Alaska: Week 1

 Arrival, Palmer, Matanuska

We arrived late PM, stayed in a crappy hotel in Anchorage, then woke up the next morning and did our “supply runs” to the grocery store, REI (bear spray), and Barnes and Noble (car activities for the kids, as we banned screens for the kids on this trip).

The view from the plane on the way into Anchroage, 11pm

Then we headed to Hatcher Pass, which is a popular mountain area about an hour outside of Anchorage, that features backcountry skiing, hiking, and an abandoned gold mine. We were hoping to pan for gold (which they offer in-season), but the visitor center was closed. So instead we explored the old gold mine and hiked around, which was super cool.

The kids inside the old railway at the Independence Gold Mine at Hatcher Pass

Sylvia at Hatcher Pass, overlooking the old mining buildings

We stayed in Palmer (right next to Sara Palin’s Wasilla), at the Valley Inn & 24/7 Cafe. And yeah, it has an all-hours diner right in it. Was fine.

The next morning, we headed to Matanuska Glacier for a tour. We chose this glacier to walk on because it’s accessible via the road, whereas all other glaciers on this trip would require flying in. It was awesome! Reminded us a lot of the Perito Moreno tour we did in Patagonia, except this time with kids, grandparents, and Auntie Cara. Highly recommended.

Matanuska Glacier

The whole family in a crevasse on Matanuska Glacier on our tour

Our glacier tour guide recommended a couple things for us to do: the Reindeer Farm in Palmer, and the Nordic Spa in Girdwood. So, that afternoon, after a run, we decided to check out the Reindeer Farm. This was actually fantastic and far exceeded expectations. We had great, clear views of Pioneer Mountain. The girls got to pet reindeer, hares, pigs, and we got to feed moose. Cara got bit by a pissy llama named Ulysses. We got fireweed lemonade. And we chatted with a local high schooler about what it was like never seeing the sun in the Winter.

Soraya drinking fireweed lemonade in a reindeer sleigh

Cara feeds a moose some willow branches

The Road to Denali

About 30% of visitors to Denali NP actually see Denali (the mountain). We had amazing, clear weather the day we were driving to the park, so we were hoping we’d get lucky.

When the mountain first came into view on the drive, I gasped. When we pointed it out to the kids, they didn’t believe it was a mountain. They thought it was clouds. It’s that big. It has presence like Rainier in Seattle, but feels more like one of those pictures of Annapurna or Ama Dablam or something, where you know the photo can’t possibly do justice to how huge that thing is.

Denali from ~100 miles away, through binoculars

So we stopped for tons of pictures, and then decided to have lunch in Talkeetna, which looked like a cute little town a little out of the way. And it was! We got salmon cake salad from a food truck, walked around town a bit, and then went to the beach, where there was, again, another amazing view of Denali. And there was also a woman with a box full of rabbits she was letting people pet, which the girls loved. (They asked if we could go back and see the rabbits a few days later).

Denali NP

If you’ve been to other National Parks in the lower 48, this is not like that. Denali NP is 9,000 square miles of wilderness, and there is one road through a little bit of it. You can drive your car on the first 15 miles of that road. If you want to go beyond that point, you have to take an official park bus, which you must book in advance.

Also, there are no trails. Well, actually there are two official trails at mile 15 that don’t really go anywhere, but none beyond that. The only way to hike in the park is to go onto the tundra and wander around. Cross-country (off trail) hiking is actually ENCOURAGED here, which is kind of a shock if you’ve been to a busy park like Yosemite, Kings Canyon, etc.. They see so little foot traffic at Denali, nobody is going to be messing up the wilderness by stomping down the tundra.

We had two days in the park.

The first day, we took the free bus (no advance booking required) out to mile 15, Savage River. Cara, Kristen, Soraya, and I hiked a few miles farther up the road, while Grandma, Papa, and Sylvia stayed at Savage River to do the hikes around there.

