Buying a (Wrecked) Race Car
A couple of other good things happened at Northwest Tech: I met Bill Smith, a part-time instructor who would become my crew chief. And it is his son, Skyler, who became my driver. But first things first here in the car story. I got to know Bill, and came to respect his mechanical knowledge and his optimistic personality. He's a former over-the-road trucker, now an instructor and independent mechanic. The guy can fix anything. He's also a cheerful, upbeat and a true racing nut--just the chief I was looking for. Together, in the middle of winter, we started searching for a race car.
I knew the class I wanted--the "ModFour", or four-cylinder, lighter weight racer. I wasn't ready to throw down big bucks for a vee-eight A Mod or a Super Stock. And besides, there would a rookie driver behind the wheel. Our search started online, through major sites such as Allthedirt.com. But often good things happen almost my accident. A guy in my class at NW Tech, Cody from Grand Forks, was plugged into the whole eastern North Dakota racing scene, which is serious business. Donny Schatz himself, yellow No. 15 sprint car champion, lives in Fargo. Cody, too, races and seemed to know everybody. Well, Cody mentioned the Hausmann family from Grand Forks, and knew that one of the Hausmann boys had wrecked a nice ModFour--which was now for sale. I wasn't wild about the idea of buying a wrecked car, but Bill thought we should at least take a look.
On a very cold January day we headed west to North Dakota. We looked at a ModFour north of Fargo, then pressed on to Grand Forks. Jeff Hausmann, a fast-moving businessman and racing enthusiast, met us at one of his farms. Way back in a giant shed was a smashed, sad-looking red and white ModFour. The whole front end was crunched in (see photos) from a very hard hit. Clearly it had kissed concrete head on. But Jeff assured us that the engine had only a few shows on it, and he was ready to wheel and deal. Plus there were lots of extra parts, including axles, rims, etc. The price seemed right, so I closed the deal.
One of the neat things about the racing community is that everybody is helpful, and knows people who know people. In this case, Jeff Hausmann suggested we get in touch with the chassis guy who built the Mod-Four; maybe he'd fix it for us. So we made the call to Quinn Schreiber, a young farmer in western Minnesota. Though he was busy guy, too, he said, "Sure. Bring it down." To be continued.....
So what happened with your car? How are you doing? Did I missed the continuation of the story?
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