VOLUME 57 ISSUE 14 APRIL 7, 2020 P77
and the paint was shiny,
so I figured that's all that
mattered. Wrong.
One day later we
were loaded up and
heading east on Route
66—the first meeting of
the series was at Zoar
Moto Park Spring-
ville, New York, on
September 23.
Along the way across
the country, the weather got gradu-
ally colder, and so did the oil in the
sump. Each morning, the big white
van got progressively harder to start
until one morning, it plumb refused
altogether. Laurie stood staring at
it for a minute or two, scratching
his chin, until he drawled, "I reckon
the timing chain is worn out and is
jumping the sprockets when the oil
is cold, 'cause there's no adjustment
left on the distributor."
I nodded blankly.
With that, Laurie pulled out his
It looks like a
paddock but there's
a track there
somewhere. Willy
Bauer dodges track
invaders in Canada.
overalls from his toolbox and disman-
tled the entire front end of the van,
including the timing chest of the en-
gine. He then wrote out a list of parts
we needed and pointed me in the
direction of the nearest Ford dealer.
This was my vital role in the process
of getting us back on the road. By the
next day, the whole thing was back
together and ran perfectly thereafter.
UP AGAINST THE
WORLD'S BEST
So here we were at Zoar Moto Park,
and our initial thoughts of a top-20
finish and some cash to get us to the
next round now seemed pure fantasy.
In the first practice session, I reck-
oned I needed a map to find my way
around the course, which was brand
new. It plunged up and down the
sides of a valley and seemed to go
on forever. On one downhill section,
DeCoster leaped clear over my head,
gracefully dropping onto the valley
