The Winner’s Circle

09/20/2026

We spent the week at the Austin Healey Club of America’s national conclave. I’ll have to post some pics and such, but this week with cars did a better job covering the event than I ever could…

Today I attend the 2026 Austin Healey Conclave at Galena, IL. The ...

09/11/2026

We’re going to conclave!!! We hope to see you there. We’ll be out of the shop all next week, but someone will be there a few days to ship out online orders. Really, why would you be ordering next week anyway, shouldn’t you be at conclave?

08/27/2026

Running a fuel injected healey motor on our dyno. We rebuilt it after a rod vented the side of the block. The manifold is one the Martin of jewel frame fame designed. We also made the cam timing pickup and crank timing. Being different is always cool. ,

08/19/2026

Last Wednesday was the last and worst part of the trip. I was a 6.5 hour drive on the highway without traffic or rain. Luckily, we had both traffic and rain. Overall we had a great time. We drove 2,000 miles in total, went to 4 amusement parks, drove on some beautiful roads in Vermont, and made it back home safe and sound. What did I do to the car to prepare for a 2,000 mile trip? I replaced the exhaust bracket that broke from hitting something. Really, that’s it. Oh yeah, I also had my brother clean my steering wheel and fix my horn. Otherwise, it left for this trip as it was.

08/14/2026

We spent Monday and Tuesday at Canadas wonderland. It’s a great park and deserved 2 days. Not only do they have 18 roller coasters, it’s a neatly designed park with decent theming. It all centers around a giant mountain with a waterfall coming off of it. 4 coaster weave through the mountain. We live right by kings island and it’s obvious that this park was owned by the same people at points in its life. Some of the rides are similar or the same. I loved both alpen fury and leviathan. There was also a neat roller coaster/shooting game. It started as a roller coaster and turned into one of those games where everyone has a gun and shoots things on screens. Overall a great experience. Our hotel was very close and brand new.

There was a mall with a Lego discovery center and even more importantly an amazing cookie shop! The night we got in town we went to the mall for dinner and grabbed a couple of cookies. The dark chocolate chip cookies were made with legit dark chocolate. The 87% cocoa type chocolate and they were so good we stopped back on our way out of town. Sadly, they didn’t have any. When I told the lady I came for the dark chocolate chip cookies, she said they have over 100 different cookies they rotate, but if I want to buy a dozen, she’ll make them and they’ll be ready in 20 minutes. Guess what we did?

Tuesday after leaving the park, we drove about 90 minutes to the first and only hard rock hotel in Canada. It’s actually in London Canada in an old Kellogg factory that was built in 1913. It was a really neat building and Nancy got to continue her hard rock tee shirt collection.

08/13/2026

Sunday was the drive to Canadas wonderland. Nice easy drive. The roads were much much nicer in Ontario. The cruise is set for 114, everything’s happy. Onward!

08/11/2026

Saturday was the day of the French. We drove into Montreal and stopped at la ronde. It’s an amusement park that is on an island in the middle of the st Lawrence river. The park started in 1967 as an expo. The park itself was small, but it had a few decent size coasters. Many people online said this park has the worst operations and we have to agree. The lines would have moved quickly if any of the people running the rides weren’t acting like they were being inconvenienced by the public being there. Montreal is a beautiful city, but the roads are terrible. We bottomed out and hit the exhaust a couple of times. The roads here were much worse than the mountain passes in Vermont. We were also surprised by how rude many of the people were. The service workers were very friendly, but the public would just push their way past you. Out of curiosity, we looked into why they still speak French. Apparently the city was taken by the French and then the British, but a population of the French decided to keep it French. They now have laws requiring things to be French first and government and legal things are required to be in French. We almost stopped in “little Italy”, but got tired of the roads etc. I thought it would be interesting to be in an Italian part of town in a French speaking city in an English speaking country.

After the park, we drove a couple of hours to Cornwall and stayed at a place that looked like a college campus. It turned out that it was previously an air traffic control school that had been recently converted into a hotel and convention center.

08/10/2026

Friday was an amazing drive through Vermont. We had the option of taking a shorter route straight up the eastern boarder of New York, but Vermont was the right choice. We went up Route 100 for a while which follows the green mountains and goes through a bunch of old small towns. Then we went off the beaten path.

First we took a detour to drive the Lincoln gap. The direction we went is the steepest paved mile in the country including on section that is 24% grade. Once you crest the peak, most of the other side isn’t as steep, but it isn’t paved either.

Then we went back over the mountains on the Appalachian gap road which is route 7. It’s a little wider and mostly paved route. It was a more fun and less unnerving route. We started noticing all of these lines between trees and eventually found out that they are tapped into the maple trees for syrup collection systems. We stopped and bought some maple syrup that was collected on route 7. There’s a picture in this post with the blue lines between trees.

Then was route 108 which included a section of road called smugglers notch. It’s yet another mountain pass that was an old bootleggers route over the mountains. It was quite narrow. The road not only had warning for trucks, it had a chicane made out of curbing with signs saying, if you didn’t make it clean through this, you won’t make it up the road.

It was really an incredible drive and if you’re ever nearby with a sports car, do it!!!!!

08/09/2026

Thursday was great escape day!!! A quite old park (1954). There’s still some old rides and theming. There’s a storybook train ride and some nursery rhyme themed areas. They also have a 99 year old roller coaster that has been moved twice. Overall, it was a cute park, but there wasn’t a lot there for us. Plus, it rained most of the day. We did find a nice ski lodge to stay in for the night in Vermont.

08/08/2026

Wednesday got off to a slow start. We have noticed for a while after the car is parked in the garage after a drive that there’s a bit of a gas smell. Never left a puddle. Just a slight odor. We noticed Wednesday morning that it left a little spot of fluid and it was gas. It was dripping out of the bottom of the float about one drop a second. After some debate on fixes, we got some sealant rated for fuel. I emptied the float, sprayed the area with brake cleaner, and let it dry. Then applied the sealant and let it set for a bit while we found a new flavor of m&m’s. After letting it set for 30 minutes, and turning on the fuel pump, no leaks! We drove on to queensbury New York. We were along Lake Ontario for a bit and then some smaller lakes and for the last hour or two we were winding through the Adirondacks. It was quite a nice drive.