“Pop…pop…bang…wheeeeeeeeeeeee”

I quickly switched off the ignition.

It must be Sunday.

You see, Sunday is the Lord’s day. It is not the Neon’s day. We have a history, so let me explain.

One of the things I like least about race weekends is that it means missing church. Yes, racing on Monday would have certain disadvantages, but it’d at least be nice to get to a service on Sunday morning. I’ll need to suggest something to Dave Royce about that. Anyway, this will sound bizarre to anyone and everyone reading this, but God speaks to me through cars. I don’t mean that in any kind of blasphemous way, either. I am serious. He spoke to Balaam through a donkey, to Zaccheaus through a tree and to Moses through a burning bush. Me? It’s cars, especially broken ones. For the past year, the Neon has been telling me, “Quit skipping church to go racing”.

Our tales of Sunday woe begin last May at the Putnam Park race. About a hundred yards past the checkered flag, our old engine expired in a gigantic cloud of smoke as the #2 connecting rod chose that moment to exit the block at a high velocity. The resulting hole was impressive; the bill for a new engine was also impressive. Jack finished on the podium, so not all was lost, but it helped establish our team tradition of pushing the car on to the trailer at the end of the day on Sunday.

Over time, it would get worse.

At the next race, which was last July at Mid Ohio, we arrived with a shiny new engine and high hopes. On the third lap of Sunday’s race, an out of class car “gently” nudged Jack into a steel guardrail at 95mph. The result: a green race car that is no longer with us. Jack emerged unscathed, but with a sore neck. We pushed what was left of the green Neon on to the trailer and dragged it back to the shop for final disassembly.

Twenty one days later, we arrived at Mid Ohio again with a brand new car, built from what we could save from the green car. The new car is blue. Lapis blue. It is not purple. If you see a purple car, you either have a cheap Chinese made monitor, faulty vision or a poor background in graphic arts. Finally, we had a perfect weekend, with no broken parts! I drove the car off the track after my final session and right on to the trailer, which I promptly hit, simply because I was used to pushing the car on, not driving it. No Neons or trailers were harmed in the process, though.

At the National Championships in September, Jack was qualified fifth and we had great hopes for Sunday’s race. Until a tire valve broke while exiting the pits, instantly deflating the driver side front tire.

Maybe God is talking to Jack.

At the next race in October, back again at Putnam Park, the car ran flawlessly all weekend. All I needed to do was run my final session and drive the car on to the trailer. This time I was ready, and would not hit the trailer. Out on track, I had a nice little battle going with a double cam Neon, finally getting around him and putting some distance between us…until I spun the car in turn 5, stalling it in the process. No problem. Just wait for a few cars to go by, hit the starter button and…hit the starter button…ummm…starter button??? Of course, I’d spun facing backwards and gotten stuck directly in the middle of the track, ala Ron Dodson. Eventually, the officals figured out that my car was broken and black flagged the session, sending a tow truck out to get me. In what would be a comic miscommunication if it happened to someone else, the tow truck ripped the front bumper off of the Neon, or more accurately, I ripped the Neon front bumper from the tow hook. Something like that. Anyway, I’m pretty sure we pushed it on the trailer again. End of season.

In May, we were back at it for Putnam Park, and once again Saturday was trouble-free, with Jack taking home a stunning win. Sunday? The engine computer quit in mid race, dying a most permanent death. Hello, trailer. It’s Sunday, so we must be pushing the car on. You know how this works by now.

July saw us return to Mid Ohio for a solid, trouble-free Friday and Saturday, with Jack getting another podium finish. Jack always finishes third or better on Saturday, because it’s Saturday. Eventually, we will learn to take the trophy home Saturday night and go to church on Sunday like decent people. Sunday, Jack was running fourth when the exhaust overheated the gas tank, causing fuel to spray out the filler next. For those of you not technically inclined, that is filed under “very bad”. Boom. Another Sunday up in smoke. I mean that figuratively.

Which brings us to yesterday morning. It is most definitely Sunday.

Noting that the car doesn’t appear to run at all, and that the gas pedal doesn’t appear to…well…work, I hop out and start digging around under the hood. Broken throttle cable? Nope, it’s tight. Throttle bracket? Bolted down. Throttle spring? Aha! It’s loose, but why is that whole thing wiggling? Off comes the intake pipe, and there’s the answer: the throttle shaft on our BRAND NEW throttle body snapped in half. Are you buying into this Sunday thing yet?