The goal for the 4 of us was to gain Primrose Ridge for an expansive view. The ridge runs for a few miles South of Savage River, so we were hoping to turn off the road and make a trail up it. Problem was, the brush on the Tundra for the entire 3 miles was very thick and high, like waist-to-head height. We met some people that had bushwhacked through it, and they said it was awful. So we hiked farther and farther along the road, hoping to find better access. Eventually, we came to a spot with significantly lower brush, and made our way up to a knoll from there. This was DEFINITELY the best way to get up to the ridge, if we had wanted to keep going. Map here:

Walking on the Tundra was really cool. In the summer, the top layer of permafrost melts out, but the surface plants stay in tact, so it’s kind of like walking on a trampoline. Very squishy. I really enjoyed tramping around in the tundra.

Kristen and Cara hiking up the tundra near Primrose

Kristen, Cara, and Soraya at the top of the low knoll near Primrose

Walking on the weird, spongy/springy melted permafrost tundra

Strava link for our tundra hike

Meanwhile, Sylvia, Grandma, and Papa had a great time hiking around Savage River:

Sylvia after a bit of rock scrambling at Savage River

Sylvia hanging out in the riverbed at Savage River

That night, we had overpriced Thai food (our hotel seemed to cater to cruise passengers, so our theory was that the food there was priced as if it were on a cruise).

The next day, we had booked a Green tour bus into the park. There are two options for buses that go past Mile 15: Green bus, which is a hop-on/hop-off transport bus you can take to wherever, or the Tan bus, which is a 6-7 hour tour with a naturalist. We thought the girls would lose their minds on the Tan bus, so we booked Green at noon.

Before the bus departed, we caught the Denali NP dogsled demonstration. The park maintains a large dog kennel, for rangers to take sleds into the park all winter. This was fun and the girls loved it, though I wished they’d have provided more information about how it all worked.

Denali NP working sled dogs ready to pull a wheeled sled for demonstration

Green bus turned out to be the correct call, since the girls were starting to lose their minds by the end. We did see a bunch of caribou on the way out, as well as some really cool land in the park. The place is just endless. The bus stopped at East Fork (end of the line this year) and we got out and played around on the tundra and in the river bed for a few hours, before catching the bus back to the hotel.

Caribou standing majestically on the ridge above East Fork, at the end of the bus line

A Green bus approaching Cara

On the way back, two backcountry rangers hopped on the bus, at the end of a multi-day backcountry patrol. They reminded me of Ranger Randy from The Last Season by Eric Blehm. I’ve begun to try and emulate the slow enjoyment of the wilderness that Randy embodied, no longer trying to race along trails, and instead trying to enjoy everything I see and hear. I even noticed the call of Randy’s favorite bird, the hermit thrush, at one point on the trip!

Also, Kristen and I went for a couple of really fantastic trail runs from our lodge, along the Three Lakes trail. That trail is great for running, but a bit buggy if you stop.

A quick shot from Three Lakes Trail during one of our runs

Strava link to our 3 lakes trail run

Thoughts on an Alaska Family Vacation

In June 2026, we did a 2-week family trip to Alaska, in celebration of Kristen's 40th birthday. Many friends have asked us for our thoughts, and tips regarding the trip:

• Cruise vs. Overland: after having been there and seeing the cruise passengers at some of the places we visited, I think this is a false choice. These are completely different vacations. If you think you’d enjoy a fully curated, week-long guided tour with a resort experience, do a cruise. If you want more freedom and spontaneity for exploration, do an overland tour. There is some overlap, but they’re fundamentally different vacations. We would actually consider doing a short cruise even after having done this trip.

• Light and Sleep: this was a far bigger factor than expected. We were so unprepared for what this would be like, we brought headlamps like idiots. The sun literally does not set. It does not get dark. Your body has no sense of what time it is, ever. You could be doing a mid-day hike, then look at your watch and it’s 9pm. You can book long tours that start in the afternoon and it doesn’t matter. The practical effect here is that you have no cues as to when it’s time to go to sleep. We ended up having to liberally use melatonin, and we all slept with masks. Many of the hotels we stayed in didn’t even have blackout curtains.

