On Friday the group suffered 3 casualties. (I’ll use only first names to protect the guilty.) Bruce’s Backdraft blew an intake or head gasket near Lake George in Alabama. While he’s sitting in the gas station pondering his predicament and calling AAA, Larry pulls in with a loud clicking in the left rear. He drove with the parking brake set. A long way. So he figures that’s what’s clicking. The chase truck has tools so we commence removing the parking brake parts. We get the caliper off and Jim notices there’s about a quarter inch play in the wheel bearing. We ain’t equipped to fix that, so we put it all back together while Larry gets AAA’s number from Bruce. Now here’s the good part. Friday catered dinner is at Lin Mitchell’s Classic Motor Storage (
www.classicmotorstorage.com) which is a race shop-restoration shop that also stores some neat cars and trucks. So I call Lin to see if he can help us. It’s 5:20 PM on Friday. “Sure”, he says. “Tell me what parts I need and I’ll get the store to open and pick them up on my way to the shop.”
Larry and Bruce send the rest of us on our way while they wait for their roll backs. So off we go, less two of our flock. An hour outside of Tallahassee, Jim’s car can barely maintain 40 MPH. Any throttle at all and the engine stumbles. I stay behind him along with the chase truck, (driven by my sons Ryan and Michael and Ryan’s son, Reed) So I call Lin again and relay the symptoms. He says, “Bring it to the shop.” Well, we weren’t going to make it. But we did limp back to the hotel where Jim put the car on his trailer and took it to the shop that way.
Lin’s technician/mechanic/crew chief, Mark, put the car on the lift and went straight to removing the fuel filter. It was so clogged you couldn’t blow air thru it. New filter and Jim gets to go with us on Saturday!
Meanwhile, it’s getting late and no Larry. Get this, his tow truck driver gets lost, and takes Larry on a scenic drive to Louisiana! He calls and says it will be 10:30 PM before he arrives in Tallahassee. Mark says, “No problem, come on.” Larry gets his GPS out of his car and guides the driver to Tallahassee. His AAA miles run out but he makes it to the hotel, loads his car on his trailer and brings it to the shop. The rest of us have long gone to bed. Mark disassembles the left rear suspension while patiently explaining everything about the operation to Larry and discovers yours truly gave the wrong information on which parts to get. Now get this; Mark sacrifices his Saturday plans and asks Larry to return Saturday morning. So Bruce and his wife, Pat, ferry Larry and his wife, Margot to the shop Saturday morning in their own tow vehicle. Mark obtains the correct parts and reassembles the car while calmly and expertly educating the four people watching.
Larry, driving his car, and Bruce, driving his truck, join us at the morning’s first stop at 11:00 and finish out the day with the group! Lin and Mark went way above and beyond to help us and to make the event memorable!