Fearless Garage

This would be the first rally of the ORRC schedule hosted by the Motorsport Club of Ottawa – my home club. Apart from knowing the territory pretty well, the biggest advantage for us is that it’s close to home – no need for a long trip with truck and trailer.

Leading up to the event, I had been busy repairing damage to the front end of the car that first appeared in the January Jaunt and prevented us from finishing. During that event we had stopped during the third Leg due a rattling sound coming from the right front. If we’d only removed the wheel to inspect the brakes, we could have repaired the damage and continued. The pins holding the brake pads in place had come loose and one had broken, but we could have effected a temporary repair with long zip ties that I have in the tool box. But we thought the damage was more serious – like a wheel bearing – so we simply loaded the car on the trailer and left. The damage had been caused by my sons who drove the car at high speeds with a severely deflated right front tire, causing it to pull significantly to the right.

After fixing the brake pad problem I found that the front end was still making unusual noises. On further inspection I decided to change the left side drive axle, thinking that the CV joint had been damaged. While that may be true and didn’t cost me anything due to its warranty, there were still noises. I determined that the right wheel bearing had some play in it, so I replaced that, only to find that there was free play between the new bearing and the stub axle on the hub. So I replaced the hub and installed yet another new bearing, since the first replacement had to be damaged in order to disassemble the hub. This resolved the noise problem, but then I discovered a small leak of transmission fluid coming from the place where the left drive axle enters the transaxle. I had to seat the axle 2-3 mm further into the transaxle to eliminate this leak and then refill the transaxle with oil. Finally the car was ready to rally again.

Saturday dawned partly cloudy and fairly cold – at around -11 C – but the forecast promised no significant snow fall and reasonable temperatures. I took the car for a short drive to check everything out and it was fine. But then I was going to take it to pick Gary up in town and it died in the driveway! I used the truck and hurried home to do some testing. I believe the problem was dirty contacts on the coil wire, because the coil tested OK and there was spark at the plugs after I reconnected the coil wire. So I cleaned the connectors and everything was fine. We drove out to Perth and bought gas, arriving at the restaurant around 3:30. We were the second last team to register, so we were assigned car number 9. After getting caught up with our friends from out of town, we departed for Section 1 a couple of minutes before 4:39, our nominal starting time.

It quickly became obvious that this was not going to be an easy rally. All of the side roads – both paved and gravel – were covered with a sheen of ice plus loose powder snow and sand. They were very slippery and all of the corners required great care not to understeer off the road. Section 1 was pretty straightforward for an odometer check, but with a twist. We were given an elapsed time to a distance beyond the odo check point and average speeds beyond that.  The elapsed time distance was more than 5 kilometres beyond the odo check, so there could have been a checkpoint just beyond it. So we had to be careful to stay on time once we reached that point, just in case. As expected, the first checkpoint was before the end of Section 1. As I approached it, I thought we were running a bit late. But if I’d looked at the clock and remembered that it was timed to the minute, I’d have slowed down. We checked in at 56 seconds after the minute. If we’d been four seconds slower, we’d have been right on time. Oh well, on to Section 2.

We were given a series of tulip diagrams but only a few had non-accumulative distance from the previous instruction. So we had to keep our eyes peeled for turns that matched the diagrams, as well as changing speeds often. All of the roads continued to be icy, so the driving was stressful whenever we were in a twisty section. I believe it was in this section that we ran into a problem. We were travelling at around 65 km/h when we came to a 90-degree left turn that was not marked and was not visible well in advance. I tried to brake to scrub of some speed and depressed the clutch to roll around the corner, but we were just going too fast. We slid sideways into a snow bank that was only about 10” high and went right onto it. All four tires were in deep snow and I couldn’t get any traction to move either forward or back. Another team stopped to help us and we tried pushing the car and then pulling it out with theirs (a 4WD Mitsubishi), but my toe rope came apart at one end.

Fortunately another car came along and stopped to help. This was a couple who had intended to compete but had arrived too late for registration, so they were just using the instructions for practise. They had a good tow strap and a 4WD Subaru, so were able to pull us out reasonably easily. As we left the site, the car seemed OK but it was pulling a bit to the right. At the next checkpoint I took the maximum Time Allowance of 19.5 minutes, which allowed us to come very close to zeroing that control. I also checked the tie rod ends to make sure nothing was bent and couldn’t see a problem. I should have looked more closely at the tires! When I checked them the next morning I found that the right front was almost totally deflated and we had finished the rally on it and driven at highway speeds back to the city. Just like my sons had done , causing the same symptom! Will I ever learn?

Section 3 required us to plot the shortest route between the beginning and end of Section, while passing through three points. The changes in average speed were given in descriptive terms that didn’t reveal any tips about the route, so Gary had to use the end of section map and carefully devise a route that would get us there. He did a great job and we were pretty successful at the next couple of controls.

Section 4 had an odd set of instructions, where the cumulative distances were given in miles without tenths, as though they’d been read from an old car’s odometer that began the section at 171,834 miles. The average speeds were also given in miles per hour. So Gary had to convert all the distances and speeds to metric and then we had to pay close attention to the various turns, since we didn’t have precise distances to follow. For example, one instruction told us to turn left at mileage 171,849, but all we really knew is that the turn would be somewhere after we reached the metric equivalent of 171,849 and before the metric equivalent of 171,850. I think we did pretty well in this section, although were a little early at one control. I was basically driving as fast as I could comfortably, given the conditions, and it caught up with us at that checkpoint.

Section 5 was the place where the driving really got interesting. We were on cottage roads in the Rideau Lakes which are hilly, narrow and twisty, as well as being icy. The speeds don’t sound all that challenging, in the low sixties and mid-fifties, but they were. None of the curves are marked and you never know what’s over the next crest, so I had to take it easy just to stay on the road and be comfortable. The instructions were simple enough, but the driving was exhausting! We were the last car to arrive at one of the checkpoints, so the workers followed us for quite a while, which was comforting. Then we caught up to and passed another competitor who had just been pulled out a snow bank by the same team who had tried to help us earlier, so I knew I was doing the right thing by being cautious. We ended up being late by about five minutes at the two checkpoints in this section, but at least we stayed on the road.

The final Section was very simple and relatively short, being designed simply to get us back to Perth over some more reasonable roads. We had no trouble with it, although the frequent speed changes and turns caused us to be a little late at the last checkpoint before the finish. We correctly calculated the finishing time for the end of rally and handed in our route card at the restaurant, sharing some harrowing tales of the nights driving with a few people before leaving.

Gary needed to get back to the city as early as possible to join his wife at a social event, so we didn’t wait for the results to be finalized. We knew that we would have a pretty respectable score, especially since we had not missed any turns or gotten off track at all. That’s the first event for which we can say that! As it turned out, we finished second in Expert class with a score of 9.4, which is very gratifying. There were four teams in Expert, so we did well to beat two of them, despite the flat tire! Now I have to check the car over carefully to make sure there is no damage. At least I have a couple of months before the next event, so the pressure is off. I had the video camera mounted in the car, but was so busy with the driving that I didn’t even think to turn it on. That’s a shame, because some of the footage would have been spectacular.

The 2012 ORRC season began as usual with the January Jaunt rally, run out of Waterdown, ON, near Burlington. Since the season-ending event in Perth in November, I have been busy making improvements to the Mazda for the new season. It started with the replacement of a burned out headlight bulb (both actually), which happened on the way home from Perth. Next I spent a bit of time under the car trying to find a small oil leak on the left side, which turned out to the seal on the transmission shift rod. That was a fairly straightforward job, made easier by the mild temperatures we had in November.

Then in December I decided to tackle a job I’d been procrastinating on – the rusty frame rails just behind the seats. Once I began removing the rusted and rotten metal, I discovered just how serious a problem it was. By the time I’d finished cleaning up the two sides, I had a four inch diameter hole in the floor behind the driver’s seat and a section 7-9” long on each side where the frame rail was completely gone from rust. I made a patch for the floor out of sheet metal and screwed and riveted it in place. Then I covered the top and bottom of the patch’s seams with fibreglass maxi-fibre.

For the frame damage, I calculated that I could weld a steel strap to the good frame rail in front of the damaged sections and extend it over the damage to the rear trailing arm mounts. It would have to be shaped like a hockey stick to follow the shape of the rail and it would require some bracing to provide strength in the vertical direction. Using some of my friend’s inventory of 1/8” x 1-1/4” steel strapping, I made the necessary flat pieces and he welded them together. Then I made two braces of ¾” angle iron which he welded across the angle of the hockey stick shape. He then welded the assembly to the floor board and we added some side pieces to increase the strength, since the floor metal is quite thin. Then I filled in the void between the new pieces and the floor with expanding foam and covered the whole thing with fibreglass maxi-fibre. Finally a coat of Tremclad rust paint to protect the whole thing and some yellow highlights to show where the good jacking points are.

The next major project was to replace the fuel lines between the engine and the fuel tank, which were clearly on their last legs. I had lost two brake lines in the same area as the rusty floor repair about two years ago. So I knew the fuel lines wouldn’t last much longer. I took a shortcut and used flexible rubber fuel hose from the top of the tank down to the floor level; then 5/16” steel lines up towards the engine compartment. I left the old lines in place and simply zip-tied the new lines to them in multiple places along the floor. I took advantage of the opportunity to relocate the fuel filter from the firewall to the area vacated when I moved the battery to the trunk, to improve accessibility dramatically.

