thanks for the props guys...I would LOVE to write for a magazine, IMO those guys have the dream job...driving and testing all the hot new iron and attending car shows on someone elses dime...I could dig that


...and Don, I'm giving you the chance to redeem yourself and add those mods you were talking about

TMS Chronicles Part one!
Disclaimer - this post is all about me and how cool I am. Excuse any narcissistic tone you may perceive. The events here are real, and I do all my own stunts!

So,

the weekend before TMS, Slick brought me a gray car. It took three days of me being lazy before he was able to leave with a black one. Yep, hours in the humid Texas sun, or inside a garage with no breeze of any kind, trying to salvage a rather decrepid paint job, or at least do what I could to distract people from it. Disregard that paint chip, this over here is shiny! Given that he fixes the mechanical crap on my car, usually by himself with me bothering him asking lots of questions so I can do it myself next time, the least I can do is try and save the Black Beauty from looking like it did at the ACS car show.

Behold! The award for dirtiest car at the Show and Shine!

But I digress. Main point is that I refused to let him help because I don't see it as fair that he would help me with this when I barely help him with what he does for me. Matter of honor? Maybe. Monday afternoon, certain things were looking like they actually got washed once in a blue moon. Seeing as how I wasted the whole weekend procrastinating, I figured it'd be okay to let it go with a coat of cleaner wax so it would be easier to finish when he got back up here from where he lives in Houston.

Too bad it wouldn't work out that way.

What does it do as he is leaving? Literally backing out of the driveway.

Starts raining.

Imagine a guy popping out of my birthday cake holding a sign saying "You're adopted!" and that's about how it felt to realize that a dirtier gray car would be coming to me at the end of the week, and that I hadn't had the time to clean my car after it looked like this:

[img]http://www.theunknownbrewer.com/gallery2..._serialNumber=2[/img]
[img]http://www.theunknownbrewer.com/gallery2..._serialNumber=2[/img]
[img]http://www.theunknownbrewer.com/gallery2..._serialNumber=2[/img]

I had the utmost honor of coming up behind a water truck spraying down the road they've torn up near my house the week before TMS and the week after I washed my car. I managed to wash it, and only wash it, before tackling Slick's car. And what is it doing Monday, four days before TMS?

Raining.

There is nothing more aggravating than waiting for something completely out of your control to stop mucking up your plans. It decided to rain until Wednesday, completely negating the time I had wasted on the car that weekend, so I had to start from scratch.

Let me tell you, I spent every waking hour that I had free working on that car. I started school the week before, so I only have mornings until 12pm on Tuesday and Thursday, my lunch hour break from work, and 9pm to the time that I collapse a few hours later. It's dark by the time I get home.

Don't worry about doing the math, I'm sure you realize the extreme crunch time that I have to take Frankencar and turn it into something that doesn't make babies cry at the sight of it. It doesn't help that suddenly my mother wants me to go to family therapy, which is a blindside in itself, but that's not for here. We'll just say that took care of most of Thursday morning.

Somehow, it happened. Somehow, it managed to get washed, claybarred, polished, waxed, vacuumed, leather cleaned and interior cleaned.

You want to know what happened to that hurricane that Bobby worried about? It went through the inside of my car. It was pretty damn bad in there. I'm sure most of you can relate to having Receipt Mountain located near Point Passenger Seat, and perhaps Random Stuff Pass alongside CD Canyon. I have never been so tired in my life, and what do you know, I couldn't sleep that night. Fantastic! I was a walking shell for TMS, but at least my car is clean, I guess!

[img]http://www.theunknownbrewer.com/gallery2..._serialNumber=2[/img]

Don't touch that dial!
Coming up next, the tale of the Monster from the Deep .. South.

<-- Glued to the PC waiting for the next installment.

Seriously though, I'm very thankful for the clean car. Even if it didn't stay that way for long.

Top shelf stuff you might have been burnt toast for saturday but the car looked great...I can relate on the whole cant sleep thing.

Looking forward to the next installment...same Bat-time, same Bat-channel

Just a friendly reminder from the peanut gallery that we're turning blue from holding our breath so long in anticipation... :p

I'll trade you guys a 750 MB video file and a link to all the video me and Slick took for links to your pictures.

