Australian Belly Tank

[Dr Goggles]

It's christmas day here folks so I'll take this opportunity to wish you all the best and to thank you for all the support and interest you've shown over this year and those before. I hope the day brings happiness to you and your families and if not that the new year looks brighter than the last. There's always a new race meet to look forward to and new plans to make, we can't change the last run, but we can do all the best we can to make the next one a record breaker.........

I'm dreaming , of a whiiiiiiiiiiiiite Christmas..................

[Milwaukee Midget]

I'm dreaming , of a whiiiiiiiiiiiiite Christmas..................

Actually, I could use about 20 lbs of that salt to help clear the ice off of my parent's driveway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi_5G_rKKTE

200 in 2013!    

[racergeo]

   Goggles (and I say that with great respect), you just made a post with out using one bit of the slang language "Strailian". Good on ya mate. I counted the number of iiiiiii's in white and I think you are in perfect pitch. Is there an Austrailian Idol?

[SPARKY]

Merry Christmas---how many days till you load for the SALT---giter done- less than 60 days!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Dr Goggles]

  Goggles (and I say that with great respect), you just made a post with out using one bit of the slang language "Strailian". Good on ya mate. I counted the number of iiiiiii's in white and I think you are in perfect pitch. Is there an Austrailian Idol?

there is an Australian Idol George, apparently, but I'd sooner pull my finger nails out thatn watch something like that.....

I think it's a little more than 60 Bill, but we will b e there, I have had a dilemna with the head restraint but just as someone was asking me about the car earlier at christmas dinner I had an idea that will get us through tech. Hook, or by friggin crook we will be there.

[Elmo Rodge]

Goggles sed "Hook, or by friggin crook we will be there."
I sez "Yippee".  Wayno

[SPARKY]

I do not know who the Abby totem of good weather is    but I would it and your favorite likeness of "Mother Nature" together--- write a new song that all of us salt flat racers can start singing inside of the 90 day window before our races to ask the to coporeate with each other.

[Dr Goggles]

I've got a long stretch on a plane today , that could just the right task to occupy the time....if i can get my head out of Norman Doidge's " The Brain That Changes Itself"ISBN978-1921372-74-2     an amazing book
In the meantime, a kind of unofficial Aussie Chiristmas staple is a song by our own Paul Kelly called " How to Make the Gravy" , I think you'd like it Bill....and of course everyone else....



it's here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh79619xxk8

[robfrey]

I liked that. Merry Christmas!

[Dr Goggles]

Thanks and Merry Christmas to you Rob, I know you are someone it means a lot to.

I didn't write anything on the plane, couldn't get my head out of the book. However, yesterday when I was at my sister and her husband's place in Mareeba in far north Queensland I spent some time with the oldest of my nephews and nieces. We went to a waterhole on a creek under a waterfall, just absolutely incredible, on the edge of the Atherton Tableland  in the dry sclerophyll forest rather than the rainforest which is most of the tableland and particularly on the eastern escarpment that faces Cairns and the coast. ..............."So, how's ya car thing going? is it ready for the next time you go"?.......I made a "ahhhhhhhh" Eureka sound, she looked at me kind of funny, "sorry, I've just solved a problem that has been bugging me for ages"

When we built the car I put in "cheek" bars because I have an old C4( no. not the plastic explosive) injury and didn't like the idea of the lower part of the helmet being able to travel too far sideways, the very thought of it creeped me out.....Now the rules mandate it......I had built a curved piece of aluminium plate that I was going to pad to conform to the rules regarding helmet restraint....but by the time I'd sourced the SFI padding for it I realised it wasn't going to work........

I got off the plane , drove home , went straight to the shed and cut the cheek bars out, did the calculations and now have a much neater, simpler solution.Two pieces of flat sheet, I have gone back to the sfi roll bar padding on the top bars and will just have a flat sheet on the back as a "head-rest".........

Here I have wet a big drop cloth into the cab....saves the metal dust and burning the new paint too much...you can see the cheek bars....



now, they're gone....



back to work tomorrow ....maybe tomorrow night I'll have a little more to show.....

Happy Christmas for you guys who are a day behind......

[SPARKY]

we may be behind---but with you guys being out front ---well you know the old sayings go---

Intresting---I finally did much the same---whack it out, when you have the semblence of a plan---it will tell you mostly what to do later---the commitment to change is the GIANT step!!

[Milwaukee Midget]

They say that genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration, but if after weeks, all you find is that you're standing in a puddle of sweat, it's time to find a source for that 1%.

And it helps to wash that sweat off.

Hmmmm . . . A dip under a Edenesque waterfall in a place that provides 300 days of sun per year . . .

I'd still be standing in the garage staring at it, trying to force it . . . You're a wiser man than I.

Smart move, Doc. 

[Moxnix]

Genius is a good memory and the ability to figure things out.  Everyone's got a touch of both.  Anyway, nice epiphany.  All in due course . . .

[Stainless1]

Doc, just be sure you can get your head off of all of the padding on the sides and back.  Anywhere the helmet touches padding during the run will cause your eyeballs to uncage from the buzz.

[wobblywalrus]

That frame and cage looks safe.  Now it is the scramble to get everything together.