The gap between my feet and Terra Firma has finally vanished, the real world is back ....I'm still wearing the red driver's wristband that you get when you pay an entry and I won't be taking it off for quite some time ....much amusement at work , no-one has ever come back from a "holiday" looking so trashed....the weeks leading up to and the one at the salt were so tense that I ran up a sleep debt that is going to take a while to repay....I was sitting at my desk on Tuesday and my supervisor walked in and said amid much laughter .."do you want me to get you a pillow matey?"...right now after the time we had nothing seems urgent or for that matter important.
Tonight I hoisted the tank up onto it's stands and removed the lower bodywork so as to get the salt out of it.There was about a cup full in the front tub most of which entered via the soles of shoes we did our best but it's unavoidable. After the "Man of Cloth's" last run when he got lost behind the island the car wouldn't start and had to be towed back to the pits ,I steered and it was a particularly rough ride, those in the Troopy said it looked like a yacht going through light chop because the pressure ridges were so high in that part of the lake and salt was "splashing" away from the front of the car, I was thinking at the time if anything is ever going to rattle off the car it's gonna happen now, it felt like a combination of Demolition Derby and Stacks on the Mill..........anyway when I took the front tub off tonight it turns out that it got beaten up at the very front and the very front part of the flat section of the floor has been bent up...nothing tragic but I'll have to beat it and that will mean a re-fit to the car, bummer. There's nothing else I've found busted although a lot of body screws were loose.....the car has been towed 750 miles home though and I'd suspect much of that is from then.
Haven't yet bothered trying to start her after the electrical hassle we had.......there's even a possibility it ran low on juice, I had noticed that it needs half a gallon in it or it runs rough despite my best efforts to stop the pump cavitating the tank , right now I'm out of diagnostic mode.
Now I'm taking the opportunity to say thanks to everybody. First of all to Jon Amo and Jon Wennerberg for running the landracing.com site that carries this great forum, we have learned a huge amount from this resource and it has kept us inspired. In general thanks to everybody for taking us seriously, we weren't born to lake racing families but we really feel like we've been adopted and what we were doing needed a wider source of info and support than we could find just here in Australia. We fell in love with the look of the early bellytanks and wanted to build something that carried the beautiful heritage that had been created over the last 60years since Bill Burke had his "lightning bolt" moment but at the same time we had a tank that as far as we were aware hadn't been used before. I've said it before but it bears repeating , Dik and I are the kind of guys who think they can do anything , when we found out how hard this was we were too stubborn to give up. It took a lot longer than we ever thought , and cost more than six times what we thought it would , I don't regret a single part of it. I have learnt things , I have combined areas of knowledge that I had that I thought were disparate and I have developed and used skills that I thought were the preserve of the expert tradesman.This however wouldn't have happened without Dik , the beautiful car we took to the lake was drawn by him , the proof is that avatar next to his Reverend Hedgash name that he created five years ago. His attention to detail , refusal to cut corners and incredible eye for line and style made the little tank what it is, thanks mate you're a genius.Sure we've had our moments but here we are.
Thanks to all you guys who've tipped in with advice. Sum , the indefatigable , you are a point man...your collation of info and design points is a priceless goldmine of info for anyone building a lake car. Stainless, to the point ,proven ,and humble I'm flattered that you dig our thing.Most of all Dolan, Jack you gave us pearls of wisdom and the results of years of experience that made us really feel like it was all worthwhile, important even that we did what we were doing ,come back this place needs you.
Thanks everyone.