• Mosquitoes: we were terrified about this, but mosquitoes turned out to be a non-factor. We seemed to be in Alaska at the start of the hatch, so they weren’t that bad as they could be. But also, it’s cold there, so you’re wearing pants and a long-sleeve shirt all the time. So if you treat your clothes with permethrin, there is very little for a mosquito to bite. We supplemented with picaridin lotion when necessary.

• Car rental: this is insanely expensive. Also, you DO NOT NEED AN SUV. Yes, there are many OHV and rough dirt roads you can potentially drive on. But most car rental company insurance will not cover you if you drive on these roads. They have big signs saying this. You can rent a car that is covered on these roads from a specialty company, but who cares. A sedan or minivan would be fine if it saves money.

• Wildness: many parts of Alaska are the only place in the world we have been, besides Patagonia, that feels like it’s not for humans. Humans are temporary visitors in these places. Most of the national parks in the state don’t even have roads leading to them. Even in Denali, there’s one road that feels like it was grudgingly built so a few people could see a few miles of the park. The term here is “wild.” Everything is huge in scale. It’s like if you took the wildness and desolation of Patagonia, dropped it into the Pacific Northwest, and then multiplied by 10.

• Bear spray: you obviously need it, but it costs $50 for a new can at any store ($70 if you buy it at the park), and you can’t take it home. I wish we’d looked into a way to get spray from an outgoing vacationer beforehand, like on the facebook page Anchorage Bear Spray Exchange. We just left ours in the hotel room at the end of the trip. At one point, some other people offered us theirs for free.

• Hiking gear: you are going to encounter highly variable conditions. It'll be at times wet, muddy, you will walk across snow fields, or need to get across a river. We'd strongly suggest wearing waterproof boots/shoes, hiking poles (especially for snow and river crossing), and using gaiters. The gaiters were amazing for keeping snow and rocks out of our boots. Kristen and I had never used gaiters before, but now I'm not sure we'd ever hike without them. We'd also suggest bringing rain pants in addition to normal rain jackets (ponchos are not sufficient). The weather changes on a minute-to-minute basis, and you could be doing a hike in driving rain.

• Strongly suggest reading Michener’s Alaska before going, to get a sense of history and place. Many of the places we visited were in the book, and it helped contextualize what we were seeing. It’s also just a really good book.

• Every single day of this trip, we saw something amazing. There was not a down day, or a meh day.

We have had many questions about our itinerary and how we planned the trip. In general, trough all of our travels we learned that the best bet is: choose a few locations that seem good, book lodging, and then only book those things that require advance planning (e.g. tours that sell out). Here was our general trip layout:

You can see we booked areas generally, but only had 3x pre-planned events (Matanuska glacier tour, Denali NP bus tour, and Kenai Fjords cruise tour). Everything else we did was vaguely roughed out based on what seemed interesting in each area, but ultimately decided on a day-to-day basis.

We would not change the layout. It was correct for our experience.

Spain and Portugal 2023

The family took a great, 2 week trip to Spain and Portugal.  We did a road trip, and traveled to 9 destinations:

MAP

 September 21 – 24 – Pontevedra and Sanxenxo, Spain

The first leg of our trip traveled to the Galicia region of Spain so Kristen could compete in the 2023 World Triathlon Age Group Championships.  She qualified at US Nationals last year, and going to Worlds was always a bucket-list item for her, so we decided to make a family trip out of it.

A sign advertising the championship in Pontevedra

After landing in Lisbon on the 21^st, we immediately rented a car and drove about 2/3 of the way to Spain, stopping to sleep in Braga, Portugal, which is located in Portugal’s wine region.  All of Northwestern Portugal looks like Marin County.  Wine regions are wine regions, I guess.

We were exhausted and did not see any of the city, but we did have a nice dinner, and then a great continental breakfast that dead-on reminded us of Brazil.  This would be a theme of the trip – we spent so much time in Brazil in the past, the comparisons with Portugal were constant.

On the 22^nd, we drove up to our beautiful rental house in Sanxenxo, Spain, which is a resort town about 30 minutes from the location of the triathlon, in Pontevedra, Spain.

