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Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day. I couldn’t help repeating
that refrain in my mind as I drove to work during May’s unbelievably bad
weather. I don’t think I’ve ever driven in such miserable weather on successive
days. The combination of difficulty in seeing where one is going, along
with numerous road closings on the North Shore, made getting around a huge
nuisance. My frustrations are minor compared with the problems many residents
of Peabody, Salem, Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill face. I can’t imagine
how I’d handle dealing with a flooded house or automobile. The loss of
one’s possessions and the hassles that come with putting one’s life back
together have to be hugely stressful.
The shutdown of Route 1 in Saugus and I-495 in Lawrence severely disrupted traffic flow on the North Shore. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the intersection of I-95 and Route 128 in Danvers so backed up. On the morning of the 16th traffic on Route 128 coming from Gloucester was at a dead stop for at least five miles. A lot of people were either very late for work or gave up completely and went home. In my office a number of us commute from the Topsfield, Georgetown and Boxford area, and normally have several options for routes we can take to Gloucester. With all the road closings in the area, finding a passable route home was a bit of a challenge. Our home sits adjacent to the head waters of the Parker River which is normally nothing more than wetlands (although beavers in recent years are working real hard at turning the area into a shallow lake). We now find ourselves adjacent to a lake, deep enough for some boating activities. I suspect the beavers are a bit frustrated with all the water flowing over their little dam, but maybe encouraged by what could be if they put their minds to work on a bigger construction project. I wonder if they’ll take advantage of all the water and use it to their advantage to cut down and float bigger tree branches onto their existing dam. Fortunately all the stormy weather occurred after this year’s Ramble to Stow, VT. Bruce Hauben, chief Ramble planner, did another wonderful job of route planning for the 120 or so cars full of Rambler’s. From modest beginnings this event has grown into a hugely popular, and the highest attended NER event. This year in particular seemed to attract lots of first time participants, a very welcome trend. Bruce even managed to convince several participants to author comments for this publication, which you will find elsewhere in this publication. Signs the US automakers still don’t get it. Ford will soon start selling the Shelby GT500 Mustang, a heavily reworked version of the current very successful version of the Mustang. Apparently interest in a new Shelby Mustang is very high for the limited production car. Dealers have far more orders than cars that will be allocated to them (why not build more Ford?). So of course the Ford dealers are all planning on huge markups on the cars they do get and sell - $12K to $15K over sticker (with some even advertising on Ebay trying to get even better results through the auction process). If there’s that much demand for a US manufactured car, doesn’t that indicate that US consumers will buy US built vehicles (well at least some of the parts are manufactured in the US) if they can get what they want in a car. I’d bet that if GM once again built a Camero that picks up styling cues from the popular Camero’s of the late 60’s they’d sell well. Especially if the Trans Am series went back to racing cars that were close to what consumers could buy off the showroom floor. Maybe I’m being too nostalgic in my desire to see the recreation of the Trans Am series based on its original concept, but it worked then and I bet it would work well today – with more fan appeal and with more affordable cars to build and race. Steve Saleen by the way is producing modern limited edition Mustangs that look like the ’70 Boss 302 Mustang raced by Parnelli Jones in the Trans Am series – orange paint and black strip included – and dealers will not be marking them up by $15K. Now that’s a car I wouldn’t mind owning. This year I’ll once again be boycotting the Indianapolis 500. Since the IRL was created as a breakaway series from what was CART and is now Champ Car, hugely damaging fan interest in open-wheel racing in the US in the process, I’ve refused to pay any attention to the 500 or any other IRL race. I don’t care to watch the race, read anything about the race, or care about how any of the drivers do in the race. When Champ Car and IRL come together as one series once again, and they then put their energies into making open-wheel racing in the US a viable alternative to NASCAR, then I’ll start paying attention once again. Does anyone really care if Michael Andretti or Eddie Cheevers races again? Give me a break! Times are changing in racing in lots of subtle ways. Cars are a lot safer now, which is certainly a good thing. The LeMans organizers are even putting in place a rule for next year that will require all closed cars to have air conditioning. That’s certainly going to change the dialogue about how tough drivers are. As an owner of a race car that gets really warm inside after a 30 minute session on the track, the idea of requiring air conditioning sounds in a race car sounds like a good thing. I just hope things don’t get out of hand with things like massaging seats, mandated white noise machines to muffle noise inside the car, or the complicated electronic control systems found on some of the more expensive sports sedans. |
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