Some where in Buntington Heach, CA
Early Spring to Late Summer, 2000

"The Case of the Missing Flywheel"

 
Look out, Larry's got his eye on you!  

Well, I haven't updated the website in almost two months.  I was having a little bit of "writer's block", and I just couldn't get the stories written for some reason.   Wayne will say that he notices that if I win an event, I immediately update the website.  But if I suck at an event, sometimes I just kinda of "ignore" that weekend.  I have finally got off my ass to write up the last couple of adventures, and decided to start with a non-racing story.  Kinda like a cheesy detective novel, with apologies to "The Smoking Gun"..  Here it goes....

My car has this light flywheel in it for performance purposes.  Unfortunately, it made contact with Larry’s eye.  Pop Quiz Time.  Was it because:

  1. Larry is underneath an NSX, trying to remove flywheel.  Flywheel doesn’t come out.  Larry curses and pulls on flywheel.  Flywheel is stuck.  Larry curses more, pulls on it.  Flywheel is still stuck.  Larry uses pry bar and tries to force flywheel out using 251 lbs of Mexican Love Machine power.  Flywheel finally snaps out of tranny, with 251 foot lbs of torque behind it and the full weight of Earth's gravity, and it falls directly on his face.
  2. Flywheel takes on characteristics of an alien Frisbee and a co-starring part in The X-Files new season premiere and levitates itself five feet, and then proceeds on a high speed path back to Mars, except Larry’s face was in the way.
  3. Washed-up Olympic discus thrower on acid, ecstasy, and ephederine sees high performance flywheel on Larry's desk, picks it up, runs outside, hallucinating that he is going to be seen by via 15 hour tape delay by millions of bored NBC viewers who want to see him throw the discus over 20 foot high NSX Modified building.  Unfortunately, trajectory is miscalculated by 15 feet, thus landing in Larry’s face.
  4. Flamemobile is at the track, Hayashi misses another shift, accidentally shifts into 3rd going 124 MPH again, disintegrating yet another tranny/clutch into tiny pieces.  Flywheel separates from tranny, rolls at 124 MPH into pit area, where it rolls up Larry’s leg directly into his face.
  5. Larry convinces customer to install short gears, ring and pinion, and light flywheel in their NSX, despite protests from customer’s spouse that they can only afford two of these three modifications.  Customer ignores bitchy spouse, and tells Larry to put in all three mods.   Customer buys all three mods, and takes them home to admire, and have the mods installed later.  Bitchy spouse returns one of the three mods via Bitchy Spouse Free Airmail, hurling flywheel at Larry, screaming, “I told you guys only two mods dammit, not three”.
  6. Angry female thinks Larry’s good looks are cut from stone and his face is solid, and that a thrown flywheel will bounce off his face with no discernable damage.  Unfortunately for Larry’s face, Reynolds high-temp, lightweight, 605 Aluminum is harder than stone.  After all, what do you think those drill bits for cutting through mountains are made of?

Anyways, to get on with the story, The Buntington Heach Police (Note: I transposed the first letters to avoid this webpage from coming up in search engines, if you know what I mean.  I am sure the Buntington Heach Police have PR slaves that search the Internet for anyone posting derogatory webpages about them, and then issuing an APB to find them and kick their ass) confiscate the flywheel.  No big deal, right.  Then, I realize that it is MY flywheel.   That goes in MY NSX.  Dammit all, I want my flywheel back, I don’t care if it has Larry’s DNA all over it.  So I march into the BHPD, and politely ask for my high performance flywheel.  I am then told it is evidence in a potential attempted murder case.  And that evidence cannot be released right now, come back later.  So now I am pissed.  Larry’s eye and face is healing nicely, but I still ain’t got my flywheel. 

Two months later, Larry and I march back into the BHPD.  The attempted murder case appears to have been dropped.  A detective asks us for the case number.   We produce the case number.  The detective fills out the property requisition slip for us.  He tells us to follow the painted footsteps to the property room where I can pick up my flywheel.  Larry and I are smiling.  It is a good day.  We get to the supply room.  I whip out my requisition slip, and the guy looks at the slip and then at me kinda like, “Uh oh”.  He goes into the back room, and comes out, and says, “Uh…….we threw it out”.  Larry said my face looked like I could not comprehend what the officer was saying.  “Huh??”, I managed to blurt out. “What did you say???”.  The officer then said that they threw it out a little while ago, and they did not think it was of any value.  “Well, it is of no value if you own a 1997 Ford Crown Victoria with sirens on it, you bozo-brained, wanna-be Nazi”, is what I think to myself.  “Gee, I wonder what happens to all those kilos of cocaine that you guys confiscate, does that get ‘thrown out’ also?”, I again think to myself.   I can’t tell the officer what I really think, since Pulp Racing and 1-800-Phoneguys are located in Buntington Heach, and I don’t want to be pulled over in the F355 and beaten to a Pulp(ha ha), and have newpaper people call me “The Asian Rodney King” or “The Japanese Amadou Diallo.”  I mean, let’s face it, the reasons there were no riots on the July 4th weekend the past couple of years is because the Buntington Heach Police came out in riot gear and kicked everyone’s ass.  Talk about Clampdown, you can’t even drink a damn beer on your own front porch 4th of July weekend in Buntington Heach.

 
Nothing can stop the man from NSX Modified from smiling.

So, anyways, Larry is laughing at me, cracking up.  I can’t see why he is laughing at me, I should be laughing at him.  Hell, I would have been quick enough to DUCK and have the flywheel miss my face.   I tell the officer, “So that’s it.  It’s gone.  That’s all you can tell me?  That high performance racing flywheel was worth $700 bucks!”.  The officer then says, “Well, you can go down to City Hall, and fill out a report with Risk Management, maybe they can help you”.  I can’t take it anymore, I give up for the day. 

Two weeks later, I cruise into “Risk Management” department again.  Apparently they also issue passports here, so there is about 20 people crammed into a small office area, with a big “Take a number” sign.  I give up again.

Two weeks later, I cruise in, and fill in my report.  I fill out page 1 and page 2 of the “Claim Against The City of Buntington Heach” form.  This doesn’t looks promising.  Especially when an LAPD officer tells me that “Risk Management Department”, is a polite way of saying, “Get lost buddy, The City bets you will not hire a lawyer to settle you trivial claim, so we ain’t gonna give you shit”.   Well, I got news for Buntington Heach.  If my flywheel is worth $700, I will pay a cheap, shyster lawyer $699 to get my $700 back, so at least I am up $1 on principle, and hopefully the lawyer can generate $3000 worth of work for the City of Buntington Heach to deal with.  And cause some pain and suffering to the officer with doughnut crumbs encrusted all over his face and moustache by making him explain to his superiors why he threw out evidence in a potential murder case.

And, then, lo and behold, three weeks later I get a cover letter in the mail from Risk Management, that basically says something like, “Uh, we screwed up, so we will give you $700, but you have to release the City from all future claims, liabilities, injuries, damages, losses that are currently known, unknown, foreseen, or unforeseen.  Sign here immediately”.

Two weeks later, I got my check in the mail!  I just have to make sure that I avoid any contact with BHPD officers, especially when there are no witnesses around.......