I also replaced the engine’s coolant temperature sensor, which is used to trigger the radiator fan, since I had had an overheating problem in October when I had to replace the radiator. I also tweaked the toe-in a couple of times to get the steering perfectly neutral, had the right front tire remounted to solve a slow leak and had the left front tire re-balanced to remove a vibration. The vibration sound is still present, but the wheel is balanced! I’m just hoping the vibration is nothing serious, since the front bearings are new and the brakes are not rubbing. If a tire is breaking an internal belt, we’ll find out in the rally!

My travel plans for the rally were a little complicated this time, since I would take my son to Toronto to catch a bus to St. Catharines for school; then I would pick Gary up in Toronto at a hotel where his wife is staying while working on a big project; then we would drive to Waterdown and compete in the rally. At the end of the rally, my old friend Rob might meet us in the restaurant after delivering a car to his son in Waterloo and catch a ride home with me – after dropping Gary in Toronto and spending the night with my other old friend and his wife in Pickering. Whew!

We left Saturday morning about 8:10 (thanks son!) in the midst of some freezing drizzle that had left 1/8^th of an inch of ice on the cars. The roads were somewhat slippery until the temperature rose from -5 C to about freezing, when the ice started to fly off the truck in chunks and the windows cleared, along Highway 401. We made pretty good time despite the conditions and only made two pit stops before reaching Toronto around 12:15. I dropped my son at the bus station and picked up Gary and we were off. The weather in Toronto was remarkably different from Ottawa, with sunshine and temperatures reaching +9 C. We arrived at Waterdown with plenty of time to spare, so I filled up the truck, which turned out to be fortuitous.

After registering, saying hello to old friends and listening to the drivers’ meeting, we departed at 3:10 PM with Expert instructions in hand. There were 18 teams entered – 3 Expert, 2 Intermediate and the rest Novice – many first timers. We were the only team from Ottawa, which is often the case. The rally was going to be about 300 km long and was divided into three legs – A, B and C. The rally organizer – named Kurt – is known for preparing challenging instructions and he didn’t disappoint. Even the beginning odo check section was different, with average speeds provided for the whole section, including the pause which is necessary at the odo check distance.

We had been warned at the meeting about a section that was arranged in reverse and Section A2 proved to be it. Not only did we have to start at the end and work backwards – calculating all of the distances to turns – but each tulip diagram was reversed, with left meaning right, stop signs misplaced and the angle of side roads reversed. We struggled a bit with it at first, but then Gary got the hang of it and we did fairly well, although we had to take a time allowance early to compensate for our confusion.

Section A3 was a fairly common line diagram, but it was drawn as a spiral to challenge the reader to keep track of lefts and rights. The starting point was not defined, but it was easy to figure it out from the first intersection. As we progressed, we were confused by the average speeds, because they didn’t make sense with the speed limits we saw. Only much later (in Section A4) did Gary notice that the average speed tables for Sections A3 and A4 had been placed on the opposing section’s page! Despite our confusion over the speeds, we stuck to our guns and were rewarded with a checkpoint midway along, so we knew we were still on route. The roads got a little more interesting in this section, with some twisty bits and plenty of hills, on a wet gravel surface.

Section A4 was a nightmare! The instructions required the navigator to find several small towns on a greyscale photocopy of a small scale map and connect them with straight lines to define intersection points. We were supposed to find the shortest route between the beginning and end of section while driving through all of the intersecting points. Local knowledge would have been a big help here, because we couldn’t find some of the town names no matter how hard we tried. One of our fellow competitors paused just before the section and took nine minutes to sort out it out, following with a nine minute time allowance at the next checkpoint to compensate. We stopped at several points to try and figure out the route and we stayed on track for a while. But about halfway along we were about to take a wrong turn when along came a Novice team, equipped with simpler instructions. When we saw which way they turned, we immediately decided to follow them and give up trying to plot our own route. This became kind of funny, as we followed them wherever they went, including a wrong turn! But they got us safely to end of section at the rest stop and we thanked them for their unwitting help. As we saw later, our overall efforts for Leg A weren’t bad, with a total score of 7.2 (compared to 2.6 and 6.1 for our competitors).

Leg B was a different story. Section B1 was a disjointed map of two squiggly lines, accompanied by a road map. We had to match the lines with roads on the map and follow the route. When we started out, we incorrectly identified the starting point and wasted about 17 minutes getting back on track. Then we missed a turn or two and wound up finding a checkpoint from the wrong direction. But it was CP 3, so we had already missed two. It turned out that if we’d kept going another half kilometre, we’d have found CP’s 1 & 2, since they were stacked extremely close together. Then we missed another one before eventually finding the end of section.

Section B2 was a series of tulip-like pictograms of certain intersections, combined with instructions on certain waypoints we had to pass through. We struggled with that one as well and missed another CP or two (I lost count). There was another short break after Leg B and we were one of the last cars out.

Leg C instructions consisted of one page – a map telling us to drive Leg A in reverse! Fortunately we still had all of our notes from Leg A but it was still difficult to get oriented, especially since we’d followed the Novices for Section A4 and had no clue as to the correct route. When we began Section C2, we were supposed to be driving the spiral line diagram in reverse. We got a bit confused early on and I turned around in the wide entrance to a quarry. As I cranked the wheel hard to the left at slow speed, we heard a horrible death rattle coming from the right front wheel. I got out and looked at it with a flashlight and couldn’t see anything broken or out of place. So we drove on a bit and stopped again for more examination.

The best we could figure was that the wheel bearing had let go, explaining the grinding noise we’d been hearing all along. It was hard to believe, since the bearing was only six months old. A local resident stopped to offer assistance, so we accepted his offer of accompanying us back to a major highway, where we could phone the rally organizer to seek a rescue. We made the call and it took a friend about 40 minutes to reach us – that’s how far west we had gone from Waterdown. He drove us back to the starting point where Gary handed in our (blank) route card while I fetched the truck and trailer. We drove back and loaded up the car, heading for Toronto about 11:30 PM. I dropped Gary off at his downtown hotel and made my way to my friend’s house in Pickering, arriving there about 1:30 AM. It had been a long day!

On the way home the next day, I realized that the bearing might have failed because that tire had been really low on air due to an undetected overnight leak, when my sons took the car on a shopping trip. About 60-70 km at highway speeds with only 50% of the appropriate air pressure would not have helped that bearing at all. I’ll assess the damage when I take it apart in a day or two. Our next event is in two weeks, so I should have plenty of time to make repairs.

Postscript: Upon removing the right wheel, the damage was obvious. The two tiny hitch pins that retain the brake pad locating pins had come out and one of the locating pins had sheared off. After installing new parts, everything is good. I believe this was caused by the tire being run on very low air pressure.

Video of Section A4 is available at http://youtu.be/lUUiZz4sSJs

The final rally of the 2011 Ontario Road Rally Cup series was hosted by the Motorsport Club of Ottawa and sponsored by Open Road Motorsport. It began and finished at the Perth Restaurant on a beautiful, clear day with temperatures threatening to reach +10 C – a perfect day for driving. This may be the best event of the series, because we always use the awesome roads of the Lanark Highlands and/or the Rideau Lakes, both of which regions are known across the province for their twisty, hilly nature. We had a total of twenty-four teams entered, including all of the top teams from Peterborough, Toronto and Kitchener, as well as the Subaru club. This was the largest field of the year and you could see the excitement and enthusiasm in everyone’s eyes before the start – as well as afterwards!

For us, this was the easiest rally logistically, since it’s a mere 70 kilometres from my house to the restaurant. We arrived shortly after one o’clock and had plenty of time for socializing before departing at 2:37 PM (being Car number 7).

This rally would decide the provincial championships in both Expert and Intermediate classes, since there were very close races for the driver’s title in both classes. Due to substitutions during the year, the navigator’s championships had already been decided. So at least three navigators were there solely to support their drivers’ quest for the title – one (Perry) even supplied the car! And Gary was the second, supporting me! In our case, we needed to finish at least three positions ahead of Tim and Perry for me to win the title. We had won two events outright, while they had won four, including three events where we went head to head. Fortunately for us, there were two other teams registered in Intermediate who could act as spoilers if they did better than Tim and Perry and if we could finish first. All we could do was give it our best effort and hope for the best, as always.

We began the rally with a simple set of instructions to get us to the odometer check and the end of Section 1 – just distance to turns and an elapsed time to reach EOS (end of section). They took us southwest of Perth, towards Westport. Section 2 had instructions of a type that I don’t remember seeing before. There were tulip diagrams based on incremental distances, but they were out of sequence. So we didn’t know which diagram applied until we reached an intersection where the incremental distance from the last one matched one of the diagrams. This required precision, since some of the distances were similar, so we were lucky to have a perfectly calibrated rally computer to help with that. The odo check had not required any adjustment to the calibration, which helped greatly. When we reached the first Checkpoint (CP) in this Section, I believed we nailed it to the second.

Section 3 had a complex series of “rules of the road”, which told us that we had to (a) turn right at all right junctions, (b) turn left at the first opportunity whenever on highway 12, (c) always turn right onto highway 12, (d) go straight through all four-way intersections, etc. We were doing fine until we came to a four-way where the road on the left was marked as “no exit”. So we turned right, applying rule “a” above. But Gary soon realized we were on the wrong route, so we doubled back and treated the four-way according to rule “d”. This turned out to be correct and I know that several teams missed the next checkpoint because of the error. During the scoring, it was decided to give all teams (Intermediate and Expert were the only ones affected) a zero for that CP as a result. The road that we were on after the four-way was Kingston Line, which is very twisty and hilly, and I was trying to go as fast as possible to minimize the TA that I would take at the next CP. It got pretty exciting at times, but we got through safely and requested a TA of 4.5 minutes, which turned out to be pretty close.

