MMMM: Memorable Moments in Madison Motorsports

[rherold9]

I vote more Rex story telling

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Jake]

They're more fun in person, but Rex doesn't come to anything anymore sooooo.

He really needs to tell the one about the time he and Dave got 9 tickets in two hours transporting some free cars back home.

[BLINGMW]

I still laugh so hard, Rex is amazing at story-telling. Good job sir!

Second that, those particular thousand words definitely outdo the pictures. :lol:

That was also the last time we stayed at Innkeeper North, but later, we'd have some good times at Innkeeper South.

Where were we when throwing pizza slices off the balcony onto RJ's Type R? I vaguely remember him slightly trying to be cool about it but I'm pretty sure wanted to kill some people. :dunno:

He really needs to tell the one about the time he and Dave got 9 tickets in two hours transporting some free cars back home.

Gather 'round, children. Let Uncle Rex regale you with a cautionary tale filled with Cops, Subarus, and tickets.

It all started with my Second Subaru. A 1992 SVX. White, with grey leather. See, I was reading flipping through the Valley Trader (AKA, Craigslist for the Valley that you pay a buck fifty for) when I came upon the ad:

1992 Subaru SVX
120K miles
Needs fender
$400

WHO COULD RESIST? Not I. So I called. The very nice lady on the other end said "Oh yeah, I'm in Front Royal. Yes, it runs. Drives too. Tell you what, if you come get it this week you can have it for $Free, I am moving and I can't take it with me."

SHIT YES, HOSS. When I get there the car is actually in really really good shape (if a bit musty) and someone had jumpered the trans to be in FWD only mode (probably because the trans was on it's last legs but HEY FREE CAR.) She also had a 1989 Toyoya Camry. I asked how much she wanted for it, she said I could have that too. Ho. Lee. Shit. I done won the free car jackpot. Spit shine the camry, sell it for enough to cover a manual trans swap, and we're golden. The seller signed both titles, my lovely girlfriend's father facilitated transport by loading the Subaru on a trailer, and I followed behind with the Toyota. We made it to The Future Mrs. Rex's Childhood Home in Winchester without incident.

Weeks pass. I do some piddly projects on the subie. Change the oil, sparkplugs, but I'm a poor college student, and Bruce is tired of his daughters dumbass boyfriend taking up all this room in his yard. An ultimatum is delivered: Move these cars or they're going to the junkyard.

OK, FINE. I call up Partner in Crime, Dave Allen. "Hey dave, wanna drive an SVX?" We decide that instead of hauling the cars, fuck it. We'll just drive them. Sure the tags are dead, and the inspections dead, and the registration isn't in our name. What's the worst that could happen? We decide to drive down Rt 11, because there'll be "less cops".

Here's where we come to Lesson Number 1 in our story. A DMV Trip Permit is Five Fucking Dollars. You can get it online, in like 45 seconds, from the DMV website. It is easy. It is cheap. And if I'd done it this story would be a shitload more boring.

We set off. Julie in the Cavalier leading us, Dave in the SVX following close behind, and me in the Yoda made the caboose. We make it to Strasburg before we see our first cop. Great success, he has someone pulled over, so we're fine...right?

Wrong. Wrongwrongwrong. Next thing I know, blue light special, Aisle 11. Shit he's got me! SAVE YOURSE...he rockets past me. What the fu...aw shit. He pulls right in front of me to pull over Dave, the (mostly) innocent bystander. I pull over behind cop and (like an idiot) get out to try to flag the cop down, since dave doesn't know shit about any of these cars, they're all mine, after all!

Well ole Officer Scooter must think he's got himself some big-time car thieves on the hook here, and he calls for backup. No lie, six patrol cars arrive, including the West Berlin, I mean, Strasburg chief of police: "You got insurance, boy?" Yes, sir. I don't have my insurance card but I'll give you the name and number of my agent and he'll be happy to confirm what I've said. "YOU BETTER NOT BE LYIN TO ME, SON?" Sir with all due respect why would I lie about having insurance?

