Day 0

Mood: Feelin Frisky Vehicle Status: Assemble as you go Start Point: Mullica Hill, NJ End Point: Staten Island, NY End of day Points Standing: Everyone is tied Daily Challenge: Just get to the starting line. Narrative:  The thrash on this one was long and arduous.  The car fought at every turn.  So at day -1 there was still alot to be done, most of it electrical.  Luckily Chris came down a day early and it was all sorted.  But we were still thrashing to the last minute before departure.  2 More Misfits met up with us at the house and helped thrash some more as we waited for Team Born from Jets to meet up with us for the caravan to NYC. The dirve to NYC was great.  3 ugly bangers cruising through NJ, all the misfits kids with the tops down and lovin life.  Having power to not only keep up with traffic but pass at will was a welcome change.  Of course there were all the trepidations of the first trip.  Remember this was a car which had required MAJOR work and had not travelled more than 2 blocks on any of the bodged repairs.  So the safe arrival in NYC was definite cause for celebration.  I may have overcelebrated a bit...ok alot, but in the end it was a great night...or so I'm told.

Day 1

Mood: Is hungover a mood? Vehicle Status: Less than watertight Start Point: Staten Island, NY End Point: Harrisonburg, VA End of day Points Standing: 2nd Daily Challenge: Spot the picture challenge Narrative:  Ok, I may have overdone it a bit.  I was tired (4 hours of sleep will do that) and hungover as all hell.  Chris graciously took the first turn at the wheel while I tried to see how much water I could drink.  It was raining and we were less than watertight...what a great way to start a day.  Still we lined up at the start and finally after 3 years were able to give the organizers the burnout they had been waiting for.  Chris kept it in check a bit due to the rain but still it was a robust start. The challenge was similar to last year only the pictures were harder and more of them were in Virginia and not as much in NJ. We made a scheduled stop back at the MTR headquarters to do a welding repair on the PGA Golf team's car.  I had appearently agreed to this in my drunken stupor the night before.  Just kidding guys, Id have done it either way. ;) We caravaned throughout the day with PGA Golf, 2 More Misfits and our friends Barb and Louis who we first met on the 2006 rally.  It was good to have them back again! We made Harrisonburg in good time and the parkinglot was hopping.  Our improvised party system ($60 speaker box with funky neon lights from PepBoys) set forth the tunes and the refreshments flowed freely. Information about the day 2 challenge was handed out, this was new to everyone, usually you don't get your info until the morning of the day.  But this one required preparation.  So in between all the partying people were dashing off to strategy huddles, planning sessions and navigational decision groups.  But the party pressed on. As with this stop last year water balloons were deployed with yet again limited results due to the impairment of the launch team.

Day 2

Mood: Just Super! Vehicle Status: Still running but with impending failure Start Point: Harrisonburg, VA End Point: Newport, TN End of day Points Standing: Holding on to 2nd Daily Challenge: Dress as superman and visit 3 towns out of a list of 12 Narrative:  Although cosume day generally makes me feel like the wierd/scary version of whatever we are dressed as this year was great.  Why?  Because soooo many people were way wierder and scarier than I.  A whole parkinglot full of Supermen in bangers.  It was great.  We had to drive (dressed as superman) to 3 towns on a list of 12 and get our photos with a local person in front of a municipal building with the town's name.  The towns with the LEAST visits scored the most points.  There were just too many ways to play this stragegy so in the end we mixed it up between the furthest towns and some closer ones.  The drive was FANTASTIC!  Getting to some of these rural podunk towns required driving alot of mountian backroads.  Although it was a long day the drive was so much better than hours of droning down the highway. Enroute to the first town we were pulled over by a VA state patrolman who had seen other teams going by and was just looking for an excuse.  He fell in behind us but we were behaving and not giving him an excuse.  Finally he noticed our cracked windshield (passenger side) and that's all she wrote.  So off to our first town where we camped out in front of the post office waiting to find a local to pose with us.  The nice lady who we finally got started chatting with us about the rally.  She told us to behave because she didn't want to have to see us under unfortunate terms.  Turns out she was the county clerk and the one I had to see about my ticket...small world in a small town. Of the few teams that made it to Welsh, WV most said they were met with hostility and it was not a good experience.  For us it was just the opposite.  They loved us and went out of their way to accomodate us.  I think the key here was when you are driving in the backwoods as superman in a crap car in the south (Yes WV is the south) you will do well to be in a General Lee replica.  It is quite shocking just how many homes still proudly(?) fly the rebel flag in their front yard.  This was definitely not the best area to be a wierdo in a superman costume, but the general lee saved us :) We took the long route and arrived somewhat late.  As we went to find parking a spark came up from the pedal cluster.  We parked the car while Chris checked us in and when we went to go again suddenly no clutch.   %$##*&@.  So we go her parked outside our room and I went to work.  While unpacking the trunk Chris noticed the second (and perhaps worse) catastrophy of the day....the top had come off the Bacardi!!! So there I am, fighting with a car that fights back and not even a Bacardi to soothe my wounds.  After hours of disassembly and troublshooting it was determined that one of the bits of wiring that I did (thats why Chris should do it) was chafing on the clutch pedal and when it chafed through it shorted out and melted the clutch cable to its sheath....sigh.  Nothing more to do tonite but get some sleep and get up early for parts.

