Author: chuck goolsbee

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:

Ariel Atom

So Nick J finally figured out the “other British car” that was parked next to me at last weekend’s car show. The only hint I gave was that it had an alliterative name.

I’ve always wanted to see, and DRIVE one of these. I knew that there was one somewhere nearby as I’ve caught glimpses of an Atom now and then. Sure enough, I find out that this one lives literally a stone’s throw away from me(!)

Unfortunately I had all that deck repair work to do this weekend, so I had to leave the 65E all alone at the show and catch a ride home. The show was scheduled to run until 4 pm, so I planned to head back in the early afternoon. I guess they wrapped up early as nearly all the cars were gone when I came back a bit before 3. Oh well. I chatted very briefly with the Ariel owner. We both said “I’ve always wanted one of those” to each other so I said we should get together and drive each others’ cars. The timing was not good that day however. I had to run back and keep plowing along on the deck. (sigh)

Someday soon. Of course the guy who I had arranged to swap drives in his Lotus Elise seems to have vanished (hey, if you are out there…!)

Anyway, some impressions: The Atom is much larger in real life than in photos. Of course, the E-type is always much smaller in real life than people imagine (at least the short wheelbase versions like mine) so side-by-side they make an odd pair. The Atom is about the same length, but MUCH wider than the E-type. The tube frame is actually very thick… I was expecting something like a Lotus Seven, but this stuff is seriously beefy. This version is driven by a GM Ecotec 4-banger. It did not have any particularly amazing note to it, but I’m sure this car is more about handling and quickness than aural sex.

I really wish I’d had more time to spend at the show… I’m sure I would have found out more. It will have to wait.

T-minus 10 days to the GTTSR by the way.

The Moron Mechanic Strikes Again!

I recently performed an oil change on my wife’s Jeep Liberty CRD, as I’m an almost total “do it yourself-er” when it comes to car maintenance (NOT that I have any real skill… I’m just too cheap to pay for this sort of thing!) Usually that is a good thing. Today, I wonder however. It seems that when I pulled off the oil filter the rubber gasket stayed behind, and I installed the new filter right over it. This created a poor seal which as you can imagine, leaked oil.

Thankfully this condition was caught before things went REALLY wrong, but boy… what a mess. Sort of tossed a huge monkey wrench into my day’s schedule too.

Of course being a cheapskate once I realized that there was no damage done I was ticked off that I’d just wasted a few quarts of brand new oil! 😉

No photos sorry. I didn’t have my camera with me but if you do a google image search for “Exxon Valdez” and mentally erase the water, you should get a pretty good idea of what the scene looked like. Thankfully I had just bought a 50lb bag of “Oil-sorb” for use out in the BioDiesel home brewery in the barn and it was still in the back of the pickup truck! I think I used up 1/3rd of it.

Something like this... just subtract water.
Above: Just subtract water!

At least I’ll not make THIS mistake again!