Who said it won't rain?

Today I accomplished two what most would call minor projects but when you are involved in a race (any race) let alone one that starts at the border of Guatemala and last until you get back to the United States some 7 days later NOTHING is minor.

One such task was finishing up the electrical system for the heater. Now before anyone starts asking questions like, "What kind of a race car has a heater?" let me tell you that I attribute lots of good reasons why a race car, especially a car designed for endurance racing should have not only a heater but defrosters to boot. God willing this will not be the only endurance race that Lucky will star in and there are several races TEAM CALIFORNIA'S BEST utilizes a heater/defroster. Besides the obvious reasons of needing a defroster in the humid and rainy jungles found in the southern parts of Mexico near the Guatemalan border and other races like the 25 HOURS OF THUNDERHILL which takes place in December during what some call the monsoon season, there are other factors. One such reason is that a heater helps an engine hold a larger amount of water which helps keep the engine running cooler especially since over-heating is a common problem at the altitude which cars run during the La Carrera Panamericana. Any winning endurance team will always give high priority to visibility and ways to help an engine run cooler.

Another "small" project I dealt with today was building a better mouse trap so to speak with regards to the power steering hoses. As I mentioned in an earlier post over the years I have removed power steering from many of my Mustangs but for such a long race with so many turns MAIERS RACING has advised me to run a custom power steering setup. Since Mustangs are not known for having reliable power steering hoses I designed and then had some hoses built that will not fail. The good thing about power steering on a mustang is that should it ever fail you can just keep on driving. Sort of like a built in back up plan.