The Last Ride of the 97

I’ve been so hard at work stripping the 97 that I’ve not updated my blog with pix of it. I’m quite done now. It is very stripped. Not much left. This weekend, I bought a nice big shelf to store parts and make room to actually WALK in my garage. I came back to find some friends just back from a tuning run near my house (there’s a great road for it out here). Jim and Bill were quite interested in the dead car and wanted the few bits I’d left on it (A/C, some plastic parts, the trunk release, etc). So they finished stripping the car and I built and filled my new shelf. It was great. Thanks for the help, Jim and Bill!

Later that day (Saturday), I went to an open house my buddy Soren was putting on at his new shop. Soren races, builds, and repairs Spec Miatas for a living. I run one of his Rent2Race.com plates on the bumper of all of my cars. Great guy and one of the few places I trust to work on my cars when there’s a job too annoying for me to attempt (timing belt on a 20 year old Civic for example). Anyways, I mentioned the dead car to him and he agreed to haul it out for me. There’s enough parts to make it worthwhile for him, I guess. I was just thrilled to get it out of my garage!

So up drove the truck (Monday). Between four of us, we got the shell on the flatbed. Miatas aren’t exactly heavy in this form, they’re just clunky. The more guys you have, the easier this sort of thing is. Wish I had some shots of us lifting it onto the flatbed.

The last ride of the 97

I waved goodbye to the 97. I’ve really been eager to see it leave. Every time I go in the garage, I’d get a little sad seeing the dead car. I’ve been ready to move on for a while now. Ready for new things, new projects. Maybe I’m too soft. I just wanted to close that chapter of Sharka’s life.

Home at last!

I fired up Sharka-the-95 and tried to remember exactly how to park in the garage. It’s been 4 months! I carefully pulled forward and stopped. I got out. It felt so good. Sharka was in the garage again. And not only that, but a fresh SHARKA plate arrived in the mail last weekend! I circled around back for a victory photo.

Life is good.

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