After a couple of balmy weekends made to order for early season testing, winter rushed back into Central Ohio with a vengeance. It was T-shirts and shorts Thursday and boots and mittens Saturday.
The
turn in the weather was perfect for Conlin SpeedSports though. We hadn't
any definite strategies for the mis-fire problem we had been dealing with
and had taken no action and my ribs were still very sore so we wouldn't
have taken the opportunity to test even if there wasn't snow on the ground.
Instead, it gave us the time to replace the original Margay red with our
own team colors.
As
mentioned elsewhere on this site, as our plans for our race team developed
the teams colors soon became a topic of discussion. This was shortly after
one of our favorite drivers, Greg Moore, perished in a crash in the final
FedEx champ car race of the 1999 season in California. It was decided that
to carry his team's colors (Players Racing) would be a poignant, personal
tribute.
So when the cold snap settled in on Ohio, we saw it as our chance to make the change. We had already done some of the bodywork in the previous weeks but the kart's frame was to be the challenging part of the project. So starting Friday night the task of stripping everything off the chassis began. Karts are extraordinarily simple compared to race cars or even snowmobiles and all but a few components and systems were left to be removed by midnight. Saturday morning the last of those pieces were detached and the prepping of the chassis began. By 10 Saturday night we had a royal blue frame to work with instead of the red one and most of us a little whacky from the fumes (especially Nigel & I).
Late in the week, after returning from a business trip, re-assembly began and went just about as smoothly as disassembly. All but the floor pan had be re-installed by the time we left for our vacation to Fort Lauderdale. Good thing too as once we return there will be only about a week and a half until the first race. In that time we will have to find the combination of pieces that solve the mis-fire problem and make the final preparations for our debut.
Race back to 2000