Practice starts in twenty minutes and we have three replacement throttle bodies at the shop, which is an hour away in Westerville. If I hustle, we can get this thing back together in time for qualifying. All is not lost, and I now have a perfect excuse to take Jack’s Audi S5 for a drive. While our competitors are all lining up on grid, I rocket away into the central Ohio countryside to go get parts and tools. “Tinman” Matt Johnston has a plan to make a new throttle shaft out of parts from our old throttle bodies.

I carefully zip down route 314; it’s Sunday morning, which is Amish rush hour, and there’s a horse and buggy about every mile or so. Looking far ahead isn’t just a vital racing principle, it’s important on the street also, and I don’t like to spook the horses or their buggy passengers. Once I’m back on 71, I can open up the Audi a little more. It’s just a fantastic car at cruising speeds; smooth, quiet and tons of pull from the V8. Part way to Columbus, I send Jack a text: “How do you not do 120 everywhere you go in this?”

He replies: “I remember that I am on an Ohio freeway in a bright green car”.

Point taken. I dial it back down to 80.

Forty five minutes later I’m at the shop with throttle bodies in hand and on my way back. It’s a personal door-to-door record for me to Mid Ohio by a two and a half minutes. This is a good weekend.

Once back, Matt gets the throttle body back together and working, and I replace the MAP sensor with one I grabbed from the shop, just in case that’s the source of our tuning maladies. I won’t keep you in suspense. It wasn’t.

So, we’re still feeling good. New tires, fixed throttle body, new computer, new sensor, new IAC, re-hung exhaust, MacGyver crankcase breather…all ready to go for qualifying. Out goes Jack. Twenty minutes later, in comes Jack, with a qualifying time two seconds slower than yesterday, good for eighth.

Out of nine cars.

It’s Sunday.

This time, the fuel tune looks good, but the car is just slow. The new computer doesn’t seem to be doing us any favors, so we switch back to the old one, figuring that maybe the sensor was the problem. Basically, we’re lost. Everything seems right, except the car isn’t accelerating on the straights like it should and like it was on Friday or even on Saturday. Still, it runs and is ready to go for the race, so we park it and wait. Jack takes a nap, and I go watch the other race groups with our friends who showed up.

About a half an hour before the race, we get the bright idea to quickly bleed the front brakes, just to get a little extra pedal feel. It seems to go well, though due to the noise we had to change procedures a bit and use head nods to signal each other. In hindsight, this was not a brilliant innovation. Somehow, we must have gotten our nods crossed, because the brakes got worse. We discovered this on grid with three minutes to go before roll out, so Jack would just have to make the best of it. Neon brakes are something of a disaster even under the best of circumstances, so we’re both used to the “stab and pray” braking method.

Once again, Jack made a dramatic start, moving up to second place by the time the pack reached the front straight, but the car didn’t have enough acceleration coming out of corners to hold that position. Even from outside the car, it was obvious that something was wrong, and that even the superior grip of new tires wasn’t helping. Eventually, we settled into sixth, with Brian Makse and Steve Eich dicing furiously for the lead. Jack didn’t have the speed to challenge Faisal for fifth, and had sixth well in hand. Around the half way point, Robert Keller pulled his Miata into the pits and retired from the race, moving Faisal and Jack to fourth and fifth. A few laps later, Faisal’s car developed a handling problem, leading to two consecutive spins, putting him out of contention and moving us to fourth where we’d stay. With no way to challenge Eric Waddell in third, and being almost half a lap ahead of the fifth place Mustang, Jack entertained himself by trying to edit the fuel settings on the SAFC at 100+mph on the back straight. Thankfully, neither the car nor the engine were damaged in the attempt. Don’t try this at home. In fact, don’t try it anywhere. I’m still appalled.

Finally, the checkered flag came out, which saw Eich beating Makse by a car length after a phenomenal race between the two of them. Jack came home in fourth, behind Waddell, who was driving Sam Myers’ new Civic after having blown the engine in his own. We are rapidly becoming a lonely island of domestically-built tranquility in a sea of Hondas.

The fourth was Jack’s lowest actual finish ever in the car, and though I dislike moral victories almost as intensely as he does, that’s what it was. We fought through problems all weekend long, yet finished both races in respectable positions. It wasn’t what we’d hoped, but we’ve had much worse outcomes. At least the car was still running.

Or maybe not.

On returning to the pits, it was apparent that the clutch had overheated, making it difficult to shift and get the car in gear. In a final indignity, the car refused to start when it came time to drive it on to the trailer, so we had to push it once again.

Did I mention that the race officials finally decided on Saturday’s results, moving Eich back to second and us back down to fourth?

It has to be Sunday.