Day 3

Mood: Tired and grumpy Vehicle Status: Clutch? We don't need no steenking clutch Start Point: Newport, TN End Point: Fort Payne, AL End of day Points Standing: Holding on to 2nd Daily Challenge: Have fun at Deals Gap (no points today)  Narrative:  An early start this morning, Jim W drove me to the nearest auto parts place to get a clutch cable.  We had confirmed online the night before that they did have one in stock so we were waiting at the door when they opened and back to the hotel pretty quick.  Now unbeknownst to me prior to all this the clutch setup in our car was not stock.  A stock 86 Mustang uses a self adjusting mechanism which is often replaced in favor of an adjustable setup for racing use.  This is what we had, and technically it uses a different cable.  Not to mention the adjuster on ours was siezed up and couldnt be adjusted.   As it turns out the cable still worked with what we had and we had a big stack of flat washers that we were able to use to adjust cable tension at the lower mount point.  A bodge job but it was actually a better "fix" than the setup that was in there when we started. So we started out down SR23 (or is it 32?) again.  This year we knew what to expect so we got there first and got the newbs and vets all bunched up to prepare for a group run down this thing (and to let the newbs know what to expect).  The Tossers with Tetanus spitfire led off with us behind and one of the AZ volvos behind us (sorry guys cant remember which team name but it was the blue one).  This twisty old half paved half dirt road is alot of fun and good for a little car like the spitfire that can toss around on it.  I was driving that morning and Im the "captian slow" of our team so we were content to keep up with the spitfire (not that I could have passed if I wanted) and the pace was brisk.  The volvo stayed right with us but beyond that someone wanting to take my captian slow title from me had the rest of the teams lagging far behind.  It was a good run for the 3 of us and impressive driving by the volvo to keep up.  At one point I came into a turn a bit too hot only to realize it was a complete hairpin not a 90 like most.  It was dirt at this point and turning the wheel just taught us a lesson in understeer...nail the throttle....wooooohoooo, throttle oversteer is a beautiful thing and it really saved our bacon that day.  I think that huge fishtailing, dirt spewing, high throttle adventure was the most I felt like we were doing justice to our theme all week, it was good old duke boys fun. As has now become tradition (is 2 years a tradion?) most of the teams met up at the abandoned "Jim's Junk" building at the end of the road.  The organizers had followed us through this year to see what all the talk was about from last year.  They were pleased to see the impromptu meet up and photo op.  2 More Misfits miata developed a coolant leak so everyone was on it right away.  Turns out the PO had replaced a small formed coolant line with some regular hose which due to not being formed had rubbed on the fan belt.  Luckily with the resources of many teams on hand we were able to get some hose and zip ties and bodge a solution.  The rest of the day was mostly about running Deals Gap.  The mustang was wired for video this year with 6 different camera mounts.  Only 2 cameras though so multiple passes were made to get all the good shots.  Chris even had us drop him off on the side of the road and run a short section of the gap a few times so he could get some good video. All in all it was a great day but with a few dark spots on the end.  One of the rally cars got involved in an accident coming into the hotel.  The accident was due to the fault of the other driver but it still messed up his car pretty bad.  Then since the police were still there cleaning up as we pulled in 2 More Misfits got a very questionable ticket for running a red light.  The truth is they had started to make the turn on green but then the public works guy ran out to start sweeping away some debris, by the time he moved the light was red but the 2MM car was in the intersection and had to finish the turn.  Top it all off with unfriendly locals and cops who disapproved of our tailgating (it was not rowdy as most of us were concentratiing on fixing the wrecked car) and it was not the best night.  We were able to get the wrecked car straight enough to continue on, and in the end that's what matters.  No banger left behind!

Day 4

Mood: Tired, but ready for the long run Vehicle Status: Still holding together Start Point: Fort Payne, AL End Point: NEW ORLEANS End of day Points Standing: Holding on to 2nd Daily Challenge: lame...get 6 pictures at BP gas stations Narrative:  At first we figured there must be a trick, 6 photos at BP gas stations, cant be hard.  Then we figured maybe BPs were limited in the south and if you followed the route you would only find 6 so you couldnt miss one.  Nope quick net check showed the area littered with them.  So no chance to catch up in the points on the last day.  Still it was a fun day of driving, a bit boring being mostly highway but at least we had highway capable cars for a change. The drive into New Orleans this year finally showed the biginnings of rebuilding down there.  It was good to see more new roofs and less old tarps. Much partying ensued as soon as we got to the hotel and the awards were handed out. For 2008 your winners are 1st: Born from Jets 2nd: Misfittoys Racing (hey thats us!) 3rd: William Penn's Hat Biggest banger: Tossers with Tetanus Tossers with tetanus were also the recipients of the first ever Misfit Toys Racing Spirit of the Event award and will receive a subscription to Grassroots Motorsports magazine for all their efforts. It is very notable that the top 3 placing teams this year were all from the Philadelphia area.  In fact Philly seems to be well represented on the rally as a whole.  Next year we may have to start a coalition of philadelphia teams "The Cheesesteak Mafia"