Well, I have had a couple weeks to take the motor apart and be amazed at how many pieces a motor can break into when it wants to! During the last race, it is apparent that a bearing froze up on the number 6 cylinder which caused the rod to break, which in turn cracked that cylider in two places, broke the piston and threw pieces and parts around in the motor. These various flying objects bouncing around inside ended up breaking two more pistons. So all told, the damage came out to 3 broken pistons, one broken rod, at least two more rods that are bent, a wrecked crankshaft that cannot be reground and a broken block. Oh yeah, and an oil pan with two holes in it! That ought to be enough damage for one motor, eh?!?! At least the heads are still ok, I think. The number 6 piston came in contact with the head but doesn't look like it did any damage. The cam and lifters survived. That is about it. Time to completely start over with a motor. Luckily I have 2 more spares in the garage that can be used. About $700 and I should have a running motor again!

In the mean time, while I am saving my pennies and Jerry is rounding up sponsors already for next year, it is time to start working on the car itself. When I bought this car, it came with a parts car with a good body. Right now we are in the process of cutting the body off of the parts car and getting ready to put it on the race car and have that done before it gets too cold. My garage isn't heated and it is no fun to work with cold metal when it is 20 degrees below zero here in January! Next year the body on the race car will be from a '79 Pontiac LeMans. We will be lightening up the car a fair amount from what this Cutlass was by taking out a bunch of excess metal that was left in. We will be making a few other changes for next year if all goes right and the money is there. Among other things we will be putting a Ford 9 inch rear end under the car with 6:20 gears that will hopefully help us get off the corners better and at the top end with a couple hundred more rpm's at the end of the straights.

Over the course of the winter, plans are to put up some pictures showing the car under various stages of reconstruction and some details of what we are doing. Jerry has plenty of plans...let's just hope the check book can cover them!

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