The Shop

My wife has a blog. She documents the comings and goings of our toddler. Occasionally, she features posts called, "Wordless Wednesdays." I would like to introduce everyone to "Too much $h!t Tuesday." These shots are a product of having moved from our old house to our new one and always taking time to fix the car instead of the garage. I will skip spending a lot of time explaining this situation and simply let the pictures speak to the current state of disorganization in my "Race Shop."



After scaring you with the Highlights-like "Hidden Pictures" feature, it is important to really thank my family for their support in all of this. There are really two portions to racing. There is a public portion and a private portion. The public portion is easily identifiable. In public, there is the loud cars, the time taken to go to the race track, and some social time with other racers. People, in public, can see all of that. What surprises most people is discovering that this public time is really, truly, the shortest and briefest part of racing. In private, there is cursing, money spent on parts, hours spent isolated turning wrenches and running wires. All of this creates a mess of a garage which in turn leads to more cursing. The private side is what ruins relationships and why spouses will frequently refer to their significant others' car as a mistress and claim to be widows during the racing season. My wife takes all of this in stride and even coordinates with family members to buy me gifts to help me get the car running and keep it that way. She even surprises me from time to time. Once, I left for a conference and upon my return found this had arrived in the garage without provication:


In previous years, I had been working out of a blue tackle box. A blue tackle box that I had once ran over with a car. A blue tackle box that I had once ran over with my car and it could not fit all of my tools. This big red box collection was a very welcome and entirely thoughtful present. I would have never bought one for myself as I would have kept saying how comfortable I am with by broken blue tackle box.

To round out the introduction to the shop, here is how I stay warm in weather than can reach below 0-degrees Fahrenheit:


It works. John Force Racing eat your heart out.