There's a saying that was pretty popular back in the mid to late 60's;
"Fall apart in my backyard.", which meant to basically chill out and not worry about anything. I recently had to live that scenario because I cannot control every single aspect in my life - like other people and things like the weather. Over this past weekend, there was the 25th annual Great Falls Hot Air Balloon Festival which was held just northwest of Portland in the twin cities of Lewiston and Auburn here in Maine. To ride in one of these hot air balloons is one item on my wife's and mine bucket list. Unfortunately, Mother Nature and the FAA had the final say with our Saturday morning balloon ride - no go. The cloud ceiling, by Federal law, has to be at least 1000 feet before we can go up. It never got any higher than 800 feet throughout the morning. We were supposed to launch at 6am. By 11am, everyone had given up hope of taking off, so the whole smash was cancelled. We'll be going back next August and we're confident that we'll best Mother Nature at that time.
It's sorta the same scenario sometimes with hot rodding and drag racing. For example, over the past two months, I started scouring the classifieds on Racing Junk as well as Craigslist, looking for my next go-fast ride. I've been searching as far south as the Carolina's and as far west as Illinois. The kicker is, while on our way back from the festival, I stumbled across at least two hot rods that, at minimum, deserve some phone calls and further investigation. One was an old Dodge panel truck rat rod, the other being a 1965 AMC Rambler 330 2-door post car. The Dodge panel rig was in rougher shape than the Rambler and not just because it was a rat rod. The interior consisted of a modern leather Chrysler unit that was in decent shape, but the exterior still needed some finishing work in regards to headlights, turn signals, rear glass, and other minor details. I'm unsure if it ran or not nor did I know what it had for a drive-train, but it was advertised as turn-key and the price wasn't bad at $4000 dollars. It would really turn into a sweet deal if the old school bus parked next to it was part of the deal, even though that rig needed a lot of work. Why? When was the last time you saw a short school bus with a chopped-roof that was a prime candidate to be a drag vehicle or possible pro-street ride?
The Rambler, on the other hand, was a little more civilized. It was a classic el-cheapo 2-door sedan that had (I going to assume) some major upgrades in the speed department. Again, I'm unsure what was under the hood, but I was fairly optimistic that the original 6-cylinder was long gone due to the steering column mounted tach, and the row of after-market gauges that resided ahead of the Hurst 4-speed shifter. The interior was completely redone with new carpet, headliner and bucket seats, but the exterior had a poorly applied flat-black paint job that was starting to come off. However, if a 390 or a 401 engine is between the fenders, then it's definitely worth the $6500 admission price.
Drag racing is full of trial and error, or as they use to say in the sport,
"If something didn't work right on that run, maybe you were spared from a greater disaster." I've seen old films of the Dodge Ramcharger racing group where they had a 1964 Polora with the new race Hemi between the fenders and they had a transmission literally grenade at the starting line. You could just see the expressions on their faces and
"Oh shit!" doesn't even begin to describe it. However, they burned the midnight oil, swapped in a new transmission and the associated parts, fixed the body damage underneath the vehicle, and went on to win the next days eliminator heats. The same rings true for racing at Bonneville, or Daytona. If you're old enough like me, you might even remember one race where Richard Petty was wailing on the roof of his 1968 Roadrunner because the vinyl roof tore and was coming off the vehicle at speed. The problem was, it was coming down in front and blocking his view as well as distracting him. His team thought the particular roof covering wouldn't make a difference. Well - guess what?
Do you see where I'm going with this? Our hot air balloon ride got canned, but we'll hit it again next year. Maybe there was some reason why we weren't supposed to go that morning. I've been searching far and wide for some cool rides, the two described above came on my radar, and they are less than 90 minutes from my house. And I may not have ever known about them if I didn't make the trek to the festival. In the end, obviously what I need to do is fall apart in my backyard and things will work out for the better if I don't stick my hands into every single solitary detail.
Until next time, peace out.
Dave
There's a saying that was pretty popular back in the mid to late 60's; "Fall apart in my backyard.", which meant to basically chill out and not worry about anything. I recently had to live that scenario because I cannot control every single aspect in my life - like other people and things like the weather. Over this past weekend, there was the 25th annual Great Falls Hot Air Balloon Festival which was held just northwest of Portland in the twin cities of Lewiston and Auburn here in Maine. To ride in one of these hot air balloons is one item on my wife's and mine bucket list. Unfortunately, Mother Nature and the FAA had the final say with our Saturday morning balloon ride - no go. The cloud ceiling, by Federal law, has to be at least 1000 feet before we can go up. It never got any higher than 800 feet throughout the morning. We were supposed to launch at 6am. By 11am, everyone had given up hope of taking off, so the whole smash was cancelled. We'll be going back next August and we're confident that we'll best Mother Nature at that time.
The Rambler, on the other hand, was a little more civilized. It was a classic el-cheapo 2-door sedan that had (I going to assume) some major upgrades in the speed department. Again, I'm unsure what was under the hood, but I was fairly optimistic that the original 6-cylinder was long gone due to the steering column mounted tach, and the row of after-market gauges that resided ahead of the Hurst 4-speed shifter. The interior was completely redone with new carpet, headliner and bucket seats, but the exterior had a poorly applied flat-black paint job that was starting to come off. However, if a 390 or a 401 engine is between the fenders, then it's definitely worth the $6500 admission price.
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