The pool at our beautiful house in Sanxenxo, Spain

The night of the 22^nd was the “Parade of Nations,” where all the triathlon participants paraded through the streets of Pontevedra.  We met up with Kristen’s brother Matt and his wife Meysel to watch the festivities, and then went back to the house and crashed.

Kristen decked out in her Team USA gear

The next few days were a flurry of activity – I’m not sure we appreciated the insane logistics that would go into the Worlds race.  Every day, Kristen had multiple things she had to take care of or do.  On the 22^nd, we were also joined by Kristen’s sister Julie and her fiancée Travis, and all the siblings and in-laws were super helpful with the logistics.  This was a big deal on top of the exhaustion and jetlag.

We were able to do a few fun things during this preparation period, though.  Pontevedra is a wonderful little town with ancient buildings and lots of cute restaurants:

Soraya and Sylvia hamming it up in front of the 600 year old monastery in Pontevedra

And we were able to go to the beach in Sanxenxo.

Sylvia playing on the beach at Playa Montalvo near Sanxenxo, Spain

Finally, the day of the race came.  All 7 of us watched Kristen on every leg of the race, at as many points as we could.  Kristen’s expectations were that she would be happy to finish mid-pack of the ~50 racers in her age group.  But she ended up getting 6^th place!  It was a really wonderful day.

Kristen on the bike leg

Soraya watching mommy come through on the run

A note on food at this point: we had almost no vegetables for days.  We were eating at a variety of restaurants, and most of the food was pretty good, but were almost never served vegetables (other than potatoes).  Vegetables and fruit did not come with meals, they were not offered as sides, and were generally not available beyond a basic salad.  The fruit we bought at a local market was mediocre.  Almost all meals were just carbs and protein.  We didn’t understand what was going on.  After 3-4 days of this, I started making it a point to eat exclusively salad every day for lunch – whatever salad was on offer.  Julie and Travis (who had just spend 4 weeks traveling through other parts of Europe) said this was pretty common elsewhere.

September 25-27: Braga, Obidos, Nazare

We left Sanxenxo on the 25^th and said goodbye to Matt and Meysel, who were headed for Madrid.  Julie and Travis would stick with us for the next couple parts of the trip.

First, we stopped in Braga for lunch.  We ate at the famous restaurant A Brasilera, which, despite the name, did not serve Brazilian food.  They did, however, serve vegetables.

The girls playing on the BRAGA sign

Braga is a really nice town – it seemed large enough to have a variety of cultural elements, but still felt like a small European town, with winding streets and beautiful old buildings.  And not many tourists.

Walking toward the central square in Braga, Portugal

From Braga, we proceeded on to our next accommodation, just outside Peniche.  We stayed in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom windmill!

100 year old windmill converted into an AirBnB

The windmill was a little cramped and dark, but the kids (and I) thought it was super cool.  You could even see the old gearing, which they had partially left in place, and partially turned into furniture.

The exposed mechanicals of the windmill in one bedroom

During this part of the trip, we first visited Obidos castle, which was like the archetype of a cool medieval castle and walled city.  And the best part was that Obidos allows you to walk on the walls of the city.  The entire walk is about a mile long, along a narrow walkway (that soldiers presumably patrolled 500 years ago) with significant height exposure.  This is how we found out that Soraya is not afraid of heights.  I LOVED this part of the trip, and it was one of the most memorable things we did.

Walking the walls of Obidos

On the Obidos wall with a view of the main castle

The girls posing at one of the windows cut into the Obidos wall

After Obidos, we went to the famous Nazare beach, where the largest waves in the world sometimes swell up.  We spent a bit of time on the main town beach, playing in the sand, though we were not able to go in the water because the surf was so high (the waves were around 6-8ft).

Looking down onto Praia da Nazare

Then afterward, we drove up to see Praia do Norte, where the huge waves come.  This was a tourist trap and probably not worth the trip unless the waves had been really huge that day, or if surfers were out.

