TJ Higgins started me off this morning:
> Since I couldn't push the car, I backed the truck up to it, hitched up
> the tow rope (what, you mean you don't always carry a tow rope in the
> boot of your LBC?)
And somehow this reminded me of one of the high points of Sunday's
Britcar-list picnic and experiment in sunstroke (105 in Mt. View!)
On the way there, I stopped to drive Daren Stone's famous Redcar,
the Bugeye Sprite that's been to Mexico a couple of times for La
Carrera, an event I think I have to enter one year soon. Daren
was planning to drive the '48 Riley, and was reviving it from long
slumber as I arrived. Lovely tickover, nice wood inside, and
terrific details such as lubrication nipples on the door hinges;
Torrey didn't quite get that the doors opened backwards, but we
tried to show her.
Anyway, at one point, when Mr. Riley was reluctant to start, the
three of us grown-ups (well, those who have achieved physical
maturity, as opposed to my five-year-old daughter) went about
the routine of aligning Mr. Riley with Daren's tow vehicle that
doubles as a moving condominium, a Chevy Suburban complete with 454.
Paul, Daren's friend who competes in La Carrera as well, moved
into position at the front of the Riley, ready to heave it into
place opposite the Suburban's battery and in range of the jumper
cables.
"So what panels are safe to push on?" Paul asked, dead serious.
I am afraid I laughed rather more than might strictly have been
interpreted as decorous under the circumstances, but it hit home.
We all make adaptations to our cars, knowing where it's safe to
push, where you can pull to lift yourself clear of the ground
when you've been working under it, where you're likely to cut
yourself if you bump your head while reaching in to tweak some
adjustable component (or to replace some non-adjustable component
that, no doubt out of jealousy, aspires to adjustability at this
late stage in its life cycle by coming unstuck from the part to
which it was once integral).
"Paul has obviously worked around British cars before," I said,
when I caught my breath.
Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, we'll have to teach Paul the
correct way to grip a starting handle so as to avoid injury.
Between the two world wars, there was an upswing in broken
thumbs caused by people grasping the starting handles of their
cars with the natural broom-handle grip you'd adopt without any
knowledge of what happens when the car kicks back. This came
to be known as the "Ford fracture." For the record, instead
of grasping it with the thumb opposed, you should hold the
starting handle with the thumb curved the same direction as
the fingers. That way all you have to worry about is the
handle flying backward with such force that it comes detached
from the car and shatters your kneecaps on its way across the
street.
What I still find so odd about British cars, after all these
years with them, is not that we have adapted to such oddities;
humans have, after all, adapted to harsher, stranger and more
dangerous things than Riley starting handles.
What I find so odd is that we think it's so damned much *fun*...
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