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During my night in the shop I watched line after line getting crossed off the “to do” list as the entire turbo system was assembled and installed (which was incredibly slick and well packaged, like anything with the Lovefab name on it). It is important to realize that these guys are finishing up a major build mere weeks before the race itself, unfortunately there were a succession of delays in funding and parts deliveries which left the crew with their hands tied. It was incredibly frustrating for them to be giving the build everything they had (and more) while still tripping over deadlines due to things outside of their control. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t had any doubts about the car being ready to race in Colorado.
Sometime around 3:00AM I was nudged awake by Cody after everyone else had gone home for the night. The goal for the day had been to get the car running, but there was some tailoring that needed to be done to the engine harness before the first rumbles would be heard. When we got to Cody’s house I crashed on the couch while his pair of (massive) Great Danes kept guard. In the morning I left to go do some detailing in Saginaw and Detroit. As I was driving away I could only hope beyond hope that no last minute delays would prevent the car from making it to Colorado.
Fast forward a couple weeks and skip past the 15 hour drive to Pikes Peak International Raceway where we find myself and my co-pilot Andy waiting for the Lovefab entourage to arrive for some shakedown testing. While we were killing time we wandered around the track a bit and stumbled upon a few wicked Datsuns that had been grafted onto NA chassis Miatas. All the great handling and reliability of a Miata with the “cool factor” of a Datsun, I can dig it!
Out in the paddock Dave Carapetyan and the Rally Ready team were just hanging out while others finished their testing. Dave has been running at the peak since 2005, and has won three times before he transitioned to the Unlimited Class in 2011. During this transition the Rally Ready Evo went through a complete overhaul which involved similar delays and tight deadlines that also plagued the Lovefab team this year. You can read more about Dave’s car here in an article by Khiem.
Just as I was beginning to think that Cody had been carjacked and left stranded, he rolled in with his unmistakably menacing Dodge truck. During the preceding months he had given every moment to preparing for this event, and the joy he felt towards being back at Pikes Peak was obvious. I was apprehensive of what I would find as I approached the rear of the trailer, having no idea of what the car would look like or what else may need to be completed before we would need to go through tech inspection.
