixel has brittle toe nails and one had
partially broken a few days before. The
super-glue that was used to hold it in place had failed and was causing her
much distress and thus Dan was cutting off the offending nail.
We were allowed inside as the procedure was finishing up and
Dan wrapped up Pixel’s foot in medical tape and covered it with a sock. Pixel looked and acted mighty pathetic for
the duration of her birthday party.
Dan and Alina made pizza for dinner which was tasty and we
hung out and chatted about this and that.
I was starting to think about leaving early when we played some party
games on their TV via our smart phones.
A couple of hours flashed by as we laughed and played various
games. Truly it was a great time. The gathering ended for us when we left for
home around 9:30.
Sunday we slept in late which was nice. After coffee I felt the strong urge for some
Pollo Con Crema from Three Margaritas so I drove us over to the nearest
restaurant which was over in Highlands Ranch.
My favorite dish was just as yummy as I remembered.
We swung by Michael’s to look for this and that. We had fun walking the entirety of the store
but only found this and none of that.
Before driving home we walked over to the Farmer’s Market
which was going on right next door.
Pretty standard fare. We weren’t
looking for anything in particular and coincidentally left without buying
anything (our Parker Farmer’s Market is better).
Once back home three sets of watering pup-eyes beckoned us
to the couch where we remained for the duration of the day. Susan watched movies and Netflix while I
burned up some brain cells playing games.
The weekend was a nice mix of productivity, partying, and relaxing.
Heartland Parked:
Thursday – we were up early with coffee and packing for our
race weekend. We finally left the house
around 8:20 with the pups piled around Susan: Mel on the floor, Bella on the
center console, and Pebbles in Susan’s lap.
After our trip to California last month we thought it best to just let
the little buggers be close to Susan as that’s where they ended up after many
hours of consternation.
The drive itself was largely uneventful and we arrived at
the track around 6:30 local time. We
checked in and claimed a garage and RV hookup spot. This wasn’t a challenge as very few other
folks were there so we were able to pick wherever to be.
We unpacked the trailer, parked Scrappy in the garage, and
dropped off the trailer in its RV spot.
Luckily we had brought extra extension cords as the RV power supply was
located relatively far away up a grassy hill from the pavement. We immediately turned on the air conditioning
in the trailer and headed back to the garage to organize.
It took some time to get everything how we wanted it but we
came prepared with fridge, freezer, tables, and shelving.
When we returned to the trailer to find a strange puddle of
water under the front. Susan discovered
that the small bottle we’d always used to catch condensation was inadequate for
the humid Kansas air and had overfilled and spilled in the trailer. Whoops!
This accumulation of water was an issue all weekend and we settled on
repurposing a 7-gallon water jug so we didn’t have to constantly worry about
it.
Susan and I went out to do a little shopping and grab some
dinner at Popeye’s Chicken. We’d never
been before and found the experience lacking.
It was very busy and it took a long time before we were served. Somehow our simple order was messed up though
the food tasted alright. It was clear
the staff didn’t care so we just ate what we were served and left. We probably won’t be pining for Popeye’s
going forward.
Friday – we were up earlyish to prep the car and wait for our
other drivers to show up. One, Owen, had
flown into Kansas City and the other, Brandon, was from Kansas City. Thus Brandon picked Owen from the airport and
transported him to the track, saving us a lot of time. When our drivers arrived I ordered us pizza
for lunch and we drove Scrappy to where tech was to occur.
The tech process went quickly and no issues came up. The BS inspection also went alright which was
expected as we don’t have too many cheaty things on our car. Susan and I had wandered over to have our
driving equipment checked earlier so were able to officially check in with the
Lemons’ registration people.
I had paid for us to test Scrappy on the track so I grabbed
my helmet and headed out. I put down a
few laps before the car died. After
getting towed back to the garage the problem was clear – the radiator cap was
missing. I must not have installed the
cap correctly earlier and it fell off while I was on the track. This caused the car to catastrophically
overheat which led to the head warping and the loss of compression on all
cylinders.
