As I described this story to Craig he observed “When I plug in a treadmill it works, when you plug one in it sets off a chain of events.”

This story starts a few days earlier when Craig (as part of his impending child’s birth) was forced to relocate BrandNewEngine corporate offices from an upstairs guest bedroom to the penthouse suite on top of DTOMRacing Enterprises LLC World HQ. The window view he requires as CEO, meant that the Geiger family gym had to be broken up and partially moved. Thankfully Jim’s Gym had an opening for a treadmill.

I suspect this was motivated by Craig looking at me and thinking about sharing a car that has a fixed weight limit attached. Meaning every extra pound over what the car’s mandated weight is dead. So like a jockey it pays to be skinny. I had decided when we took a year off of racing I’d take a year off of being fit as well. So saying “Here why don’t you take this treadmill” was sort of a polite Craig way of saying – “Hey fat ass shape it up.”

As we carried the treadmill precariously down the penthouse suites narrow steps, and again up my steep muddy hill into its basement Jim’s Gym home, we quickly discovered – if you move treadmills for a living you probably don’t need one.

Later that afternoon I went for the final assembly / test drive. The basement has one outlet, so I put it conveniently next to that outlet which is one of those bathroom sink GFI types. When I plugged it in, I heard a “pop / click” sound that those make when they go off. I immediately tried to reset it without luck.

Now there are two background things to keep in mind here:

1) From June of ’09 DTOMReaders will remember this about my house.

and

2) I have a caveman like understanding (fear) of electricity.

So keeping those things in mind I’ll proceed with the chain of events.

After trying to reset the outlet, I check the clock radio that was plugged in as well just to make sure it didn’t have power. I swap plugging things in different, reset again. Nothing is working. I check the breaker box to see if any of those have tripped. Nope, everything still looks to be on. For giggles I find the one labeled “BASEMENT” and flip it on and off. Nothing. Oddly the lights (which go off when the “BASEMENT” breaker is flipped) remain on despite no power to this outlet.

Okay, I figure it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that this outlet box has achieved its usable life span. On Monday I consult with people more practiced in electricity and home repair than myself and that is the consensus. So on Tuesday I run to Home Depot and pick up a new GFI outlet and a little tester dealio. Thanks to the tilt of the earth, and Daylight Savings time it is dark when I have time to do this. So I go downstairs, flip the breaker marked BASEMENT and proceed to wire this new outlet in the dark holding a flashlight under my chin.

Much like Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation I throw the breaker and proudly plug in the little tester. Nothing happens. Now I’m out of ideas, I had one shot in my locker and that didn’t work, so I retreat. The next morning I call in the big guns, my buddy Matt has a father-in-law that is a master union electrician (retired), he conferences him in and we go play by play. Based on my explanation the best he can come up with is – perhaps the outlet you bought is supposed to be wired differently (since I just copied how it was already set up), OR something about the circuit line and load, GFI blah blah blah that I couldn’t follow.

SO – keeping in mind numbers 1&2 I figure I’m out of my depth here time to call in reinforcements. So the electrician arrived at 8:30am. I recited my tale to him, and he pulls out a little electric detecto light. It isn’t showing power to that outlet – so far so good. He asks “Are you sure this outlet is on the basement circuit?” To which my only answer was “Well we’re in the basement?”. He said, “Do you know if your bathroom outlet(s) are working?” Turns out, the BASEMENT labeled circuit was only for the lights. This particular outlet as he proceeded to find out was part of something called “OUTSIDE”.

Now it did turn out that the particular breaker for OUTSIDE was going bad, after he fixed it he points to my outlet now proudly showing its bright little green light. He said, “See you did wire it right all along!”. To which I said, “You mean I wired that box up with the power on, and did it in the dark for no reason since that wasn’t even the right breaker.” The electrician guy really got a kick out of this and started just laughing. So I asked, “How did I not get electrocuted?” His response was an unsatisfactory – “Thats a good question, I don’t know.”