The instructions for Section 4 were in the form of a long, continuous tulip so it was pretty easy to stay on route. However, the average speeds were quite aggressive and the roads made it demanding to stay on time. Between the challenging speeds and making one wrong turn, we got a little behind, so I took a TA of 1.5 minutes to compensate. This was as close as I could get, since TA’s have to be on the half-minute. Section 5 was short and very scenic, as we wound along the north side of Dalhousie Lake, through cottage country on old logging roads. We were following a simple narrative and had no trouble with the directions or the speeds. I can’t remember the instructions for Section 6 at all, probably because of the problems we had in Section 7!

This penultimate section had a diagram shaped like an “X”, showing four lines with little tails sticking off the sides of each line. At the centre of the X was a circle with an “A” in it, while there was a “B” at the end of each of the four arms. The lines represented four different possibilities for the route we should follow. As it turned out, all four lines were identical as we progressed from A towards B, until near the end. But Gary had to compare them all at each intersection, to ensure we stayed on track. The little tails represented roads which we had to “leave” on the left or right, signifying turns or straight aheads as appropriate.  Generally this type of instruction is pretty easy to follow, but we tried valiantly to make it difficult by beginning at “B” instead of “A”. Why, I’ll never understand. So we wasted a lot of time and distance until we realized our fundamental error and got back on route. I kept track of the time we wasted fairly accurately and I knew we’d need a TA of at least 12-13 minutes at the next CP. We only had 13.5 minutes remaining, of the total allotment of 19.5, so I used them all at the CP. As it turned out, this was pretty close to correct.

The final Section was a simple set of instructions to take us back to the restaurant. By now we both knew exactly where we were and how to get back, so I concentrated on driving the route while Gary calculated our check-in time for the end of the rally. We arrived at slightly before 6:24 PM and our check-in time was 6:25, so I trotted briskly inside to hand in our card and begin to share stories with the other teams.

As we waited for the scoring, we did a little socializing and had some supper. We found out that one of our fellow Intermediate local teams had missed 2-3 CP’s, so that didn’t bode well for Tim and Perry being worse. When the scoring was finally completed, they announced that due to errors in the instructions for Intermediate and Expert, all teams would receive zeroes for CP’s 4 and 9, as well as the finish. That meant that there was a chance that our complete result (no missed CP’s) wouldn’t help us. As it turned out, we finished first with a score of 9.5, fully twenty points better than Tim and Perry, who finished second. So we won the battle, but not the war. Tim will be crowned the champion of Intermediate by a one-point margin. It doesn’t get any closer than that.

We had an uneventful drive home – still on the same tank of gas – and arrived shortly after 9 PM. As he was leaving, Gary pointed out that one of the Mazda’s headlights was not on. The next day I verified that it was the bulb that had burned out, so I got a replacement. I also found that two spark plug wires were loose, so the roads must have been pretty rough. Fortunately they stayed close enough to the plugs that the engine didn’t miss a beat. That’s it for this season. The Mazda will now become my main transport for skiing, groceries, etc., so I don’t use too much gas or wear out the truck over the winter.

This year’s fall BBQ for the Italian Car Club of Ottawa was a great success, although the weather almost killed it before it got started. It had originally been scheduled for October 15, but as that day approached the weather forecast was not very good. So it was postponed by a week. And then the 15^th turned out to be sunny and cool – a typical nice fall day. We had an excellent September, with many crystal clear, warm days. So maybe the club should re-think the timing of this event, which is usually the best attended of all. On the 22^nd the morning was damp with heavy overcast and there was even some light Scotch mist around 10 o’clock. Warm clothes would be the order of the day, especially with the top down on the Fiat.

I had spent several hours on the Thursday – while it rained and got very cool outside – washing, waxing and Armor All’ing the Fiat to have it looking its best for this last outing of the year. On Saturday morning I pulled it outside to finish polishing the paint and chrome and I also cleaned the Momo wheels with Meguiar’s Hot Rims spray, which is a great product for their complex shapes. I was a little concerned about the temporary fix that I’d fabricated for the carburetor linkage, after losing one of the two clips that retain little balls in their sockets. On my way back from NAPA (in the Porsche) where I picked up a new bottle of Hot Rims I stopped at my friend Steve’s to trade some stories with him and Morley. While there I mentioned these clips and Steve immediately got down a box of old parts from Weber carburetors – most of them from Volkswagens. Sure enough he had at least a dozen linkages with two of these clips on each! I took one pair home, quickly determined that they were the same size and installed two of them so they would match. What a great guy and resource!

I had been talking to a fellow Fiat enthusiast named Adam who owns a ’74 Spider a few days earlier, at which point I offered to drive him to the BBQ. His car is temporarily off the road while his clutch assembly is being rebuilt. So I left home a little early to pick him up en route, suitably bundled in my winter jacket with three layers underneath – top down, of course. It was pretty cool at about 7-8 C but I reminded myself that if this was March I’d be happy to drive topless in such temperatures. For some reason traffic was very heavy on the surface streets, so we arrived at Marc’s a few minutes later than expected, a little after two o’clock.

When I pulled up to the driveway entrance, I stopped and did some arm waving to get Marc’s attention and to indicate that I wanted to know where to park. He immediately gestured for me to drive right up and into the paved back yard, so I could park right in front of the four-door garage – a place of honour! It’s really a shame that Marc doesn’t do much wrenching on his own cars, since he has such a large garage in which to store and work on cars. With considerable hard cranking of the non-power steering wheel, I was able to get positioned squarely in the middle of the four doors, with lots of space for people to get around both the front and rear of my car. Of course I had a pretty large audience, since a number of people had already arrived but had parked on the street.

I knew most of the people who were already there and more familiar faces continued to arrive over the next hour or so. The garage doors were all closed, since the BBQ is typically an opportunity to unveil new acquisitions or restorations. But the collection of cars parked in the yard and on the street was already pretty impressive. Marc’s Alfa Romeo GTV and Dave’s ’64 Alfa Giulia SS were parked in front of me, while an early Fiat 500 was behind me. Dave’s SS is a beautiful classic in excellent condition, of which there are only six in North America. It is quite valuable and very pretty. In the driveway Marc had parked his Multipla and Stuart’s yellow 1960 Fiat 600. As we all stood around enjoying some wine and trying to warm up, Delio arrived in his Alfa coupe, another old 500 pulled in and then a gorgeous new Maserati GT coupe backed, with both its stereo and its Ferrari engine competing for best sound. Chuck and Marcia filled the end of the driveway in their Lancia Monte Carlo, while several Fiat Spiders (both 124’s and 850’s) were parked on the street. In all, there must have been thirty people and at least 15 cars present – an excellent turn-out.

My car looked perfect and was not upstaged by any of the other classic Italian iron in the yard. Adam found a new guy named Jay whom I had invited on the FiatSpider.com forum and he came over to look at my car and to ask about recommended paint shops. Of course I told him about having my car done at Milano Body Shop in 2006 and he couldn’t believe the quality of the paint – not to mention the condition of the car – especially when I told him how little it had cost. A little later I introduced him to Tony from Milano and they agreed on a plan to provide Jay with a quotation for repainting his black 1980 Spider.

Around 3 o’clock Marc called the meeting to order, because one of our objectives this day was to honour and thank Delio and Giovanni for their years of support in maintaining our cars at Frank’s Auto Centre in Little Italy. They have decided to retire after 38 years and have sold the building to a real estate developer. Sadly that means that Frank (not the owner) and Hugo (their mechanics) will be out of work, so they must decide what to do next. It also means that several ICCO members who are not mechanically inclined must find someone else to help them with their cars, which could be problematic. There are no other Italian car specialists in Ottawa, although a few small garages seem to be willing to help some of the members successfully. By the way, Giovanni’s car was a classic 1960’s Lancia Aprelia four-door sedan, which he parked at the foot of the driveway. Delio was the founder of the Italian Car Club.

Marc had pulled together some gifts and mementos of Delio and Giovanni’s years with us, including two nice photo albums assembled by the club’s resident photographer, in which we were all asked to find our cars and autograph the page(s) where they appeared. He also had gifts for Frank and Hugo, which was a nice touch and a few remarks from other club members. After this small ceremony, it was time to open the garage doors and unveil the cars hidden from view. Marc began with Door #1, commenting that the club is not only about vintage Italian cars as he revealed Sandra’s new red Fiat 500. Next came Alex’s beautiful 1967 Fiat Dino coupe, which we had seen before but which had never before been introduced formally to the group. Behind Door #3 was another Fiat Mulitpla which Stuart had just finished restoring in a lovely two-tone blue paint scheme, as well as a Fiat 500 Abarth in race trim which Joe (the owner of a popular pub) had recently acquired. Finally, behind Door #4 was yet another old Fiat 500 which a different Joe (one of the Carguys group) had just restored, after buying the car for a mere $250.

All this while Lucio had been grilling the usual Italian sausages and from then on people enjoyed a sausage, some meat balls, salad and desserts contributed by the members, along with numerous bottles of wine and Italian beer. There were lots of clusters of people engaged in lively conversation and examination of the cars – both revealed and simply parked – so it was easy to move among them and have a rich experience of friendship and fellowship. The enthusiasm of this group for their cars and the Italian spirit is quite amazing and very enjoyable.

As the sun got lower in the sky, people began to leave and the temperature began to drop noticeably. I realized that it would be getting dark by the time I could expect to get home, so I raised the top on my car in the interest of comfort for both me and Adam. After a bit of a wait for the driveway to clear, I manoeuvred the car out of its tight spot with some help from Terry and other onlookers and then picked Adam up at the street. We left around 4:45 and once again the traffic was very heavy for some unknown reason, but eventually I got home around 5:30. The day had been very enjoyable; the car ran very well; the carburetor fix remained intact and I had a great time. That’s about it for this season though.

