The Vette did fine on the rally..Drove 70 mph a lot of the time, it was happy, although the weather was a bit warm at times (105 on the way up through Las Vegas, 111 on the way home through Blythe). Now that's over...time to think about Drag Week and Cheep. I talked with my wife and she said she'd go if I hauled the car up to MD on the trailer. So I'll do that. Not that I don't have a lot of confidence in it...well, I don't...but just to have a car adventure with her, and keep her slightly comfortable. She's ridden in Cheep a few times, and says it's a lot better than Plan II was
It does seem the wife has a different view of how a performance cars should be then we do, especially when it comes to long road trips. If we want to keep them involved, there are times compromises have to be made. Is you wife going to be the "pit person" with you while the two of you participate in the Drag Week event, or are you planning on trailering Cheep between the strip events?
We have to drive the race car between races, that's part of the charm of Drag Week. She'll help out some, but I don't think there's going to be much to do with this one. Probably just swap rear tires, remove air cleaner, play with exhaust springs. We'll see what happens.
Cool! My wife would join me on the drive. In the pits, she would sit under the shade canopy and be a great cheerleader. At least she would be there and would probably take pictures to document the action. Then again, I'm not so sure how much help I would be to myself at a drag strip. We would be the comedy crew for the event!
Working on little things to get ready for the trip. I'm making a little storage area, where the back seat used to be. Mostly so the floor will be flat there. Using only the best scrap lumber.
I installed speakers/amplifier, so I have tunes now. And made a dead pedal. The older cars, designed in the 50s, have a floor that is in the right place to rest your left foot. New cars, mostly all have a dead pedal. But cars built in the years in between, your foot just hangs there. So I fixed it.
Been packing for Drag Week. I don't know what spares to bring...so I'm not bringing much. Just the tackle box of misc hardware/stuff, and tools to change the tires and work on whatever.
Well, if everything is working, great. But if the same cord fits your phone and the computer and you aren't dragging along a dist wrench, jets, a weather station and you've priced cords at gas stations, you know! The old adage 2 is one, 1 is none for computer files means you can drop all the photos to it as backup, too. I hope you and your better half have a great trip, no issues and run the numbers.
That's the stereo. A weird shaped box I made to hold two speakers in the Corvette, didn't work out, so I put it in the Checker, and now Cheep. It now has it's amplifier screwed to the "bottom" which faces the outside of the car. Fed by a 1/8" phone jack volume control in line with the Android Auto screen thing, which gets the muzak from my phone via bluetooth. high tech junk.
I was looking into building one of those, before I realized that it's just too much work to bring back something that old, compared to starting with something newer. Looking good! Getting ready to leave for Drag Week Thursday. I'm about done with Cheep, I think it's as ready as it will ever be, meaning there's more to do but I'm worn out. So I've been getting other things ready for the trip. I pulled the car trailer in front of the shop today, to check it out...big bulge in one tire...so two new tires. As I was getting out of my old truck with the new tires in the bed, something felt weird in my ankle. I hobbled around the rest of the day, packed wheel bearings on the trailer, put the new tires on it. And hobbled around in the house some more. I think I might have a partial tear in my Achilles tendon. what fun! I have a doctors appointment Wednesday morning for other things, so I'll have them take a look at my ankle and tell me I definitely should not go on an adventure. But I'll ignore the advice and go anyways. I don't have a registration spot for Drag Week, either. My plan is to show up and hope there aren't too many other wait list people showing up also. The limit is 400 cars, and past years they've usually had about 275-325 pre registered cars show up, and another 25-50 wait list cars show up, so everyone gets in. This year...there's lots of talk about a whole bunch of us wait list guys showing up. So it will be interesting to see what happens. I figure the odds of getting in are good enough that I'll waste a week and thousands of dollars for gas/hotels making the 2200 mile trip up there, anyways. Fun fun fun!
"All things are possible through speed and diligence" Famous line said by the Vice Principle and Dean of Boys "Mr. C.J. Groves" over the PA at Atwater High School, back in 1968, in my freshman year, when the main electronic drive, in the master clock for all of the I.B.M. / SIMPLEX clocks in the classrooms, failed, and all of the clocks for about two hours, were displaying the spinning hands and second hand on each clock, at about the rate pf 40 R.P.M. Confidence is high, that you will deal with the ankle wobble, and that "CHEEP" will perform semi flawlessly! GO CHEEP !
Street Machine Eliminator. The bracket race class (there are a lot of cars, the quickest 32 get to be in a bracket race the last day). Quickest allowed time is 10.0, and usually you have to run mid 10s to make the final race. After 5 qualifying days.
That's some crazy shit Jim lol... not a soul on the road would think to look twice at an old XJ on a trailer! True sleeper
The Jalopy Journal