Here is your chance to be part of the DTOM team. There are a few pieces of equipment that are super handy when you need them, but a super big pain in the ass to store when you don’t. Engine stands, and engine hoists come to mind.

We need a rotisserie to make some of the stuff we need to do on the car moderately easier. The moderately part means it isn’t worth buying (or building) one, but if some loyal DTOM reader in the greater Atlanta area has one they’d like to store in Craig’s garage on a temporary basis. Well – win / win. (We had hoped Santa would provide but I guess the reindeer balked at lugging around 500 lbs of square steel tubing and he had his hands full with Craig’s tickle me elmo requests.)

A rotisserie basically serves the same purpose as the one you use on the grill, or that the gyro place has. Except in this example the car is the chicken / turkey / lamb&beef amalgamation.

If you have one, or know someone that does that wants to loan / sell / donate – please contact us at: dtomracing [at@] “G” male dot. com. Or you can just post a comment to this post and we’ll get back to you. Thanks!!

NOT this kind.

LIKE THIS!!

If I can get some time we may have an old fashioned DTOM post up later this week. In the meantime here is a picture of the car back from paint.

DTOM Racing was trying to sign Dave White, but unfortunately with the current financial state of DTOMRacing Enterprises Inc. LLC our sunglass budget wasn’t robust enough to bring him on board.  Maybe next year.

I’m not 100% sure if anyone ever looks at the site anymore, and really I can’t say that I blame you.  If you’ve missed the excuse list check out the last 4 or more posts.  Anyway we are proceeding with glacial like speed and determination towards getting a running car.  With the amount that we’re over budget, and out of time DTOM enthusiasm is definitely at an all time low.  Craig blames me, I blame seasonal depression.

There is one hero in this entire build and his name is Eric at ElectronSpeed.  You can see his handy work on the switch panel.  So far he is the MVP since he has been on time and on budget.

Without further adieu here is small sampling of what we’ve been up to and where we’re at with the car.

Only true Race Car nerds will appreciate this, but take my word for it, some baller a$$ stuff.

****UPDATE****

To make the engine work with the Bosch ECU you have to do some tricks.

John Eversley (Ryan’s dad) did the bulkhead fabrication for us.  This keeps fuel from the fuel cell pouring into the driver’s compartment in case of a wreck etc. sort of important since safety first is always the DTOM motto.

Doors are gutted to fit around the cage bars and glass is removed (front doors).

BimmerWorld took the roof off since the sunroof has to go anyway and to make it easier to install the cage.  Here is the new roof (non-sunroof) a Euro BMW part.

Here it is with the doors hung, and the roof, and wheels.  It almost resembles a car.  Getting ready for paint, then the real work begins!

Carbon trunk for weight savings (Grand Am spec part).

A few extra bumpers, since “accidents” happen.  We named the bumper on top “The Dave White memorial edition”  EDIT – apparently this joke was unclear.  The bumper was so named since it is going to kill any dream Dave has of winning a race that we happen to show up at.

Carbon Fiber Hood, looks good, not as light as you would think (or hope).

For all you guys that drive by the BBS US HQ next to Road Atlanta, its pretty much a warehouse inside not very glamorous.

And an old pic from when we picked the car up.

If you haven’t figured it out DTOMRacing has been on somewhat of a summer hiatus.  If this were TV we’d have shown repeats.  As I’ve probably mentioned 5 or more times, when you have a niche blog on racing and you’re not racing…. material to write about is a little thin on the ground.

The good news is that we pick up the chassis this week from BimmerWorld and then start working on putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.  Unfortunately everything is taking longer and costing more, and not in a DTOM funny way but more of a sad death by a million papercuts way.  It is a safe bet to say that barring a winning lotto ticket, or miracle along those lines Daytona will be watched on TV and not from pit lane.

With that bad news delivered and out of the way I promise that we’ll at least have a few more pictures up shortly and I’ll try to hurt myself or something for your amusement once we start ‘working’.