[Cglrcng]

Ok in hindsight I went and looked up that time slip, It was a bad light, but the ET was not as bad as the light made me feel, but anytime you line up against someone from the Emmons Clan from Pasadena, TX, expect to get a workout. I know now, what I did not know then (I had yet to meet them yet other than through a glass window in the other lane my first National Event competing, and I was paying more attention to myself and my car, than I was who was in the other lane), as I had raced up till then all over SoCal, NorCal, the Western Div. 7, a couple of deep southern 1/8th mile tracks (that I could not today even find on a map if I tried), when travelling to and from CA to to FL for 3 Winter Bracket Series in the mid 80's...83, 84, and 85...then when I went again not racing, but as a Contingency sponsor and distributor of Nathan's Wax in 88 I think, via Missouri, and always just drove straight through that 24 hr loooong drive across the Great State of Texas and never had raced in Div. 4...only had a season under my belt in Stk. Elim thus far.

But I did recognize those Black and Yellow Pyroil/Valvoline Cars (there was a bunch of em, so they were very hard to miss), and Valvoline/Pyroil was also the fluid Mfg/Dist. Sponsor that year (Every National Event you were entered in, you went to the Mfg. Midway and chose your products, A case of oil, another trans fluid, and other products like brake fluid, injector cleaner, etc., I never changed my oil so much in my whole life as that year.

I had nothing but time between events but to drive (find a track with a bracket event), and attempt to pick up some cash along the way in what I was a lot better at than class racing yet, so it was find a track racing along the way, change oil and compete until you reached the next Div. or Nat. event on my schedule or sit in a motel/hotel room and be bored. the car was ok, as was I at slow roll bracket racing...But, I learned I really don't like 1/8 mile racing in a snail. The Deep South was full of those then.

Back at home I pulled out the Transaxle for the second time in a week, 3rd time ever, and all 3 times on the ground car up on jackstands and not on a lift. Tody would rather pull the engine out completely with it attached then just the transaxle alone, but what did I know, I was a lot younger and stupid (I pulled the converter out), checked the converter to pump seal, no issue there, but found a tiny pinhole leak in the weld around the balloon weld, it was leaking, wasn't a bad leak, but it left a quarter inch wide band of fluid around the center of the inside of the bell housing that was sealed up on the bottom by an inspection plate w/ a single bolt, and running it would put out a drop a minute or two. (This was a very tiny leak, but a leak all the same. And I'm leaving on nearly a 3,000 mile trip before I will arrive in Jacksonville, FL.