Now, the "Curse."

I don't have all of the names in front of me but let me see if I can share the basics of what happened from Wednesday night through Friday morning.

First, Bill calls Wednesday night because he's car will not be ready for the lap. It's been in the shop because some lady hit the car. Bill tries to get in touch with the next alternate but for some reason the PMs are being returned like the account doesn't exist. During the night that alternate PMs me to say he cannot make it. The next alternate is Bandiscoot. This works great because Bill was going to have Scott as his +1 anyway so now it's just the reverse. Scott will drive, Bill is +1.

Thursday night I get home from work and now Scorpion is out. The next alternate is RadioZero. I had nothing but his PM, no numbers or anything. Luckily he calls me within about 45 minutes, he's in to replace Scorpion. Whew! Not 10 minutes later, Bill calls and now Scott's car just got hit so he's out. The next alternate and LAST alternate I had left was Raven which doesn't even have a car that's running. He was hoping it would have been ready by now but wasn't. Now what?

We needed Bill to be there at the race. Why? One he contributed $175 towards the RV and he got Cody (LoveFab) to donate another $500 so because of Bill a very large part of the RV was covered. He has to be there. So, what we need is a stock like S that is already going to be at the site on Sunday. A few cars were thought to be there Bill decides he'd like to drive my "Black Mistress" as he likes to call her plus we KNEW I was going to be there and only thought a couple of others were coming.

Okay, so now I gotta get the S looking pretty for Sunday morning but no biggie. I get up Friday morning and on the way to St. Pete I start stalling like a mother. Not on the highway or anything but stop and go, stop lights, all of that stuff. PERFECT for a parade lap don't you think? Not amused I limp, literally, into St. Pete Friday afternoon and Todd starts to look at my car later that day after she's cooled. He replaces a couple things I needed plus adjusts the valves. No ideas on what the stalling is but maybe related to the cooling mod install from the weekend prior at Bill's.

I limp back to my inlaws Friday night and we tinker a bit. No help. I call Chiung. He's not sure but says to check the connections since a lot of stuff got pulled apart the weekend prior and reset the ECU. By now I'm ticked beyond belief so I call Bill Friday night and say my car is out you need to figure something else out but as an emergency out J has offered to have someone run down to Sarasota and pick up his car. Remember we need an S that is already going to be there or at least the driver doesn't need a ticket because we need Bill at the event. I toss a beer back and repeat a couple more times and go to bed in frustration.

Didn't sleep well but go straight to the garage Saturday morning, disconnect the battery for a good 15 minutes per Chiung and proceed to give my car a "blow job." Yes, I said it. I pulled apart all of the sensors in the general area of the cooling mod work, blow them to clear out any debris, and snap back together. I also check the various hoses in the area and everything seems good. Reconnect the battery and took her for a 4-5 minute spin around the neighborhood, an empty parking lot, etc. All seems pretty good. Blow job worked but not willing to resubmit the car. Too much has happened. I leave the car in the garage and ride in with my father-in-law with no idea who is going to be the final car/driver given the circumstances. Good mood? Not really.

Saturday about lunch Bill calls and turns out Dave with his Supercharged gorgeous NFR is coming to the event anyway and would love to be in the lap. Yes, now that I'm back in town, after I noted I wouldn't be on the site after Thursday night, SEVERAL of you from LAST year PM'd me to volunteer. Your offers were very much appreciated and frankly I'm actually VERY glad my car wasn't in the parade lap even though it would have been someone else driving it. I really wanted this to be 16 new drivers with 16 new cars. New all the way around and luckily...granted only a few hours (most of 1 day) ahead of time it all came into place. Of course we then get to the site Sunday morning and no one knows what we're there for. Luckily one of the coordinators from last year, I think the ONLY hold over from last year, had a clue and got everything pulled together in a matter of an hour probably and next thing you know we were decaled and heading out. Smooth? Not so much. A blast at the end of the day? ABSOLUTELY!!!!