Back a long time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, a good friend and I
did TSD rallies in his 1600. It was a little cramped after about three
hours, and we missed a few markers when we used the hardtop because of the
limited visibility (our excuse, anyway), but we had a lot of fun, won a few
times, and remained friends. It's like bridge clubs. Most husband-wife
teams become ex-husband ex-wife teams because they can't help rehashing past
mistakes. We took one leg at a time, and promptly forgot it. My friend
drove and I navigated. When we used a car with more creature comforts we
had just as much fun. My present roadster wouldn't be a good ride because I
have no odometer and a 5.13 rear end, which is really tough on mathematical
calculations. I guess they still do math in rallies. Electronic gadgets
may have obsoleted the navigator's job.
Enough of this frivolity. I need to tell you about the TDROC Fall Fling,
which this year will be in the Rockport/Corpus Christi area, October 21st
and 22nd. We plan to ride the free ferry to Mustang Island (that part of
the barrier islands between Galveston Island and Padre Island), see the
Texas State Aquarium, the USS Lexington aircraft carrier, possibly the
Pinta, Nina, or Santa Maria replicas, and we may even get to see if the
Corpus police do roadster profiling. All that and more. Our new TDROC
website
http://members.home.net/cehubbard/tdroc/
has more details, or email me for further instructions.
I saw some interesting ways to plumb cold air into autocross cars at Topeka.
Home improvement stores carry semi-rigid "bubble wrap" insulation that can
be fastened to an aluminum frame to make a cold box that fits in the engine
compartment. You could wrap the insulation around RV type sewer hose (Wal
Mart) and build a cold box around the stock filter housing, with the sewer
hose leading to the grill opening. Most of the setups had a pressure relief
system so you wouldn't overfeed the carbs with air at speed and lean out the
mixture. I'm going to play with those ideas and if I come up with a good
system I'll let you know.
Leisure Suit Terry
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