well, i've told ya'll about my 1st "race shop" & a lot about my 2nd--but now i wanna talk about my current "shop". after my physical problems & resulting truck wreck in '04 ,which i've talked about, i could no longer, by law, drive a commercial truck for 10 years. so i was forced 2 sell my shop & several acres of land to raise "get by" cash. finally i was able 2 get on disability. but that only pays the house note & utilities. i eventually found a part time min wage job & was able 2 do a little racin. now, i rehearsed all this because its a big part of my story--its "where i came from". now, having a race car without a shop put me rite back where i started in '73. so, what 2 do? i began 2 thank it over & try 2 come up with a plan. the best plan was 2 build a nice brand new shop--but that was out of the ?. but i knew i at least needed a concrete slab 2 work on. the 1st choice would have been the slab that had been under our milk truck shed. it would have been almost perfect. i could have put some sides on it & made it into a real nice shop. there was only 1 thing that prevented me from doing that--the entire roof had been blown off of it just a couple of years earlier. i gave the materials 2 someone just 2 clean up the mess & uncover the milk trucks that were still under the rubble. so, the next best slab that was avail was under a large shed that was attached 2 the east side of our original milking barn. the original barn was built in the late '40's. this shed was added somewhere in the late '60's & the slab added in the 70's. these buildings & slabs are a big part of where i came from. i milked cows there from '55 thru early '61. & my dad was makin a living out of this barn before i was born. anyhow, i decided the lean-to shed was my best choice for my next "race shop". TJ said "well its definately a barn, so you won't have 2 change the name any, you can just call it speedbarn 2". when i began gettin it ready 2 move into it had at least 6" of dried cow manure left over from years gone by. at that time, i didn't have a front end loader 2 scoop the poop, so i just got a flat shovel & a bucket & went 2 work. it took me several weeks, but i finally cleaned it all out & washed it down & it was in surprisingly good shape. its a little ruff & uneven in a place or 2 but definately better than wallerin in the dirt. it slopes downhill slightly for water runoff which sometimes causes a creeper runaway--but you get use 2 it & adapt. & this slab is less than 100' from my 1st outdoor shop i used 40 years ago. so i reckin i've come full circle. so the gbt message in this post is--if you can't build a nice shop, you can get by in a barn if you have 2.
i went today & made lots of pics, so i'll go thru em now & share some with ya'll. i'll start 1st with a few from the real good old days of the original speed barn then move on 2 the modern 21st century "hi-tech" facility my ponyaks now call home.
