ROAD TRIP!

Those two words are magical to some of us. When my pal Scott mentioned a possible road trip to the 50 Year Anniversary Aero Warrior Reunion, he hinted at wanting a co-driver. Driving thousands of miles in a 440-6 Superbird? Sure, why not!

So we planned it for months. He had owned the car for years but had only driven it locally. It needed some attention. The brake lights did not work, the tires were old, one high beam was out, all little stuff that was remedied before the trip started.

On any road trip, you discover things about the car. At first it was running lean, so he went up a jet size. Then it ran rich, due to an internal leak in the rear carburetor.

While sorting through this issue, a terrible engine noise popped up out of the blue, it sounded like rod knock, very loud & unpleasant. It turned out that the harmonic balance had come loose. A prior owner had used orange RTV on the bolt threads!

With the threads cleaned up & the bolt torqued down, all was fine again. Then we noticed that the passenger side flexible brake hose had cracked. Several calls made, no one in the area had one. Summit Racing in Georgia had some in stock & it was just down the road from where our hotel for the next night was. So we kept a close eye on things & drove from Tennessee to Atlanta with no issues. Thankfully Summit was open late, so we changed the line in their parking lot. Their lot attendant even stopped by to ask if we had any trash for him!

With the delays, we ended up in rush hour traffic entering Atlanta. Stop. Go. Repeat. And then out of the blue off to our right, a guy in a white Ford pickup sees us & in the perfect 'Robbie' voice yells out "Yo, Dirt!". After a long day & a late night of wrenching & things not going well, it was great comic relief, it cracked us up.

While talking to two young NASCAR fans the last day at Talladega, they asked why there were Fords, Plymouths & Dodges, but no Chevrolet cars at the reunion? I pointed out the Mercury cars in attendance & then told them - 'Chevrolet had NOTHING to compete with these cars back then, so they just stayed away'.

We also have to thank Ed Buczeskie, Chet Biggers, his lovely wife Tracy & their feline keeper Merlot for their hospitality & help! Thanks also to the participants in the hotel parking lots & at the show events for lending tools to us when we needed them!

If you were there, you may see pictures in this album that include your car & very possibly yourselves. We met a lot of great people along the way!