September 27-29: Evora

From the windmill, we drove East to the small town of Evora.  As we drove East, the temperature rose, and the land turned to desert.  Eastern Portugal looks like the Sierra foothills (specifically Amador county), with dry landscapes, strewn-about boulders, and valley oak-looking trees (which turned out to be cork trees, a close relative).

On the way, we stopped to check out some Neolithic monuments.  The primary Stonehenge-like area, called Cromeleque dos Almendres, was closed for restoration, but we got to see a cool, 12ft tall ceremonial stone built by humans about 8,000 years ago.

The Menir dos Almendres

The town of Evora itself is an absolutely charming, magical village.  The entire town is surrounded by a crenelated wall, and inside is a maze of cobbled streets and medieval buildings.

Lunchtime in Evora

The Roman ruins at the top of Evora

It was like the medieval Ann Arbor or Madison – a cute college town with a lot of energy.  Prices were low and tourists were relatively few.  The food was great, there were Roman ruins, and we were able to have some downtime with the kids, stopping at the local beautiful library, and going to a local playground.  We also visited the famous Capela dos Ossos, a memento mori chapel built from the bones of 5000 people.  The girls thought it was pretty cool.  Julie and Travis even watched the kids one night so Kristen and I could go on a date to a nice restaurant!  Evora felt like the most “authentic” Portugal experience we had.

Capela dos Ossos

The girls loved looking at the old bells at churches - looking up at the belltower at the Se de Evora

A note on language: at the point in the trip, we weren’t sure of what to make of the language aspect.  Kristen and I both speak good Spanish and passable Portuguese.  And we had read and assumed that most people would appreciate us speaking the local language.  But we were typically met with a mixed response.  Almost everywhere in Portugal, service workers speak English, usually better than we speak Portuguese, and they seemed to sometimes get annoyed that we were trying to converse in Portuguese.  But, we insisted anyway, and were starting to get some of our vocab back from the Brazil days by this point in the trip.  So I’m not really sure what the best thing to do here was, since we were potentially making people’s jobs harder, but practicing Portuguese is what we did.  To the point that once when I responded to a waiter in English, Sylvia asked me why I did that.

September 29-Oct 2: The Algarve

From Evora, we said goodbye to Julie and Travis, and drove down to the beach region of Portugal, called the Algarve.  The Algarve is known for its picturesque limestone cliffs that line the sea, and create tiny beaches that dot the coast, full of caves and other nooks and crannies.

Looking at Ponta da Piedade outside Lagos, Portugal

Looking down onto Praia das Fontainhas outside Carvoeiro, Portugal

The Algarve region is like 95% tourists.  Lots of Americans, Brits, and Germans.  Most of our meals were eaten at cute beachside restaurants that all had the exact same, lowest-common-denominator menu of hamburgers, egg dishes, and sandwiches.

The surf was pretty high when we were in the area, and swimming was prohibited the first day we were there.  We had intended to rent Kayaks to paddle out to Benagil cave, but that looked like it wasn’t going to happen, so we decided to go beach-hopping.

We ended up going to several wonderful beaches, where the girls had a great time jumping in the waves, building sandcastles, and playing make-believe.  It was a nice, relaxing few days on the shore.

Playing at Praia da Marinha

Jumping the waves at Praia do Fontainha

Jumping the waves at Praia dos Tres Irmaos

Oct 2-3: Lisbon

On Oct 2, we left The Algarve and headed for Lisbon.  To this point, we had deliberately avoided Portugal’s major cities (Lisbon and Porto), because we thought trying to go on walking tours to see architectural points of interest was probably not going to go great with a 3 and a 5 year old.  Kristen and I also just aren’t that enamored of big cities for whatever reason.  But we spent most of the day touring around Lisbon with the kids, which was about enough.

We took the famous Tram 28 through the city, and then walked through a few neighborhoods, stopping for dinner in the Chiado neighborhood.