This year the President’s Prize was temporarily renamed the “Not”, since the fellow designing it is not the President of the Peterborough club and the club has been without a president all year long. But he’s an experienced rallyist, so I expected a challenging and long route (at 300 km). The rally would start in Peterborough at 11 o’clock Saturday, so we had to leave at 6 AM to get there in time, especially since we’d have to hunt a bit for a suitable place to leave the truck and trailer. At the end of the event, I’d be driving the Mazda directly to Kingston for my 40^th anniversary university reunion, while Gary would drive the truck and trailer back to my house and retrieve his car. I’d been watching the weather forecast for the weekend closely, since I was hoping to get up to Calabogie for a few more laps on Sunday afternoon. But as of Friday evening, it didn’t look promising, with rain being forecast for the whole weekend, both in the Ottawa area as well in Peterborough. It wouldn’t be a President’s Prize without a big mud bath anyway.

Saturday dawned cloudy but not raining and we made it to Peterborough around 9:45. We easily found a place to park the truck on the street near the registration spot and took care of the necessary business with lots of time to spare. They had a good turn-out of about 15 cars and we were assigned car number 11. There was only one other car in Intermediate class – our main rivals and friends, Tim and Perry.

Things got off to a pretty good start as we headed south of town into the hilly countryside. The first couple of sections were fairly straightforward tulips with multiple speed changes. But soon we came to a section that had problems. Near the end of section there was an instruction that showed a T intersection where we should turn left. But when we got there, we found about 8 other teams stopped and discussing what to do. The intersection was a four-way and the distance did not coincide with the instruction! We tried going both left and straight but neither led to the next and last instruction on the page. Several others turned right, so we did too, but with the same result. So we decided to go to the end of the new sew section, concluding that the entire section would have to be scrubbed from the scoring, due to the massive error. And so it was.

Shortly afterwards we finished the first leg with only one other small error in the instructions and stopped for a break. Everyone was milling around, discussing the frustration of the errors. I sympathized with the organizer, who had received no help in checking the route against the instructions and who had completed the rally’s design in a very short period of time.

After the break, things got a little more interesting. The first section, as well as the second last one, was in the form of a story about the travels of US presidents, both living and dead.  Each had attributes, based on his politics or reputation. For example, when Obama spoke, it represented a left turn. When George W. Bush spoke, we should ignore it because you couldn’t believe anything he said. The first section began with a tricky series of turns that required a map to sort out. Fortunately, I had brought a large scale, coloured highway map that Gary had to use because the photocopy we were given was hard to read and had an End of Section sticker in precisely the worst place.

In the remaining sections, there were numerous speed changes and it was difficult to maintain the correct speed when, for example, we had to average 76 km/h for only a kilometre or less, between two lower speed sections. After a while Gary got behind on the calculation of estimated times of arrival, so we were early at a couple of checkpoints. I haven’t seen the detailed scoring yet, but overall we accumulated 4.5 points, which isn’t bad. But Tim and Perry somehow got only 1.9 points, so they finished first in our class. I’m curious about the details though, because I understand that nine out of twenty checkpoints had to be scrubbed from the scoring due to mistakes in the instructions or in the location of the checkpoint workers.

I left as soon as the rally ended and drove to Kingston, where I arrived in time for the entire supper with my classmates from Queen’s. I visited with several guys that I wanted to see and had a good conversation at the table where I sat with people I knew but who had been in different streams of engineering. When the disc jockey appeared and the dancing started, I headed for my room, since it had already been a long day. In the last rally of the season, I will have to finish first and Tim will have to finish third or worse in class for me to have a chance at the championship. It doesn’t look too likely, but stranger things have happened.

Video is available at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fav5KEXR57Q

In August, the Toronto Autosport Club put on a new rally, called the TAC August Challenge – how appropriate. It was intended to replace the Infinite Monkeys, because its organizers had resigned from rally activities over a personal conflict with the Rallysport Ontario President. Such is life.

The start of the rally was at a shopping mall in northern Mississauga at 10:30 AM, so Gary and I drove to Pickering the night before and had a great visit at my friend Les’s home, with him and Maureen. If memory serves, we left his house around 8 AM to allow for Saturday morning Toronto traffic and arrived safely at the start with plenty of time to spare. We found a corner of the shopping centre parking lot in which to leave the truck and trailer and joined everyone else in Timmie’s for snacks and coffee.

There were three of us competing in Intermediate class and we were given car number 5. So we set out at 10:35 and headed northwest towards the Caledon Hills. There were two Legs in the rally with a one-hour break in the middle. During Leg A, one section required us to find the names of small villages on a photocopy of an area map. Then we had to connect the two points with a straight line and find the route which crossed that line the least number of times. Because the map was a grey photocopy and the village names were in small print, it took us quite a while to find them and plot our route, while parked beside the road. I had to take a Time Allowance at the next checkpoint to compensate. Later in this Leg there were more complex instructions which took extra time and effort to sort out. Along the way we got crossed up and missed two checkpoints. However, we found out at the break that Chris and Jon, also in Intermediate, had missed four! So we didn’t feel so bad. One checkpoint was in a small siding road, between the main road and some railway tracks. Both times we were supposed to get on the siding road to stop at the checkpoint and both times we drove a few hundred yards past it before realizing our mistake. It wasn’t turning out to be our day.

In Leg B after the break, the instructions didn’t get any easier and we missed five checkpoints. I can’t remember the instructions now, which is probably just as well. In one of them there was a tulip diagram which had been reversed intentionally and this threw us off, as well as several other teams. There was also a line map and we couldn’t figure out which end of it was the beginning, so that also set us back. We used our entire allotment of Time Allowances and wound up finishing in third place with 170 points. We took little comfort in knowing that a lot of the scores were high, since we lost points to Tim and Perry, our chief rivals in the class championship race.

But the best was yet to come. On the way home, we pulled off Highway 401 into a service centre near Kingston, to stretch our legs and make a pit stop. When we walked around the trailer I saw that the front right wheel was covered in some rusty coloured substance and the rear wheel had grease all over it. On closer inspection we found that the wheel bearing on the front wheel had disintegrated completely and the wheel was held on only by gravity! The rear wheel bearing was loose, but we were able to tighten it up. So we removed the car and the heavy steel ramps from the trailer and took off the front wheel. I couldn’t get the hub and retaining nut off because they were jammed by something. So Gary drove the truck with the trailer on three tires while I followed in the Mazda. Just a few hundred feet after we pulled back onto the highway, I saw the hub fly off the damaged wheel and roll along the shoulder, missing me by only a few feet. There was following traffic and I couldn’t stop to retrieve it, so we just kept on going. We took Highway 15 from Kingston to Ottawa to keep the speed down and avoid the major traffic on 401. All the way home I was seeing sparks every time the trailer hit a bump, when the bolts on the right side shackle hit the roadway.

When we eventually made it to my driveway, we could see that the shackle bolt was ground down and bent as a result of all the contact. A few days later I replaced all four of the wheel bearings, plus the missing hub. This time I made sure that the retaining clips were properly in place on all four wheels, to avoid another similar incident. This has definitely been the year for wheel bearing replacements!

There was a very small turn-out for the fourth rally in the MCO Open Road series – about seven cars, four of them in Expert class. We started at Tim Horton’s in Stittsville and would finish at the Cheshire Cat pub on Carp Rd. After Gary and I arrived at the start, I had a good chat with Glen about my trip to OH and VA, and about the performance and tuning of the Porsche’s engine. Glen was curious about the reason for old “what’s his name” to have trouble with engines blowing up, which I was able to talk about with some level of confidence!

When we got started, the first section was simple distance to turns, incorporating the odometer check. I had pre-set the rally computer calibration wheels to match the rally organizer’s odometer, based on previous experience. So we didn’t have to make any adjustment at the 15 km odo check. That gave us extra time to try to figure out the instructions for Section 2, which were a bit tricky.

The section was based on a photocopy of a map on which several sections of road had been erased, along with the end-of-section map, which was in a different scale. We were supposed to follow the shortest possible route from start to end by using each missing section only once. Gary struggled for a long time, trying to plot the correct path, and never did figure it out. We took a Time Allowance of 3.5 minutes at the first checkpoint in the section, to compensate for this period spent puzzling over the route. Then we followed Gary’s best guess as to the correct route, until we were obviously off track. So we went to the end of section and started fresh on Section 3. When we arrived at a checkpoint, we assumed that we must have missed one and expected a 20 minute penalty as a result.

Before checking in with the control worker, I should have asked him which checkpoint number he was. When I looked at the sticker he gave me, I found that we had not missed a checkpoint and I could have simply requested a Time Allowance for about 10 minutes and been close to correct! That mistake basically determined our losing score for the entire rally. We finished Sections 3, 4 and 5 almost penalty-free, which were based on tulip diagrams and distance to turn type instructions. It turned out that the solution for Section 2 was simply to approach each intersection and look for the turning direction that would require us to take a road with a missing section. We ended up with a score of about 12.5, which was fourth in Expert class – not very satisfying, but it was a fun night regardless. Now we’re a little better prepared for the next ORRC event on June 4.

This turned out to be the last MCO rally of the season, because the organizer – Open Road Motorsports – cancelled the June and July events due to low attendance. Personally, I believe he should have warned people first that the series was in jeopardy, before cancelling the events. It would have given people a chance to declare their interest before pulling the rug out from under those who like these events.

