Saw this in Hot Rod Magazine and had to share.
MY TOP TEN GREATEST HOT RODDING MOMENTS
IN NO REAL ORDER:
1. I love getting a new engine running for the first time. It’s not so much the thrill of accomplishment that makes it good—it’s the sensory experience, starting with the scent of cooking paint, RTV, and headers. It’s the sounds of power, the snap of the throttle, and meeting the new mechanical life you’ve created. All very Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein.
2. There’s no feeling in the world like blatantly outpowering someone else’s junk. On the dragstrip, it’s a huge ego pump to run down the other car and pass it like it a dog that hit the end of its chain. It’s even better on a road course—or a rent-a-kart track, whatever—when you chase a guy lap after lap and finally get the line and pass him righteously. On the go-kart deal, you might as well spin him on your way by. Same high, maybe better.
3. The entirety of Speed Week at Bonneville counts as a prime moment for me, but the best of that comes after making a successful run down the track. You gain acute focus running 250-plus mph, and that lingers even after the parachute settles to the ground on the return road. With the engine clicked off and the car rolling to a stop, you hear every whine of the gears and every creak of the Heim joints and can identify the crackle of each salt crystal crunched under the slow-moving tires. There’s usually a long minute or two before a chase truck arrives, and in that solitude—the Salt Flats are silent but for the ticking of cooling headers—there’s ultimate contentment. Unless stuff is on fire. That takes the edge off a little.
4. Ever walk up on a car that just grabs you? Admittedly we’ve become jaded as far as cars go, so when it happens these days, it’s amazing to be captivated by a machine that nails all the cues. Such a discovery might lead you to ditch plans for your current project car and start dreaming of changes based on newfound inspiration. And then never get them done.
5. It’s never a bad day when the UPS guy shows up, because you get to open a box and fondle a new speed part. You’ll even forget that you’re going to set loose a hundred foam peanuts that will haunt your backyard for three generations.
6. Troubleshooting is awesome. When you figure out that the left rear-wheel bearing went out because the gear oil was low, because the pinion seal leaks, because the driveshaft is vibrating, because the U-joint angularity is wrong, because the trans mount broke, because the motor mount rubber is gooey, because the oil-sending unit leaked all over it—well, that’s a great moment. Gearhead sleuthing is cool. Fixing it? Not so much.
7. Ambition and delusion enjoy no greater moment than when you hand over the cash to lock in a new project car. It all goes down-hill from there, but we choose to ignore that. There’s no Surgeon General’s warning against buying too many cars.
8. There’s always something you figure you can’t do yourself. Rebuild an automatic trans, rewire a car, weld aluminum, tune EFI—you name it. Thing is, you can do it. When you overcome the can’t, you’ll feel even more satisfaction than when you get to the next level in Angry Birds.
9. Every great road trip has a moment at which bliss takes over. It can be the just-right comfort in old seat springs during a pleasant summer evening, right when the sun comes beneath the clouds and the car settles into that one perfect rpm where it’s just happy. It can be a moment of discovery in a remote junkyard, or a weary smile at the end of a long day when the first bottle cap pops off, trailing a mist of Corona. You can’t look for that moment. It has to find you. Enjoy it, because the iPhone will soon deliver an email from the office for total buzz kill.
10. Hot rodding has many highlights, and among the best is overcoming a personal challenge. That’s what prompted this column. At this year’s HOT ROD Drag Week™, extensively covered in this issue, I was thrilled with the number of participants who really get it, who understand that they get to pick their own victories. They aren’t there to win, they’re out for the experience, to make a single pass that’s a personal best, or—most often—to just finish. Add it all up, and I think it’s easy to see why we’re hot rodders. Don’t try explaining it to anyone else. They either get it or they don’t.
—DAVID FREIBURGER
EMAIL ME: HOTROD@HOTROD.COM
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nice ;)
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