Which brings me to lesson B: Always have your papers. Never know when some jackbooted thug is looking to drum up charges on you to make himself look good for der fuhrer.

"These cars yours?"
Yeah, I recently got them. Moving them to my house.
"Title ain't signed. Looks to me like this is MY car, all I have to do is sign the title."
Well sir, they aren't yours. They're mine.
"Well you need to come with us to the station so we can figure out what to charge you with."

This is the part where I should have said "Sir, am I under arrest or am I free to go?" But I was young and stupid and just wanted to bring my cars home. We get free rides to the Strasburg police station, my cars get free rides to impound, and my future wife gets to wait in the parking lot. ("Did anyone check her car? Maybe it's illegal too!" No shit, the Chief of Police said that.)

So here's the tally: (Dave got some of these, but they were all "mine")
2x expired inspection
2x expired registration
2x no insurance
2x "Open Title" my class three misdemeanors.

"But wait, Uncle Rex," you say. "That's only 8!" Good eye, child. See, after I paid 300 dollars to get my free cars out of impound, I got pulled over one last time for a dead inspection on my future father in law's trailer. That made 9.

So I sell both cars, and make enough money to pay the inspection and registration tickets. But I have to go to court for the insurance and open title. The insurance ticket was a 1500 dollar fine, and suspension of my license! (Dave's too.)

I get my Goodwill suit dry cleaned, put on my nicest tie, and go into court armed with the above quoted section of law and a copy of my insurance policy.

Dave gets to go first. (Allen comes before Elsea.) It went like this:
Judge: "Son, do you have insurance?"
Dave: "Yes, your honor. Here is the proof."
Judge: "Did you have insurance on the day in question?"
Dave: "Yes, your honor. I was never asked if I had insurance, only ticketed." (Which was true!)
Judge: "Officer scooter, did you ask this young man if he had insurance?"
OS: "Well uh, you see, I, uh, baduhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
Judge: "Dismissed! Sorry to take up your time, son."

Now I'm up.

Judge: "No insurance, again. Same situation, I reckon?"
Me: "Yes, your honor. Officer Scooter never asked me if I had insurance. The chief of police did and I told him that I DID have insurance."
Judge: "I see. And this open title."
Me: "Well your honor looking at the code section it appears that it's the seller's responsibility to make sure the title is filled out, not mine! How can I be the "owner" of a car when the title hasn't even been signed."
Prosecuting Attorney: "Well, the purpose of the law is clear in this case. You were the one in possession of an open title."
Me: "Well that might be true but I wasn't trying to defraud anyone. See, I registered the cars and paid the appropriate taxes, and I have copies of that registration."
Judge: "And you have these cars now?"
Me: "No your honor, I had to sell them to pay for my other tickets I got this day."
Judge: "I think you learned your lesson. Not guilty. And YOU, officer scooter. This court is tired of you wasting the courts time on things like this."

The prosecuting attorney met me outside the courtroom to congratulate me on my fantastic job. 'You made that officer look like a jackass.' I, of course, was about to puke coming down off adrenalin and barely squeaked out a 'thank you, sir.'

Which brings us to lesson number three: ALWAYS DRESS NICE IN COURT AND BE POLITE TO JUDGES.

I hope all you new little punks who think you know everything (Like I did when I was your age) have learned a thing or two from your elder's awful experience.

[Jeff]

Rex spins an epic tale regardless of the context.

[ScottyB]

more random memories:

- its like 1 AM at one of b00bies' parties, maybe 2004. we're all stumbling drunk. i found a bottle opener made out of a deer's hoof/foot, up to about the first joint, kind of like a rabbit's foot. maybe 7 inches long. i proceed to fasten it in my pants zipper so the hoof is hanging out of my pants like a dick. Rex and Julie are sitting on a couch, their heads about level with my crotch. i proceed to go over and start twerking my junk in Rex's face with my hoof dick. Rex spews his beer everywhere. everybody liked my hoof dick.

