6-7-05 Sharktrip End

The Sharktrip is O'fficially over.

We took off from Kokomo around noon. Dan thought he saw a familiar orange billboard where we could stop for lunch but it was a no go. So, I dug out the laptop attached the car's GPS to it and did a search for any Owl joints in Indy. I thought I remembered one in Lafayette and since we were headed that way to pick up 65N ANYWAY... Well we found it. Tried it. And it certainly made us appreciate the ones we go to (as mentioned previously, Downers Grove and Janesville) normally. Had normal fare and hit the road.
One note about Lafayette, Indiana...whoever the buttnut is that set up the traffic lights should swing... About every block there's one (off the main highway, mind you) that turns yellow just as you're coming up on it.

The drive was pretty good and saw some nice lightning from storms over the area that we mostly skirted. We sure felt the front though, experiencing a 19 degree temperature swing, from 91 to 72. That was a nice reprieve since we were using the air sparingly as a result of the stall earlier.
Up to the Ind/Ill border was uneventful but we hit some really ugly-nasty-bad traffic which took us almost an hour to push through.
After that everything was fine, until....
The car died out at a light about a mile and a half from my house. Dan was driving and felt a sudden drop in performance and stuttering in the motor. It was definitely a different issue from before and seemed fuel related. He tried to restart it and every once in a while it would crank over and stay running for a really short time before dying out again. Since we were at the front of the pack at the light, Dan managed to barely keep it running enough to get us through the light but just. He used up some clutch on that one too. It finally died out again about a quarter mile from home. The road was on a slight incline, so I jumped and pushed the car over the top of the hill while Dan tried to restart it. That loaded car is pretty heavy pushing uphill, let me tell you and I was used up fairly quickly. Luckily we crested and after a couple tries she started right up. Made it to my driveway after that on full power without issue. That's another one of those 'mysterious-can't explain' problems that seems to pop up on those cars.
Other than the couple of incidents mentioned in the posts, the 928 performed great and ran like a champ. It was a pleasure to drive and ride in. And for everyone who says 'it's so small... How do you fit two Colossal's and a weeks worth of gear in there" I reply 'it's roomy in front and roomy in back, just little in the middle (as we have a medium sized friend who can attest to). You should see us with TWO WEEKS of gear and a ton of chotch.

That's all there is for now. So with all that done, I want to say heartfelt thanks to Dan for getting me hooked on a car that I have always adored since my auto-mechanic days when I got to work on an exhaust on a silver 79'. Thanks too for giving me the opportunity to enjoy the thrill of driving his gorgeous car (despite a couple missed shifts and killing it in rush hour), getting me sucked into the whole 928 experience, letting me tag along to meet a lot of cool and interesting people, giving up his first toy for me to get my hands dirty on and most important for being an awesome best friend that I am thankful for every day.

Seeya next year,

Mike