TARP Blog

According to the ever-present countdown clock, we have 68 race preparation days until the North Dallas Hooptie kicks off. I checked out online race application earlier this afternoon and saw that we could select our car number (I took 20 because that’s what we used last time so I won’t have to re-paint that part of the car), which was a tip-off that we had been selected for the race. I got an email a few minutes later from Head LeMon Jay Lamm informing me that we are officially in for the race.

In car prep news, things are coming along. I’ve got the new front radiator mounts in (using some surplus fence posts and scrap steel) and am working on the new lower air dam and splitter that I’m going to make from Coroplast that was donated by candidates who lost in their primary elections this year I took a break from working on that part and went around to the back of the car this afternoon to repair the front motor mount. As you may recall, dear reader who has not missed a moment of TARP car history, Grayson had to weld in the front motor mount for the February ‘09 race in Houston because we were seeing a lot of metal fatigue in that area. Unfortunately, having that mount fixed to the car makes it really difficult on the engine swap process. So I cut out the welds, re-welded the supporting material, and drilled in a hole so that we can now use two bolts to hold the mount. Thus, it’s removable again, which will make our lives easier when putting the engine back in the car.

The engine is almost ready for re-assembly, just need to get the rings on the pistons (new rings, old pistons) and then I can start putting it all back together. I anticipate starting that sometime later this week. In the meantime, start thinking about costumes and other clown-related things we can do for the race.

Race Prep Author: Pat