Bluega on the 2014 Great Race - 10 States, 9 Days, 2,100 miles.

Uncle Josh

bull - you didn't know about Hudsons being banned??  That happened a lot at local tracks back then.  They changed the rules making it illegal to run a 308 (so most just ran 262's that were souped up) so then they changed the rules again making it illegal to run uni-body cars.  LOL  Hudsons won to much and track owners were tired of hearing everybody complain about the Hudsons

Then there was my mechanic, Stan Lupka. He was beatin everyvbody so the limited the track cubes to 300. "to get rid of Stan's Hornet"..so he put the 262 crank in the 308 and was just under the 300 limit. Still beat everybody so they told him he couldn't run that block because it was originally over 300.

So he goes back to the garage, puts the 308 crank in the 262, and bores it to 299.9. Track champ for years.
I took him to breakfast 5 yrs ago just before he died, and he was laughing about it yet. Then 2 people in the place recognized him and came over to reminisce.

Browniepetersen

As I look over the posts to this adventure I cannot help but wonder what responsible folks are thinking. I admit that it was quite an adventure and I must say that you were very lucky that you were able to keep your Hudson on the road each day. I also noticed that your adventure brought some positive hits along side most of the posts. The post by "lostmind" has been getting negative responses when in fact that most responsible Hudson owners would agree with him. Our mantra has always been: "make it stop!" "Make it go!" then make it pretty---- I have always understood that the first two of this threesome is based on Safety. As I see the adventure, this was overlooked.

Ken makes some very good points with his definition of part of making it go. The fact of the matter is that your car was short of being safe in a lot of ways.

And yet, these two comments are the ones that are getting negative responses. There are a few folks out there that misunderstand what this love affair with Hudson's is all about and high on that list is operating our cars in a safe way.

Just my two cents......

hudsontech

Kenny - you trying to pass a message along??

Hudsonly,
Alex Burr
Memphis, TN

[Deleted User]

As I look over the posts to this adventure I cannot help but wonder what responsible folks are thinking. I admit that it was quite an adventure and I must say that you were very lucky that you were able to keep your Hudson on the road each day. I also noticed that your adventure brought some positive hits along side most of the posts. The post by "lostmind" has been getting negative responses when in fact that most responsible Hudson owners would agree with him. Our mantra has always been: "make it stop!" "Make it go!" then make it pretty---- I have always understood that the first two of this threesome is based on Safety. As I see the adventure, this was overlooked.

Ken makes some very good points with his definition of part of making it go. The fact of the matter is that your car was short of being safe in a lot of ways.

And yet, these two comments are the ones that are getting negative responses. There are a few folks out there that misunderstand what this love affair with Hudson's is all about and high on that list is operating our cars in a safe way.

Just my two cents......

The way this forum is organized is really confusing my brain, I can't even find my last post...

I guess what isn't clear is that the car DID go, the car DID stop.  Was the "go" and "stop" the best possible they could have been?  No, probably not, but if you can point me to ANY car that's more than 7 years old and not a fully restored garage queen in Arizona, I can show you a car that's lost some of its stopping, go-ing, and handling.  Example- my daily has required every part of its braking system to be replaced over the last few years, and it's currently down while I fix some rust, replace the gas tank which has rusted through, and swap the almost completely gone rear bumper beam for a new one.  That's a 2000 model year.

Also, Pretty?  0.o  My car's missing half the chrome on the sides, I painted it using rattle can primer and a barn-cum-paint-booth with an air compressor that shot more water than paint through the gun, and what few pieces that were re-chromed were done without any pitting removal.  This Commodore is, at best, a 20-footer.  All of the above took two days.  If it looks pretty, put it down to photography skills...

Again, the car is not unsafe, and when you consider the state of most of the other cars and how many of them fail DESPITE being restored?  This one was damn near turn-key and go.  Perhaps the scope of the failures just doesn't come through?  We started this year with 104 cars.  We finished with 94.  Ten cars dropped out due to irreparable failures- and that's amazing.  Normally we'd get 20 cars dropping out.

What is a specific dire safety concern?  The suspension bushings?  How many of you drive 10 year old cars daily that haven't had the bushings changed?  I can say from experience that in ten years the bushings on a modern car can get a lot worse than the bushings on Bluega are...

I can agree that there was oversight, but it was not for lack of looking, rather careful organization of priorities.  Had the panhard bar bushings been missing, I would have replaced them.  As they were merely worn, they were put on the low priority list, below things like seatbelts, frame rust, etc., because the car will function with worn bushings.  If the frame snapped in half, that's slightly more of a game-over.

It really seems like some people are making mountains out of molehills...  But clearly the molehills are too tall to see each other over.  Perhaps I made our car seem worse than others (when in reality this is how ALL of the cars that finished ended up), but it wasn't.  Much like our scores, the car was above the middle for reliability.

And for what it's worth, the cars arrived home today and I've already replaced some of the leaking gaskets.

P.S.  There was no "luck" involved in keeping the car on the road every day, at least no more so than any car requires.  Almost every night I made sure it would be ready come the next day, and I was never alone in the parking lot...