So my old F-150 is nailed in the side, then my son's Acura is in a wreck, now my wife's 5.0 has a slipping AOD transmission. The F-150 is headed for a frame shop, the Acura is IN the frame shop, and the Mustake will have to wait. We're doing the sheetmetal work on the 2 wrecks, (want to guess how many spot welds hold the core support on an Acura?), but I hate automatics, and won't work on them. I have 2 project cars I've been drooling to work on, but the everyday drivers take priority. Maybe I should lease a Toyota Echo. I did buy another F-150 to take the place of the broken F-150, but we're running out of cars! Did I mention that I loaned my riding mower to a buddy who blew it up? Thanks, I feel better now.
I'll go have some coffee.

Damn, Bill ... you running nawz on all that stuff?

I'd stay away from the Echo's. I might consider a Focus or even a cheap Kia (for $6800, with a 10/100 warranty, how far wrong can you go?). I've seen some nasty electrical problems mentioned about the echo.

Does the Vega still run?

Pat

That's the kind of year I'm having too. Luckily there haven't been any wrecks, but the widespread and overlapping breakage on nearly everything I own (including the daily drivers, tractor, appliances, house, etc) from flooding, lightning, random failure, catch-22s, etc, is starting to get REALLY old.

Throw in my wife's health problems, and I'd really like to become an alcoholic but just don't have the time

See, just when you think you have it bad, someone else shows you how you're on easy street relative to them since they have it worse. Hang in there guys.

That is actually more expensive than racing.....

The Mustake is okay. The trans shop I deal with, (Crowder&Draper in Hopewell, VA.), found that the problem was a grommet on the throttle/detent cable that broke. The cost? Free. I slipped Bob Draper a 20.00 as he and I grew up next door to each other. The other crap was self inflicted. Hey Pat, no the Vega doesn't run at the moment. I put the engine from MY Vega in Pat's Vega before IT was totaled last year. His is still in the yard, and still running. My Vega is one of the projects I WANT to start on. Sgarnett, I pray your wifes health problems are minor. A car isn't even close in that equation. The Acura should be in our hands tomorrow. The truck is a great trash can, and will go to the frame shop whenever. The F-150 I bought is an '84 351-4bbl C-6, 4wd. A little rough on gas, but a lot more truck than my '86 4.9 3spd. Thanks guys, I needed a little "venting".

I'm not sure that reads quite the way I intended. There hasn't been any one major disaster to the house or stuff. It's more a matter of one thing after another, much faster than I can keep up with and consuming way too much of my time.

However, Denice has cancer.

Sean, you're in a similar situation to where I was last year. However, when my wife had health problems after having our baby and I realized I couldn't do anything about it I threw myself into working on my car after they went to sleep most nights. It helped me to vent a lot of my frustrations. I think everything I went through last year and such early season engine troubles this year has just burned me out. I haven't done anything on the car for almost 2 months now and keep on finding other things to do with my time. It's a big change for me, but I just don't miss working on the car. Now that I'm spending a little less time at work and doing less travelling to Mexico and the like, I'm spending all the time at home with my wife and son that I can. I don't miss the pressure of trying to make sure everything is ready for a race weekend either. I'm not sure I'll go back to racing at this point. I may just end up having a track car when I get back around to it. Right now it's not costing me any money sitting in the garage so I'm taking my time making my decision.

I screwed up. I bought a house with the garage under the bedrooms I've done very little on the car since Shannon was born. If she's still awake when I get home I play with her, and when she or her mother are sleeping/resting I try to be quiet.

There seems to be a lot of burnout going around this year. I think a big part of avoiding it is keeping the natural escalation in check.

I'm not burned out on racing at all. I am VERY burned out on digging ditches in the rain.