Gladiators in the Steel Palace

Racecars are inconvenient, And expensive. And frustrating. That should set the tone for my weekend.

I did actually accomplish some things but they seem so little in the grand scheme the I feel like the weekend was wasted. I’m pretty happy with the exhaust. And I can now drain the rear without wearing half the gear lube. But the trailing arm holes are still a mess and I’m fighting with a big piece of lead (and losing)…

The problem with being thorough about fixing the issues on the car is that you find all the stuff that’s wrong. And then have to fix them too. I hung the rear housing in the car to make sure the holes would be centered and found out the suspension has a HUGE bind in it. That explains why I was having such a hard time getting my ride heights right. Important safety tip for anyone building a car to drive in circles: Don’t use drag racing suspension parts… So now I have to find and put bushings in a set of trailing arms…

I found out last night that my block is ready. Now I just need to come up with the cash for it. And rings and bearings and gaskets…

…ohmy…

So I spent two full days working on the car and other than the garage being even more of a mess, it doesn’t look like I got anything done.  I did get the welder set up and obviously got to the bottom of the car. It’s a mess… I also got the exhaust mocked up and I only need to weld one piece of pipe. It’ll be nice to have a real full exhaust this year. Next weekend I’ll get the trailing arm holes welded back up so the rear end doesn’t move around, weld up the drive shaft loop, and rebuild the heat shield for the wiring. You know, all the stuff I didn’t do right last season… Having the car up like this and thinking about how to get it right is just reminding me of all the little things I need to do. It’s going to be a long 9 weeks…

This week I’m going to try to touch base with Spencer and see if they’re going to have any issues with my car or Jason’s. They’ve been pretty quiet so far this off season.

Well, we’ve survived the apocalypse and the holidays. I hope everyone had a good 2012 and is as hopeful about 2013 as I am. Last season went about as well as I expected. I learned a lot about some new tracks, my new car, the competition, and the state of Street Stock racing in CNY/WNY. Now it’s time to start getting serious about getting competitive.

Spencer hasn’t released anything about rules or a schedule but I’m going to assume they’ll be running again this season so I’m working toward getting the car ready to run there weekly. I’m also planning on making RoC, the NYSS races, and the Fall Brawl. And if Spencer gets a Big 10 show I’ll probably try that too. We’ll see how my finances handle all that. My plans are to have the car ready for the Motorsports Expo in March and to possibly have a fundraiser to cover RoC.

I had the car apart and on stands in October and it’s not looking too bad. This weekend I’ll start getting it ready to go back together. I’m going to move some things around and try to make it more comfortable. And clean up all the little things I didn’t get to before last season. Hopefully the phantom noises and binds will go away. The body came through pretty well so I’ll get Dad to help me clean up the few little dents and throw some more tractor paint at it. I’ve talked to couple of people about lettering so hopefully it’ll look a little more professional this season.

The motor I ran for the last race is in pretty good shape so I’ll probably leave that alone other than putting new valve springs on it. I’ve got a block at the shop that should be ready any time now so I’ll be able to put my Vortec motor together. I’m also going to rework some stuff on the 9:1 motor I was using and make sure it’s solid(just in case).