Tigges Talk – The Lost Year – October 2024

It’s just past 5AM EST up here in the welcoming chill of October in Maine. The leaves have been turning colors for a few weeks now, littering the grass which has ceased to grow, going dormant for the winter. Two weeks from now in Pennsylvania, racers will be in the pits of Maple Grove Raceway for the hurricane delayed Virginia Regional event. Life can be absurdly funny. Time and chance happen to all of us, in a disconnected yet intimate manner. Things that are dear to us can be on our minds & hearts yet seem so far away at the same time.

I spent some time this morning reviewing the Tigges Talks from a year ago, specifically the ones chronicling our wreck in Charlotte & the ugly aftermath of that event. Like sports injuries, there are levels of recovery that have unknowns; you might be able to splint & play through the pain of a broken finger, but a shattered wrist might raise concerns about your ability to ever be the same. Once the stretcher is carted off the ice of life with the player still alive, there is still uncertainty of the future with months of rehab to follow.

This is where we find ourselves here at Team Tigges. The adrenaline-fueled days following the wreck have given way to the pain and work of rehab. Unlike the professional athlete, the sportsman racer has the responsibilities of life that continue on regardless of how the dice have bounced on the track. Weeks & months pass, questions are asked, and here we find ourselves a year later, lying like the scattered leaves of October.

Fred & Clair have been holding down the fort at the plant in Holbrook. The off season was spent sifting through the details & expenses of what has to happen to put the pieces back together. After an event like the wreck in Charlotte, there are obvious things that need to be done. The post-trauma fog of life makes some of these tasks somewhat automatic. The engine block & heads get shipped off to BAE for repair & get returned. The safety equipment gets repaired or updated. Lists get made of what needs more scrutiny. The quest for a replacement body begins.

The real challenge is that hidden under all the obvious bits are layers of details that raise questions of doubt. In this class of alcohol drag racing, there are dozens of parts on the car that require periodic replacement regardless of whether they appear to need it. After the stratospheric RPM the engine saw, this list is multiplied many times over. I was pleasantly surprised last year that the $8K crankshaft rang true when I removed it from the block, but the reality when it was sent out for inspection is it is loaded with micro-cracks, a once-used piece that is now a very expensive trophy of a bad weekend. Do the same hidden flaws exist in the gear drive or the transmission input shaft? The cost/risk/benefit analysis for these bits is staggering, but each needs to be looked at.

Through all of it, there are the comforts of stable home life, a garden that produces vegetables, a kitchen from which comes awesome meals & pets that don’t have a care about racecars & bills.

Thirty miles south of the plant, Mark is neck deep in structural welding work, a cyclical employment that is currently in a hot cycle. As one of the non-retired, work has been both welcome & exhausting. Construction welding is a young guy’s game, but Mark’s talents do the work of more than a few young guys in the same workday, so the arc keeps pushing the puddle forward. In the little downtime available he has been competitively racing, modifying & tuning dirt bikes & continuing to build up the homestead. I always like to hear his tales of animal antics, be it dogs, cats, ducks or other wildlife. We also exchange random pictures of whatever food happens to be coming off the grill.

Crewguy Mike is in a New York state of mind. He has been doing rehab of his own, working on several automotive restoration projects including a long lost then found again Datsun 240Z and a vintage GTO. Down in Rhode Island, Rick has moved out of the heavy forklift repair industry into the boat repair industry & is enjoying time on the water with family & friends. Next door to me in New Hampshire, Keith is still looking to sell his business while slowing down & going on some European river cruises & hitting a few races. Down the coast in South Carolina, Dave is still traversing the continent part time delivering tradeshow trucks for GM while helping to keep his cousin’s 1960’s vintage MG & Nash show cars in tip-top shape & enjoying the kids & grandkids.

I’ve been busy enjoying my second year of retirement. I still have no idea how I managed to get anything done while working. My list of projects is slowly being pared down, but the bigger ones just keep reminding me they are undone. I have attained my goal over the past year of shooting enough ATA registered clay targets to get my trap classification & have been steadily improving my averages. Trap is like drag racing in the sense that it requires strict attention to detail & concentration, it costs more than you care to admit & it is a fun community that enjoys making loud noises. It differs in that the entire goal is to break stuff instead of not breaking stuff.

So there we have it. Team Tigges is still struggling through rehab. Most of the pieces of the car are rebuilt and ready to go, but the hard work of finding and refitting a body is yet to happen & life in general has gotten in the way of the completion of the chassis repairs & rewiring. It is very odd to follow the class remotely, bemoaning the fact that car counts are trending lower & lower, but at the same time realize that we are a part of that low count. We all miss the camaraderie, adrenaline & competition of the track. It seems so distant in the present.

At least we are all fairly healthy & are surviving the recent onslaught of storms, both natural & political. Time will tell what comes next, but for now it is a lost year & a tough rehab for Team Tigges.

Chris Saulnier – Team Tigges
Mechanic Falls, Maine