Thursday, July 26, 2018

Sprint Cars With A Side Of Root Canal

Cuzzin Ricky and I went to the sprint car races in Kokomo Tuesday night. This was a make-up night for the race that got rained out over the weekend. They held an autograph session with all the drivers prior to the race and even had the preprinted sheets with all their photographs on it. Very nice. The drivers were all very pleasant and courteous - that's the way to build your fan base. Meet your favorite driver and get his autograph, and if you didn't already have a favorite, they were all there for you pick from. The racing was good. They had micro sprints or something as a support race - no modifieds, all open wheel. A few heat races, "B" main and a 30 lap feature.

They had a couple of guys promoting the Brickyard 400 there. If you signed up for a chance to win a couple of free tickets, they gave you some swag. They were also promoting the midget race that will be a few days before the Brickyard. Rick and I already have our tickets for that one. Should be quite the race - $70,000.00 prize money at stake with $15K to the winner. That should bring them all out for that one.

I got a little bit of work done in the shop yesterday. Put the headlight bracket back on the 900 and polished up the headlight and turn signals with a bit of chrome polish. I think I need to start sorting out the wiring. I've got no idea where all the various wires go. I've got a shop manual with a wiring diagram. When I did the Sportster, I enlarged the diagram and then glued it to a piece of cardboard and set it up right where I was working. I should do the same on this job. 

I tacked the work stand for the Rickati together. I need some more flat stock for stretchers on the legs. I made a slight change in the plan so I need to see what I've got piled up in the corner of the shop. I checked into some tubing for the back frame loop. Online Metals has 4130 and some fancy DOM tubing but it's very much cost prohibitive. Wag-Aero has some mild steel stuff that's reasonable but they only carry it in .049" wall. I'd prefer something a bit thicker, not that it needs the strength but to be able to bend it without flattening it out. I've bought tube from an outfit in Indy before but I can't remember the name of the place. I need to jog my memory a bit or look on one of the cardboard mailing tubes I've got tubing stored in. Might get lucky there. It'll come to me eventually. I looked into buying fenders for the project. I'm waiting to get the quote on the shipping costs.

The visit to the dentist didn't work out like I planned. The tooth that caused me to seek professional assistance is a wisdom tooth. I figured it might be time for an extraction. I was right about that but also when he was poking around in there he found some bad stuff with another tooth in the same neighborhood. So I got the crown pulled off, a root canal, a temporary crown, and another visit next week to get the wisdom tooth yanked and the permanent crown installed. Really looking forward to that. Also the anti-biotics he gave me can give you diarrhea. That's just what I need. No way I can make the dash from the shop to the house if that sets in. Maybe put the manual for the 900 in the bathroom so  I can study the wiring diagram if I'm hit with a case of the grips. Always something. 

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