Our mission for the rest of the day was to find a
solution. We made phone calls and search
the web. A stranger even drove me to a
super-secret shop off the beaten path to see if anyone there could help. Eventually I decided to make the eight hour
round-trip to Tulsa to buy a head there.
I left around 4:00 while the others worked on getting Scrappy ready for
the new head.
Besides being long my drive went alright. Besides me catching up with folks heck-bent
on going the speed limit I encountered no issues on the drive. I wasted no time in Tulsa and turned back
minutes after first meeting the head-seller.
I got back to the track just before midnight to find Scrappy’s engine
largely tore apart and Susan sitting alone.
The other guys had either gone to bed or went to hang out with other folks.
Saturday had us up early to start working on Scrappy. The official time to begin our efforts was
7:00 we were one short when that time rolled around. Owen was dead to the world and slept in while
we toiled away. While I’m confident I
could have badgered him up and about I honestly didn’t feel a strong urge to do
so.
Here’s a brief synopsis for the subsequent several hours:
installed head gasket and head, took a break to attend mandatory drivers
meeting, found and replaced missing gasket on back of new head (Susan made one
using a gasket making kit another team lent us), Owen woke up at 10:00, found
critical timing part was not installed (had to redo timing), car wouldn’t
start, water pump pulley was not tightened causing alternator belt to get
mangled, went to part store to buy new belts, found timing was off, bent the
woodruff key, hammered woodruff key straight, car started then stopped, found
cam sensor not fully plugged in, car finally started.
At around 4:30 Owen drove Scrappy onto the track. We were oh so relieved to finally have a
working race car and were oh so bummed out when, after a few laps, Owen radioed
in that the car was suddenly down on power.
After pulling back to the garage we quickly determined that
cylinder two wasn’t doing anything. To
test spark we pulled the spark plug and coil pack out to see if anything was
happening when the car ran. It was after
a couple of sparks that the top of the motor caught on fire. Susan was quick to grab the fire extinguisher
and douse the flames (twice, it flared up again) and there was yellow dust all
over the engine and engine bay. It was
at this point where we discovered that somehow the o-ring on the number one
fuel injector had a neat tear in it which let fuel spill onto the top of the
motor.
It didn’t take long to swap the injector with another that
came with the new head and Brandon got his first crack at racing. This fix did nothing for cylinder two’s
non-functioning problem but at this point I just wanted to get going. It was later that we discovered that cylinder
two had no compression which meant that the head gasket had likely blown
again.
Dispirited by Scrappy’s prospect of many hours of further
work we decided to simply run on the three remaining cylinders and hope for the
best.
Soon after the day’s racing was over there was a paddock
potluck which we participated in.
Fortunately Susan had remembered to start the slow cooker in the
afternoon so finishing up our chili was a cinch. The food was yummy though I didn’t feel too
festive due to how the day had gone.
We’d managed to put in only 14 laps around the track over the whole day.
I almost forgot to mention that the power steering belt was
missing when Brandon got back to the garage.
We discovered that the tensioner was not tightened which caused the belt
to likely end up somewhere out on the track.
I went to the closest part store and bought a new belt before heading to
Walmart to grab a few things. Once back
we discovered that while the belt packaging was correct the belt in the
packaging was incorrect. This realization
was, of course, after the parts stores were all closed. It was at this point we settled on not having
power steering for the remainder of the race.
Likely because of the craziness of the day Susan and I
stayed up far too late. We were about to
head to bed at 1:00 when we realized just how filthy we were and utilized the
track showers instead. After shoeing out
a frog I was scolded in my shower stall while Susan froze in hers. At least we were clean.
Sunday – we woke up early to rain. Susan told me that it had come down hard and
fast enough earlier in the morning that it woke her but I was evidently too
tired to notice as I slept through the deluge.
Owen slept in again so Brandon got to drive first. To hopefully keep him drier we sent him out a
few minutes after the race began so he wouldn’t have to sit still in the
rain.
The driving part of the day went alright. Brandon was nervous driving in the weather
but did ok despite spinning on one of the turns and earning a black flag almost
immediately on his first stint. Owen
eventually woke up in time to take over after Brandon and kept Scrappy pointing
straight before Brandon went out again.
