Mongo was awesome, he is a legend already, I swear more people made a beeline to get a photo of the old guy than the Ferraris on track.
The story of Mongo and Sebring 2012
Mongo was stubborn, every time we attempted to repair any item on the bus it fought Sean and I all the way, of course my attempts to help just slowed Sean down anyway.
Repairs in the preceding 2 weeks included, repairing a hub seal, replacing a roof vent, replacing a 24v headlamp (blew up the 1st 12v one), fixing a broken wiper and locating blades that fit a 46 year old bus, installing a custom hitch, wiring a 24v bus to work on a 12v trailer, oil, fluids, coolant, adjusting the brakes, greasing the clutch, accelerator, shifter and clutch and the list goes on
Mongo had not done a long trip for more than 10 years, we were a little worried about the smoky engine, old rads, clutch, 4 speed manual trans, rear end.... well everything.
After a last minute thrash we got underway only 2 hours late at 9pm Thursday, drove to Dayton where we met with Dukeofundersteer, Maroon92 and his SO Amanda at Puburgers place, BTW those roads are narrow and have wall to wall cars on each side, and we had a trailer on a bus for a total length of 60'.
Back on the way, to the sound of excited voices, we powered on through the night.
Through Tennessee I had a moment where Mongo decided to get his game on, running downhill I had let him get a head of steam and was building some speed when I found my 2 lanes had become one berm lane on the wrong side of the road. I entered this one lane at 78 mph by GPS in a workzone with a TN State Trooper watching me as a sawed at the 1/2 turn of steering slack trying to keep an articulated 8' wide load in a 9' wide lane. I held strong as the cop pretended he was busy looking at something else. Maroon92 (Brad) advised me he felt a lurch and looked out the window just as a semi passed his face about 2' away at a combined speed around 140mph.
Despite my attempts to send us all into oblivion, Mongo motored on using fuel at a solid but not as bad as expected rate around 9mpg. Sean and I shared the wheel until we got into Atlanta when we picked up 4 more passengers, Antistance, Froggy, Brad's Dad (Randy) and brother piled on. We loaded yet another aussiesmg car from Brad onto the trailer and left it at the residence for pick up on the return. I had a shower at the house, I didn't even ask and nobody complained, yeah I was stinky.
Randy who has truck and large vehicle experience took the wheel for a while and i got a couple of hours sleep after being up more than 34 hours since 2am Thursday. It was bliss.
Mongo had consumed some oil but we were learning about some issues with the generator. We started the gen by swapping a new battery in as the original was drained by a 12v draw somewhere, however the seal on the Propane fitting was bad so it was leaking the precious gas into the air. The catch 22 was this made the gen fuel line freeze, no fuel it dies, no battery it wont start, we checked it ran prior to leaving but didn't find this issue until too late.
Things quickly became interesting with the less taste driven drinkers eliminating the contents of many poor quality suds and no water to assist the flushing. A 110v fridge with meat that quickly became very pungent and no AC on 9 bodies in close contact with each other.
However Mongo soldiered on.
Arriving at the track Sean and I were simply exhausted, we couldn't get to park in the infield despite having infield parking purchased prior to the event due to a downed line closing the access across the track. Was I irritated, no, I was an angel (shutup you guys).
We eventually found a spot near turn 5 that could fit us in, I backed her in and we quickly spewed out of Mongo's belly and I started crying for a scotch, be damned if I didn't have to get my own.
Several different scotches were sampled and compared, Glenlivet 21 was a clear winner IMHO, thanks Antistance.
We walked around and saw the sights for a couple of hours and found that there are mutants living in our midst. Carrying glasses of scotch as we walked through the Police compound. Met the survivors at Ricks camp and several other wierdos. We fit in well except most of the parties had packed up by the time we arrived. We sat around Mongo and had a couple more then one by one floated off to sleeping in our tents or Mongo.
In the morning after a princely 2 hours sleep, I made breakfast, yay the propane hotplates work....mmmmm bacon. Duke and I wandered of and walked everywhere including the pits and checked out the cars and the females who seemed to be shading the cars from the hordes of voracious men present. We wandered about the historic paddock, drooooled over the Aston Martins and just watched the sights and sounds.
We eventually found the rest of the crew and we watched the start of the race trackside. The day was a blur of beer, speed and fun. We spent time on the scaffolding at Camp Rick, (ESPN3 videoed us it may have aired) Ran into fellow GRMer and friend Dave Lind, walked about 20 miles through the day and generally had a blast until the final climactic minutes.
As soon as the race was over we loaded up and within 30 minutes we were underway, we had been camped for less than 24 hours. I drove out of the facility and about 120 miles onto US75 to get us clear than asked Randy to take over as I was in trouble, I needed sleep. He took over and drove through the night while Sean and I finally got some sleep, I awoke around 8am and felt a lot better. We were a few miles from dropping randy and crew back at Atlanta.
At the residence we hooked up the trailer, took showers, talked, promised to stay in touch and left. Well that actually took a few hours. We then drove to meet Tom to pick up some $2012 Challenge Mustang parts for free. Then Sean and I insisted on eating our second meal in 4 days and we stopped about 30 miles down 75 at an IHOP.
Suddenly we were pressed for time for those who had to be at work, where did those 5 hours go.
We had discovered some mechanical issues developing, we were losing air pressure, water temps were creeping and oil was leaking from the hub we had previously repaired....dammit.
We added water but the coolant was full, it was decided the rads need a flush and as the ambient temps dropped, the water went back under control.
The air leaks gained in volume and at one point the air line to the gauge in the dash split, locking the air brakes, Sean made short work of the problem and had us patched up and running again in 10 minutes.
The hub leaked more and more prodigiously, we found a bung in the hub itself and started adding oil as we went, I am proud to say it worked.
We dropped Brad, Amanda and Paul (dukeofundersteer) at 2am in Dayton, Puburgers met us on a 4 lane so we could avoid the tight streets, what a guy, he didn't even know us outside of the forum.
Sean and I made the final run home making it to the Compound at 5.30am. We threw our stuff into our cars and I immediately locked my keys in the trunk, thanks for the ride home Sean. What a dufus I am.
Oh I took Monday off, it's good to be the Boss