All of us on board Tram 28

Lisbon looks like a more organized, older version of Sao Paulo.  It has a very similar feel.  Lisbon is also far more cosmopolitan than the other provincial places we visited – you could get more than traditional Portuguese food, and there seemed to be a melting pot of people and things.  We probably could have spent another half-day to full day exploring Lisbon, but given all the other things we wanted to see and do, I think a half day of walking around was plenty.

Walking to dinner in the Chiado neighborhood in Lisbon

Interestingly, the people in Lisbon seemed happier to talk with us in Portuguese than elsewhere.

And so ended our trip to Portugal and Spain.  It was a great time with the family, Kristen’s first visit to continental Europe, and a new cultural experience for the kids!

24 Hours of Lemons–Thunderhill 2017

The 1988 Yugo GV

Me in the fire suit

Team Yugo2L at Thunderhill: John, me, Bill, and Justin

So I guess I’m a racecar driver now.  Sort of.

The 24 Hours of LeMons is an endurance race for cars that cost less than $500.  It’s a play on words to make fun of the hoity-toity 24 Hours of LeMans race in France, while poking fun at car culture in general.  Basically you take the worst car you can find, and make it go around a race track for 16 hours.  Driving hard for 16 hours even in a new car is likely to break something, let alone a junkyard special.  Half the point is to heroically fix stuff when it breaks.  Which means it combines two of my favorite things – driving on a race track, and fixing things.  It is totally awesome.

There are really two types of team at a Lemons race: teams that are trying to win, and teams that bring the worst car they can find on purpose.  My friend John asked me if I wanted to drive with the second kind of team, which would be bringing a 1988 Yugo – possibly the worst car ever made.

A sampling of other cars at the race: 1986 Olds Cutlass, 70s VW Vanagon, a Honda Del Sol with the body panels of an El Camino – called the Del Camino, 1989 Volvo station wagon, 1956 Nash Metropolitan, 1977 Volvo 244, 1976 Ford Pinto, 1963 Studebaker Avanti, 1974 Lotus Elite, and a bunch of Porsche 914/944s, BMW E30s, and Miatas.

Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme race car dressed as a horse

VW Vanagon racecar with Italian police theme.  These guys blew up their engine on test day and had to do an entire engine swap the first night.

We showed up on Friday morning to get in a day of testing and get acquainted with the car.  My first 30 minute session on track was terrifying.  I felt uncomfortable in the cockpit (Bill, the owner of the Yugo, has longer legs and shorter arms, so I could never get the seat in a great driving position for me), the car felt a bit sloppy, the brakes barely worked, it was loud and hot, and it understeered like nothing I have ever been in.  After that first session, I was unsure I’d make it through the weekend.

Seriously, the front tires started sliding at probably 20mph.  There was no way to drive around the track without the front tires sliding to some degree.  It was horrifying.  After the first session, I asked John and Bill how the hell I was supposed to drive the car when it was sliding so much.  John said – “just mash the throttle when it starts to slide.  It’ll still slide, but it’ll also go forward.”  This was a serious WTF revelation for me.  I’m so used to controlling understeer in my Miata by braking or lifting off the throttle – this was totally the opposite.  But I went back out there and HALLELUJAH! it worked.  Turns out you can control the arc of a turn in this car by using the throttle to bring the nose around a turn, even while it’s sliding.  So you are literally reverse-drifting every single corner.  It’s a blast!

It slides like this for two reasons.  Number 1 is that the Yugo has got to be the most front-heavy car I’ve ever been in.  When we jacked it up from the middle, the rear wheels lifted off the ground.  As far as I can tell, the rear wheels are mostly for show.  Whenever I imagine the weight balance of the Yugo, I think of a Segway with a swivel caster mounted behind it:

Diagram of the Yugo’s weight balance

Adding to this, the Yugo is known to be one of the least durable cars of all time.  When Bill bought it, the frame was literally ripping apart.  I think it’s probably made mostly of tin foil folded over on itself.  Or whatever was available that day at the factory.

Because of the durability issues, Bill has to use the worst and slipperiest tires he can find, which is reason #2 for the sliding.  Sticky tires would mean more grip, and more grip would mean more force on the frame.  More force on the frame would mean parts ripping off the car.