The No Winter Maintenance rally was organized by the Subaru Performance Driving Association as a replacement for the First Frost rally held the last couple of Decembers. It is the eighth rally of the 2011 provincial season. The objective was to utilize better roads (i.e. more gravel), in a more rural setting and I’d say they succeeded admirably. The rally was centred in Flesherton, ON, which is only 40 km south of Georgian Bay and very rural in character. It’s hard to believe, but the Niagara Escarpment stretches all the way to this area and we were also on the back side of Blue Mountain, resulting in some excellent gravel side roads with lots of elevation changes and twisty bits.

Flesherton is almost 540 km from home in Ottawa, so we left Friday afternoon and went to stay at my friend’s house in Pickering – a drive of about four hours. He and his wife are very gracious and welcome us into their home whenever we need a rest stop en route to these distant ORRC events. After arriving there about 9:30 Friday night, we enjoyed some good cheer and chatter before retiring fairly early to rest up for a long day ahead. Saturday morning came pretty quickly and after a cup of coffee and more cheerful banter, we hit the road about 7:30 for the remaining two-hour drive. En route we passed through a huge wind farm, just north of Shelburne, which we had no idea existed. It was pretty impressive and led to all kinds of speculation about how much power was generated there, cost of construction, etc. When we arrived at Flesherton a little after 9:30, there was already a large crowd of rallyists lined up registration and staying warm inside the restaurant, since it was only 3 Celsius!

My chief competition for the Intermediate class crown could not attend due to some family commitments, but his co-driver (Perry) did come, with a new driver who had a lovely new Lotus Evora. They used Perry’s Ford Focus wagon in the rally, but we had a chance to examine the Evora before starting out. Although it’s cool that Lotus has a new model, I can’t say I’m in love with the styling – it’s an odd combination of curves and straight lines that doesn’t work for me.

Because they had twelve new teams entered in Novice class, they put both the Expert and Intermediate teams at the front, so we wouldn’t be held up along the way. We were given car number 3, so we got away at 11:03. We promptly missed the first turn, which came up quickly after the first side road! After turning around and undoing the odometer appropriately, we had no trouble reaching the odo check at around 13 kms. But the odometer correction factor was large, so I had to estimate how much to include for the mistake at the beginning. It turned out all right and the correction factor meant that I could run at, say, 70 km/h to achieve an average calibrated speed of about 65 km/h, which helped us avoid speeding tickets whenever I had to make up time. At the break, Perry told us that he was having a lot of trouble with their Terratrip rally computer, since it seemed to be malfunctioning and their distances and speeds were all off. This may have helped us in the end.

Section 2 was all simple tulip diagrams, in the correct sequence, so we had no trouble zeroing the first few controls. Or I thought we had. In the final scoring, I saw that we had been a minute early at the second one, which I don’t believe. The sub-section was only 5.2 minutes long and they claim that we finished it in 4.2 minutes. That suggests a 20% average speed error, which is highly unlikely. They also scored us one minute late at the next control, but that turned out to a scoring error, which didn’t affect the results. I must ensure in the future that I verify our “in times” at each checkpoint before I leave the checkpoint worker’s car. The third section was a series of tulip diagrams where we had to choose from three different tulips once we arrived at the intersection, which slowed us down a bit. They had put on intersection out of sequence, which caught us, and the intersection didn’t match any of the related diagrams in our opinion, so we got turned around a bit until we figured out where to go. Then we came to another intersection where none of the diagrams worked, but we kept going straight and it was the correct choice. In fact, they’d intentionally reversed the symbol for the stop sign at that corner, which we didn’t notice! I took a Time Allowance at the next control, which was enough to minimize the damage, as it turned out. Section four was a single large tulip diagram, covering about 20 kms, with which we had no trouble, as soon as we verified that we’d chosen the correct end of the diagram as the starting point.

There was a 45-minute break at the restaurant at the halfway point, at which we had time to learn that Perry and his partner were struggling with their odometer. But you can never be sure that Perry isn’t pulling your leg, crafty Englishman that he is. So we pressed on in the assumption that we had to continue to do our best in order to beat them. The rally organizers had provided free sandwiches and veggies, which was a nice treat. So were able to rest and re-fuel our bodies indoors (to stay warm), and get ready to leave again in relative comfort.

The first section after the break was a hand-drawn map without distances or road names, showing a symbol at each intersection – one each for straight, left and right. It was a simple matter of interpreting the symbols and following the directions at each intersection once we arrived at it. There was one intersection where the reality did not match the map, so we just kept going straight and it worked out fine.

Section 6 was a complex system of using map coordinates to identify certain points and then connecting them with a line. The place where the line crossed a road indicated where we should be going. It took Gary a while to figure it out and plot our route, so I waited after a checkpoint to give him time to do this, planning to take a corresponding Time Allowance at the next control.  That was fine, except that somehow we missed one of the turns, resulting in us driving around a bit before we got back on route. Then we came to a junction where it appeared that we had two equivalent choices, both of which would lead to the same place. So we and the car in front of us both took the first choice, which turned out to be the wrong one. We both missed a checkpoint on the second path! By the time we reached the next control, I had to take the maximum Time Allowance that we could, since we’d used up our allotment by then. It turned out to about 3 minutes short, but better than 18 minutes late.

The final section involved road counting, where each intersection carries a special number representing the number of roads you count – starting at zero for the road you’re on and proceeding clockwise (in this case), until you reach the number. As we progressed, the numbers got bigger and bigger, but there’s an easy way around this. At a four way intersection, the road you’re on is zero, four, eight and so on, so it’s easy to account for a number like 53. Likewise, at a three-way intersection, the road you’re on when you approach it is zero, three, six, etc., so it simplifies the math for a large number. Near the end of this section, we passed Perry and his driver going the wrong way, so we knew we might have a good chance of coming out ahead.

After checking in at the restaurant, we had loaded the car and chatted with a number of people before we left, and there was still no sign of Perry. We were given some brownies and cookies baked by one of the organizer’s mothers and hit the road a little after five o’clock. A couple of hours later we phoned him and got the results – we had won our class! Later I was able to look at the detailed results and found that Perry had a score almost three times as high as ours, so I guess they had major problems. We got home a little after eleven o’clock, after a 535 km drive – tired but satisfied with our performance. Next up is the President’s Prize rally in Peterborough in two weeks. We are still in the hunt for the championship, but we must win both of the remaining rallies to come out ahead, assuming that my chief competitor attends both.

My last scheduled PCA Driver’s Ed event of the year got off to a good start. A few days before leaving for Le Circuit, I learned through Facebook that I’d been listed in the roster for the event as running in the Black group. I had been expecting to have another check ride before being promoted, but I guess the powers that be decided I was ready without it. The event was fully subscribed, so that may have motivated them to move me out of Blue to make room for someone else. Regardless, I feel comfortable with the change and am grateful for the opportunity.

I had gone to great lengths to make sure the car was properly prepared, going so far as to buy a new compression tester and run a full test in advance. The results were very encouraging, with all cylinders reading 150-155 psi when hot, after the same number of cranks on the starter motor. So my approach to tuning for the season had paid off. Although I’d driven the car hard for over 23 hours, the engine was still strong and pulling well to 6500 rpm. My diligence in maintaining it thoroughly had been worthwhile.

On Thursday I left home around 2:30 and I arrived at the track a couple of minutes after 5 o’clock, following a relaxing drive up into the mountains. While crossing the Ottawa River on the ferry from Cumberland, I ran into an old friend from my Bell days. We had a few minutes to get caught up during the crossing and I learned that he and his daughter were going up to their chalet at Mont-Tremblant for the weekend. When I arrived at the track a number of cars were already there and the paddock was filling up quickly with trailers and transporters. Four guys from the Northern New Jersey Region (NNJR), parked their rigs quite close to me and I got to know them a bit the next day. I met the two cousins whom I’d gotten to know at Watkins Glen – Marc from Montreal and Francois from Toronto – and then my friend Paul arrived from Ottawa in his Boxster. While I finished unloading, Paul set up a little shade tent among the trees near the lake and then we agreed to meet for supper.

I went to the hotel where I thought I had a reservation – the same one Paul was using – only to find that I was in a different building part way up the mountain. I got directions to it and drove up there, only to find that there were two hotels beside one another and I had gone to the wrong one. Finally I found the correct one and got registered, only to turn around and drive back down to the public parking area so I could meet Paul in the lobby of his hotel. We walked up the main shopping street a little ways and found the restaurant where I’ve eaten a few times in the past, where we enjoyed a cold beer and a pretty good meal. We had some good conversation about my travels this year and Paul’s work which involves corporate acquisitions in the dental instrument and fixtures field. After dinner I picked up a few snacks and we parted company, me returning to my hotel to relax, read and get a good night’s sleep. On the way I bumped into another friend from the track whose name I couldn’t remember immediately – it’s Frank – but who remembered mine, along with his girlfriend and another couple. We chatted in the street for a few minutes before parting ways and wishing each other a good night.

Friday morning it was cool and foggy, but that burned off quickly and we had postcard perfect day. I bumped into Bruce from Calabogie at McDonald’s, where we had breakfast and got caught up before heading to the track to get into the tech line. I cleaned all of the dew off the car and went through tech, where I got my first Black windshield sticker. It felt about the same as a Blue or White sticker, but when I registered and got the Black wristband, that felt good. The lady doing registration actually had a brain fart and tried to hand me a Green wristband until she quickly realized her mistake after I said, “I don’t think so.” Then there was the usual waiting period until the Drivers’ Meeting at 8:30, during which I caught up with a few other friends.

