Poseiden's treasure

Poseiden has looked favorably upon the Pearl. The list of Craig has given up another treasure from the depths.

After many false starts, emails, phone calls and hours of waiting, I found myself standing in Fred's driveway early Saturday morning. A driveway of someone that clearly  has a similar affliction, however lacking the city ordinance restraints of my zip code.

The half completed sixty eight Mustang fastback on jack stands and the pile of scrap metal next to the early seventies Firebird sitting at the fence line made it clear that my gamble could just pay off.

Craig and his list are always that, a gamble. Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.

On this occasion I didn't bicker on the price, he had been patient with my some what eclectic schedule and it looked to be in as advertised condition. So I carefully loaded my treasure into the back of the household Presidents car and raced home.

After a few minutes of cleaning off the dust from sitting and flushing it out. I dug out the original radiator for comparison.

And low and behold, like finding a barnacle covered chest at the bottom of the sea that's filled with Spanish gold, this chest is filled with tubes, late model contemporary, highly efficient vertical tubes.

This gentleman had just unwittingly sold me a completely updated radiator for pennies on the dollar. No more then a month prior had I just received a quote at five hundred and fifty dollars for the very same thing to be done to my current radiator.

So after lunch and possibly after a short nap I set forth to put wind back in the Pearl's sails. Like a broke in leather jacket the Pearl slipped the radiator on with relative ease.

After somemore sleeping and breakfast I pushed it out of dry dock and proceeded to top the fluids and fire it off. Unfortunately out time in dock had rendered the fuel system dry and being that I run a Holley I didn't want to pour gas down its througt for fear of the ever carb rebuilding nightmare of a backfire.

Several minutes later after priming the pump the old girl barked to life. no leaks were apparent other then hoses not completely tightened.

It's always surprising how viseral and organic a healthily built carbureted engine feels. You feel it through the floor, the wheel, your ears truly feel it as the butterflies snap open when you hit the throttle.

Soon we'll be able to hoist our flag once more.

Traditions

It's a curious thing that people will spend tens of thousands of dollars to sit in a extremely hot parking lot for several hours on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

However it's a summer tradition from Seattle to Sydney and as far as Singapore. It's the pride in the craftsmanship and the comradery that goes along with sharing your story with others.

You see every type of person at a car show, the guys selling a freshly completed project, the kid with his first car, wide eyed in awe at his first show, nervously backing into the spot next to the retirees and there popup tents.

There's even the little groups and clicks of people, that either give you the warm welcome or the cold shoulder, depending on what you drove in.

It's funny, they where all at one time that kid at there first show, but now time has weathered them. You see them sitting In circles and watching you as you move through the sea of cars.You feel the eyes following you just like in math class freshman year. Eyes forward straight to the back of the class.  

It's the rules, seldom spoken of openly, hot rod, custom, street rod, muscle, classic, pro-tour, restromod, rat rod. Some lines grey while others are distinctly defined.

Like that kid I'm still wide eyed and nervous, where do I belong? That group of cars seems interesting, but I've got disc brakes hidden behind my black steel wheels and white walls, what if they find me out?

I could head for the corner carvers, but my retirement eligible car doesn't fit in with there big calipers and even bigger alloys.

The AAA card holders are always welcoming, a little lacking in conversations about turn in and trail braking, however always willing to tell you about the one that got away, whether  wheeled or walking. They make for great stories either way.

And then there's of the hours of waiting for the social recognition of the nod from the organizations that brought all these groups together.

It's the buzz of wind past the windows, the tires losing millimeters of rubber with each revolution and the trees flying by on the shoulder where the Pearl really feels at home.

The Voices

All the practice doesn't seem to calm the nagging voice in my head, " it waits" the voice calls.

Wispering the hum of the blacktop as it glides in anger under the weight of guilt when I step into the garage and see the look of sorrow on the Black Pearl.

The tires haven't seen the end of the driveway in months, it just sits, burdened by the ravages of time.

I've made a few calls and checked around to find a replacement radiator, nothing good was to be had. I've emailed a vendor in an attempt to coax some favorability towards my cause, however no reply has been received. The state of the economy must be in such great a state that a reply to a potential buyer is not warranted.

It could have been my use of bad grammar and misspellings that detoured them from further contact.

Alas "there's someone in my head and it's not me" still continues to grate away the thin veneer of patience that I have. Mocking me in the days sun, as pound after pound of chrome and glass rumble by on the street as I sit in wait.

Punished by the opportunity to helm that beautiful Thunderbird a few weeks past. The smell of an old car always remains no matter the extent of the restoration. It's as if the years build into the steel like rings in the trunk of a tree.

The Pearl waits for her turn, patiently, having had seen more then a half century of trials and tribulations, the after glow of a world war, the power of flowers and a policing conflict, the decadence of the Reagan years and the swell of the souls from the emerald city.  

Time halving already looking favorably upon the Pearl's past, however my time to helm this ship is limited. I have a number of years to be reckless and still have the quickness in my hands to get the back of the car returned from a poor decision.

But nothing lasts forever, so again to the list of Craig to find that gem that can return the wind to the sails. 

Practice

Everything sits in limbo...the Pearl's radiator is un repairable within the budget, the companies I've emailed have yet to reply.

So we sit and we wait, wait for a response , a lotto ticket,  some magic of any kind. May require I pick up the phone and place  a call to the unnamed vendors.

Idle hands are the devil's play things and the devil's in the details they say. 

Imagination is wasted when waiting, it's those little things that require attention. However it would be counter productive to get the cart in front of the horse.

So there needs to be a distraction, something that keeps the hands from disassembling more then the mouth can chew, so I let the Pearl rest quietly in the garage.

Turn to the simulation of speed and the console and controls.

GT6 sits idling while I toil threw the work day, as night falls and the house goes quiet. I turn to the solice of artificial speed.

Everyone has there favorites, new, old, European, American, front, rear drive, mid engined, it's all available.

I have wasted away countless hours in dedication to the sixty six Mustang gt.350.r. it's not the newest, fastest or best handling of the lot.

However with the lack of a double nickel it's my personal favorite. There's something about it, it's one of the original cars that helped grow the fascination with speed.

The images of them drifting threw a corner, tail out, inside front tire bobbing above the rub strip like a child hanging in the doorway from there newly aquired favorite bouncey toy.

It's brings that level of glee, to hustle the under dog around Leguna Seca for ten laps then sit back and enjoy the performance.

It's always a show, the track, the cones or the car show. The build up of adrenaline, the anticipation of achieving the goal.The craft of corners and the soul searching to achieve that next second. Because whether it's a video game, a stack of cones in a parking lot or a real road course.

No matter the money spent can garrentee anything, it's having the conference to believe in yourself, trust your gut.....and pray that you know your car from lug nuts to the antenna ball....and it takes balls to hang it all out there.

So...practice, practice, practice.