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| 2002
Rim of the World It’s always a struggle working on a racecar when everyone on the team has real jobs in the real world and everyone knows how true this is. Getting sponsors is tough and it’s too late at this point. Just getting the physical work that needs to be done is a major challenge. We compile the TO DO LIST and just start assigning the tasks but first we have to find a location to work on the car. None of the gravel crew members have a usable garage and the Danahoe Racing facility where Scott works already has our 02’WRX locked into the dedicated rally spot on the shop floor. The car is hauled off to Hemit were our buddy Jeremy pulls the transmission out for us. The car comes back to Orange County and our buddy Jim of IMZZ Industries throws in a hand and a shop to work in for the next week after a failed attempt to use another shop in which it sat one whole week with no work performed other than the glass replaced. Tranny gets pulled only to find several pieces of what use to be our Clutch Master brand clutch and the tranny’s third gear syncro is going bad. We search the world over a donor tranny. Jeremy calls from Hemit and found a tranny. We get it only to find out that it’s not the same. Phil “Racer” Gonzales of DPG Performance & Design has a couple of clutches we try on the car and he gives us some very insightful knowledge on clutch design. While installing the clutch on the Tuesday before RIM, we find the tranny bolts are missing and we go into the mad search for the custom pitch tread design from Ford. Two dealers in the nation have the bolts in stock. One in Texas and the other in Tennessee. We need the bolts today! Phil knows the guys at Focus Central located way past Palmdale and very far from our Orange county location. The trek to Focus Central at 189 miles round trip is of major necessity with positive results in getting proper tranny bolts. A ZX2 is not the same as a ZX3. The motors may be the same but that does not hold true for the tranny as we found out the hard way. Poor Phil wrestled with tranny the night before the race as the gravel crew worked on various preparations and finish work. It was to be an all night slam session and was eight o’clock in on Friday morning before attempting to start the car and head for the mountain, as to what was the beginning of the end. After messing with the inertia switch in the truck and trying to bypass it, resulted in running a pin across the button to lock in the “on” position and then we could fire up the car. Just as we fired up the car, it began to spray oil all over the engine bay and scared the crap out of us! The result was a busted power steering pump reservoir. So off to McKenzie’s Offroad Supply to try to adapt a stainless steal reservoir and solve the problem. O.K?, check, Right! We had a proper running engine with an angry throttle cable that kept sticking open and worked on that for a bit and it was time to roll the car out and get going. It was 9:00 in the morning and tech inspection ended at 1:00 and our trip would be at least a 1:45 –2:00 hour drive. The final straw of luck had been dealt as we attempted to move the car out of the shop to only find that something very serious was wrong. The car would not move! It acted as if someone had the e-brake engaged at the front wheels. It would go in reverse, first, second and fourth with the other gears nowhere to be found. The tranny was obviously pissed. At this time I was under way too much stress and grief and I called for the towel to be thrown in. Yes, my emotions overran me and I cried on this day as we would not be racing and yet another attempt at challenging the Rim of the World or the “hill” as we call it. I soak up my sobbing and we decide to go to the event as spectators anyhow. It turned out to be fun as always! After
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