Back to last year....

Mostly so you can understand what we were up against. The $175 engine was not a $175 engine. It was a $5 engine, but we didn't know that at the time. Even after we discovered that the oil pump was bad. I was one pissed-off chica. Brian had never seen an oil pump that bad. We decided to blindly go forward, because the only other engine we had available was a 1.7, and well, that's not really an engine. It's more like a paperweight with moving parts and oil leaks.

Not-an-artist's rendering....

Note that this was not done by an artist. Just a monkey with photoshop.

First garage day of the 2010 season!

Paul, Joe, Jason, I and Tom rolled into the Dexter garage for a quickie work day so we could say we were productive before the 10-week limit this year. We got the extra lights off the car and all of the accessories off the new engine.


Tom and I were working on the engine while Paul was doing some weight reduction. Who knew automatic antenna motors were good for five pounds? Somehow we managed to lose the flywheel to pressure plate bolts, so it was out to the parts store for new ones.


Note to self: Puma driving shoes are not very good for pushing cars around on icy surfaces. Next time, we wear boots.

It's the final day to submit entries...

We entered back in November or whenever it was that they posted the races the first time. And I have go-go boots! We're working on the car tomorrow. I'll post pics afterwards.

I did break down and get a center net. Now Tom Gideon won't have my head through the passenger window......

Back to the cage situation.....

Since the first builder flaked out, we had to find a new guy. Good for us, B-Tek Fabrication was right around the corner, and Bryan is a stand-up guy. He got the old cage and its scary welds cut out and a new cage in. We went a bit overboard and had him build it to IT specs so that God forbid, the car made it through the race, we might put a few track days on it.

Electrical stuff is fun...

We loved dealing with the wiring - we had to mate a car with a MkI ceramic harness to the MkIII CE2 harness that came with the engine. It was not fun. fortunately, we scored some super-duper fancy friction tape. Even that didn't make Brian happy, though. It seemed like we used a pound of solder getting it all wired up.