During the mandatory speech at the meeting, Bob made quite a point of explaining that in the event a red flag might be shown, we should pull off the track onto the grass and stop in sight of a marshal’s station. He said that the grass is kept nice and short so there would be little risk of a fire from a hot engine on overgrown grass. This proved to both prophetic and ironic. In my first afternoon stint, a red flag was thrown when I was entering Turn 6, so I pulled off the track on the right and stopped where I could see the marshall. After a few minutes, a track employee came along in his car – en route to the incident – and told me to get onto the asphalt in the cut-off for the half track. I wasn’t too shocked at the conflicting message and complied, later taking the cut-off to return to the paddock when directed. The incident was caused by a newish GT3 losing one of its rear wheels when the centrelock hub broke! The single nut wheels are the worst design change Porsche has developed in recent memory, They require 500 ft-lbs of torque, meaning a special wrench, and take longer to change than a conventional 5-stud design. At the day’s end I mentioned the mixed messages to Bob and he obviously spoke to the track worker about it, because this guy found me during the beer social and explained why he’d told me to move. Apparently, even though the grass was short, it was smoldering under my hot engine and was threatening to turn into a second incident! So I’m glad I didn’t hang about to argue the point.

My first experience with Black was pretty rewarding. In the first stint, I was passed by only 4-5 cars and I was able to keep pace with a cluster of 3 others for quite a while, I was pushing pretty hard to do so and recorded my personal best lap time of 2:07, plus a couple of 2:08’s, taking seven seconds off my previous best. During that stint I stayed with a yellow GT3 being driven by one of the NNJR guys. He had more straight line speed (of course), but I kept catching him at Bridge, Namerow and Turn 1. Early in the stint, he caught me by surprise when he braked at the turn-in point for Turn 1, at the bottom of the valley before turning right to climb the hill to Turn 2. I had to brake suddenly to avoid contact and lost all of my momentum. After that I gave him a bit more room, which was wise because he did the same thing a few more times. After the stint, I spoke to him about it and he explained that he’d lost his courage and was a bit confused by the track’s revised configuration compared to the old days. But he was grateful for the feedback and improved quite a bit later on. He said he was 71 and losing a bit of his edge and that he’d been a Chief Instructor for NNJR. Oddly enough, one of his friends passed me on the front straight in a later stint and braked in front of me at the same place because he had overestimated his ability to pass me and still make it through Turn 1 at a higher speed.  I tried to avoid those guys during the next two days!

In my second stint, I started to experience an odd problem with the car. In right hand corners when I tried to squeeze onto the throttle, it would hesitate and buck, which threw me off like a turbo coming on boost unexpectedly in a turn. After the third stint when the problem got worse, I cleaned all of the main carburetor jets and air correctors. I found a tiny fleck of something in the jet for number two carb, so I thought I might have solved the problem. But it persisted in the fourth stint and became obvious that it was a fuel pick-up problem occurring only in right hand turns. Before the beer social I removed the fuel level sensor to try and see into the tank, but was unable to see a problem. The odd thing is that the largest part of the tank is on the left and the fuel pick-up is over there, yet that’s the side where fuel would go in a right hand corner. I will try ensuring that the tank is more full on Saturday morning and maybe remove the fuel line to look for a problem. Maybe there’s a loose bit of debris in there that’s being pushed to the left under hard cornering. I hope I can clear the problem up because it slows down my laps considerably.

At 5 o’clock the beer came out and I struck up a conversation with Dr. Peter (with a surname eerily similar to mine), who is Ottawa’s face lift guy. I had tried to sell him a laser a few years back, so we’ve had a nodding acquaintance since then. It turns out we know several of the same people from the track and elsewhere and have a number of things in common, so we had a good conversation over a couple of beers. Paul’s wife was arriving about this time, along with another couple, so we wouldn’t be having another supper together. After having had a fairly substantial lunch with Paul and a full day of driving, I decided to head back to the hotel, have a shower and finish my book. And work on this!

The weather forecast had changed several times in the week leading up to this event, but each time it showed a fair probability of showers for Saturday. However, when dawn arrived the skies were mostly clear and it looked like another great day ahead. I had been awakened several times by a loud party on the floor above until well after 1:30 AM, although I’d slept pretty well between each awakening. And each time I’d been awake, I’d given some thought as to why there was a fuel pick-up problem and what to do about it. I’d also been mentally troubleshooting a nagging problem I’ve been having with the air horns. When they first stopped working a few months earlier, I’d done some testing and determined that the relay had failed, so I bought a replacement. When that didn’t help, I tested the compressor and found that it didn’t work, so I disassembled it and found that a winding had broken, or been burnt out. I was able to get a replacement at NAPA for a mere $25, but when I plugged the relay in, the horn sounded continuously, scaring the bejesus out of the neighbours. Then I tested the relay’s socket and found 12 volts on a pin that should have been idle. So I still had to find the circuit that was feeding 12 volts to that pin, through a bad or incorrect connection. I would have plenty of maintenance work to do this day between stints!

When I reached the track the skies were clear and it was a little cool, but very promising. I went through the tech line and ran through various ideas of things to try related to the stumbling problem. I discussed it with Paul but we couldn’t come up with anything concrete, so I just added more fuel to ensure that a low level would not be the cause. Our first stint wasn’t until 10:20, so I had lots of time to consider various causes and to try troubleshooting the other problem with the horn. I didn’t find the cause of that problem and it will have to wait until I’m home, for a systematic review of all the things I’ve touched in the past several months and a complete test of those circuits. For the stumbling problem, I decided to try the first stint with well over a half tank of fuel, to see what difference, if any, that would make.

Well, it didn’t make any difference at all and my lap times were way up around 2:15 to 2:20, exacerbated by having to let more cars pass. I decided to seek other help, so I approached Marc B. who has built a Kremer K35 replica and might know a few things. We talked for several minutes but couldn’t come up with anything new. Then I bumped into my friend Philippe, who was not driving but who had ridden his motorcycle to the track to see Bruce about something. He didn’t have any new suggestions, but he mentioned a couple of mechanics or knowledgeable guys whom I might approach. I wandered down the paddock until I found an older 911 race car with a mechanic working on it. I introduced myself and we began talking about the possibilities. He mentioned that it could be an ignition problem related to the coil, since they had a customer who’d experienced something similar in street driving that turned out to be caused by a coil that had leaked its oil. I didn’t know that coils have oil inside them! We also talked about carburetor jetting and I realized that the worst right hand corners were the ones where I was completely off the throttle and running on the idle jets for a moment. I had already experienced a rough transition from a too lean idle condition to the rich main jets and I though this could be the source of the stumbling.  So I thanked him for his time and went back to inspect and clean the idle jets. I found five of the six appeared dirty and I also richened the idle mixture, to make the transition from idle to main jets smoother. While I was at it, I verified the float levels and checked to be sure that the accelerator pumps were working. And, I checked the coil and found no evidence of an oil leak. Finally I ran the engine and jacked up the right side of the car to simulate a hard right hand corner, but it ran fine under these conditions.

The second stint was a little better than the first, since the idle jets were clear and the idle mixture set at a richer level. But the stumbling problem persisted and I was running out of options. At the lunch break, I went into Ste Jovite for more Shell fuel and a sandwich. Then I swung by my friend Pauline’s condo, but she wasn’t there. The guy who answered the door was a bit surprised at the doorbell ringing, but he was polite about it and said that they were using the condo this weekend. In my wanderings around the paddock after lunch, I encountered Bruce and we talked about carburetors and fuel pumps for a while, but he didn’t have any new ideas. He did suggest checking the coil wires to ensure that the insulation hadn’t broken on one of them, causing a short to ground. When I returned to the car, I decided to try one more thing. I loosened the mounting for the coil and rotated it 180 degrees. My thinking was that if the oil inside had thickened with age and had been pushed to one side by G-loading, it could be similar to the situation where the oil had leaked out.

Finally at 2:45 it was time for the third stint. We had received a brief, hard rain shower right after lunch, but the track was mostly dry when my time arrived. I took the customary warm-up lap at moderate speed and felt no evidence of the stumbling or bucking problem. On the next lap I pushed harder but had to deal with a lot of traffic. On the third lap I pushed even harder and had less traffic and turned a 2:09. Then a 2:07, a couple of 2:09’s and a 2:08. Problem solved! Either the car healed itself or the rotation of the coil had fixed the issue by moving the oil to a different place. During the fastest of these laps, I got blown away by a Ferrari F430 passing me coming out of the Carousel. Turns out it was Lawrence Stroll, the track’s owner. In the fourth stint, I was pushing even harder and passed a couple of cars, but they weren’t going flat out for other reasons. I’m sure my times got a little better, but I don’t have video evidence, probably because the memory card had filled up. Very frustrating! If the weather holds on Sunday, I’ll try again. We had one brief heavy shower in the afternoon but the track dried out before my last stint.

After that there was another serving of cold beer, courtesy of Eurosport, during which I chatted up our Zone 1 Representative whom I’ve seen at numerous events but who never seems to be approaching other people to meet them. He’s quite a personable guy from Toronto – a stockbroker by trade and well-travelled to various PCA events and numerous tracks. When I left the social, I filled up the car’s fuel tank and went to pick up a sandwich and fill the truck for Sunday’s drive home – and work on this.

It rained heavily Saturday evening and several times through the night, so Sunday morning was grey and soggy. By the time we started, the track was thoroughly wet but the rain was very light. Everyone with slicks scrambled to install rain tires, but only about half the total number of cars took the track. I did the entire session without any incidents, but it was pretty slow. The rain eased off afterwards and the track dried out pretty well by noon when my second stint was scheduled. I got in a couple of decent laps before the showers started again and I pitted early out of frustration. The forecast called for more rain all afternoon. So like many others, I loaded up and left for home around one o’clock. I got home about 3:30, after driving through a monsoon in east Ottawa. If that rain made to Le Circuit, it would have been really ugly.

