Come on, tell us more........
Well, not a lot to say, except a huge thank you to all who have chimed in here. No regrets - I'll do it again, I'm on the right track, and after I've had some time to figure out where the problems were, I'll take some notes and move forward.
The encouragement I've received from everyone here and those who stopped by our pit has been incredible.
The following was intended just for my personal consumption. I find it helps me to sort things out if I write about it, but I'll share it tonight before I hit the hay. I might change my mind tomorrow -
1550 miles – home. Gives one time to think.
For all the distance, it's really not a difficult drive. 94 west to Madison, 151 to Cedar Rapids, south on 380 to Iowa City, 80 west to exit 4 in Utah. Reverse order, you're home. Little likelihood of running out of gas, never more than a half hour away from a place to take a leak.
It wasn't always that easy. Used to be US 30 was the highway you'd take, every town on the way adding 10-15 minutes to your travel time, two lanes, stuck behind a manure spreader or a person unwilling to drive more than 40 mph. Sharing driving duties, I imagine in the 1950’s, 4 days would have been making good time.
During the 1930’s, the time of Gardner and Campbell, if you wanted to race at Bonneville, you had to bring in everything and spares, truck it in over mining roads, or rail it in from SLC. How they got Bluebird, or the EX 135 there, I can only imagine.
Anyway, Kate and I are home – 2 ½ days on the road from Wendover back to Milwaukee. The only time we were off of pavement was when we were on the salt.
We've got it pretty easy.
I'm thinking I need to bring some additional human resources to this project. I enjoy the work, the discovery, the time working on the car, solving (and often creating) problems. But for the first time, I'm wondering if I'm the guy who should be driving it.
During this entire build, my focus has been on building a safe, fast, production-based race car. I've done two out of three on that account.
But I can honestly say that the thought of driving the thing has been an afterthought from the beginning. In fact, it wasn't until I put on my helmet for my calibration run (and yes, I did in fact, keep it under 100), that it completely dawned on me that somebody has to pilot the car.
Two things –
1 - It's occurred to me that my passion for this sport is not necessarily in driving a race car, but in its creation.
2 - The best thing I could do to increase my chances of success is to find somebody who IS passionate about driving a race car.
I have a few friends who are very capable race car drivers and also have other car chops that they can bring to the table. A new engine is on the horizon, and I have a chassis that is essentially done, but I'm thinking that the chances of the car reaching its full potential probably lay in collaboration.
So that's what I was thinking tonight. I reserve the right to change my mind.
Pics will follow after desalination procedures - stay tuned.
And again, thanks to everyone for the encouragement.