Author: chuck goolsbee

GTTSR: Getting there, Day 2. Rain.

We awoke to a beautiful day in southeast Washington. The car ran well. The weather unfortunately did not. I drove from Walla Walla to Lewiston, Idaho. We stopped for gas and Mark took over driving. I really wanted him to experience driving the car on the wonderfully twisty and enjoyable US 12 through Idaho’s Lochsa Valley.


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At one point before we got to the Lochsa section I was composing an email on my phone when suddenly the car was in a full-on braking skid. I looked up and a guy in a pickup truck was making a left turn right in front of us. Mark found out how well the brakes worked, and how controllable the car was in a panic stop. For some odd reason I remained perfectly calm throughout the whole event. The guy aborted his turn and thankfully the vehicles never made impact. I went back to my email and Mark just kept on driving!

Mark enjoyed the run, and I actually fell asleep(!) I guess I’ve driven this road too many times. I did wake up though when the temp dropped. The sun vanished and the clouds came out. Mark had never removed his coat from this morning, but here I was in a light shirt and shorts… getting quite cold. I asked him to stop and put on my coat… and fell asleep again. I woke up sometime later getting rained upon. From 15 miles shy of Montana, pretty much all the way to Bozeman it rained. Heavy at first, but then lighter as we went east. Yuck. We finally gave up on the downside of Lolo Pass and put the top up. I took over driving. We grabbed a late lunch in Missoula (losing an hour going to Mountain Time always screws me up!) and hit the Autobahn for Bozeman. I managed to put it quite a bit of time at 90+ MPH. I even rolled past a Gallatin County Sheriff at 85. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Montana?

The JagCam got soaked. The wide-angle adapter is filled with water. I’ll have to get it some sunshine or dismantle it to address this. Oh well. It will ride inside the car tomorrow!

We arrived in Bozeman about 6:15 and checked into the rally (a bit late) and rolled into downtown Bozeman for dinner.

We’re back at the hotel now and the top is up and properly rain sealed, with Rain-X applied to the glass. Tomorrow we drive north to Great Falls for lunch, then south to Helena to stay the night.

I’ll upload today’s JagCam movie as soon as it is done.
Video is done, but getting horrific upload bandwidth here at the Hilton in Bozeman. >:-o

GTTSR: Getting there, Day 1. Broken Exhaust.

Above: Mark Collien soaks in the flatlands of central Washington.

Mark & I left Arlington around 8, made our way south to US 2, up and over the Cascades mountains via US 2 & Stevens Pass, then on to Moses Lake.

I routed our trip through Moses Lake WA to check out a datacenter facility (which was impressive), and as we left I broke my exhaust on a speed bump/pothole combo. Grrrr. We burned a couple of hours in the town of Moses Lake getting that fixed.

Above: The result of the impact. On the downside, it pulled the left exhaust out of the header. On the upside, it seems to have straightened out the crooked tail section of the system… go figure!

While I was huddled under the car mumbling about finding a muffler shop Mark whipped out his iPhone and read me off three shops I could try. We picked one**, called them and got directions. Within 20 minutes the Jaguar was up on a lift being taken care of.

A bit of adjusting, some re-rounding of pipe, and a new clamp later and presto!… we were back on the road.

Above: The refitted exhaust being tack welded to hold it a bit better than clamps alone.

Above: The bent clamp.

** My Pick of a shop was “Pioneer Muffler & Brake, Inc.” I had gone with my gut, and as it is frequently right. Here’s how my thought process worked and how it worked out for the better: The other two shops were franchises of big national outfits, such as Midas. I knew that if I pulled into a Midas, they’d treat me no different than any other customer. They certainly would not let me crawl around under the car and talk with the people working on it about how I wanted it done. They have corporate policies to adhere to. We pulled into Pioneer and there was a home-made race car out front, and mostly farm trucks being worked on – to me that is a good sign as farmers seek out craftsmen. I needed a craftsman, not a corporate employee. The shop was as clean or cleaner than MY workshop at home and the folks working on the customer’s vehicles were the owners, Joe and Denyse Ottmar. They moved a farm truck off the lift within a few minutes of our arrival, had me drive the Jag up onto it, all the while paying extra care (with two spotters) of the low clearance and small/narrow size of the car. Once up on the lift they were happy to have me under it with them and were friendly and approachable throughout. The whole process took a very short time and they charged me a VERY reasonable rate for their labor. Everyone was happy, most especially me.

If you are in Moses Lake and need any exhaust or brake work, you can not go wrong with Pioneer Muffler & Brake on 620 E. Wheeler Road (509) 765-6277.

By the time all this wrapped up it was mid-afternoon, so we grabbed a quick lunch at a Thai place, and hit the road. We readjusted our expectations and aimed for Walla Walla. A friend who is from Walla Walla gave me a few hints of dining there so we knew we could at least eat well. Instead of trying for Enterprise, Oregon, we’d just go to Walla Walla, eat, then stay the night there. John’s suggestion of the Creek Town Cafe was excellent. Mark & I enjoyed a fine meal and some excellent local wine. Tomorrow we drive US 12 to Missoula and then the Autobahn to Bozeman.

Here is the day’s “JagCam” footage.. enjoy!

Going To The Sun Rally: Trip Planning.


