Today is the day to reflect on the past year of activity. It’s been a freaking blur this year. Some sections came easily. Others kicked my ass like none other whatsoever. I’ve put down miles underneath the tires of quite a few machines. I’ve sent two cars to the junkyard this year. This was the first year I got a racing call-out. And we added another full-timer to the BangShift Mid-West fleet. But that’s scratching the surface of what has gone on in my world. Here’s to 2020, a new plan or two, and more of the same balls-out performance fun that I keep reaching for every year. Thank you for tolerating my usual blend of random, unloved machines and the weird shit that I find BangShift-worthy, even if most people think I need a psychiatric session or two. Thank you to Brian and Chad for their continued faith in what I do.
One last look back, then turn forward and face 2020 head-on with a wicked grin. That’s how you do things.
11. The “Dirty Cougar”
This car put me down for a week straight and just about put my friend Chris Conn in the hospital with pneumonia. We killed a full day just extracting it from the yard where it had sat for a decade unused (pissing off our wives in the process), we got it running in a couple of days, we got it driving within a week, and within a month it was in daily driver rotation. It’s not pretty, it’s not fast, but for my first legitimate revival project, I couldn’t be happier. Around the mid-summer time frame, Conn took the paperwork and as of writing, we are finishing up the prep work to get the Mercury to run at KOTH for January. If it survives this year, it might leave KOTH and graduate into a full-fledged project of his. Time will tell, but this thing was too good to let sit. I’m genuinely pleased with this car.
10. Learning To Love The Enemy
Prior to April 2019, I swore that I was not going to own some front-wheel-drive, four-banger mileage machine. It made no sense to me. Too small, wouldn’t fit, wouldn’t be happy, V8 or death, whatever. That changed when my wife green-lit the purchase of a small car to ease our gas consumption, especially on my longer road trips for race coverage. Our choice was the 2012 Chevrolet Cruze Eco. Now, whether or not that was a fully smart decision is being tested nearly every day, but what I learned to like about the little thing is what it is: a six-speed, small car that doesn’t suck to drive. I’ve got plenty of things to bitch about regarding the quality of what’s under the hood all day long, but when it’s all functioning properly, this is a neat little ride. Smaller might be the answer to a question you’ve never wanted to ask.
9. Garrett Reid’s Monte Carlo
Each year brings plenty of drama in our world. It could be racers talking smack, it could be the strange things the OEMs do, but this year this blue Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS trumped them all. Garret Reid’s machine had just been finished up…like paint still fresh done. He took it to Hot Rod Magazine’s Power Tour, and on the first night the car vanished, along with several others. After a ton of social media support reposting, the Monte wound up reappearing in a field, more or less in one piece. He got the car back around LS Fest, and to celebrate he went straight to the burnout contest and went for broke. Shitty way to make a name for yourself. a bad deal for a very cool guy, but a happy ending rules all the same.
8. Utter Destruction At It’s Slowest
This poor beast. At the beginning of 2018, Scott Renshaw and I purchased a 1980 Cadillac Fleetwood Formal for a three-digit price, limped two and a half tons of bad decision home from Bugtussle, Kentucky and proceeded to have a ball with the big barge. I used it like a truck. I used it as a parts-washing stand. I used it to till up the further end of my backyard by doing donuts and drifting this testament to bad decisions when my wife wasn’t looking. Ultimately, it survived a year of yeoman duty to make a glorious trip out onto NCM Motorsports Park’s road course, where it became the first vehicle you see in their introduction video, looking absolutely regal in the process. Unfortunately, five seconds after that clip was filmed, the Cadillac promptly shit the bed, flexed half of the Bondo out of the body, and spun a main bearing. It also gained a second neutral after I dropped it into first gear while floating the valves, and it bent like a banana when I finally dumped it at the junkyard. On the plus side: we made $200 in profit just in the scrap value of the car!
