January 3rd weekend – the weekend truly began on Friday afternoon. I left work a little early to try and take advantage of the waning light. I pulled the suburban in front of the car trailer, unlocked the hitch, and jacked it up high enough to connect. Then I hopped back in the suburban to discover that it wouldn’t start. No cranking whatsoever. I would say that I felt opposite of appreciative of the situation. I tried jumping the battery and checked the fuses. Susan came home around this time and encouraged me to not give up so we went to O’Reilly’s and picked up a remanufactured starter before grabbing a bite to eat at Burger King (I think the Impossible Whopper is pretty darn yummy). Once home I set about swapping out the starter. There was lingering snow on the ground and the soil was soft which we largely countered with a big piece of cardboard. I found the old starter absolutely coated in oil and a pain to remove. It was a mess but eventually the new starter was installed. It was cold so my and Susan’s extremities were a bit numb when I was finished but all as was good as the suburban started up smoothly on the first try. I was done with being productive at this point so we retreated to the couch for the remainder of the evening.
Saturday had us up at 7:00ish with an alarm. We had a busy morning with hooking up the trailer, loading in Scrappy, and packing for a day at the track. It was customer appreciation day at HPR which meant that anyone who had attended an HPR-run open lapping day in 2019 was eligible to drive around the track for free. As is my way I had signed us up for the event as soon as I was able which was a good thing as the entries were limited.
We arrived at the track to find a long line of cars and trucks with trailered cars waiting to sign the waiver. Definitely it was the busiest we’ve ever seen it and it took us 10 minutes just to get in. Once parked we promptly opened up the trailer before checking in and getting our wristbands.
There were a lot of people at the track but we found that the driving was generally ok. I had a couple of unnecessarily stressful moments with a few overly aggressive drivers but considering the crowd it wasn’t so bad. What was great was that several friends were also at the track so we had fun chatting about all things racecar. Scrappy ran well and besides periodically adding gas we simply alternated driving. We had a great time.
I backed the trailer into our driveway just as the sun was setting. Susan had ordered pizza via an app on her phone a few minutes before we got home and it soon arrived. We were tired from the long day and the pups were very happy to see us. We plopped on the couch in our usual places and the dogs snuggled up in their usual ways.
My plans to be moderately productive on Sunday were dashed when I woke up to find myself still tired and a bit unmotivated. The cold and windy weather didn’t help either. We ended up vegging out on the couch which was nice.
Monday I picked up Scappy’s new heart (engine) and a starter. The parts store was located in Westminster so it was a bit of a drive there and back but otherwise the transportation went smoothly. I was going to wait until Susan got home from work to unload the engine but decided to do it myself while it was still light outside. No biggie and I soon had the motor settled comfortably on a used tire.
January 11th weekend – Saturday morning started with me cajoling Susan out of bed for coffee. Soon we were dressed and out to peruse our favorite junk yard for Scrappy parts. We walked and walked and found several compatible cars but few that had what we needed. I unbolted this and that but in the end we left empty-handed. This engine swap has one unknown I’m not very comfortable with – wiring. We decided to cough up the cash and have someone else put together a wiring harness for us.
After getting our junk yard exercise we drove to O’Reilly’s to drop off the suburban’s old starter for a core refund before heading down to Walmart to do a bit of shopping. We made a brief stop at home to say hello to the pups before leaving again to catch lunch on our way downtown.
We stopped for chow at Amigos which is a little Mexican place off of Arapahoe Road. The chips were lousy but the meals were tasty. It was our first time going there together and I think we’ll add it to our regular restaurant rotation.
Our main destination was the Denver Convention Center to attend the RV expo. Now that we have our behemoth we thought it would be fun to check out new RVs and motorhomes so we did. Traffic was fine until we were almost to the parking garage when I made a poor lane change which led to us circling the venue and wasting time. Fortunately we didn’t care too much and eventually reached the parking structure and found a spot.
Inside we found the expo busy with people all over the dang-place and RVs packed in tight. We wandered about and periodically explored the various RVs as befit our whimsies. We saw pretty neat setups of all sizes. The new RVs definitely have a distinctly grey style which I’m confident will mark them as being manufactured during this period of time. We didn’t explore for an especially long time but enjoyed ourselves.
The only real disappointments were the lack of Class A motorhomes (like ours) and that some of the free tote bags had run out. Pity us.
We were hungry again and stopped for dinner at Qdoba (me) and Firehouse Subs (Susan) as they were across the street from each other.
Sunday was a mix of lazy (me) and productive (Susan). I essentially played games all day while Susan worked on accumulating continuing education for her HR certification. We ordered Garbanzo for lunch and ate leftovers for dinner. It was a fine final day of a fine weekend.
January 18th weekend – Saturday began with us sleeping until midmorning. Then after coffee and some copious hanging out we unloaded Scrappy from the trailer and into the garage before voyaging up north to look at a cheap Miata Susan found. This particular Miata was pretty rough but the price was right.
We found the car without incident and the young guy who owned it was waiting for us. I gave the underside a thorough looking at as it was a salvage car due to “flooding”. I didn’t see any rust and I cranked over the motor. Holy smokes the motor was oh so done. It knocked terribly (we knew this was a problem). I checked the oil to find almost none in the engine. Yikes. I added close to four quarts, which is almost all a Miata motor holds, to try to stave off the block seizing up before we had it in our trailer. While the car was in poor shape it was still a good deal so we paid the guy and managed to load it into the trailer before going home.
