You Meet the Nicest People…

You meet the nicest, most cheerfully determined, optimistic people at a Burn Clinic.  Seriously.  While I have only an embarrassing little ‘motorcycle burn’ requiring a minor bit of intervention, the majority of folks there have experienced a truly hellish event involving fire, corrosive chemicals, electrocution or industrial-strength friction that has permanently and radically changed their lives.  The fact that they mostly view it as a positive thing is testament to the way serious illness and injury have a tendency to force people to reassess their priorities.  NONE of these people “sweat the small stuff” anymore.

Case in point:  I met a very cheerful chap last week who was at the rehab part of the Burn Clinic because he had taken 10,000 volts through his body.  He’s relearning how to walk, feed and bathe himself; all the mundanities the rest of us take for granted.  As bad as surface burns are, imagine the internal damage done by the current passing through his body, vaporising nerve, muscle, blood vessel and connective tissue along the way.  Still, he’s just pumped that he can walk, comb his hair and brush his teeth now.  He bubbles over with good humour and confidence that by New Year’s Day, he’ll be fully mobile and completely independent again.  I certainly wouldn’t bet against him.

Another fellow, a young man with horrendous upper body burns over his hands, arms and neck, was joking today about his Jobst suit, (a custom-made compression garment designed to keep scars from becoming hypertrophic) saying it impinged on his ability to …self-satisfy… himself.  ”How am I supposed to get a decent grip?!?” he demanded with a wink.  His therapist, who has probably heard everything, replied happily “Well THAT…. is not my department, but I hear there are professionals who can …lend you a hand… so to speak.”  The two of them giggled away merrily for several minutes while she worked on his mangled arms.

Then there’s the lovely woman whose burns I can’t describe and whose story I cannot tell, because her ex-husband may come half way around the world to finish the job if he finds out where she is.  I’m certainly not going to proffer up any details that would help him.  Suffice it to say she is a sweet young lady with a shy smile and a great deal of determination to make a better life for herself and her kids.  She was very proud this morning, because as of today, her burns are now completely closed.  I congratulated her.  It is not a minor accomplishment.  My egg-sized burn took 11 weeks to close.  Hers must have taken two or three times as long.

Overall, the place buzzes with lighthearted banter and a surprising amount of laughter, even when people are in considerable pain. Everyone encourages each other with a kind of camaraderie borne of “trial by fire” that keeps everyone grounded. There’s no room for depression or hopelessness there; only cheerful optimism. I get it. They’ve already been through the nasty stuff. It gets easier after that.

My burn has almost settled down again. When it closes up again finally, I won’t be going to the Burn Clinic anymore. As strange as it may sound, I will really miss it. You meet the most amazing people there.

That’s One FUBAR Flywheel!

THIS, is what a FUBAR flywheel looks like.  How did it get that way?   A wayward bolt in the rear engine plate broke inside the block, and then took some time to back its way out of the hole.  When it did so, it ended up rattling around between the engine plate and the custom-built, aluminium-steel composite, ultra light flywheel.  A new one is currently winging its way to us from somewhere south of the 49th parallel.  I don’t care what it costs, provided it gets here before the Last Race Weekend EVER at our beloved home track Race City.

This is what the steel engine plate looked like after the bolt hit it a few thousand times.  We have one of these on order, too.  Notice the conspicuously absent bolt in the lower right of the plate…

Oo000, shiny!   But not the kind of shiny we like to see.  This is one of what amounted to several hands full of aluminium shavings off the flywheel.  Some of them were several inches long, and as curly as my hair.  We put them in the recycling bin.

There’s a famous old proverb about a small problem causing a catastrophic failure:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Here we have, again, a perfect example of this; a 12 cent bolt let go, causing a very expensive flywheel to be ruined, and sidelining my car for the remainder of the race weekend.  The first time this kind of thing happened, it was a little bitty cotter pin in the end of the roller rocker shaft atop my engine.  It let go, allowing a valve rocker to slide off its proper mooring.  The result was a bent custom-made push rod, and an end to racing for that weekend.  I, for one, would gladly pay more for little parts, if it meant they’d stop ruining the big, really expensive ones.  Really.  I would. Happily.

Fingers Crossed

Right now, I’m thinking how cool it is that my car gave me everything she had, right up to getting me back to our pit. We won’t know for sure what came apart until we get a look at the bottom end. Until then, I can hope we’ll be back out for the last race weekend ever.

The Current Theory

The current theory is that Sparky broke her crankshaft during today’s big race. I did have a momentary loss of power on the back straight, but she recovered instantly, and held on for the win. She didn’t actually pile up until I was 20 feet from the trailer, and I coasted onto the ramp with a dead engine.

Worst part: I’m likely done for the season. Fingers gamely crossed though.

Best part: In addition to the win, which is very, very cool, the track workers saw fit to award me with the Corner Marshals’ Choice Award for Driver of the Day!!! I was so tickled by this I kind of made an ass of myself at the award ceremony…

Amazing, Sad and… Weird

WHAT an amazing, weird, sad but great weekend!!! We got Sparky out on the track today on brand new (therefore slippery) slicks for the big Australian Pursuit race…… and we WON!!!!!!! Unbelievable!!!! Then, when I was pulling back into the pits, the engine piled up!!

Race City

I’m passionate about racing and passionate about Race City, a quarter mile drag strip and a 2-mile road course track. Many high-end international events have been held there. Plus, there have been over a dozen racing, high-performance and accident avoidance driving schools at that track. And for the record, it is located in the middle of an industrial park.

Recently, Calgary City Council ash-canned it.  They wanted to put in a settling pond for a nearby garbage dump! Seriously! They killed the busiest track on the continent so they can have a stink-pond.

Here’s the worst thing: This means an end to Friday Night Drag Racing, and I seriously doubt all those testosterone-poisoned youths will give up racing just because there is no legal, safe, controlled place to do it. No, they’ll simply take it to the streets. Stay tuned, I plan to carry on a bit about this topic in the blogs.

A Net Benefit to Humanity

“To leave this world better off for having been on it; to have been a net benefit to humanity rather than a net deficit; THAT is immortality. It is the only immortality that is attainable, and the only one I aspire to.”