- b00bies taking his base model stripper model del sol to the track and just flogging it without mercy. on the way there one time someone pulled out in front, too close, and he pretty much flatspotted all 4 tires in a massive no-ABS slide. on that day the phrase "Lock dem shits up, yo" was born.


- me taking 3 days to change a shock on my accord. i had no idea what i was doing and it got so bad random people were asking if i was OK. i couldn't get a spring compressor to compress the spring enough to get the shock out, which had fallen down inside the spring because i'm retarded and took the center nut out instead of the 3 tophat nuts. Dave Allen and Jayray literally saved me from dying in the parking lot from exposure because i would have stayed out there for a week. Jay disposed of the shock properly (i wonder if its still in that field next to Chase Ct.)



- RJ lived with me in our sunchase apt. for a semester. in that time he:
• dissasembled an integra engine on our dining room table and left the head sitting in a vat of simple green for 3 days, the smell never went away
• turned one corner of the living room into a giant pile of integra interior panels
• stacked his R comps in the entry foyer and the tires deposited a giant black rubber donut stain on the linoleum floor that couldn't be cleaned by anything and were there 2 years later when we graduated and moved out
• sprayed his valve cover with aircraft industry paint stripper and then we took the valve cover out into the parking lot and lit it on fire to get the residue off. flames were at least 4 feet high and smelled like a Chinese industrial park

- we were the pioneers of the official Pimp Through Campus style back when you could drive all the way through main campus from ISAT to main street. always go WOT over the ISAT bridge...for the ladies.

- getting a ride in Dave Allen's freshly completed 1JZ swapped mk3 supra. twin turbos spooling up out of a gutter sized dump pipe in glorious symphony. never got over that.

- the MM beer pong table. one of the works i am most proud of. wonder where it is? i still have the ferrari flag.


- Sean Schutte jumping his motorcycle off of someone's porch while drunk, crashing upon landing after dropping about 5 vertical feet, becoming a legend

- RJ tracking his plastic saturn SC2 (lunchbox!!). parking it on top of the T3 tire wall at slummit.

- reddish knob.


- Maeng's PHENOMENAL air time and spin at T5 at road atlanta in the integra. he needs to post that video from the NSX that was behind him.

- Blair's insane cars and his becoming the official VW Jesus. every one of his cars was found in someone's shed for like $20, in perfect condition, and he managed to complete them to utter badass levels in like 2 months. pristine AE86, an SR20 240sx notch, an original 5 speed GS300 with a 1JZ single, etc etc. none of us understands how it works.

- Rex's bizarre cars (240, GSX, 325e, geo metro, SVX, supra...i literally never knew what he was driving at any one time) and amazing ability to at one point collect 9 tickets in a single day on rt.11

- the legend of the MM Wing Off and Evan's royalty for being known as Supreme King Wing and later as Glorious Leader of The Great Hate

- The Great Hate of 20(10?) and the healing process afterwards in which the alumni and students made peace...for now

- the infamous half naked Bro (BDSM) picture that i'm still confused about

- Jeff's turbo minivan, shelby mopar stuff, and that weird Maserati rebranded Chrysler thing. aside from the charger i'm not sure he ever finished any of those projects. they were all different levels of rare/weird/onlyJeffwouldunderstand

- Channing. red bull. canes.

- b00bies challenging Kaan to a drunk wrestling match at a hotel when we were at VIR one night. b00bies getting destroyed. Kaan literally didn't even have to move his feet. none of us helped b00bies.

- Rex's tale of getting an engine for his XJ. another classic for the ages

So, the smoke is still inside my XJ, so those injectors must be fine. Everything is cool in ReXJ land, I'm just lazy.

So, funny story. Before Sean Schutte decided to steal my fucking thunder and go balls deep into a 4.7L stroker project, I'd had an ad in the valley trader for a couple of weeks:

WANTED: AMC 4.2/258 Crank&Rods or Full Engine.

I mean, that engine was in fucking everything. CJ Jeep? 258. AMC Matador? 258. International Harvester Scout? Fuckin 258. 4.2 when metric shit became en vogue. I figure someone has one of these lying around somewhere in this Valley, collecting rust, and I'm going to save it from the scrapper. Or at least, you know, some of it. The crank, and probably the rods.