Somehow Brandon managed to spin on his final lap so we switched drivers
in the penalty box. I thoroughly enjoyed
my stint before Susan hopped in Scrappy to finish the race. In total we logged 132 laps over two
days.
After parking Scrappy outside the garage (the rain had
stopped earlier) we attended the awards ceremony were we received the “I Got
Screwed” trophy in acknowledgement of all the problems we had.
Brandon and Owen left soon after and Susan and I started
packing up. We’re not the fastest at
these activities and thus were the last people to vacate the track at
6:36.
My plan was to drive all the way home Sunday night but as
night fell I decided to relent and asked Susan to find us a hotel in Hays,
Kansas. We were an hour away from our
hotel when I ran over some road debris which made quite a racket.
Susan convinced me to stop on the side of the interstate to
check for low tires and I found none. We
stopped at a rest stop a few minutes later and discovered that the debris was
kicked up by the back tire on the driver’s side and had dented the front of the
trailer. Dang. The rest of the drive to the hotel was
uneventful.
Monday – we woke very sore a whisker before 8:00 and ate
hotel breakfast. We were on the road
before 9:00 and home by 2:00. Running
Scrappy on three cylinders in the rain meant we had a lot of extra gas which we
used in the suburban on the journey home.
We unpacked most everything and parked Scrappy in its corner
of the garage. I was tempted to start
pulling the motor but decided to relax with Susan and the pups instead.
Speaking of the pups… they were good dogs overall during our
trip. There was barking by Pebbles and
whining by Mel and Bella but otherwise they were well-behaved. Much of their time was spent in the
air-conditioned trailer while Susan and I did our racing thing. The dogs seemed very happy to finally be
home. What a crazy weekend.
Tuesday after work we pulled the motor out of Scrappy. I’m sure a trained mechanic could have done
it faster but I work slow so it took all evening.
Wednesday I was hoping to install the spare motor but was
stymied by the lack of the appropriate clutch alignment tool. I concentrated on wiring and a pulling the
header instead.
Thursday and we had the motor installed though we weren’t
quite done when we called it a night.
Friday and we finally fired up Scrappy for a test-idle. I bled the coolant which didn’t go as
smoothly as normal. Not sure what was
wrong at the time but the car wasn’t overheating so we loaded it into the
trailer.
Saturday – we were up early to feed the pups before heading
to the track. Pebbles came along as she
was just too cute to leave behind. Our
plan was to drive a stint each and call it good. This didn’t go so well as Scrappy started
overheating after only a couple of laps.
We were going to go home to try to fix the issue but waited for Alvin to
arrive to take a look. Around lunch time
I swapped out the thermostat but didn’t have a new gasket so water was
leaking. I figured I’d try tightening
the bolt on the thermostat housing a little more and then a little more and
then *snap* the housing cracked. There
really is no cute for stupidity so we loaded up and went home.
One the way home we stopped at a parts store for the
appropriate gasket and quickly installed it once Scrappy was in the
garage. Bleeding the coolant went much
better this time so we decided to load up and head back to the track for the
last hour of the scheduled open lapping day.
Pebbles wasn’t as cute in the afternoon so she stayed home this
time.
After arriving at the track Susan drove for around 20
minutes with no issues and we were super-relieved. Unfortunately our euphoria was short-lived as
the engine wanted to overheat as soon as I got behind the wheel. In fact, the temperature gauge was all over
the place. Dejected we loaded up and went
home.
Once we had Scrappy back in the garage I decided to do the
timing belt and water pump. I was
worried that something was blocking the passageways and the maintenance history
on the engine was unknown. In the
process of taking apart what I needed to take apart I noticed the upper
radiator hose was very loose. *sigh* This was likely the cause of the weird
overheating. I decided to continue on
and got as far as removing all the timing components and installing a new water
pump before the hour got too late and we went inside to hang with the pups for
the remainder of the evening.
August was such a busy month for us. It’s times like this that I’m glad I write
these updates as I would forget most everything if I didn’t. While I wish there were fewer “downs” in
August the “ups” were enough. September
will likely be another busy month as we participate in our final Lemons race of
2019. I expect things to calm down a bit
after that.
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