Photos From Ford Proving Grounds Mustang Alley Friday

http://mustangalley2009.shutterfly.com/19

What this is all about:About two weeks before woodward, we got an email because we were registered for Mustang Alley. The offer? A day at Ford's Dearborn proving grounds. We meet, caravan up with a police escort, then make a parade lap on the low speed track. Then we park and take a van over to the conference center. Then, a meet and greet with some Ford folks, a track tour, a chance to drive some of their cars (Fiesta, 2010 Mustangs and an AWD Fusion) on the steering track. Finally, the ultimate. HOT LAPS on the suspenion and steering track with pro drivers. Cars? Ford GT's, Mustangs and a Fiesta (the one guy broke the V8 Focus). The Fiesta was very surprising, it really handled. The GT was everything they are meant to be. SO much fun!

About us

We just added some photos to our about us page (http://www.gear4gearheads.biz/about.html ) on our website. We're waiting on a good one of us from the special Friday Mustang Alley event at the Ford Proving Grounds in Dearborn to be posted by the photographers that were allowed to have cameras at the event. In the mean time, we thought you might like to see that we really do have our own restoration project, and see just how much work she's been so far. That way, when we tell you that she inspired shirts like "I love the smell of bondo in the morning", you can see why! Check it out when you get a chance, and see how our Eleanor has progressed from start to now!

An adventure in storm running

What's storm running? Well, it's the opposite of storm chasing! We have been working on our 1973 Mustang since November of 02, and while she still isn't a thing of beauty and certainly won't win at a concours show, she's come a LONG way. Last night seemed like the perfect night to take her out to her first cruise night in years. The sun was shining, they were predicting some showers later and a friend that usually works late could meet us there with his Duster. PERFECT! We went home, grabbed a few chairs and put them in the "back seat" (we are waiting on a roll cage install, so there really isn't much in the way of an interior-just the two front seats, seat belts and dash), and headed up to the cruise night. This particular cruise night is about half an hour from our house. We had a good shake down cruise up to the park where it's held, noting we needed to get the alignment fixed and put some heat shield below the carpet when it's put in (the floors were HOT, HOT, HOT!).

Once we arrived, we got comfortable in our chairs behind the car, commenting on how strange it felt to see her out of the garage. The music was playing, we had some hot dogs for dinner and we were just enjoying the atmosphere of cars, cruisers and the oldies the DJ was spinning. Our friend arrived with his Duster and parked a few spaces down. We looked at each others cars (he just picked his up and hadn't seen ours in years). We were talking about Gear 4 Gearheads and his business (he owns a repair shop and just bought a new place). Just a good night in general. There's just nothing better than a summer night with tunes, cars, cruisers and good food. Nothing.

Then I heard a distant rumble. Was that thunder or a truck with an empty trailer hitting a bump? Can't tell over the music...we went back to our conversation and admiring how clean (as in straight and rust free) his car is. Ok, THAT was thunder. Hm. Back to talking. Looking around, we see others start to pack up and leave in a hurry. Took a look at the sky just as sheet lighting lit things up. OK, time to GO!

So, we pack the chairs into the Mustang and start heading home. Now, remember how we noted we needed to get the alignment fixed? We can't go over 40/45 because the tires start to scream. Now we're headed away from the storm, but it's gaining ground behind us. The sky looked like it was 10 pm not 8 pm and it was filled with sheet and bolts of lightening. We made it to a north/south street to head back towards our home town. Now we're running parallel to the storm, watching it close in on us as we pray for each light to stay green. We made it home, got her in the garage and no sooner did we lock the garage and gate than WHAMO. The wind blew in hard enough that leaves and branches were flying and the rain was coming down so hard you couldn't see across the street!

So, we were successful in our storm running. Lesson learned-never believe the weather people!

