Update: 2-13-04 It is Friday the 13th so that can't be good. It has been a long time since i updated this but that is becasue i can't seem to go more than a day without changing my mind on whether i am going to race this year or not, lol. Oh what it would be like to have a money tree in the backyard. First i am going to touch on some of the things i mentioned in the last update. I would like to congratulate The Eagle on winning that State Points Championship. It was a great year and i really enjoyed being there through that championship run. It was almost worth blowing my motor up for. He came up a little short on the track titles but it gives him something to shoot for this year. Congrats to Keith and Joey as well as all the other divisional track champions. I now think the motor last year expired because i used a crappy fram filter. I have been hearing quite a bit lately about guys grenading becasue of the fram filters and the signs left behind in their motors sounds identical to what mine looked like. I have the parts for a new scab motor that i am hoping to start getting together pretty quick. Thanks to Ed for running around with me to get the parts. The car will be going on a big diet in the next few weeks to get it down to a fighting weight. Seems that the stocks have gotten so much lighter in the last two years that i need to do something to get it closer. Unless I have a sponsor accidentally give me some money it is going to be a battle to fund racing this year again but I am planning to get the car out for practice and then start the season and go from there. If i can manage to run a full season at one track I will be happy. Hell if i can get a win of some kind i will be delerious. The body is in good shape for obvious reasons and whether i repaint it will depend on what happens on the sponsor front. Previous News: 6-7-03 Well, I guess for now my season is on hold. I managed to blow my only motor up during the heat race the first time I raced this year. It appears that by trying to save a little money and use a stock oil pan I cost myself a motor. It did not oil the bearings properly and ended up shooting two rods through the pan and basically wrecking the entire thing. The worst thing is that when I did race I did not get to have even a few good laps. On the way to the track we had hitch problems just outside of Sturgeon Bay. Thanks to Jim Brunette for heading back across town to get my car from the side of the road or I would not have made it there at all. As it was I had to change, jump in the car and head to lineup without ever getting to setup the car for the heat race. The car was very tight and I had all I could do to get it around the track. Until I am able to get employed regularly again I am going to put racing on hold but I will be back out there sometime in the future. Right now I am just enjoying watching Ed have a season he has always dreamed of and trying to help him, when I can, in his state points chase. Also good to see Ben Kroll get that first Mid Am feature win. 5-2-03 First of all I would like to congratulate my nephew Edward Anschutz Jr. on picking up his first feature checker tonight at Luxemburg! My car will be ready to race next weekend. I am not sure yet if I will bring it to Luxemburg or wait for Saturday at Thunderhill. The motor is in and it has been scaled and it is ready to go. I am only waiting on my lettering to be completed. I am not too concerned about missing a few nights early in the year because I am not planning to run for points at any track this year. Thanks to Ben Kroll for all of his help on my car the past few weeks. 4-21-03 The car is all together and painted up. My vinyl sponsor was at the shop today to measure everything up and should have the vinyl ready for application sometime Wednesday. The refreshed motor will be going in tomorrow night and then i will be putting the nose on, fan and shroud, etc. I will post some pictures as soon as the car is lettered and i get the film back. If everything comes together I plan to bring the car to Luxemburg for opening night to test it out. I am not sure about my schedule yet but right now it is looking like I will be running Sturgeon Bay regularly and Luxemburg periodically. I will decide more as the season goes along. Thanks to everyone who helped me on the car and those who helped me get the parts i needed to be able to race this year. Old News: The offseason maintenance of the car is well underway. The suspension and body panels are off now. I am currently going through the suspension parts replacing bushings and painting them up nice. Up until the end of last year I was considering keeping the body intact and racing the same scheme again but the right side is too far gone. It looks like I will be putting an almost totally new skin on the car. Thanks to Matt Junio for giving me a couple rear quarters and a RF fender. These parts are getting very hard to come by these days and are only slightly easier to get than sponsors. Along with the new skin will come a new color and scheme. I have put the car away for the winter. With the help of Ed, Kevin and Rich the motor was pulled out and it is in the process of being refreshed by Ben Kroll. I am hopeful that we can get rid of a miss in the motor that plagued me the entire season last year. After getting some driving experience in 2001 while driving Tony Bouche's T-Bird I got the chance to learn a lot more in 2002 after having my own car. I learned a lot about chassis set-ups and keeping the car maintained with good equipment. My car was coming around towards the end of the year but suffered a setback when my crew chief took a try behind the wheel at the Door County Fair night. He moved up the track to avoid a car and found out what happens when you get in the marbles. The car hit the wall pretty hard and caused quite a bit of damage. Luckily the frame and cage were ok so we set out ot get it back together. With a big assist from the Eagle and the Performance Racing the car was better than before. I got done in time for the last race of the year up in Sturgeon Bay. It handled the best it had all year and if it were not for a problem with the power steering I would have had a strong finish. I am really looking foward to the 2003 season. At this point I am not exactly sure of how much racing I will be able to do or whether I am going to reskin the car. It depends on sponsor money and my employment situation but hopefully these questions will be answered soon. Jon Arndt |
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