Anyway, I get a few calls. Mostly from people who are idiots, and want like 400 dollars for their engine that ran when it was pulled 2 decades ago, to make room for whatever big block chevy they thought was a good idea. Or the guy who called me and said he had one "Ran good, but had a knock at the bottom end." Dude, how did you even read far enough to get my number? Did you miss the bit how I wanted the crank and rods? I'm not building a mailbox, dude. I'm building an engine.

So I get a call from a reasonably sane person: "Hey man I saw your ad. I have a 4.2 out of a 1990 wrangler that I blew the transfer case up on and decided to just put a whole chevy powertrain in to replace it. You can have it for 150 bucks. Hell, come get it and you can have it for a hunnert." I said "Well met, good sir! I'll come calling on friday morning to retrieve your locomotion unit, and pay you the agreed-upon price. I assume that federal reserve notes will suffice, as I am afraid that specie has fallen out of favor for large transactions. Ha-HAW! Good show!"

So I call my dad, ask him if he's up for an adventure. We hook up the trailer (figure it'll be easier to load an engine onto a trailer than the high dump bed in the truck) and head off over the mountain, to the land of my mother's people: Culpeper/Madison County. This isn't the Madison County with the pretty bridges. Oh no, that's in Iowa. This is the Madison County famous for...er...um...oh wait! James Madison! And also...um...not a damn thing else. So we get on [Redacted] Road and start looking for this place. After a few misadventures, we figure out that [Redacted] road changes to WEST [Redacted] Road when you enter Madison County from Culpeper County. Thank God my Dad was a truck driver in another life, I've never seen anybody able to u-turn in a trailer like this man. Anyway, we think we have the right place, so we flag down a guy who's pulling out of it.

Me: "Yeah, I'm looking for Aaron, I am supposed to buy an engine from him. Am I in the right place?"
Driver: *spits* "I reckon you are, but I ain't seen hide nor hair of the boy. He might be inna house, though." *spits*
Me: "Thank you, sir!"

So we approach the...house. I was about to say "hovel" but it's an old farm house, so we'll go with house. Probably has been there since some old reb got his leg shot off in the War of Northern Aggression and him an' his kin decided that this piece of property had a nice lay to it, and reckoned they ought to help build him a place to call his own, on account of his leg 'n' all.

There was the prerequisite bigass mean dog barking her fucking head off, there were squat little horses frolicking behind some old fence. A half dozen pot bellied pigs wandered around the yard. Some foraging for grubs or scraps or whatever the fuck pigs forage for, some were lazing about in the winter sun. The big ole momma sow (big for a potbelly, anyway) was trying to scratch her back, her giant teats swaying like oaks in the breeze with every stroke. The yard was filled with various equipment. A full size dodge van, a kubota tractor. An old Massey Furgeson hay rake, and (a sign I was in the right place) a Wrangler hard top.

I got out of the truck, looking left and right. Speaking softly to the baying dog, thinking out my best course of action, and taking comfort in the weight and warmth of the polymer and steel riding on my hip. Smith and Wesson might prove useful allies today, if Atropos willed it. I knock on the door, through the screen-less screen door and the grandson of the ole Reb came to it. I apologized for rousing him from however he had decided to spend the august of his life, and told him I was looking for Aaron. He replied that he hadn't seen hide nor hair of the boy, and didn't know anything about any engine, neither.

Shitballs. Here I am in Bumfuq, VA. I've driven an hour and a half to get here, and this dipshit is passed out drunk in a pickup bed next to some Madison County High School Cheerleader, or dead in a ditch, or forgot I was coming and is up in a treestand on the side of some god-forsaken hill.

PSYCH! He's right behind his grandpa, putting on a shirt as the old man explains to me that he doesn't know when Aaron will be back...and he literally continues talking as he turns around and heads back in the house. Talking to me? The 12 little pigs? The second big-ass pittmutt to greet me with thunderous throat and slavering jowels? Prophesying the end of the world at the slimy tentacles of Cthulhu? Fucking pick one.