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Above is my proposed route to Bozeman from Arlington (The “D” stub off to McCall is a red herring to get Google Maps to route properly – no plans to actually go over to McCall, though I hear it is great.) The idea is to have a stop in Moses Lake (a semi-work-related business visit) then aim for Walla Walla (wine country!) for a late lunch/early dinner. Then beeline (if that term even applies!) for Hell’s Canyon via the amazing Wallowa Valley. Might spend the night in Enterprise… we’ll see. The roads between Joseph and US 12 in mid-Idaho are a complete, yet compelling mystery to me, hence my strong desire for this extreme south loop while heading east. LOTS of mountain driving and twisty roads! While I despise Interstate driving, you’ll note that I’m happy to drive the Autobahn from Missoula to Bozeman. Partially due to the lack of alternatives, but mostly because I-90 through Montana is likely the best stretch of Interstate in America. As close to the Autobahn as you’ll get.

The Hell’s Canyon segment might get dropped in favor of a straight shot on US 12 east… we’ll see.

Mark arrives tomorrow at Sea-Tac around noon.

Deck Progress

Here is the reason I haven’t been posting stuff here, answering email, or available to any of my friends of late. The past few weekends have been spent measuring, sawing, pulling old rusty nails, demolition, and replacement. I have swapped EVERY beam and plank seen in this photo, with the exception on the ones along the railing and those that remain painted green at the bottom of the photo.

I had to replace the beams underneath first – one at a time. Christopher did a lot of the work by pre-painting the beams and planks. (The unpainted beams are some emergency replacements from our snow-storm breakage from a few years ago.) The planks were only done on three sides, leaving the tops raw wood. The paint chosen was an oil-based alkyd, so he put on a coat of primer then finished them with a coat or two of the color. The past two days I’ve been laying in planks on the top. Basically removing the old ones, and laying in new ones. Chris & I screwed them all down yesterday.

Oddly enough I am not a very mathematical person, and really more of a visual thinker. At the start of the project I counted up the beams but then when it came time for the planks I just looked at it and literally guessed how many I’d need. My spatial estimation powers were confirmed when I completed the project just one plank short. I think I would have been dead on but I ruined one plank with the saw in the process. Yesterday we came to a point where the drill batteries were dead and we still had half the planks to screw in… so we all loaded up the pickup with all the scrap. I had to saw up the longer planks to fit in the truck’s bed, and in the end it was stacked up to the height of the cab. Chris & I took all the scrap to the dump and spent the better part of 45 minutes unloading them one by one. 3.38 TONS of scrap according to the scale. We swung by the hardware store and I purchased that one last plank, and a cheap Hitachi corded drill to finish the job.

This morning I was up @ 5 am and used up the rest of our cache of crack filler to uh… fill in all the cracks and over-driven screw holes. Chris is sanding the surface now and I raised up the tarp in hopes of keeping it dry if the weather goes to hell. My hope is to finish before I have to leave for Montana and the GTTSR. I doubt I’ll make it all the way, but we’ll see. Next summer we’ll have to replace a few more beams and the railings of course. Sigh.. the joys of home ownership!

Guest Photo on “Name That Car!”

Friend, fellow car guy, and frequent commentator here John “Mad Dog” Morrow sent me this photo in the hopes of being able to identify the cars. He says:

Hi Chuck,

Recently I found some old negatives in my basement. I had them printed, digitally speaking, and some treasure were revealed. Several were from a car show at the Brooklands race track, c1967/8 taken by me with my Dad’s Zeiss Ikon camera. The cars are very interesting and there are some I can’t identify. Like the two (or three if you’re really good) in the attached pic. I’m really curious as to what these are and would be grateful if you could shed any light on this…

John

I replied that I see 4 cars (so I must be REALLY REALLY good!) and that two of them are certainly Bugatti’s. (Though I am not sure of the exact models on the Bugs.) The main “#18” car with the modified nose remains a mystery (though I suspect it could be a Bug too?), as does the Sprint-looking racer with the Brooklands Windscreen in the far background. I figured that the ace car spotters here (Roger, Paul, Shaun, etc) should be able to positively ID just about every car here. How about it guys?

Car Photo of the Day: I still love this car.

OK, not the best of photographs, as the background is way too busy, but I have to admit I still like this shot. Perhaps it is my life-long lust for Jim Hall’s Chaparral Can-Am cars. I saw them in the flesh, being driven in anger at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin when I was a small boy. While Hall was a perennial 3rd place to the McLarens and their Kiwi drivers (as Jerome will no doubt remind us in the comments) the SBC-powered winged white little Texas cars were my heros. Every year something radical and new.

To stumble upon this blast from my past at the Amelia Island Concours was a real treat. I spent easily 30+ minutes staring at it from every angle. I even touched it now and then. I’m sure other people there thought I was some oddball stalker… no… I was just seeing an old and admired friend.

Car Photo of the Day: A green race car on the green.

BRG

A legendary Vanwall VW5 F1 car in BRG. The real thing. The “chuck connection” here is the place this car was built: Acton. This is where I worked when in the UK in ’97/’98.

Now, if you live in the UK and have a huge pile of cash, you can actually buy a street-legal replica of a Vanwall VW5, though with a bit more engine (a Jaguar V-12!) than the original. Check it out on Top Gear: