I have wanted to try different types of racing for a while now, including drag racing. Luckily, the New England Dragway is only about 15 minutes from our house.  There were a few "Street Night" events left this season, so once my parents got the paperwork straightened out and our helmets arrived, my father and I went on October 23rd.  We took the Camaro and the Tesla.  After a run in each car with my dad riding along, we took turns driving each car down the 1/4 mile.  There were so few cars that we got to race each other in every round.  My dad's times were only slightly faster MPH and slightly quicker times, as shown on the two slips with our best times in the Camaro and the Tesla.  It's a great rush to drive that fast, and in the Camaro with the manual transmission, getting the RPM, clutch and shifting correct is tricky, but I know I did well and I'll do my best to beat him next time!  I am looking into other performance modifications I can make to the Camaro to get it going a bit faster and quicker for next year.

One of my father's coworkers is a performance driving instructor, and we are going to be attending some of his track day driving programs in the spring - I can't wait!  We will again bring the Camaro and the Tesla Model 3 Performance.

This is the 1994 Z28 Camaro that my parents purchased in 1996.  It had only 9k miles on it back then.  They have never driven it in the winter, and I have enjoyed learning how to drive a 6 speed manual and also how to maintain and repair it.  I have helped with some of the repairs over the years, including replacing the clutch, pulling the engine for a rebuild, the accident repair shown below, and other little upgrades.  We just purchased some helmets so I can take it to the local New England Dragway to try drag racing for the first time.

Unfortunately, and uninsured and unregistered driver ran a stop sign and t-boned the car when my father was driving home from work in October of 2023.  It's a long story, but we are having to take her to small claims court, as she is refusing to reimburse us for the damage she caused, even though the police report clearly shows she is fully at fault.

Following the accident in Oct 2023, amazingly, my father found a rust free nearly identical car locally (!) that had a good driver's side door and rear quarter panel.  We chose to remove the parts ourselves to save money and also to ensure they weren't damaged during the removal process.  My dad borrowed an awesome 9" battery powered Milwaukee chop saw from a friend, and here you can see me cutting through the side of the car to get the panel we need.  Luckily, everything went well, and the body shop was glad we had sourced the parts.

The driver's side powered mirror stopped tilting up and down.  I could hear the motor turning, but the mirror wouldn't move.  I could also easily poke the mirror and it would tilt up and down.  Yesterday, we disassembled the door, removed the mirror, and found a small molded plastic screw that drives the mirror was broken where the spherical head connects to the thread.  I measured the thread with a thread pitch gauge and found that it was a match to a standard M6 screw.  Using the 9" South Bend lathe and a ball turning attachment my father had made years ago, we recreated the ball and pin features using a couple stainless steel bolts and some small dowel pins.  After a little trial and error, they popped into the socket perfectly and are MUCH stronger than the original plastic parts.  The broken plastic part is on the lower left.  We reassembled the door and it should be good for another 30 years.