There is something exciting that we're going to try this season! Check this out: 

http://www.ustream.tv/broadcaster/10671568


After some discussion with Jimmy and my own, personal experience with doing live-stream broadcasting, we've decided that we're going to get a UStream account and stream our team activities. Of course, we'll just have the happenings in the shop for the time-being but we also hope to take this capability to the track throughout the season so our fans can watch us live as we get the cars ready to race. USAC has streaming of the events themselves available and we'll get this worked out with them so that way we don't step on any toes with copyright issues.

What we may end up doing is broadcasting our activities in the pits as we run hot laps, qualifying and general preparations throughout the day. Once it's time to line the cars up and go racing, we'll defer to USAC so as not to over-lap with their live timing and scoring which will be available through www.usacracing.com.

We may try to keep the audio on at our events. However, we may require some feedback (polite, please!) that if the sound quality is no good with other cars running, we can turn off the audio and just stream the video portion of the broadcast. We 

So, as we make an attempt to enter the 21st Century and do something bold and exciting, we invite our fans and sponsors along for the ride. We hope that you'll enjoy it and maybe, it will add something to your experience.

In the meantime, I only made it to the shop a couple of times this week as I had other commitments to address. I hope to get out there at least three days this week so I can try to keep up with Jimmy!

Mindy from Brownsburg Signs has been spending about as much time with our cars as we have and we appreciate the way that they're looking. She was able to get us some black vinyl wrap with which to cover the dirt car and it is really starting to look good:

This is how some of the panels look right now and Jimmy's been cutting and heat-shrinking vinyl all week. Very soon, we're going to have a complete dirt car. Note that there is a new spud in the frame. Jimmy drilled that out and our welder, Danny, came out last weekend and among other spots on the car, was able to weld that in there and give us a new mounting point for the rocker arm.

We're also in the process of putting the pavement car all together as the decals have been finished on that. We hope to do a little photo shoot with Jimmy and the cars before the middle of April and we'll be sure to post pictures as soon as we can.

In the meantime, we'll be back at it this week and we'll have another update out to you soon!


- Gar

We have two cars and they're getting us excited to get to the track!

Last weekend, Eddie made it down to pick up our engine to take it to the shop in Chicago to begin the re-work process for the new ethanol conversion. We're expecting to have it back by the end of the month and as soon as we get it, we'll be able to drop it into the car and have a complete sled. Jimmy and I are rarin' to see this on the track.

We're also getting excited because some of the decals are beginning to be placed on the car and it looks tons better than it did last year. It will be brighter and easier to see at the track and that will be huge for fans, sponsors and Jimmy's spotter! It's going to get noticed and maybe, talked about... Here's a sneak-peak of what the new decals look like:

C'mon, now; we can't show more than that or no one will want to come out and see us. Safe to say, there is still more to go on the car and it will look good when it's ready. I'd like to take a minute and send a HUGE "Thank you" out to Mindy from Brownsburg Signs on behalf of the team! She has really been working hard in-between her other projects to help us get the car ready and she's done a great job getting these decals ready for us.

While that's been going on, Jimmy has been working hard, getting the dirt car ready too. What started out as nothing more than a chassis in the middle of February has become a recognizable piece of racing equipment.

After assessing what the team had in the way of available chassis and parts over the winter, Jimmy stripped down the two dirt chassis that we had and has done a great job himself of putting together a good, solid dirt car. He took the best frame that was on-hand, has fabricated some new parts and along with a little help from yours truly, stripped down a fuel tank to make it ready for the eventual placement on the car.

That was an event in itself as we discovered the joys of using aircraft paint stripper (which states, rather clearly on the back of the can, "Not to be used on airplanes"... ummm, okay). Jimmy was prepared to bang away at the tank with a rubber mallet and use the power-washer when one of our shop neighbors offered us this stuff. Jimmy and I had a good time, enjoying the end-of-February 70 degree afternoon, watching this stuff corrode the paint.

In the course of about 5 and a half hours, Jimmy and I were able to scrape an entire fuel tank and prepare it for its new paint scheme:

The remover at work:

While it was corroding the paint, we thought that it sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies!

The end result:

Now, we have a tank ready to be painted. Jimmy has decided that flat black will be the look for the dirt car. We'll have the same decals on it as we have on the pavement car. We're thinking that the decals will stand out very well once we get them applied to the black surface. It should be a really good-looking race car.

Here is some of the progress that has been made on the dirt car to this point:

At this point, the floor pan has been painted flat black and I'll have a picture of that coming up. The yellow nose piece will be painted black and the white visor piece will also be black. Here's what the floor pan looks like, now:

The entire car will have this look. Jimmy's painted the inside of all of the body panels and the outside will be vinyl-wrapped which will stand up to the beating on the dirt tracks better than paint. It's been good to see the black panels around the shop as they're giving us the feeling of real progress being made.

Jimmy has also spent some time getting some spots ready to have new pop-screw tabs or Zeus-fastener tabs mounted on the frame of the car. While we've been fitting panels and pieces together from two different cars to make one, there have been some adjustments to make along the way. We've got the welder scheduled to come to the shop on Saturday of this week and get all of the tabs welded on to the frame. That way, come Monday, we'll be ready to start affixing things to the frame, permanently. Here is some of the prep work that has gone into preparing the frame:

It may have been necessary to grind off an existing tab and move it an inch or two. After grinding off a tab, one must then grind down the paint to the bare metal in order to make a good weld. If any of the welder's tip gets into the paint, it will ruin the whole process. So, enough space must be made around the area to ensure a good weld. Afterward, we'll spray paint it and it will look like new. A bit of Machine Shop 101 for those of us who never knew how some of this worked.

It's been fun to be in the shop, helping Jimmy and seeing what all goes into preparing a car for the season. For anyone who ever thought that cars just show up at the track and drivers simply get in them and race, they do not know the hours and hours that goes into making sure these cars are ready long before the car sees the race track.

We'll keep the updates coming as interesting progress is made. We hope to get some good pictures of the cars together after they've been put together, painted and decaled. We'll post them when we do. That's still a little while away but it's something to look forward to.


- Gar