on September 13, 2012
Wow, it has been over a year since we first purchased a car and considerably more than a year since we first picked up the rule book from SCORE to start working on this project. In that timeframe we have met a lot of new people (The Desert Dingos, Emme Hall, OMG Motorsports, Fire Guys Racing and many more!), we have learned a ton of new things and we have created a great vehicle. So many of the pieces are aligned together to make this car drive able and yet it still the light is flickering at the end of the tunnel just out of reach.
We have built a few pretty interesting vehicles over the years from Classic VW restorations, Pikes Peak Hill climb cars, Rally cars, Soapbox cars and more and one thing that is always the case is that little time when you simply get to a point where frustration sits in. Where your body and mind start rejecting your stubbornness and you begin to think that this project will never be completed. It is a tough thing to push through. All you want to do is drive the car and there simply isn’t enough time to get it done fast enough for your will to push on. In addition to that, life gets in the way sometimes. Yes, that can happen for anyone and for a team it gets even tougher because each person can see their own frustrations and each person can bring them to the workshop.
The beauty of this timeframe in a project is, when you do push through, when you get to that other side, when you push that starter button for the first time and you slide the gearshift into first and pull away the reward that comes from that is so far superior to all the frustrations you encountered that you know everything was worth it. From my own experience I have heard a car fire up for the first time and felt that energy surge through my being many times. With the soapbox cars we have adhered the last graphic and stood back to look at the car in the sunlight to marvel at our own creations and wow, what a feeling! It sure makes up for all those times you sat in the drivers seat with the steering wheel in your hand making engine sounds in your head and making sure nobody is watching!
Here at Project Baja, we have had a few setbacks, a few delays and a few distractions. Life, time, money and “other” have all posed a few setbacks along the way. Distractions? Like having a roll over crash at Pikes Peak or like putting the final finishing touches on a classic 1972 VW Bug, heading to Reno to race with the Desert Dingo’s, or simply maintaining a healthy lifestyle by remembering that you gotta get out and ride a bike once and a while are all things that are still important. Not to mention work commitments, and well, work still pays the bills around here! In addition to that, there have been quite a few parts of the car where we simply have to sit down and figure out what the best next step is to fabricate something. Where should this tube go, how much should this be notched, where is the best place to put this spare, what is the best way to make this. Sitting down, discussing it and thinking about it have taken more time than expected. We ain’t quitters though, yeah, the time is tight but we are pushing on with all our might. Our distractions have reinvigorated our will and this pile of parts isn’t going to just build itself. We are cranking away and with any luck we will have this car running soon. We can’t say for sure that we will be done in time for the Baja 1000 this year, but we can say that we still have our sites set on it. If we do miss it, well, that doesn’t mean we are giving up, oh no, we have a race car and it needs a race. We will not stop until this thing is bouncing around the roads and trails of Baja Mexico!
We definitely apologize for the delay but rest assured we are still moving forward and we are still making the best Class 11 car that we can build! We’ll have a new build update soon and hopefully a new webisode too! In the mean time, check out some shots from our distractions and from our build!
