#NasaRacing

I am the electron, the distant particle. Sometimes I know where I am, sometimes I know where I am going, but never do I know both. I look back and see where I was. This time I covered 1,600 miles in sixty-six hours, from Ohio to Indiana to Ontario and back, racing, partying, making videos, lulled to dullness by the long road, sneaking out with the morning light and never really sleeping. This is not On The Road: this is Two-Lane Blacktop. We cannot learn about ourselves; there is no “there” there. But we can learn about this Buick, this uneasy inheritor of a tarnished nobility.

What did you do this morning? I spent $101.78 at the local Pick-N’-Pull, using a completely inadequate set of hand tools to remove the last twincam Neon head to be found in any Columbus, Ohio – area junkyard. I removed the power steering reservoir by beating it to pieces with a crankshaft damper from a Chrysler LHS. I imagine Adrian Newey is doing something similar right now on the Red Bull RB6.

The reason for this outrageous expenditure is simple: NASA (the race sanction, not the folks who no longer build rockets) has partially come to its senses. In previous years, the minimum weight for doublecam Neons was 2650 pounds, while the twincam Sentras and single-cam Neons were both 2450. Needless to say, our single-cam Neon has never successfully beaten a Sentra in a Performance Touring race unless it was raining (I’m the Jenson Button of club racing, including pre-trophy-ceremony makeouts) or the aforementioned Sentra has made a major mistake.

This year, two interesting things have happened. First, NASA dropped doublecams to 2550 and raised the Sentra to 2525. Now we have a fighting chance. Second, the fellow who owns the other half of my race team acquired his racing license last week. Finally, I have a teammate! So we need a new name, and I’m taking suggestions.