This tire was pretty new when it went on the car at the beginning of Sunday

Honestly though, it’s not that slow.  It accelerates about as fast as a first-gen Miata.

All in all, the Yugo is a perfect Lemons car.

The first day of racing, I was nervous.  John did the first stint.  The right rear wheel tore a brake line a few laps in, so John had to pit.  We couldn’t find a spare line, so we did our first real hooptie fix of the weekend – we blocked off the right rear brake entirely, and raced with 3 brakes.  Guess what: the brake feel got BETTER.  Like I said, I think the rear wheels are mostly for show.

Rear brake splitter.  The bolt on the right is where a brake line is supposed to be

The car ran as well as can be expected for the rest of the day, including during my stint.  And by “as well as can be expected”, I mean for a Yugo.  I had a 30 minute period where the track was under caution and we were driving slow.  The car started to overheat during that time, because we weren’t going fast enough to pass air over the radiator.  The carburetor starves for fuel whenever you’re going up a hill or around a hard corner – built in traction control!  And later that first day, Bill was driving, and we noticed a weird noise when he came in for gas.  Turns out the front brake pads were completely gone and he was out there braking with steel-on-steel.

Utterly destroyed front brake pad on the left, new pad on the right

But the car ran, and ran, and ran.  We were in 5th place in the "C” class (cars that are not expected to finish the race), with slow but respectable lap times!

That evening, we fixed the issues with the car as best we could – we found another brake line, we changed out the brake pads and bled the brakes, and we checked over the suspension and frame for signs of failure.

Oh, and John and I also devised a way to keep it from overheating – we figured we should block off the headlight holes to get better airflow over the radiator.  In order to do that, we had to build a “cold air intake” out of cardboard and duct tape.  Hooptie fix #2!

Custom made cold air intake

On the second day of racing, I was feeling good.  Justin did a 1hr turn first thing that morning, and then I was up for 2 hours.  I did my best laps of the weekend, running about the same pace as John and Bill (which made me feel proud – perhaps I’ve learned to drive if I can get the car around the track as quickly as those guys!).

Me driving the Yugo

By the end of my stint, the handling was starting to feel kind of loose.  Sometimes under throttle and braking, the car would pull to one side or the other.  I figured it was a degenerative suspension bushing issue (which the car had last year), and I backed off the pace to preserve the car for John and Bill.  John did his turn, and ran some really fast laps despite the handling.  Then Bill did about 10 laps and had to come in because the car was getting way too loose to drive safely.  He said it would basically change lanes if he used the throttle or brakes.

We inspected the car, and the suspension looked fine.  Weird.  But Bill had noticed that whenever he hit the throttle, the shift lever in the cabin would bang back and forth.  So he checked the engine mounts. One was completely severed, and he could rock the engine back and forth with almost no force.

On a front wheel drive car, if the engine is moving around, it pushes on the drive shafts that connect to the wheels.  Which means that if you accelerate or brake, the engine is going to push on the wheels in one direction or the other – exactly the symptoms we had on track.  Apparently the mount was going bad when I was driving, and completely failed while Bill was driving.

As John said, “sometimes the car has to remind you it’s a Yugo.”

But at the end of the second day, we’d completed a respectable 145 laps.  The car ran for 15.25 of 16 total hours.  Which is way better than some of the cars that should have been way ahead of us, like a cheaty 2006 Pontiac GTO someone bought for $500 after it was in a fire, or a bunch of 80s BMWs and Porsches.  We ended up in 4th in C class!

This was such a fun weekend.  What a blast.  Camping, driving cars, fixing broken stuff.  Doesn’t get better than that.  And the atmosphere was great, too.  Nobody seemed to be taking it too seriously, even the guys in the pit next to us that came in 2nd place overall by a hair.  And the best part was the focus on safety – Lemons is way safer than a normal car race.  The organizers emphasize safety by penalizing dangerous driving, and the fact that it’s an endurance race makes preservation of the car important, so very few teams drive aggressively.

I can’t wait to do this again.