7. Carving A Pumpkin
From the “what happened to…?” files comes our project Fox Body known as the Great Pumpkin Mustang, a 1980 Ghia coupe that belongs to my wife. In it’s current form, it’s missing all of the suspension. Yeah…all of it. By early April I had everything gutted out for it’s five-lug conversion and then…well, I dropped the ball. While you’re reading “Best Of” stories, I’ll be in the shop rectifying that wrong. The Mustang needs to live again.
6. Sampling Some Of That Upper Crust
I’ve had a pretty good working relationship with some of the local dealerships in the area and have driven a fair handful of cars simply on their good graces. But most of them were in the average territory…the only two outliers being a Hellcat Charger and a Ram dually that was fully optioned out. This year, I sampled a BMW M850i and a Mercedes-AMG S63 executive sedan. These both are handily the most expensive things I’ve driven, and both impressed me in some way, shape or form. I haven’t converted to being an F1 jacket-wearing fanboy over them, but if someone tossed me the keys to another machine like these, I’m not saying no, that’s for damn sure.
5. On Location
One of the fun parts of my job is traveling to different locations and working with other people who make the grind fun. From splitting duties with Chad at the Spring Fling Million in Las Vegas, to cutting up with Damon Steinke and Ellen Eschenbacher at Mid-West Pro Mod races, to people who just check up on me while I’m at the camera to see if I need a drink, some food or some bug spray, it’s always good to get out there and enjoy some field work.
4. Holley Intergalactic Ford Fest
Every year, we heard the backlash against LS Fest. This year, Holley threw the Ford guys a bone and teamed up with the NMRA to turn their final event of the year into a full-blown party. And it was…Bigfoot 1 was on the grounds, Cleetus McFarland was going for broke in his Shelby-ized Crown Victoria, and in-between photo galleries and announcing duties, we coerced several people to cutting loose in the burnout pit, which was absolutely nuked by Tim Grillot and his mental Fairmont. It might not have had the number of people LS Fest had, but for a first-year event, it did well. We expect great things next year…and more people, too!
3. The Homecoming
This year I got a special gift: a trip to the first dragstrip I ever turned a wheel in anger at. Then known as Temple Academy, Little River Dragway was the host of the Showdown at the River nostalgia gathering that Scott Brown put together. I hadn’t seen that track since 2003 at the latest. But setting foot on it was the first time in a long time that I returned to the past without question. It was eerie making my way towards the uphill 180-degree turn that the staging lanes take towards the burnout boxes.
2. The YouTubers
Last year, I went on a revival video kick. I liked the idea of seeing absolutely derelict machines being brought back from the dead. This year was no different, but this year I got to meet several of the faces from YouTube. Kevin, Luke, Mike, Dylan, Derek, Rich, Stefan many others have been shown over the past year, and every time I talk with them, whether it’s offering Dylan some suggestions for a current project, the late-night bullshit sessions with Kevin while we both work, or the times I pop down to Uncle Tony and Kathy’s place to do a live question-and-answer video while they feed me excellent food, they all say the same thing: thank you, readers, for your support. They do what they do because of the love of the automobile and to entertain you.
1. The Learning Curve That Never Ends
Let’s talk about that silver brick that I own for a minute. This year has been probably the most testing year I’ve had with that car. Prior to, it was a rolling paperweight. Before that, it ran and drove, but the engine was dying a slow death due to a piss-poor rebuild. At the end of 2018, we got the new 367ci small-block Chrysler that I put together in and out to wake up and come to life properly, and I was over the moon…just to have the A904 automatic slam me back down to earth. Then there was the issue of the cam eccentric bolt backing out, cracking my timing cover and throwing off my fuel supply, several transmission operations to locate a missing third gear, lots of linkage work and finally, a potential rear axle issue that I need to troubleshoot and figure out. I’ve tried selling it, it won’t sell. So the Imperial project continues, come hell or high water. Each time something else packs it in, it’s an opportunity to learn something new…even if “something new” is just to have more patience with a mechanical device.
It’s been fun watching your antics. Keep up the good work, as one can see you grow as a journalist. The Imperial is there to test you and keep you learning.