We finally have all the parts we need to put our car back together. The body is on, needs to be secured, the engine is back, needs to have bolts on parts added on. Our plan is to secure the body then put the engine in and attach the wiring and the plumbing and we should be good. We could use help this Saturday from 10am until 3pm. Any volunteers would be appreciated. If we get a good day in we'll be set to get the car to Steve Lyons next Thursday or Friday.....Note...I'm still in mild shock looking at that great big (HEAVY) flywheel....did I say it was big....I haven't seen one of those since the Hobby's last ran them in 1991. I guess if it's okay for the Sunset track champ Kevin Cornelius, it will be just fine for the Quaker State team....wow it's big, and looks so heavy.....SLIENCE!!!...moving on.

    With the final interior parts completed the body was placed on tonight to do the final fit for the rear window panel. The complete body was painted inside as well as out. We will reveal a little more what the car will look like for 2012 over the next few days......the engine should be completed at Stefko's by the weekend and this Saturday we install the complete driveline, rad, hose, all the bolt on stuff for the engine, shifters, and then the final securing of the body, front and rear windows, side windows and then a list of small items. Bob, Steve and Gehrig set the body on tonight. Bob is going to modify the bell housing for track inspection, and paint the drive shaft, a few other small parts have to be painted and then we will send perhaps our nicest looking and prepared race car ever, off to Steve Lyons at Creative Edge for his final amazing touches. The crew and I are so excited about our car for 2012, we consider not racing it, but instead buying another car and saving this one......no we didn't :)

    Steve works the drill, Bob lends support and I take the shot. It was a great day for us as far as things going together without trouble. We got the seat installed, the cage padded, the radio wiring in, radios tested, the electrical wiring secured, the sway bar in and here the boys work on one of two interior panels that need to go in. I even sat in the car with my new helmet and old Hans (haven't used it yet) and we were fairly happy with the fit and comfort. Tommy Robb from Sauble suggested slightly smaller shoulder belts to better fit the Hans. We got them and they sure did the job. We still have to adjust them a little more but we're close with that set up and it is a good idea to use that safety device, I've put it off long enough. We will get back at it again on Monday night.

    Things have been going together very smoothly. We are checking every piece that we install and making sure they don't have to be replaced. We did the finishing touches on the interior tonight, fuel lines, switches, wiring for radios. Really easy with no body on the car. We still have the seat and a few small pieces to put in. Then we want to get me geared up for the Hans set up and test the radio's etc. Once the engine is completed at Stefko's we will install all of the drive line and then the body.

    I decided to use this picture that Lisa Lott (Lisa Karley back in the day) drew of our car in 1986. She was a big fan of ours when she first came out to the races. Now she takes real pictures and videos, if I get close to Jason Shaw you will see me...lol...This was a great drawing and I apprecaited it very much, thank you Lisa. Her brother John Karley did one as well, it will be posted in 1986 somewhere, not sure where. He was no artist, but became a very good racer, a few years from 86...........Just starting to work on our 1986 CVM history. There are about 200 pictures to be uploaded, captioned and put in as close as possible "chronological order". My notes help do that, as well as the club schedule and other news paper write ups. Example if I have pictures from Varney, I check my notes and if we only race there once, it's good. I put the pictures in order of day to night, or heat races to feature race, based on how many cars are in the picture. My 1986 scrap book, like every book, has to be scanned on to a disc. Once the pictures are scanned they have to be put on my computer in a file that says CVM 72-2004. Once in the master file, and in their proper year, they are resized to fit the site. Then the pictures, (for the most part in order in our scrap book, because they were updated each year, week after week), are separated into specific files. There is a file for each track, "Flamboro, Sauble, Sunset, Cayuga" etc. A file for pre season, Hobby sponsors, promo stuff, banquet etc. Then each file is renamed so I don't duplicate any photos. If I have a picture of Jim English winning a heat at Flamboro, I have to make sure I don't just name it "English Wins" because he could have won a race at Varney or Sauble as well. So I name all the pictures in each file, let's say in the Cayuga file there is 10 pictures. They will be "Cay-86" and then each picture in that file will be "Cay-86 (1)", "Cay-86 (2)" and so on. That is only for me to make sure every picture has it’s own name and not duplicated. Once that's done I still have to look close at the picture to make sure I get them in order when putting them on the site. So when uploading, "Cay-86 (4)" might be the first picture to go on because it's an ad in a newspaper telling about the race, and to tell the story of the year properly, the earliest news should be posted first. I know what you're thinking, this would suck the life out of a rock, but I love it and it keeps me thinking and remembering. My notes help a lot when writing comments for the pictures, although some incidents in certain years, were so profound and memorable, that a bunch of us, Ray, Kevin Cantwell, Jim Collision, Ron Shaw, Dave Bentley, Charlie Beck and many others could be sitting around talking about a special time in history and we'd remember it as if it just happened. It takes about 10 minutes to do each picture, that's a little over 30 hours for each year. If I work on it for 4 5 hours a week, it would take a month a half to do one year. So if I was diligent enough to be able to dedicate that much time, on top of the rest of the stuff, I would be posting 1994 (Steve Lyons Rookie season) sometime in October, but the problem is, I don't have the time in the summer to up load. I have reduced my on-line racing to three nights a week from seven, no TV, but getting our car ready, but should have time hopefully to get 1986 done by April, I hope. I mean April of 2012. By the way...just finished 1985, so don’t get too excited, I’ve been working on that year for 9 months….I’ll try to do better.