August 2021

 August 5th weekend – 

On Thursday evening we took Munchy down to Castle Pines to leave her off with her new foster parent.  I wasn’t going to come along but ended up driving.  Just before she was going to leave Susan had poked her eye with the corner of a cardboard box while bending over to scoop dog food.  Susan was in pain and it looked like her lasik flap had been dislodged.  Yikes!  

As Susan’s vision was impaired I drove her and Munchy to Castle Pines.  Susan dropped off Munchy with no issues.  Eventually an after hours eye doctor returned Susan’s call and recommended some drops and ointment which we promptly purchased.  

Friday morning began with a trip to our eye doctor’s office for Susan.  She was prescribed an antibiotic and told that things would be feeling better in a few days.  We were both relieved.  

Our weekend plans revolved around going to the track so we set about packing this and that.  We made a quick trip to Walmart for some food stuffs before loading up and heading to the track.  

After arriving and setting up camp we connected with some friends who were participating in the WRL races being held on Saturday and Sunday.  They were driving an older BMW that was set up much like our Scrappy in that it was now a full-on racecar.  They were working through bugs that had popped up during the day and we hung out and chatted.  

One of the people driving the BMW is an old friend of ours, Ryan McLaughlin.  He lives up in Evergreen and drives back and forth from the track in the morning and evening for these races.  He had floated getting an RV to his wife who completely shot him down.  Not willing to let that be the end of it, we gave him a tour of our cheap RV.  This got Ryan very excited and he went home that evening to further talk with his wife about getting one.  We are a bad influence!  

Eventually we made our way back to the RV to BBQ for dinner.  This time we were patient with the grill and, while it took a long time, the end result was a yummy hamburger for Susan.  

Saturday we slept in and missed the start of the day’s race.  When we finally took care of the dogs, had our coffee, and wandered outside it was past 10:00.  

Teams racing with WRL get to have their own hot pit spaces where most set up Easy Ups and folding chairs.  When their cars pit they park right next to these spots and then the teams hop the short wall to do what they need to do.  This is different than Lemons in that the teams can’t have hot pit spots for themselves and instead bring up their pit supplies (fuel, fire extinguisher, etc) for each pit stop.  I can see the appeal to having one’s own pit area but I don’t think there would be enough room to accommodate the far higher number of Lemons teams.  

Susan and I spent much of the day hanging out with the team as their car drove around the track.  Susan timed their pit stops when they came in and we chatted about most things racecar.  

Things were going well until they didn’t for the BMW team.  In the early afternoon the transmission had a massive failure and partially ripped itself off of the bottom of the car.  The transmission tunnel itself was severely damaged and the driver was fortunate to have avoided injury from an intrusion into the cabin.  Truly the carnage was something to behold.  Of course, the car had to be towed back to their car port where the team waited to figure out what had happened.  

After the car was up in the air the consensus was that things were bad.  Very bad.  Not only was the transmission kaput but the peripheral damage was great as well.  Long story short – the race weekend was over for the team.  

While this was all a massive bummer the team took it in stride.  All the drivers were experienced and came to the weekend with the knowledge that something like this could happen.  A lot of pictures were taken and hemming and hawing over the damage before the car was pushed into the trailer and most the team vacated the track.  

Our pal Ryan Dussex was one of the team members who stayed as he was there in his RV along with his friend Frank.  We all ended up hanging out in the (now empty) car port for much of the evening.  It was a fun time for sure.  

Sunday morning we slept in a bit again before getting on with things.  We decided to leave early since we didn’t have a team to root for and most of our pals were gone.  We ended up getting home a hair after noon which was pretty darn early considering we had to stop twice: once to dump our tanks and again to get fuel.  

An aside about the fuel stop – the pump nozzle was ripped off and laying next to the pump on the driver’s side in the lane we picked to get fuel.  Never seen this before.  Fortunately we can fuel from either side of the RV so it was not an inconvenience.  Before we left I alerted an attendant to the issue.  Craziness.  

A couple of notes about the weekend’s RV trip.  The water from the fresh water tank smelled neutral which was fantastic.  All of the RV’s systems performed as we’ve come to expect.  We brought extra drinking water and didn’t have to buy ice to supplement our supply like we did during our last trip.  The dogs were well-behaved and we really had a pleasant time.  The haze from the California fires was crazy.  It was bad enough that one could barely see the clouds and we could taste it in the air.  

