Van Buren County Fair

Tuesday night we ran doen to Hartford, Michigan for the first ever demo scramble at Van Buren county fair. We had planned to fix the Buick and run that as I certainly enjoyed haviung that powerful enhgine under the hood, however the Buick had what is probably a terminal problem. We discovered when changing tires in a more sedate atmosphere that the reason why we kept blowing drivers side tires was that the vertical part of the frame on that front corner had broken due to rust and that the shock tower had collapsed too.

That meant that the only close to prepped car was the Cavalier that we thought had been retired due to the fact that it too has a badly bent frame and no cooling system of any value. In fact the frame is so badly bent that when you drive the car forwards it goes sideways too. Makes it a challenge to load on the trailer.

Even so I still managed a 3rd place in my heat but by the time the consolation came round the car was just too tired to really do much.

The feature race was fun to watch though. The first three cars finished with a total of 9 wheels between them. Note that I say wheels not tires. The car that came in third managed to do so without its entire back axle. Just one of those things that is non essential on a front wheel drive car.

The next race is another scramble at Ionia Fairgrounds tomorrow night, Friday, at 7PM

Big Rapids

Last night we ventured north to Big Rapids, which is neither big nor rapid. We had been in two minds as to whether to go becuase of the possibility of thunderstorms and that we knew that we would be running late as the French and the Italians took the World Cup Final all the way to penalties.

Fortunately we had largely solved the electrical gremlins that had been plaguing the Buick - it was a short in the battery extension cables and we also tweaked a couple of other things too.

I managed second in the heat race which qualified me for the feature even though I lost a front tire. In the feature I again lost a front tire, blew a radiator hose and the car lost a big percentage of its power so I retired before killing the motor so that it can live to fight another day.

We did end up getting rained on however as we tried to get wheels changed so that I could drive it onto the trailer.

Now I need some more wheels for it - anyone got any wheels (with tires on them) lying around iin their garage they dont want?

Long weekend

It was a very automotive 4th of July weekend and not the most successful one either. It all started on Saturday with a trip to Sand Lake for a figure 8 race and Demolition Derby.

I took the Cavalier that I had previously run. I knew it was already in trouble - I could hardly keep anything in the cooling system. Still it ran. The race itself was a rough one and a certain 127 slammed me so hard in the drivers side that I ended up dislocating my ribs. I didn't even know that you could dislocate ribs. It was however sweet to see the same 127 connect with a concrete block resulting in an engine fire.

The Cavalier finished the race just on what felt like one cylinder but it was essentially toast. Motor in trouble, back axle broken, sides so pushed in that it looks like it has a waist and no cooling.

Here is the passenger side

And the somewhat shorter back end


Knowing that Greenville was only 4 days later we set to work preparing the 1989 Buick LeSabre. We thought we had it ready just in time but the electrical gremlins struck and the car kept shorting out so I didnt have a productive race even though we had slaved to get it ready. Time to start chasing wires.

Still it looks good in Pimp My Ride gold.