SO good, Aaron is here after all! He trots out in his bare feet, mud squishing up between his toes, to inform me that the gentleman I spoke to earlier would have to return so we could "fire up the cat" and "get the engine down." Down? Is it in a tree? "Oh no," he laughs. "Don't be silly. It's up on top of that box truck." Behind the barn is a broken down U-Haul truck, with the body of a wrangler perched precariously atop its metal roof.

Dear God. This is all some complex plan for the Lothar of the Hill People over here to eat my father and make me into Queen Pretty for the rest of his tribe to have their way with. Well not today, Bubba! I got 17 rounds...that's 15 for you and the best you can bring, and 2 left over for myself and my father. Your sick cult can feast on our flesh, but our brains will be scattered around the yard for the pigs, you hear me?!

I'm being dramatic, but only just. He showed me where the night before some poachers had opened fire on his pickup when he went to investigate some strange lights on the hill. Punched a fist sized hole in the bed with 00 buck, (by my estimation) been all that far away. I asked him if he'd called the law, and he reached into his cab to retrieve his ruger blackhawk. "Hell naw, I returned fire!" Jesus wept.

Mr. Spitter returned to fire up the fucking bulldozer, stopping only briefly to blind Dennis Nedry. The diesel engine roared to life, and the tracks began grinding their clacking, sinister path across the Rhine, over to the box truck. Spitter lifted the bucket impossibly high, and then Our Aaron clambered up the earth mover like a freakishly large spider monkey, (keep in mind, in his bare, muddy, hobbit feet) motioning me to follow. As a Jeep Inline Six isn't exactly a paperweight, I had no choice but to discard my jacket and join him on his perch, though I chose what seemed to me a less dangerous route up. We shoved the engine into the bucket and proceeded to dump it onto the floor of the trailer with no incident.

I handed the man his money and practically leaped towards the cab of the truck. "Hey man, if you need any chevy parts you just let me know! I got plenty!" Dad moved as fast as his artificial knee could carry him into the truck, having not said a word this entire time. We fired that mother up and headed back across the mountain.

Moral of the story: When you buy shit from the Redneck Craigslist, ask them to meet you with it somewhere.

[G.Irish]

That was also the last time we stayed at Innkeeper North, but later, we'd have some good times at Innkeeper South.

Where were we when throwing pizza slices off the balcony onto RJ's Type R? I vaguely remember him slightly trying to be cool about it but I'm pretty sure wanted to kill some people. :dunno:

Wasn't that CMP? That was also when those toothless local girls were trying to hit on you guys right?

[V1GiLaNtE]

My garage party on a Friday night (I think) prior to karting Saturday, and Goodspeed being in a coma until about 5pm that Sunday. You can thank Blair.

WOW. Totally forgot about that one. :lol:

[Kaan]

That was also the last time we stayed at Innkeeper North, but later, we'd have some good times at Innkeeper South.

Where were we when throwing pizza slices off the balcony onto RJ's Type R? I vaguely remember him slightly trying to be cool about it but I'm pretty sure wanted to kill some people. :dunno:

Wasn't that CMP? That was also when those toothless local girls were trying to hit on you guys right?

yes... the freshly detailed Type R with $$$ of dent removal done. pizza and the pizza box from the second story. I think it all buffed out.

Mikey also tried to take the one road sign in the town Kershaw out of the ground by shaking it.

The ladies pulled up in the ford Taurus and even blind drunk they were ugly.

[BLINGMW]

mmm yes, Kershaw SC. Makes surroundings of VIR and Summit look like vacation resorts.

[CaptainHenreh]

- the infamous half naked Bro (BDSM) picture that i'm still confused about

There's context you're missing, scotty. CONTEXT.