We spent time cleaning up the house a bit once we had finished unpacking from our mini-vacation at the track.  We were to host a dinner with Emilee, Ryan, Stu, and Lee the following evening.  We found some recipes in Susan’s new cook book that had a good yummy-to-effort balance and went to Walmart to buy the ingredients.  We mostly found what we needed and then spent the next several hours prepping this and that to ease the next day’s efforts.  

A note about our trips to indoor spaces.  We’re back to wearing masks again.  While it feels a bit silly after all this time we don’t mind following the latest guidance.  We aren’t alone in wearing masks again though most people aren’t (yet).  We oh so hope this covid-craziness ends eventually.  

On Monday evening Emilee, Ryan, Stuart, and Lee joined us for dinner and conversation at our home.  We made a few different vegetarian dishes which all came out great.  It was nice to see everyone and chat about this and that.  Stu and Lee are so darn big!  

August 14th weekend – 

Saturday began with me up early to take care of the dogs.  Bella is vigilant in letting me know she is in need of breakfast.  It’s cute in that most everything Bella does is cute but is also pretty darn annoying.  Such is.  I made myself coffee and hung out with the dogs for a bit before heading out to the garage.  

I finally set myself to disassembling the Miata rear end we’d bought from Chris Dorsey last year.  I found some major bolts wouldn’t budge but managed to remove some other bolts which let me break down the unit into manageable pieces.  I think I’ll need to use a torch to remove the bolts that were stuck.  

After getting the rear end apart I loaded it and some other parts into the suburban.  I also spent some time transferring parts to the fridge.  Eventually we’ll have the garage ready for the lift!

Susan joined me in the garage at this point.  We chatted for a minute before she went inside to start coffee and I went to the suburban to transport the parts I’d loaded up down to the tire shed.  

We drank our yummy coffee and soon left to catch lunch at Qdoba on our way up to Ryan Sealey’s home.  

Ryan had recently bought a new drill press and was giving away his old model.  As I’ve needed one for a long time we told him we would love to take it.  Initially the plan was for us to join Ryan and his family for “movie night” but we were planning on transporting Scrappy later in the day so just dropped by instead.  

We ended up hanging out with Ryan and Kristen for some time talking about this and that.  They had recently moved so they showed off their home and Ryan showed us his latest garage projects.  It was a nice time.  

We found out what “movie night” meant – they set up an outdoor projector for the kids and the adults hang out and drink.  Susan and I thought it was everyone sitting down and watching a movie together which sounded a bit awkward to us.  Perhaps we will make the trip in the future to attend their “movie night”. 

Eventually we left with the drill press in the back of the suburban.  Since we were on the north side of Denver I wanted to go to Jax to pick up more nuts and bolts (Jax sells the good stuff by the pound).  It was a hassle to get to the front door of the business (we had to drive around the back of the strip mall) but eventually I was able to purchase a few bags of bolts.  

Susan had spied a Goodwill a bit further down the block and wanted to go.  We went around the back of strip mall again to get to the Goodwill parking lot and avoid the heavy traffic on the main roads.  The Goodwill was small and it didn’t take us long to walk around inside.  Susan spied a roller cart for the garage that I simply had to buy.  I had coincidently been looking to purchase a new one.  The cart is sold by Harbor Freight for $55 and cost us a whole $7.50 to buy from Goodwill!

I did a jerky thing on our way home.  When I merged onto on I25 the trafficwas stop and go.  Eventually there signs were telling us to get out of the right lane and soon there were signs saying that both right lanes were closed ahead.  Me and a few other cars stayed in the right lane and we passed hundreds of cars stopped in the left lanes.  After a couple of miles we had to merge left as there were emergency vehicles blocking the right two lanes.  Yeah, I was a jerk but it was a bit satisfying passing all of those cars.  Such is.  

Our plan to transport Scrappy was rainchecked until the following day so Susan and I just hung out on the couch with the dogs to finish out the day.  

On Sunday I got up early to take care of the dogs and mow grass and the general detritus around the property.  The calendar is finally getting to the point where our plants slow or stop growing altogether so the mowing went relatively quick.  I was done by 9:00 and the mower didn’t even go through a full tank of gas (usually I have to fill up once at some point).  I’m crossing my fingers that I don’t have to mow again this year.  

I then woke Susan up for coffee and after we loaded Scrappy onto the open trailer.  We then drove up to Brad Ames’ house to drop Scrappy off to have its new fuel cell installed.  