After solving the stumbling problem, I was really happy with the car’s performance. And mine too. Maybe I’ll look for another date at Watkins Glen in September, since there won’t be any lapping days at Calabogie. It’s been a good summer so far and I don’t want it to end!

Video is available at   http://youtu.be/63eoFzXRA9k

I decided to attend Fiat FreakOut this year – having missed the 2010 edition – despite the fact that it would be held in Nashville, TN. That would be a two-day trip each way, at about 1650 km and it would be very hot there in mid-July. I decided to trailer the Spider, since the truck has both cup holders and air conditioning, while the Fiat doesn’t enjoy running at prolonged high engine speeds in the intense heat.

Before departure date arrived, I spent at least three full days detailing the car to prepare it for the concours d’elegance. I polished the paint and then I waxed and buffed it. I went over all of the black rubber and vinyl pieces with Armor-All and polished all of the chrome. By the time I was finished, the car looked and felt better than it ever had and I would be proud to show it. The weather began to get very hot in Ottawa, reaching the mid-30’s Celsius and mimicking the weather forecast for Nashville. I would get no respite from our northern heat wave, but at least I would have air conditioning. I packed a good selection of T-shirts, collared short sleeve shirts and shorts – as well as my swimming suit – to be prepared for the heat.

When Wednesday morning finally arrived, the car was already on the trailer and a collection of cleaning supplies and towels was packed in the truck, along with the usual selection of tools and equipment. I left home a few minutes before 8 AM, looking forward to a trip down the familiar route of I-81 and I-90 towards Columbus, OH.  I was making good time and everything was going smoothly until I reached the US border. The guard gave me a peculiar look and asked me whether I’d ever been the subject of a “vehicle inspection”. Initially I didn’t know what he meant, connecting the word “inspection” with safety regulations or the like. But of course what he really meant was a “search”. Well, I had not and I don’t think it would have stopped him if I had. My number had come up in the randomness of the computerized process, so I had to park the truck and hand over the keys. However, it was a painless process at it turned out. By the time I’d walked into the customs building, filled out a declaration and returned, the four guards who had been waiting for me had finished their inspection and I was free to go. It simply cost me ten minutes on my total trip.

From there to Syracuse it was smooth sailing and the temperature crept up into the high 20’s C. By the time I got onto the NY State Thruway, I was ready to be cooled off with the truck’s handy air conditioning. I turned it on, but the desired effect didn’t last long. After a short while I realized that the cool air was actually just air blowing on me – not cool at all. Of course I tried the usual idiot tricks of turning it off and on again, adjusting the fan speed and vent setting, but nothing I did made a difference. When I stopped at a service area for fuel and relief, I heard strange grinding noises coming from under the hood. When I looked at the belt, it seemed fine, but something – likely the A/C compressor – was not rotating silently. Ironically, I had brought along two spare serpentine belts (not knowing precisely the length required), just in case the belt failed. But it looked as though I would have a more serious repair to make and it wouldn’t be at the side of the road!

So I soldiered on all the way to Lexington, OH – the home of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course – where I had a reservation at the Days Inn. Somewhere around Cleveland I phone my friend Denise, who would be at FFO, to ask for help in finding a dealership in Nashville that could do the repair on Friday. Like the good friend that she is, she phoned back in a half hour or so with the name and number of the closest Chrysler dealer – Gary Mathews Chrysler in Antioch, TN. I phoned them and arranged an appointment for first thing Friday morning and I planned to get directions from the hotel, although the service representative described some simple directions over the phone.  Feeling better about that problem, I continued to Lexington, by now absolutely bathed in perspiration from the extreme heat.

When I checked into the Days Inn a few minutes after 7 PM, I inspected the trailer and found some fluid under the Fiat’s right rear wheel area, a few inches inboard of the hub. It didn’t have an odour and didn’t feel oily, but I wondered if I’d damaged a brake line when I attached the trailer straps to the axle. The only other source of fluid in that area is the shock absorber and I couldn’t imagine why it would be leaking, especially something that felt like water. It remains a mystery to be solved after I get home. While checking in, there was a bit of a problem finding my reservation in the computer. The woman who I had spoken to was very soft spoken and I suspect her hearing wasn’t too good either. She had misspelled my name and shown my home address as Connecticut. When I told the East Indian manager that I had just been in CT the previous week, he said “You’re freaking me out, man!” in his best put-on Indian accent. Later we had a good laugh about it over a smoke and agreed that comedian Russell Peters is a pretty funny guy.

Thursday morning I got up early and left Lexington around 6:30, so I could get to Nashville in the early afternoon and have time to cool off. The traffic in Columbus was very heavy, since it was the morning commute, and the drivers there are very aggressive. I just stayed in my lane and did the speed limit, letting them work around me. Cincinnati was not nearly so bad and I was amazed yet again by the five levels of curving overpasses that criss-cross the waterways outside of Three Rivers Stadium. Someone had to be very creative to design such a traffic pattern in free space, elevated at least 70 feet above the water. I had forgotten that you enter Kentucky while still within sight of the Stadium – people there must have strange mailing addresses, being in Cincinnati, OH and Kentucky at the same time.

The interstate between the city and Kentucky Speedway was under heavy construction, with traffic limited to one lane. That might help explain why so many people had trouble getting to the recent Nascar race there. I stopped for gas and refreshments at Bowling Green, right across the street from the Corvette factory and flea market, and behind the National Corvette museum, but didn’t do any shopping. While in that area, the temperature on the truck’s thermometer hit 36 C! Around 2:30 I arrived at the Sheraton Music City hotel in Nashville, having had no problems with the directions from Mapquest. The total distance from home was 1640 km, which I travelled at an average speed of just under 90 km/h, using fuel at the rate of 18.7 L/100 km.

I met up with several guys I already knew, including Dave, Craig, Mike, Gary (Pope), Tony, Lee and some new people. There were at least 15-20 new Fiat 500’s scattered around the front and rear of the hotel, plus a large outdoor arrangement of furniture designed to look like a bistro, which was situated in the rear parking lot. All of this had been arranged by Fiat corporate, as part of their contribution to sponsoring FreakOut. The group decided not to take one of the available shuttle buses into downtown Nashville to sample the bar scene, opting instead for several separate outings to local restaurants in small clusters of friends. Dave and I waited for Denise and Mike to finish working at the FLU goodie store and the registration desk and six of us went to a nice local steakhouse for supper around 8:30. By the time we finished and returned to the hotel, I had had enough and went to bed earlier than some, knowing that I had to get up early to get the truck repaired.

Friday morning I left the hotel around 7 AM and drove to Gary Mathews Chrysler, in Antioch. I had used Mapquest in the hotel in OH so I had a pretty good idea of how to find them, but I had to stop in a gas station to get the last ¼ mile of directions because the dealership was down a road that looked rural at first, but which turned into a newer commercial/industrial area. The people there were very friendly and helpful and I had a good chat with the shuttle driver when he returned me to the hotel around 8:45. I just had time to talk to a few people before it was time to leave in a convoy for the Lane Motor Museum.

The FFO agenda included a trip to this museum partly because they had bought the first new Fiat 500 that had been brought to the US by our Irish friend Jim in 2008 and subsequently driven across the country and back on an epic journey. The shuttle driver had told me the easiest way to find the museum, in case I was too late for the convoy, but we followed a different route that used more thruways and added some unnecessary complexity. Nevertheless, we got there safely and the weather was already heating up considerably. We all parked behind the building and did what we could to minimize the sun’s damage to our interiors.

The first car we saw stopped us in our tracks and was the subject of much conversation and gentle teasing directed at me. It was an early ‘70’s Porsche 911T that had obviously been rolled, wrecked, burned and stripped of usable parts, which was sitting abandoned in the parking lot. It was a pretty sad sight and I hope the museum was simply waiting for the scrap metal truck to remove it. There’s no way that car should be considered for restoration! We all filed into the museum and began walking around and photographing the numerous cars, motorcycles and airplanes on display.

The Lane Museum has one of the most eclectic collections of vehicles I’ve ever seen. The accompanying pictures tell a better story than I can, but there is everything from famous race cars (and replicas thereof) to the largest collection of micro-cars imaginable. There are three Tatras, multiple Fiats, a couple of Renault Alpines, several late forties MG’s, a replica of Paul Newman’s Datsun 240Z race car, a midget sprint car, numerous motorcycles, a Citroen with two drive trains and steering wheels that can go in either direction, a home-made wooden car, etc. It’s interesting, but not for everyone.

After looking around thoroughly and having the included lunch, I decided that I’d seen enough and left early. It was blistering hot, so when I got back to the hotel I delayed my shower long enough to wash and detail my car, since I was drenched in sweat already. On the way to the museum I saw the Brake warning light flickering, although the brakes were working just fine. When I checked, I found that the fluid level was a bit low, which I attributed to the very high temperatures. This continued the next day since I had no fluid with which to top up the reservoir, but it was never a problem.

After washing the car I cleaned myself up and went looking for Dave or someone else who might be willing to come with me in the Fiat to pick up the truck, since they had phoned to tell me it would be ready at 5 o’clock. The shuttle driver said he couldn’t be sure he’d be able to get to the hotel early enough to guarantee that I’d arrive at the dealership before closing, so I needed a back-up plan.  Many of my friends had taken the scenic drive after leaving the museum and I couldn’t find anyone I knew to help out, so I decided to take a taxi in order to avoid any last minute stress about getting the truck back. The taxi ride cost about $35 but the peace of mind was worth it. I only waited about 10 minutes after reaching the dealership until the truck appeared and I was presented with a bill for slightly more than $1000 US – about what I had expected.

