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Parrish57

Parrish57

New member
So I'm getting ready to get ready for VIR and took the cover off of my car. Imagine my surprise to find a new window net on the passenger side. It's not the first time nature has thumbed it's nose at my racing. One winter I stored the car outdoors under a tarp. In the springtime I uncovered it to find a squirrel's stash in my seat. There were also accorns shoved up my tailpipe...

Anybody else had nature play tricks with thier car?

Steve[attachmentid=641]
 
I had a mouse move into my cowl and eat a vacuume line to my knock box. Otherwise, nope no odd issues like that. But then I dont store my car outdoors in the winter, I bring the car home and store it in the garage. Only during the season does it sit in a place where critters can try to move in.
 
I have not had my racecar attacked by animals but using a broader definition of nature my racecar was under water from a flood last October. My shop was flooded above the doorknobs. ugly mess.

I once reissued a logbook that was eaten by mice. Do not store your logbook in the glove box.

It is fairly common up here in the north where we feed the bird seed to find your air cleaner filled with bird seed that mice or chipmunks has hidden it away. You end up putting ¼ mesh over the air intake to keep them out
 
Never let your cat gaurd your old british racecar. He is now looking for a job after the mice stole his food and stored it in my tailpipe.
 
Cool - that's an Argiope "signature spider." I only know this because I went to look them up after seeing one in our garden after we moved to NC.

I've never had critters in the race car but we had an old Beetle stored under a tarp at my parents' home in Montana, that a squirrel partially filled with green fir cones. Mice in engine compartments were pretty common, too. Mice everywhere, for that matter.

I LOVE the spew of food out of the exhaust, though - that's a Car Talk moment right there.

K
 
A couple months ago I was gone for two weeks with the garage locked. Came home to a VERY week skinny house cat. He kind of came out of the garage like Tweety bird all frazzeled & hungry. Fortunetly for the cat I was able to clean the new Ultra Shield seat cover that it used for a bed. Haven't found an $hit piles anywhere. Had the cat extracted anywhere that I found or smelled the neighbors cat would be a goner.
 
wow thats a healthy amount of kitty food too. I havnt been out to the race car since the temps dropped, so I think I might have to check things like the engine bay when I go out there next weekend. might find another family moving into the car.
 
Yeah, firing up the motor with a tailpipe full of accorns is definately a "Jackass" moment!

My brother used to race stock cars on the dirt in Texas. One afternoon he closed the trunk, loaded up, and raced all night on a high bank 3/8 mile oval. When he got home the neighbors cat came bolting out of the trunk. The cat never visited his shop again...
 
Worst I've had was when I used to store my Lotus Europa under the carport. In a matter of days, every possible edge and opening was plugged with mud dawber nests. Really plays heck with the air cleaner and the radiator! I only wish the bugs had made nests in the oil leaks in the engine. That stuff's better than JB Weld! :D
 
Cool - that's an Argiope "signature spider." I only know this because I went to look them up after seeing one in our garden after we moved to NC.

I've never had critters in the race car but we had an old Beetle stored under a tarp at my parents' home in Montana, that a squirrel partially filled with green fir cones. Mice in engine compartments were pretty common, too. Mice everywhere, for that matter.

I LOVE the spew of food out of the exhaust, though - that's a Car Talk moment right there.

K
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Nothing like the smell of "seafood blend" and VP 118 to make your day. :P
 
Damn, that is some serious damage of that thing. Reminds me of that time the wind somehow managed to pick up a substantially large rock and flew it straight at my car's windshield. The aftermath wasn't pretty.
 
My car had been sitting outsdie for several months. Around Christmas I pushed it into the garage to stat to convert from street to track. Around that time we started having a mouse problem in the house. I suppose we have caught about 6 or 7 of them.

The car had a musty smell to it. I figured that the carpet had been wet from sitting. Took the carpet out...smell still there.

I pull out the blower fan to help with the cage installation...from the blower motor, over to the heat cors housing was completely filled with instuatlion, grass, carpet, etc.....a full blow mouse nest.......cleaned it up, smell is gone.
 
Back in December, a female co-worker of my brother's asked if I would take my trailer up to Elkin and haul her TR6 that had been sitting in a barn for 7 years down to Raleigh and ressurect it. I expected a rusted hulk, but upon pulling the cover off the car, was treated to the sight of a pristine 1973 TR6 - chrome shined (but covered in dust), paint in good shape, interior pristine.

However, it had not one mouse in it, but a family. Several nests in the engine bay, one in the trunk and one in the glove box. I saw some chewed wires which scared me of course, but begin getting the rear drums unstuck and rolled it up on teh trailer (scary, since all of the hydraulics were long dead).

Got it back to Raleigh on the trailer and ordered the usual stuff from VB to at least get it running - plugs, distributor cap, points, condensor, etc and we got ready to fire it up on the trailer.

About that time, a neighborhood dad (it seemed all the neighborhood dads were drawn to this car for some reason) was walking by with this two kids and started up a friendly conversation. We chatted for a bit while we did the final stuff prior to start up.

I hit the starter, the car fired almost immediately and TWO dead mouse carcasses flew out of the exhaust pipe and landed about 10 feet down the street, much to the shrieking delight of the two kids, one of whom exclaimed "that car just farted a mouse!" -- much to his dad's chagrin.

I'm driving this car daily now, the "price" for my work in resurrecting it. Kind of cool zipping around with the top down, motor sounds good, but it is funny throwing that car into a corner at 35 mph, sawing on the wheel, nearly losing it, coming out the other side and saying "whew, I made it" and then having a Kia Sephia whiz by nonchalantly at 10 mph more.

Truly archaic stuff this TR6, or Turd 6 as I like to call it.
 
At the 2006 VIR 13 Hour, an RX7 pitting near us did a driver change and suddenly the driver was waving his hands to get the crew's attention. They leaned in the passenger window and out come a very deaf field mouse that had spent the last 2+ hours as the world's fastest mouse.

Heard tell of someone at Summit being late for their session, jumping in the car, belting up and going out on the track for one lap before pitting and releasing the family dog. Seems dog liked to sleep in the back of the car and, during the rush, nobody checked to see if he was in there.
 
I left one of my cars outside under a tarp for a year. When I got around to resurrecting it, one item to replace was the brake ducting. When I took out the old ducts, about a pound of acorn shells fell out of each one.

Now I know - brake ducts are pre-fab chipmunk tunnels.

Tom Lyttle
 
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