DONE! (love the quote btw )

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v217/thunderbat/TMS/

uh oh...bad link

Yay! Links to more pics...

I'm still waiting for the vid upload.

Edit: TBat, link requires password...

I just had a few ramblings I wanted to add kind of as a footnote. I've already covered so much ground about the people and how much fun the event was itself. If repeat myself a bit I do apologize.

Now that I have had the opportunity to tell my friends, family and co-workers about the trip it has caused some reflection. There was a NASCAR race right here in Richmond the same weekend I was in Texas. Hearing all about RIR from my co-workers that attended the race I realized I came away with a real bargain and an experience not soon forgotten.

I have taken a fair bit of razzing from these same race fans about putting my car on the track. In all honesty I believe they are pea green with envy. When I told them about my last turn where it was just me, the pace car and a guy behind me in a Porsche convertible (I never looked back)...the look on their faces when you describe how it feels to do 85-90mph on hi-bank corners and then stretch out to 102-105 on the straight, their eyes get wide like awestruck kids.

When I told them about all the potent hardware we saw in the waiting lines and the sounds of those cars blasting around the track, their look of angst is akin to "I missed Christmas!"

The Speedway itself is an inspiring sight from the infield. From outside it is surprisingly low key, but once thru the tunnel you behold the towering empty grandstands and the blazing lights that turn night into day. If it were quiet it could almost seem cathedral-like in its majesty, but quiet is not the order of the day here.The sounds and sights of horsepower are all around and you cant help but think about the many famed drivers and cars that have crossed the pavement you now stand on. To get out and look at your very own car sitting there is somewhat surreal...then to pull out onto the track, drop the hammer and feel the car plant itself on the banking was better than any rollercoaster I've ever ridden...screw the loops and the vertical drop hills, they dont come with the music of growling intakes, blower whine(thank you Bobby) and roaring exhaust.

Every time I pulled out onto the apron to start my palms would begin to sweat...and it wasnt from nerves, it was pure adrenaline.

That rush was painfully evident when I returned to my hotel room and unwinding proved to be virtually impossible. After three to four hours of tossing, turning and endless infomercials, I gave up and checked out at 4:30am.

Not all bad since I love driving late at night. The world has such calm by the moon and stars that is lost to hurried schedules and road rage by day. The desolate interstate, six lanes wide at times only trickles with other traffic. I lowered the windows and opened the "moonroof?" and the cool night air flowed thru, and while I listened to the mellow rumble of the exhaust I feasted my eyes on the lights of this now quiet metropolis.

The glow of Texas stadium with its light reflecting off the vacant expanse of asphalt that surrounds it, the still glistening skyline of downtown Dallas that beckons like the lights of Manhattan almost saying "stop in, the city never sleeps". I resist that urge and opt to chase the sunrise instead.

Finally I pass the beltway and soon after its nothing but flatland, headlights and the broken white lines. I think back about the day past, the laughs and the thrills, the stories and smiles of the new friends I've made...and while part of me laments leaving it behind, thats when the T-Bat "talks" to me as he so often does. The feel of the leather wheel and shifter in my hands, the glow of the red lights almost looking back at me and the sounds and sensations that make you feel that symbiotic man and machine connection that only "carguys" know. I can hear him saying to me,"we had a blast and we'll be back...but for now settle in and I'll do what I do best...punch the cruise button and let's go home."
Home was a long way off to be sure and he would do more than his part to get me there before it was done. Yet as we rolled away into the darkness, we left a promise on the wind behind us. The Lone Star state hasnt seen the last of me and the ThunderBat.

Tim. Seriously. Write a book. Find a magazine. Something. Now. I think you done missed your calling as an author or reviewer.

I did actually write a "Star Trek" novel some years ago. It went as far as being submitted to the publisher but it was turned down. They did atleast tell me why and I understood (it seems I took a little to broad a license with central characters)...I have thought many times about trying again but just havent gotten my head into it.
I would love to write for a car magazine but those guys have credentials I dont posess...I love reading Peter Egans' "Side Glances" in R&T...he is one of my all time faves.