(25) Playing catch up....

It has been getting increasingly more difficult to blog regularly. I can't attribute it solely to lack of time, as I'm sure I could be making the time had I the determination. It has been hectic and I've been taking each dull moment to just sit back and relax. Anyhow, I'm not giving up on the blogging, just going to have to pace myself.

College: I've enrolled in classes through Grantham University to continue towards my bachelors degree in Computer Engineering Technology. I'm halfway through my first set of classes which are Student Success (requirement for new students at Grantham), American Government GP210, and Engineering & Ethics EE100. So far I've got 100% in student success and american government, and a 98% in Engineering & Ethics. Things are looking good, but it has taken a big chunk of my free time.

Career: On August 3rd I will start a new job. I took a higher position at the electronics shop I used to work at. I took a wage grade 11 position as a digital computer repairman. It will be nice to work in air conditioning again, working at a bench, and not getting oily and greasy every day. Of course the pay increase will be nice as well. The downside of this is that I will be driving to the west side of Indy every day instead of Camp Atterbury, so I will have to make special trips if I want to keep up to date with Ben Franklin's wardrobe changes, as the statue is no longer on my route to work.

Racing: I had my 2nd autocross of the season, which was the CSCC driving school and autocross race. My buddy Jamie went with me. It was a good time, but not without a hitch. Saturday morning I got up early to get everything in order for the day at the driving school. I readied the Subaru and attached the tow dolly. I fired up the Neon and put it on the tow dolly and strapped it all down. When I went back into the garage I noticed a decent puddle of oil about six inches in diameter where the Neon had been sitting. I go back out to the Neon and pop the hood and realize that the new valve cover I had put on was not sealed properly. I didn't have time to fix it then, but would have maybe an hour or two to fix it when we got to Walesboro. I've got tools in the Subaru so it shouldn't be a big deal to fix it. Jamie and I convoy down to Walesboro. We park and head over to the registration trailer to get signed up. I raise the hood on the Neon and begin to remove the valve cover to diagnose the leak. I come to the conclusion that the new valvecover is not as thick as the old valvecover and that my shoulder bolts are bottoming out before the valvecover gets a tight seal. I'm out of commission unless I can get some washers to raise the shoulder bolts. The school begins as I'm trying to figure out options. The tech inspector and Jay Nogan tell me there is a Menards just up the road.

Jamie goes on to the school activities while I unhook the trailer from the Subaru and head up to Columbus for some washers. I get my washers, drive back to the airstrip, and get to work fixing my leak. I get the car finished, fire it up, no leaks. I pull her off the trailer and walk over to see if I can still jump in on the action. They students are making their runs through tomorrows race course already. Jay gives me the go ahead to jump in and make some runs. I run back and get the car and pull into the staging lanes.

I make my first run and things are pretty hairy as the car is still pretty new to me after all the modifications I did after returning from Iraq. I started noticing some sporratic hesitation and surges in the power and was having trouble accelerating smoothly. On one of the tight turns the car comes around on my and I slide through about 8 cones. I was a bit embarrassed to have made such a mess of cones on the course, but these things happen. I got the car back on course and finished the run at 68.xxx with 11 cones knocked down total. Just as I was going full throttle through the finishing gates I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a huge cloud of white smoke trail behind the car. This is not a good sign at all.

I drive the car straight back to the pits and park her. I look underneath and there is oil spewing out. I'm fairly certain that the headgasket decided it had enough. Disappointed to be done for the day, I head back over to the staging area to meet up with Jamie and ride along and coach him through a few runs.

Here are the videos from Jamie's runs:







After the school was over, we loaded the Neon back up on the trailer and headed back to my house. We decided it wouldn't be any fun for Jamie to race by himself on Sunday, so we were going to pull a late nighter and do a headgasket job on my Neon that evening. I started tearing into the Neon around 5:30pm and we finished up and fired her up about 10:45pm. We made good time, but stopped for about a half hour to enjoy some Papa John's pizza that Amber had ordered.

Sunday morning we got up early again. I loaded up the Subaru, hitched up the Neon, and met up with Jamie. Amber came along this time to take pictures and videos of the event. We convoyed down to Walesboro, parked the cars, and started getting the cars prepped for the race. After the cars were ready and got their tech inspection, we registered and headed to the course for a walk through. We strategically walked the course, taking mental notes of how to negotiate the obstacles. Before we knew it, it was time to get to racing.

Since Jamie and I were running in the Street Modified class, we were in the 2nd heat of the day. This means we had to work first. I picked up a walkie talkie from the scoring trailer, and we were assigned a station to man. I was going to handle the radio transmissions and Jamie was eager to shag some cones. We got another guy to help us out to who had brought a Shelby Cobro kit car to race. It was about 2.5 hours or so of racing to get 6 runs in for the first heat, then we changed over and got our cars moved into the staging lanes to race.

Here are the videos from the race:











We had a great time at the races. Jamie got hooked to autocross, and he did some fantastic driving for his first time out. I barely outran him.

Its getting late and I've got to get some sleep. I will amend this with more details at a later date. The race results can be seen here.

Be sure to check out the slideshow!

Until next time....