Well, it looks as if I am on my own unless I can find someone that is willing to help me out.

At the end of the race season, Jerry decided that he wanted to go his own way. The story is a long and unbelievable one.

About half way through the season, I was fighting with my wife about the usual racing things...taking too much time away from the family, spending too much money, etc., etc., etc. At that point, I told Jerry I was going to sell him the car and he could do what he wanted with the car and I would still be the driver. Then we moved the car and all the parts and tools to one of our sponsor's shop in which Jerry had arranged to keep the car. I was never given a key to the shop, which was mistake number one. Don't ever let your stuff be locked up in someone else's garage if you don't have a key, no matter how much you trust that person.

After a couple weeks I worked out a compromise with Pam and I decided to keep the car. This didn't sit too well with Jerry and things kind of started on a downward slide in our relationship. I wasn't too happy with what was going on because Jerry had become a very good friend and I didn't want that to change.

Backing up to the beginning of our relationship, Jerry had told me that he used to race, and at this point all he wanted to do was to work on the car. He told me that all he wanted was the satisfaction of seeing the car on the track and doing well. Nothing was ever discussed involving getting paid for the work or his time.

Back to the present. After I decided to keep the car, all of the sudden Jerry started referring to himself as a partner. I have to be careful at this point because the word "partner" indicates that he was a financial partner. Jerry never was a financial partner. Only my name is on the title of the car and I bought everything for the car. Jerry, at various points, did by misc. stuff for the car such as parts cleaner, carb tune up kits, etc., but I paid him back for almost everything.

One day, I needed to get a couple of my tools from the shop that I needed at home. Jerry noticed that the tools were gone and started to get paranoid. He does have a tendency to have this "everyone is out to screw Jerry" attitude. The next day, I went back to the shop to get one more tool that I forgot the day before, and while I was there I thought I would grab a couple boxes of misc. parts that I thought I would go through and throw some stuff away since I was planning on making a trip the the scrap yard. Jerry thought I had been in the shop stealing things when no one was around and decided that I must have been coming for the car next. That night, Jerry and an accomplice came and stole my car and moved it to another location in town.

The next day I went back to the shop and noticed that the car was gone. I called Jerry and asked him were the car was and he told me, "I hid the car and I am not going to tell me where it is until you sell me the car or buy out my half of the car." Well, number one, Jerry never owned a half of the car so there was no half to buy out. Number two, the car was not for sale, which we had discussed. He also gave me a third option, "I will give you the car back, but I will cut it up and give it back to you the same way it was before I started working on it."

LONG story short...In talking with police on four different occasions, I was told that since Jerry didn't have any legal ownership, what he did was auto theft. Jerry was informed of this and he didn't care. He told me, "Go ahead and throw me in jail, you will never find the car." In addition, Jerry was informed that according to the police, the person who was holding the car could possibly also be arrested for aiding and abetting and receiving stolen property. Apparently he didn't care that this other person could go to jail either. Nice friend, huh?!?! The police also told me that even though what Jerry did was illegal, they couldn't just go and make him give the car back. They would have to turn the case over to an investigator and after who knows how long, he would then decide if things would become a legal matter or if we would just have to go to small claims court. Either way, I didn't want to give Jerry a chance to sabotage the car before I got it back.

After a couple days of back and forth arguing and dealing with the police, I decided to pay Jerry his extortion fees just to get my car back before he had a chance to do anything to it.

Come to find out, after I had told Jerry that my car was no longer for sale, he decided to go out and by his own car and go racing himself, which is fine if that is what he wanted to do.

At this point, I will not say anything bad about Jerry, but if someone asks what kind of person he is, I will tell them what happened and they can decide for themselves if they want to do business with Jerry or not.

Enough of that story...Time to get back to focusing in on the good things. At this time, my motor is at Zitterich Motorsports getting freshened up and it is time to start getting ready for next year.

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