Also, I think the statute of limitations has passed on these, and it really is magnificent:






Probably my favorite MMemory is with Dave. I get a call at 3am. Three in the fucking morning, on a school night. It's Dave. "Hey, I need you to pick me up, I'm in Strasburg."
What the...fuck? Why?
"Look just come get me, ok?"
So I do 100mph in the 240sx all the way to Strasburg to find that Dave's 1JZ MkIII had, somehow, sheared the lugnuts and had only one stud holding on the passenger wheel. It's not much of a story, but Dave and I didn't know each other very well at the time...still, he knew he could call an MMer and they'd come rescue him.

My other favorite memory is of Boobies and that rediculous hat at the halloween going away party. Jesus, he was drunk off his dick and kept making nonsensical announcements.

[SlimKlim]

"Look just come get me ok?" :lol:

And Holy Shit I dont think I've seen the photos of Bangbus 1.0. I've only heard the legends. Its glorious.

Remember when we drove the other JMU Bangbus to VIR, got a room that smelled like a dead hooker rotting in a giant ashtray, squeezed 7+ people in it, Chris Chrzan and Levey built (and slept in, if I remember right) a pillow fort, and I slept under the sink? I dunno which hotel that was, but I'm guessing its one of the same ones you guys are talking about...




The time Cabell alluded to earlier when I showed up at his house before he was even awake so I could rebuild my shifter in his parking lot. In February. With about half of the proper tools.

I use my shitty low-profile jack to get the car up on stands, but there's already a problem. I can only get the belly of the car about 1/8" higher off the ground than the width of my chest, which is not made any easier by the layers of clothes I have on, what with it being February, below 30*, and windy as fuck.

It's also worth noting that this was probably the "deepest" I had gone into this car at this point and despite brushing up on all the DIYs, I still had fuck all clue what I was doing. As such ignored the advice to remove the driveshaft (or at the very least, the exhaust midsection) because obviously the people who wrote those DIYs don't know anything and it'd be a huge waste of time.

I get started, wedged under the car with barely enough room to breathe, feeling like I'm trying to reenact my birth every time I have to get out from under the car. Cabell shuffles out of the house at some point, wraps his big fluffy bathrobe tighter around himself, surveys the situation and promptly informs me he has "tons" of "homework" and scurries back inside to the relative warmth of the house.

Within the first hour I'm losing feeling in my fingers, which is a problem, because I can't see fucking shit, because I didn't remove the exhaust or driveshaft. But I push on.

BMW peeps have probably heard the term "bitch clip." It's a weird little hinge that holds the front of the shifter carrier in place that you have to pry open with a long screwdriver. It can be done in seconds if you know exactly where to go, but I didn't, so I spend hours 2-4 of the project hopelessly fishing around. I can no longer feel my fingers or toes. Then I spent hours 5 and 6 of the project attempting to assemble the shifter assembly with teeny little circlips and plastic washes, with my numb fingers, wedging my arms around the exhaust and driveshaft I didn't remove.

Fuck that was miserable. 40,000 miles of hard driving and way too much shift knob uninstallation/reinstallation I've managed to fuck up the new shifter cup, and now the bottom of the shifter arm will skim the driveshaft if you don't shift out of 5th properly (i.e. holding the shifter up). It needs to be rebuilt again but I'm irrationally gun shy after that experience, despite the fact it ought to be a jiffy in a nice clean, warm garage.


The day we beat Tech and abandoned all of our cars mid project to race to campus in Jake's E30 (the only drive-able vehicle we had access to at the time) was almost as miserable. The rear of the car had gotten very 'wandery', and when I finally decided to poke around under there I realized my trailing arm bushings looked like wet toilet paper and were probably literally disintegrating as I drove.

"How hard could it be" I thought. I bought polyurethane bushings because they "don't need to be pressed in" and are more user friendly to your average DIYer.

So I raise the rear of the car up in a visitor's spot in Pheasant. Take the rear wheels off and drop the trailing arm brackets out. Piece of cake. Then I start trying to get the old bushings out. Shit.

I have nothing but hand tools at my disposal. I spend probably an hour wailing on the goddamn thing with my big screwdriver and a hammer, and all I manage to accomplish is to knock out a bunch of the rubber and make it impossible for me to turn around and put it back together the way it is.