I love the smell of bondo

Hello, this is the "wife" half of Gear 4 Gearheads. I decided I would go ahead and start blogging about the different sayings on our shirts, and where they came from. Because we are deeply involved in the hobby and are restoring a car ourselves, many of the unique phrases you see came from personal experiences. We don’t just sit behind a computer and slap up saying on shirts, we live them! All of our designs can be found on our website, http://www.gear4gearheads.biz/ (ok, SOME of them-we are overhauling the site right now, so bear with us). As far as the origins of our designs, I’m going to start with one of the more obscure ones-I just happened to pick it up to wear today and it made me think about it.“I love the smell of bondo in the morning” ( http://www.gear4gearheads.biz/smellofbondo.html). Well, this one is pretty straight forward-I DO love the smell of body filler. Paint (especially a quality clear-smells just like candy to me) too, but that’s a different subject. This particular shirt though, came from an early morning body work session with the car we are restoring. See, we bought this car back in November of 02, knowing it needed some work. Well, as anyone that’s restored one in their garage knows-one little thing leads to about ten huge things! At the time this shirt saying came to mind, we were trying to get the car ready for Woodward (never happened, but home resto project rarely make a deadline). We needed to replace the driver’s side rear quarter skin. Once we got that skin off, we needed to replace the outer wheelhouse too-like I said, one thing ALWAYS leads to another. Well, we got the repopped wheelhouse in, after some modification (ever notice “bolt on”resto parts never are?) and used body glue to put the skin on. So far, the glue is holding fine. Anyway, we had to smooth the line between the new skin and the original body-so, early in the morning, we were mixing up some bondo and I said to my husband “I love the smell of bondo in the morning!”.Then I said “I’ll be right back, I gotta put that on a shirt!”. So there you have it-the story behind the shirt that says “I love the smell of bondo in the morning”. It’s a great gift idea for someone that does body work for a living, or, like us, is deep into a restoration project. Because usually by that point, a good laugh is a great thing!

Added new free wallpaper

We've added some new hot rods, cars in barns, classic cars, an Anglia, and even a hot 2010 Challenger convertible (Dodge really needs to build this car)! Check it out on the wallpaper page: http://www.gear4gearheads.biz/wallpaper.html

Home From The Dream Cruise

We're home from Woodward! The videos are uploaded to our youtube channel (www.youtube.com/gear4gearheads), the tweets are tweeted and the car is washed, dried and tucked away in the garage. As we work on creating and adding wallpaper to www.gear4gearheads.biz , we are reflecting on the Woodward Dream Cruise and about what it really is. The facts say a lot. Every third Saturday in August, over 40,000 vehicles fill 8 lanes of pavement from Ferndale to Pontiac and over 1 million people come to spectate. It's a pilgrimage of automotive enthusiasts to the center of the known motoring universe, all celebrating the one uniting factor-the vehicles. But there's more than the hard numbers. The dream cruise transcends awards and dash plaques from regular car shows. Really and truly, there is no award greater than having someone choose to take a picture of YOUR car in the sea of amazing works of automotive art, or hearing a little boy or girl yelling for mom or dad to "look, look, LOOK! Look at THAT one!" and seeing them point at your ride. It's more than the cars though, it's the people too. There are so many stories of cruisers reaching out to others in the community, we would need a whole blog just to share them. The friendships forged and shared in those hot days of August are priceless. Woodward is over for another year, but the memories will last a lifetime!

Woodward Dream Cruise traffic jam

If you've ever tried to cruise the famous Woodward ave between Ferndale and Pontiac on the Saturday of the Dream Cruise, you know exactly what we were thinking when we came up with this one. Any other time you are stuck in that kind of crazy traffic, with the heat of summer making it feel like a blast furnace, you would not be very happy. But on that one magical day in August, you can crawl at an idle and take over an hour to go a mile-and be happier than a clam! The exhaust fumes, full of octane and lead supplement, burns your eyes, the rumble of the motors can be felt in your floorboards and you are one of thousands of enthusiasts gathering to celebrate the hobby, it's history and the cars. There's just no way to describe this amazing event-pictures might be worth a thousand words, but there's not enough film in the world. So, we'll see you at Woodward, doin the Woodward Crawl, and having the most fun we'll ever have in a traffic jamb!