Our main adventure done we hung out with the pups for the remainder of the evening. The original plan for Saturday was to go to HPR for open lapping and then check out the Miata. Unfortunately I was feeling ill and didn’t think I’d enjoy a day at the track. The pattern of my seasonal sick-time is a sore throat on day 1, a stuffed nose on day 2, and a chest cold on days 3-7ish. Friday I had a sore throat and Saturday my nose was stuffed.
Sunday I woke to a tearing cough. My sickness dictated the day and we didn’t go out or accomplish much of anything beyond keeping the couch warm and pups company.
Monday was MLK day and my office was closed which was good for me as I was full-blown miserable. Susan had to work which was probably good for her as she could keep some distance from my germs. I ended up staying home from work for the entirety of the week. I tried going in on Wednesday but was immediately sent home with my laptop as it was clear to everyone that I would likely spread my illness to my coworkers if I stayed.
January 25th weekend – Saturday we slept in a smidge and had our coffee. We had a few things to accomplish so got to them. We finally unloaded the new Miata from the trailer. We were worried we’d find a huge puddle of oil on the floor of the trailer but there were just a few drops. The motor still sounded like a one-handed drummer hitting the side of a five gallon paint can but the car was able to move under its own power. The plastic window in the soft top had a small crack which we fixed using 3M clear bra. We backed the car next to the cat shed and Susan placed a couple of large rocks behind the rear tires to prevent it rolling down the hill.
Susan started the motorhome generator while I was fussing with the Miata. For the health of the generator we’re supposed to run it for 20-30 minutes every few weeks. It started up alright and seemed to do its thang without incident.
As the weather was pleasant Susan harnessed up Oliver for a walk around the property. Oliver is simply giant with most of his size due to his thick fur. He still acts the kitten and was so curious about everything. We walked this way and that, along the fencing, and down to the lower forty. It was a bit overwhelming to Oliver but he seemed to enjoy himself.
After depositing Oliver back in his shed we drove to Walmart to buy a whole bunch of stuffs and Susan got a sandwich at the built-in Subway. After arriving home and unloading our booty we plopped on the couch for the remainder of the evening. Domino’s was delivered for dinner which was yummy.
Sunday we were up early with an alarm and, after a flurry of activity, slid into the suburban and on our way south. Susan had gotten word that there was to be an autocross held on the infield of PPIR and suggested we participate some weeks before. Thus we found ourselves towing Scrappy to our first autocross in almost four years.
Susan was worried we’d be late as I wasn’t in a big enough rush before we left but the traffic was light and we made it to the venue in plenty of time. There were a lot of police patrolling I25. We counted 10 cop cars and motorcycles on the drive to PPIR and back. Quite a bit of the interstate is under construction so I suppose it’s a great stretch of road to collect funds with double fines and whatnot. Towing our trailer has us generally going below the speed limit so we had nothing to worry about.
We arrived to PPIR later than most of the other participants and found the usual assortment of cool sports cars lined up this way and that. The contrast in vehicles participating in autocross versus rallycross is quite stark. We checked-in and unloaded Scrappy. Eventually we found our grid spot and Susan parked Scrappy in its temporary home.
There were two heats and we worked in the morning while half of the drivers drove. We were assigned stewardship over one cone and dutifully watched it as the cars zipped by. I was still recovering from by sickness and found standing around for hours to be extremely tiring. Fortunately our cone was unscathed for the entirety of the run and we (in typical amateur racing fashion) judged the cars and drivers and chatted about this and that.
Once the first heat was through everyone broke for a lunch break. We had brought food stuffs and sat in our trailer to eat. My favorite part of lunch was the sitting down.
Finally we were allowed to drive the course and we found the experience to be a lot of fun. Scrappy doesn’t have a passenger seat so it was a bit of a bummer not being able to ride with each other but we still managed to get quicker each run. Our driving time seemed to go quickly and we were soon finished. I had planned on participating in fun runs after the event was over but found myself too exhausted from the day and I just wanted to go home.
The drive from the Colorado Springs area to Denver is often terrible on Sunday evenings but there was nary a delay and we made fantastic time getting home. The pups were happy to see us and we were happy to see them. Dinner was leftovers and I spent a bit of time editing footage from the day’s racing. What a fun weekend!
January ended with a couple of little snow storms that blanketed the ground and made our neighborhood roads slippery. They came as a surprise to me as I hadn’t been paying attention to the weather forecasts.
The pups are doing great. All are sweet with us and most seem ok with each other (Pebbles still ineffectually lashes out at the pugs).
Susan’s work keeps her very busy and it’s not uncommon for her to bring her laptop home to clean up her emails in the evenings and weekends. I’ve transitioned from Statutory Reporting to Fund Accounting which has been fun for me. There is so much to learn and I’m looking forward to helping the group out.
My sinus infection/cold/whatever seems to be mostly gone as the end of the month approaches. I still cough and my nose is a bit runny but I generally feel fine.
We’re looking forward to longer days in February and hope to get some work done on our racecars.
