{"id":389,"date":"2013-05-13T19:06:57","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T19:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=389"},"modified":"2013-05-13T19:18:40","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T19:18:40","slug":"need-for-speed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=389","title":{"rendered":"Need for speed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The decision is made. No racing this year. The money is going into getting Chalice<\/em> out, printed and on Amazon,\u00a0on the street. That’s final. No. No way, not going to happen.<\/p>\n

But Jake’s my Number One Fan. He was pretty important in my being out there last year when money was tight. When you have a fan like Jake, you take the question of hanging up the helmet pretty seriously. I’m looking right now\u00a0at the model of Yellow Jacket he and his dad built together.<\/p>\n

Yellow Jacket gave me everything she had in that last race, probably down 30 percent on power at the end, the mechanic said. She felt “soft” when I drove back to the pits and would not have lasted one more lap the way we were working to put away that Mustang.<\/p>\n

The engine is trashed. The valves quibble about in guides worn like morals of the cynical; oil starvation burnt the main bearings here, and here and \u2026 here. Cylinder walls are scratched from pieces of rocker that became one with the oiling system.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brake pads wore to steel on one edge and calipers leaked fluid\u00a0to the trailer floor\u00a0all the way home. Rotors, riddled with heat stress, will make a good door stops.<\/p>\n

So, no racing this year. That’s final.<\/p>\n

I probably should not have even gone to the races in Seattle a few weeks ago. I went up to see friends, introduce myself to a couple of readers of\u00a0Chalice.<\/em>\u00a0Pacific Raceways was on the way to talk to another\u00a0Chalice<\/em>\u00a0reader in Port Townsend. The trip \u00a0gave me a chance\u00a0to see my daughter. All very safe.<\/p>\n

Until I got to the track. For me and for those I play with, combining the perfume of high octane gas, scorched oil and burning rubber with the \u00a0howl of compression at the edge of control creates a compulsion that can not be described. I wavered.<\/p>\n

Then Jake sent me a note that it would be really great if I showed up with Yellow Jacket at the Portland race at the end of June, he understood about the problems and all but they’re featuring the Corvette,\u00a0it would sure be great\u2026<\/p>\n

There isn’t nearly enough time, Jake. I just can’t do it. Tell you what, I’ll get us pit passes and we’ll sit together in the stands.<\/p>\n

New pistons arrive in two days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The decision is made. No racing this year. The money is going into getting Chalice<\/em> out, printed and on Amazon,\u00a0on the street. That’s final. No. No way, not going to happen.<\/p>\n

But Jake’s my Number One Fan. He was pretty important in my being out there last year when money was tight. When you have a fan like Jake, you take the question of hanging up the helmet pretty seriously. I’m looking right now\u00a0at the model of Yellow Jacket he and his dad built together.<\/p>\n

Yellow Jacket gave me everything she had in that last race, probably down 30 percent \u2026 Read more\u2026 → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[77,80,78,79],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-outer-limits","tag-autp-racing","tag-competition","tag-corvette","tag-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mcOb-6h","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":394,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}