The drive up was quick and soon we were pushing Scrappy off of the trailer.  The angle of the trailer to the driveway made me think this would be simple.  I didn’t account for the shifting weight of the car which made the rear of the trailer drop and the front splitter was damaged.  Whoops.  This will be something I have to fix before the race in September.  

We hung out for a bit chatting about the fuel cell install.  Before we left we loaded a front clip from a Subaru Impreza onto our trailer.  Brad had been trying to sell it and needed it gone to make space to work on Scrappy.  I considered us taking this large thing off Brad’s hands as part of the cost to get the fuel cell installed.  My mistake here was that I forgot that I’d agreed to pick up the front clip and didn’t tell Susan.  Honest mistake as I knew she wouldn’t mind since I would take care of it.  Still, a mistake.  

When we got home I made us a zucchini casserole for dinner and we hung out on the couch for the rest of the weekend.  We are very ready for the high temperatures to be over.  Most every day has been hot this summer.  

On Wednesday I left a bit early to rid us of the Impreza front clip.  I had created a for sale listing on Facebook but received zero interest.  Last time we took something to the scrap yard I ended up with a nail in one of our trailer tires so I went to Sedalia Landfill instead.  Susan suggested I bring my crappy pit bicycle as well.  I did so and also threw in all of our smaller cardboard boxes.  It was an uneventful trip and I was glad to be rid of the junk.  

August 20th weekend – 

On Friday morning I was up early to prep Betty for a day at the track.  In the process of swapping out the wheels I found two wheels studs were bad so had to swap them out.  Fortunately I have lots of experience with broken/bad wheel studs and we own the proper tools so it didn’t take too long to remedy.  I then made a quick trip to fill some of our fuel jugs before I woke Susan up.  

We had our coffee and finished packing up the RV and loading Betty into the trailer.  While I wouldn’t say we are efficient at this process we do seem to get quicker with each trip.  

We arrived at the track a hair before noon and soon were unpacked and setup.  Since the track was closed for lunch we had plenty of time to figure out things.  We got to hang out with some of our Lemons friends who were there playing with their cars while we waited for the track to reopen.  

We both drove most every stint in the afternoon and had a great time.  Betty was a blast and went around the track with barely a hitch.  I got a bit less driving time than I would have preferred due to idiots in my run group not following the flag rules.  Because of excessive yellow flag passing the track began pulling my run group off of the track whenever a car needed to be towed.  It was truly a bummer but what can you do?  Fortunately Susan’s group wasn’t as dumb and her stints were normal.  

After the track was closed we BBQ’d some burgers before loading Betty back into the trailer.  We had parked it very close to our RV spot which was nice.  

Jeff and Sean (the two guys who bought Ralphie earlier in the summer) had reserved a car port for the weekend’s SCCA racing so we walked down to chat and hang out.  We ended up spending most of the evening talking about this and that and having a nice time.  

We had a pretty lazy start on Saturday.  We didn’t fully emerge from our RV until noon after we’d slept in, showered, prepared and then eaten a chicken soup lunch.  It was only the second time we’d utilized the shower in the RV and we both agreed it was pretty great.  

We hung out with some other race car pals (Ryan and Patty McLaughlin and Dave Brown) while they prepped Ryan’s formula Mazda “cow car” (it has decals to make it look like a black and white cow).  Torin (Ryan and Patty’s young son) generally played with his own battery-powered car for much of the time.  

When the racing started I rode our motorized pit “bike” to my preferred spot to take pictures and video while Susan went to her preferred spot to watch.  There was a delay as officials dealt with a rollover.  It took long enough to get started that I thought the stint was cancelled until Susan messaged me about the crash.  Eventually the cars were on the track and I took my video and pictures.  

Later we were back in the car ports watching as Ryan and Dave searched for the source of a gas odor.  Unfortunately they eventually found that the fuel cell was leaking badly.  Gas was actually pooling inside the cockpit and underneath the driver’s seat.  Yikes.  The “fix” was to replace the fuel cell so thus the cow car’s weekend was over.  

Ryan and company packed up the car but stayed for the SCCA-provided dinner at the pavilion.  After dinner we helped push the cow car into its trailer and bid the crew farewell.  

We hung out with Sean and Jeff for much of the evening again which was fun.  We were hoping there would be karaoke after dinner but it never materialized.  Oh well.  

Sunday had us sleeping in until mid-morning.  We had originally planned to remain at the track into the late afternoon but decided we’d rather get home instead.  We packed up and were soon on our way.  

