Good Bye 2020!

Best Use of a Creeper, Tire Mover!

Good-bye 2020, and I mean that most sincerely! Adios, farewell, Tchuss, Auf Wiedersehen, etc. The year 2020 can just go away and let us hope for a better 2021! Car-wise, we still did some fun things this year, and to finish it off, last weekend I swapped out my wheels, gave the car a quick wash, and even washed those track/autocross wheels to put them away for  next year. Maybe just cleaning stuff isn't as much fun as doing a tune up or rebuilding an engine (which I can't do anyway), so my point is to have fun with your car no matter what it is. Even if your only expertise is putting gas in it, or checking the tires for the right air pressure, you can make your car last longer by keeping it in good shape. 

Wheel With Lug-nut Adapter
These 19 inch wheels are crazy heavy, I'm looking for some 17 inch replacements
that also don't need special lugs. 

Another good reason to wash your car is that it forces you to look at all the outside surfaces of the car, and either clean it up or maybe spot something that can be fixed. 

Bath Time

Maybe Cleaner Wheels Weigh Less and Go Faster?!?!

The 18 inch OZ wheels above with Hankook RS4 tires looked like they were in great shape. After a little over 1,000 miles that included 7 autocross runs, and 2 HPDE days on track, the tires should get me through all of 2021 too. At least that's my plan, and my budget's plan! During the clean up and inspection I noticed just a small amount of OPR (Other People's Rubber) those little bits of semi-melted rubber that your wheels and tires pick up on a track or maybe even an autocross. During the F1 races on TV you can see the little bits of shredded rubber piling up around the track. David Hobbs always referred to it as "clag", so now I'm going to see if I can work "clag" into my vocabulary as much as possible. 

Some owners of very expensive cars will put them away and store them for the winter, since you certainly may not want to be driving that million dollar McLaren through such messy snow or ice. Luckily for us, we're not that rich and don't store things away for an entire winter too much, so we save even more money all those storage fees, battery tenders, or fancy wheel cradles to keep your wheels round. On the other hand, I managed to win 7 bucks in the Powerball last night, so things are looking pretty good financially!