Went to Sema as a Guest of Pink shirt guy (he owns a collision center). It was a good time, vegas is a tacky Sh1t hole in my opinion. Pink shirt guy enjoying the custom turd
You can see a million pics of sema online, so lets get to the good stuff.. Laguna Seca is 8 hrs away. I have been there a few times for the historics, but never actually driven the track A quick search online revealed that there was a track day the week we were going to be there. A few emails back and forth and we were registered. Surprisingly cheap compared to track days in Canada... But what to drive???
The good folks at ______ Rental car company hooked us up with this 2013 5.0L $63 bucks a day + $25 for Walk away insurance. We drove it from Vegas to Laguna Seca. Very comfy car, fast and well put together.. Compared to the 05 GT I had it feels like a different car. Sadly an auto
Compared to Canada, California has some drool worthy cars roaming the streets.
Sharp readers will note that we are no longer in the 5.0.. more on that in a bit.
Got to Salinas late Wed night and crashed. Unlike previous car related events this trip wasn't filled with much booze or shenanigans
The cars of the lapping day at laguna, brought to you by the Local Lotus Club.
Black shoe polish, now its a racecar.
Mustang worked great, except the brakes. For safety sake we left the advance track on. We were hitting a reserved 120 mph at the end of the main straight. That number went down drastically as the performance of the brakes decreased. We both got in 2 sessions before the stock pads were toast. With smiles on our face we wandered the paddock and met some really cool people, most of them shocked we came from Canada and even more so that we were driving a rental car.
The drivers meeting was intimidating as the main organizer said "cars will be leaving here on trailers and don't be surprised if some are wrecked completely"
IT gives you a great deal of respect when something like this happens... The first victim of the day was this V10 Audi.. boiled the brakes and caught fire
Sadly the second was an FRS that met its maker. Sorry for the quality, didn't want to be a dick and take glamour shots of the guys car.
This is where most people end their story, talk about getting on a plane and returning home. Our mustang had no brakes so we swapped it out no charge for a Chevy SUV of some kind..just a huge turd really.. And this is where the rest of our story begins...
Over Ribs and after many drinks at Famous Daves BBQ Cameron (PSG- Pink shirt guy) commented that he likes mustangs, would love and old mustang. (A nice compliment to his RS america) Craigslist in California is dangerous for 2 guys who live in a country plagued by salty rust buckets..
24 hrs and $3300 later......
66 , 200 cu in , rebuilt motor, 0 rust, original paint, C3 (?) trans.. and a 4500KM drive home.
The first stop was to harbor freight. We spent $100 on a jack, generic tools, pliers, wire...etc..
This pic was taken at dawn in Utah. Neither of us are big on long romantic drives across the country, so fueled by sheer stupidity and chemicals we proceeded to drive back straight with no stops.
The 200Cu in 120hp 6 ran like a top, but was getting horrible mileage. I played with the timing and mixture screw and we saw a sizable increase in mileage, that is until the state of Colorado. Thin air and hills dictated that we had to re-adjust to even get over the hills
Ran out of Gas
This was down a hill
We left Monday afternoon from Anaheim and by Wed night we were beat, in Nebraska and needed a real bed.. deciding not to do laundry, we hit up the wall mart and bought a 4 pack of underwear and some supplies.
Pretty uneventful all the way back, Iowa has amazing steak houses and Syracuse NY has the worst weather.
Cheap blue tooth speaker with a hollowed out coffee cup as a megaphone
By thursday night I was in my bed back in Canada. The mustang burled less then 1L of oil and ran like a champ.
