The aftermath

People have written to me so see how I've been doing after the big crash and I appreciate it. I haven't had any issues apart from the sore ribs. Choo volunteered to help me pick up the Civic and it was in worse condition than we had anticipated. The left rear lower control arm had sheered off, which meant the car would not roll, even after we changed the broken and damaged wheels. Under the hood, we were greeted with another nasty surprise: the battery had slid off its tray and landed on the header, dumping enough acid to eat right through the steel! I was going to need a new header if I wanted to reuse this engine package. There was no way to try to start the engine to see if it was OK. At least the engine and transmission seemed to have not hit anything. Because the car wouldn't roll, we had to use the BMW and a tow strap to drag the car onto the trailer, with Choo's Touareg parked at a 45-degree angle to the trailer so the BMW could pull in a straight line. It was not easy, as parts of the car kept catching on parts of the trailer. I was glad when the car was finally on the trailer. 

I drove behind the trailer as we brought it to Choo's place to he could dismantle the car and see what was salvageable. Choo worked on the car like a demon, completely stripping anything usable from the car. He even managed to salvage the roll bar, which is nice, considering how much it cost in the first place. Luckily, the most expensive components on the car (engine, transmission, ECU, coilovers) seem to be OK.

It was weird driving behind my own car...

Meantime, I was already looking for a replacement chassis. Some of the cars I found looked amazing, but were several thousand dollars. I needed this to be a low-budget build, as there is only a fixed amount of money I can spend in any given racing season. I received a message from Jérémi Martel that one of his clients at the Honda dealership was abandoning a project to build a track car from a Civic coupe just like mine. The seller sent me photos and apart from having some mismatched doors and no front fenders, the car looked like a solid base for a new project. The seller was only asking for 1000 $, and went Choo and I went to see the car, we got the price down to 800 $. There is a ton of work to transfer everything from one chassis to another, but there is no time constraint, since I don't plan to run any events in 2024. Also, there are some nice parts on the new car, that I can likely sell to recoup the cost of all this work.

It doesn't look like much yet, but this is my next track car!

As Alex said, at least if I can't drive, I can manage this project, with Choo's invaluable help, of course. I have already ordered a new header, radiator and motor mounts, and we'll be looking into what else is needed. To be continued...