donger need food.

SUPER HICAS

Every now and then I am reminded of a very tiny place in a dusty corner of my heart vacated by an old friend.


Slower than a constipated snail crossing a puddle of molasses and muddled by a U.S. spec drivetrain that contradicts its birthright, my little old red two door hatchback still holds a special place in my stockpile of memories. Maybe it's because of all those grandiose plans that I had in store for her. Or maybe it was because of all those times I've spent underneath her ten year old California-bred undercarriage, in dirty apartment parking stalls, in greasy stadium parking lots, in cold garage floors...Whatever the case, sometimes I find myself remembering old times like it was yesterday.

Like that chilly Saturday spent in a back parking lot in a Redwood City office park. I'm sure passers-by probably found it odd to see a weirdo computer professional hunched over a dusty red car, the sweet smell of radiator fluid spilled on the ground, a water pump in his greasy wet left hand, a 10mm socket in his right, and curse words emanating from his mouth as the stupid bolt refused to line up with the housing.

Or that wet and windy day in Willow Springs (my first track event ever), haulin' ass into turn three on the fastest track in the west, learning a little too late the consequences of being unprepared when my heavy right foot falls effortlessly to the floor while pressing the brake pedal. I tell you what...there's not many feelings quite like the feeling you get when you're doing 80 miles an hour, the corner in front of you is coming up awfully fast, and your car isn't slowing down.

Or the way you feel when you approach her from a certain angle, when the lines look just so right, when the setting sun casts a special glow on the upper half of the side panels, and you just can't bear the thought of selling her.

And I can still remember that unique way that old interior smelled, the heavy action of the short shifter kit that made your arm sore, the incredibly harsh & bouncy ride of the worn AGX suspension, the imprecise (and kinda weird) feel of the rear end's SUPER-HICAS effect, the gouges in the leather steering wheel right above the 10 o'clock position, that obnoxiously loud roar of the clutch-activated fan when the temperature got hot outside, and all the shortcomings of that craptastic lazy-to-rev rough-past-4000RPM monster-torque-low-power built-like-a-tank KA24DE motor... yet somehow, anger and resentment are missing from my memory. No, I instead have a strange longing for days gone by, to long drives on the coast in that hunched down 2+2, the first used car that I had ever bought.

I think maybe it all boils down to that unique relationship a man develops with his automobile. From the months spent scouring classified ads for a pristine example optioned just the way he wanted (with the somewhat rare four wheel steering and correspondingly unique faster steering rack), to the long drive down to San Diego to go buy it from a young high school student drafted to the University of Arizona on a baseball scholarship, to the four plus years of his life dedicated to its maintenance...Spark plugs, oil filters, headlights, suspension bushings, struts, sunroof latches, stereo upgrades (with requisite large bloody cuts), water pumps, thermostats, radiator hoses, clutch slave cylinders, brake fluids/pads/rotors, trunk struts... Or maybe it was the way I studied the lines of that car when I used it as my first drawing for the very first time I used an AutoCAD program waaaaaay back in 1990.

Whatever the case, I'm hopeful that one day when I'm more settled in my life (and equipped to execute all those big modification plans) I can be reunited with yet another fine example and renew a relationship long since suspended but not yet forgotten.

posted by VirtualErn @ 12:50 AM

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