I don't even remember what power tool I was trying to use, but I ended up running like every extension cord everyone in Pheasant out of jake's house, across the parking lot and down the street to try and drill the fucking things out or something, and I finally realize it's the metal outer sleeve of the bushing that has seemingly bonded with the trailing arm. I'm not 100% sure but I think I ended up hollowing them out and then going at them with a hacksaw and/or continuing to wail on it with my screwdriver and hammer until I can deform the metal sleeve enough to break the seal with the trailing arm, and then chisel around between the bushing and arm to finally free it from its rusty grave.

So that was awful, but thank god the new ones "don't have to be pressed in." Then I instantly realize what they mean by that is "you should probably still have a handheld bushing press of some sort, you just don't need to drop out the entire goddamn assembly and use a hydraulic press." So I spend the next few hours trying to hammer these goddamn poly bushings into place that seem .000000001% too big for the hole. Ugh.

[JustinG]

What isn't being shown in Bangbus 1.0 is the DVD flip out, PS2, and the 2 10in subs we installed in the back that Jeff Morrison had laying around.

Man that was a glorious day, even more glorious was the panic call I got from Goodspeed when the University called him to chat about a complaint we got regarding the van. Something along the lines of misuse of state resources, wasting tax payer money, and it was being "Raced" around the track, ie driven to deliver lunch and pickup the 5 MM corner workers we had working that weekend.

[SlimKlim]

:lol:

[JustinG]

Note to others, pull govt tags off van prior to shenanigans.

[Jake]

Remember when we drove the other JMU Bangbus to VIR, got a room that smelled like a dead hooker rotting in a giant ashtray, squeezed 7+ people in it, Chris Chrzan and Levey built (and slept in, if I remember right) a pillow fort, and I slept under the sink? I dunno which hotel that was, but I'm guessing its one of the same ones you guys are talking about...

That was the 100-mph-Caravan, we stayed at the Innkeeper in Danville (ick) and yes, Chris Chrzan/Levey and Steve Plante collectively constructed Madison Motorforts. :mrgreen:

I think I ended up hollowing them out and then going at them with a hacksaw and/or continuing to wail on it with my screwdriver and hammer until I can deform the metal sleeve enough to break the seal with the trailing arm, and then chisel around between the bushing and arm to finally free it from its rusty grave.

So that was awful, but thank god the new ones "don't have to be pressed in." Then I instantly realize what they mean by that is "you should probably still have a handheld bushing press of some sort, you just don't need to drop out the entire goddamn assembly and use a hydraulic press." So I spend the next few hours trying to hammer these goddamn poly bushings into place that seem .000000001% too big for the hole. Ugh.

I think you used a little hacksaw.

Important to note - we definitely left ALL of our tools and car keys outside alongside the cars when we left.

Those poly bushings slip in very easily if you coat 'em in dish soap, I learned that when I helped my friend Kenny do them on his E46. Took like 5 minutes.

[ScottyB]

Madison Motorforts

:lol: i've never heard of this but want to know more

[Jake]

Found a couple more photos...

As mentioned, Madison Motorforts:



Using the Miata as a paddock taxi at VIR:

[SlimKlim]

They really slept in that fort too, together.

[SlimKlim]

Those poly bushings slip in very easily if you coat 'em in dish soap, I learned that when I helped my friend Kenny do them on his E46. Took like 5 minutes.

[youtube]1_xwnb3cymc[/youtube]


Just remembered another one. Does anyone remember when Chris Chrzan and I got into an epic wrestling match in Charleston over a nickname that I had earned fair and square, but did not appreciate? :lol:

[Jake]

Just remembered another one. Does anyone remember when Chris Chrzan and I got into an epic wrestling match in Charleston over a nickname that I had earned fair and square, but did not appreciate? :lol:

"Hey Chris! What if I'm driving around tomorrow and the main route I'm going to take is closed?"

"Hmm Jake, maybe you should have a... plan B?"

:lol: :lol: :lol:

We egged you on SO HARD.