After returning to the hotel, I found the rest of the gang hanging around lobby, trying to stay cool. Around 6 o’clock we migrated towards the pool/patio area where a buffet meal would be served following a complimentary bar. Dave and I grabbed a beer at the bar and found a large table with many of our friends. That table continued to expand with the addition of more friends and more tables, until there were at least 20 of us there. Afterwards, we heard others refer to it as “the fun table”, since it was full of some pretty notable characters that many people know from the forums as the more experienced and helpful members. At one point I said that I felt like a member of multiple regional chapters, including Detroit, West Michigan, Indianapolis and Chicago. The buffet dinner was pretty good, although the line-up was long, and the beer kept flowing during a couple of short speeches from our club executive.

After dinner, we all retired to the dedicated parking lot, where people were arranging their cars so they would be facing the temporary inflatable movie screen where the The Italian Job would be shown after dark. People were also milling around Lee’s pop-up canopy and station wagon, where he was mixing up batch after batch of mean margaritas. Most of the “fun table” crowd was there and great conversation was flowing, along with the drinks. I wandered over to where I had parked, as I could see some work lights and people standing by watching something. It turned out that two young guys from Oklahoma were trying to change the guibo (driveshaft rubber donut), in their ’78 Spider. They had the front tires up on the curb and a jack under the rear, but only one jack stand to support the rear. Since I had a full tool chest in the truck, I asked them if they needed any help and they said a second jack stand would be useful. So I went up to the other parking lot and drove my truck down close to them, bringing my jack stand down to their car. They carried on gratefully and finished changing the guibo by the time the movie had ended. They were very lucky that one of the suppliers had brought one along, which they were able to use.

Having seen the movie more than once before, many of us just wandered around making conversation, while a number of the newer members sat in their cars or on lawn chairs and stared at the screen. The sound was being piped over a radio frequency, so they could use their radios to listen along. Whenever I looked at the screen, I found it hard to see the picture clearly, since it wasn’t really dark enough. But they seemed to be enjoying themselves, so I guess it was acceptable. Around 11 o’clock I’d had enough and the guibo job was finished, so I packed up my truck, moved it back to the trailer’s parking spot and called it a night.

Saturday morning dawned clear and hot – again. I made some coffee in my room and wandered down to the parking lot, to begin preparations for the drive to the show field. A few people were frantically washing and polishing their cars, but since I’d already done that, I simply wiped it off and buffed up a few spots that needed some attention. They had free coffee and donuts (the edible kind), available, so I helped myself and started chatting with Bernie and his wife who are from Baltimore. The organizers began marshalling people for the drive to the Parthenon a little ahead of schedule, to spread out the arrival of all of the cars at the staging area for the show field. Bernie’s wife loaned me a cup holder that would hook over the glove box door so I could finish my coffee and we set out in a parade of about 10-15 cars.

We had a drive of about 20 minutes to the other side of downtown Nashville, so of course traffic lights interrupted our parade a couple of times. Since I didn’t have a co-driver, I was relying on others to lead the way but suddenly I found myself at the front of the train with only a sketchy idea of the directions and a brief description in the event pamphlet. When part of the train peeled off on what I believed was the wrong portion of a multiple exit from the freeway, I was truly out there leading the blind! But with a little bit of horn tooting, some hollered directions and a switch to a two-person car to lead the pack (Shaun F. and his family), we eventually navigated our way to the Parthenon field. It is quite a site, being situated in the heart of Dixie – a full-scale replica of the Parthenon in Greece, constructed of huge stone blocks. I believe it was built to celebrate Nashville’s centenary, but why they chose that particular design is beyond me. The show field was a very large flat lawn that is part of a municipal park and was open to the public, but not to their cars.

We staged at the entrance to the field and waited (in the shade of some welcome trees), while the organizers finished staking out the field with little flags to mark where they wanted the rows of cars to be parked. Eventually they got it done and beckoned each of us to drive over to the photographer’s location where individual photos were taken of our cars with the Parthenon in the background. The pictures are good, but the building is so big that the cars and people all look very small in the foreground. They had organized the field to group cars of each model and vintage together, so I was directed to a place where all of the ’75-’78 Spiders would be located. As it turned out, I was the first of my group, so I got a great spot at the end of a row near where the vendor displays and food service would be. People would be able to see the entire left side of my car from a distance, as well as up close, while the other cars in my group were parked close to one another and harder to appreciate.

I was quite happy with this arrangement, since it gave me a chance to show my car to its best advantage. After everyone else had parked, I unloaded my trunk and placed all of the non-essentials under the rear of the car. I displayed a provenance sheet on the windshield, along with my official show card, and laid out my tool kit, owner’s manuals and a copy of my book in the open trunk. I looked over the other five cars in my group and felt pretty good about my chances to win a prize, maybe even first place. One of the cars was the two young guys who had replaced their guibo and that car was still a restoration in progress, with a pretty rusty hood and trunk lid and a body desperately in need of significant work. Another car was not very clean and had major rust on its rear chrome bumper. The other three were nice examples, but each had significant flaws, such as body dents, scratches, mismatched interior bits, dirty engine bays, etc.

After all of the cars were parked, we waited quite a while for the photographer on the scaffolding to declare that were ready to shoot the panoramic photo. At this point, all hoods and trunks had to be closed and people were expected to stand by their cars. Getting the pictures taken was like herding cats, but we finally settled down enough to get it done. From then on, everyone spent the next couple of hours wandering around admiring the various cars, the vendor displays and the scenery, and lining up for some pretty good pizza and cold drinks. We all voted for the cars in our respective classes and handed in our ballots, having endured the mandatory speeches from the club executive. Around 2 o’clock people started to drift off, some of them going on a scenic drive of downtown Nashville and the rest of us returning to the hotel. It was so hot that I simply wanted to find somewhere to cool down.

I returned to the hotel, loaded the car on the trailer and immediately changed and headed for the pool. Many of the gang from the “fun table” had the same idea, so we resumed our conversations and camaraderie in the water, grateful for the respite from the heat of the day. After showering and changing, I wandered down to the lobby to stay cool and talk with whoever happened to be there. Between multiple conversations and browsing the vendor room, I killed enough time to fill the gap before the banquet was scheduled to begin. Dave and I lined up and entered the banquet hall, but found that the “fun table” gang had already filled one table of eight, so we started another one. We were joined by Shaun and his family from Indianapolis and another couple, so we got to know each other a bit while having drinks and then lined up for the buffet.

While waiting in line, Bobb (yes, two “b’s”; one of the club’s founders), brought over Laura Soave and her entourage and asked me to shepherd her through the buffet line. She is the head of Fiat USA and seemed like a pretty nice lady, although she has a twangy, high-pitched NY City accent that’s a bit hard to take in person. She mentioned that she has relatives in London, ON and we were starting to get comfortable talking to each other, when Shaun F. came over with his little daughter and asked Laura to step out of line for a minute to talk to his family. Shaun bought the first Fiat 500 in the US and has had many photo ops with Laura, so she was happy to oblige. Later on during the dinner, Shaun came over to our table and apologized to me for interrupting our conversation, as though he thought I was hitting on Laura or something! That was pretty funny to me – I’m old enough to be her father!

Through dinner I was seated next to a fellow named Ed Zabinkski, who races professionally with Level5 Motorsports and The Racers Group and coaches drivering at Road Atlanta. He knows Mark Wilkins well and we shared several stories about the different tracks we’ve driven. After the usual speeches – again – from the club executive and Laura – we were ready to hear about the winner’s of the concours d’elegance. They started with the oldest Spiders, so I didn’t have to wait long before they got to my group. They announced the third place winner, then the second place winner and I was poised to stand up to go to the front receive my award for first place. But it wasn’t me! I was shocked and disappointed! I don’t know which cars won each place, but I couldn’t believe that I had won nothing at all! My car was the only all-original Spider; attracted many viewers and compliments from people outside of our group; and it showed extremely well. I had prepared it as well as I possibly could and it has never been cleaner or shiner. But I won nothing. I was really disappointed and ticked off at the process. So as soon as I could, I left the banquet hall and went to bed, where it took me a while to eventually fall asleep.

Sunday morning I woke early, packed my stuff and left long before everyone else was up or the special breakfast had begun. I was on the road at 6:15 AM and made it to Willoughby, OH around 4:45 – a distance of 860 km, averaging about 90 km/h. Throughout the trip I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why my car hadn’t been chosen for any prize. I concluded that the voting process has a major flaw. Since there were only six cars in my class, it would take only two members to elect a winner for each prize, if everyone else voted for their own cars. I don’t know how many votes I got for first place – other than my own – but I was surprised that the young guys from OK didn’t support me, since I had helped them and they had admired my car Friday night. But if two of the others agreed to vote for one of their cars and everyone else voted for their own, that would do it. So I have become as philosophical about it as I can, but it still irks me that the process can work this way.

Monday morning I left Willoughby around 7 o’clock and crossed the border at Buffalo, since there were radio announcements that the NY State Thruway was closed north of Watkins Glen due to a car fire. This detour added about 65 km to my trip, but it saved me about a half hour, since the border crossing was faster and I didn’t have to slow down for toll booths or construction zones. There was a major thunder storm in the Buffalo – Niagara Falls area and the heat wave broke – finally. The temperature dropped at least 10 degrees in about 15 minutes and it was a welcome change. I had rain from Kingston until highway 416 and then it cleared up for last dash to my home. The total trip was 1705 km, in which I averaged 18.8 L/100 km and about 90 km/h. I may attend another FreakOut in the future, but only if it’s a lot closer to home. That’s a long way to go for such disappointment, notwithstanding the good friends I have met through the club.

Photos are available at  http://s229.photobucket.com/albums/ee234/kilrwail/Fiat%20FreakOut%202011/#!cpZZ1QQtppZZ24