We found a long line to get in the KOA when we stopped to dump our tanks.  We were the only ones doing any tank dumping though so were on our way soon after trundling up to the office.  

We arrived home to find the garage door open.  I was positive the door was closed when we left but I must have triggered the opener at some point.  Fortunately humanity didn’t let us down and all of our garage possessions were still present.  We were soon unpacked and had Betty unloaded and its racing components switched out for street-appropriate components (wheels and brakes).  

We were going to BBQ but, with the heat and us both being spent from the trip, instead we scrounged for dinner.  We finished out the fun weekend like we normally do, with our butts on the couch and dogs on our laps.  Well, mostly the dogs were on Susan’s lap but still.  

On Tuesday Susan and I found ourselves sitting at a picnic table at a “Grandma’s Brewery” waiting for Alvin and Kari to arrive.  The brewery hosted Tuesday night bingo games and Kari had invited us to join her and Alvin.  It was a pretty great deal.  Each adult beverage came with a bingo card and the prizes were adult beverage-related.  So basically everyone won no matter what.  We had a good time.  

Wednesday came with some amazing news for Susan.  She had been looking for a different job for many months and received a verbal offer!  Susan got a written offer on Thursday (she accepted) and went on to submit her resignation with her current employer.  Her current job was toxic enough that Susan gave no notice which would have just made her life more miserable for more time.  I am so happy for Susan!

August 28th weekend – 

I was up early on Saturday to work on Scrappy.  My goal was to have the fuel cell wired and plumbed and I was close to finished by the time I woke Susan up for coffee.  I had completely forgotten that we were going to do fasting blood draws that morning and had already had a cup of coffee with cream.  Whoops!

After we had our coffee (my second cup) we went out to the garage and I finished up with the fuel cell by adding a vent line.  It was time to check that everything worked.  

I went to add gas and was extremely disappointed when the fuel gushed out of the fuel filler neck.  It turned out that the venting was not sufficient to add fuel as quickly as I desired.  I finished dumping the gas can into the fuel cell but it took far longer than I wanted and expected.  

At least the car started up right away when I tried.  I would have been super-sad if anything else was wrong.  

We went out for lunch at Qdoba before stopping at Home Depot and Walmart for stuffs.  It was hot enough out that we decided to cease working in the garage and just plopped onto the couch to finish the day with the pups.  

Sunday was another early day for me as it was cool out and I still had much to do.  I spent all of my pre-Susan-being-up-time fixing Scrappy’s bumper.  The damage from loading and unloading from the open trailer seemed bad but fortunately I found I only had to replace a couple of pieces of the support structure before bolting it all back together.  When I was finished the bumper looked good enough that an unknowing eye wouldn’t realize anything untoward had happened.  

The night before Susan had added a note to the coffee maker (“blood!”) to remind me to not have my morning coffee.  The note was effective and, after I woke Susan up, we pricked our fingers and dripped blood onto the sample collection papers.  We both remarked on the difficulty in causing oneself pain.  I ended up having to use the finger-pricking device on Susan.  

I had a conversation with the main Lemons safety guy (John Pagel).  I had previously sent John pictures, described the fuel cell installation, and asked him to let me know if our efforts would pass tech.  His initial email response had me very worried but John let me know over the phone that, while he had some strong recommendations, the cell would pass tech.  This news seriously brightened my weekend.  

Susan and I sauntered out to the garage after finishing our post-blood-draw-coffee.  Susan made a whiteboard Lemons to-do list and we started down them.  We got through a few things before breaking for a late BBQ lunch.  I’ve really been enjoying turkey burgers lately and ate mine between some keto-buns I had made.  Very yummy.  

The weather was nice enough that we continued working down our list until the sun was getting close to our horizon.  By the time we went inside for the evening the car was more-or-less complete, drivable, and looking good.  While we have a lot more to do to get ready for the Lemons race it was great to have Scrappy in working order.  We finished the weekend out doing our streaming thing on the couch.  

On Tuesday Susan took a journey into the mountains.  In each instance of her being between jobs Susan has made the journey over Guanella Pass to Georgetown in Tia.  She ate lunch at “Buffalo” in Idaho Springs and then drove over to her parent’s house before coming back home.  

With our big race being mere days away it’s most of all we are thinking about.  We keep adding new things to our list as we check off others and I find myself a bit manic about the whole thing.  I am so glad we sold the yellow race car to another team.  Preparing one car to race is quite enough for me to handle.