I had lucked out, in that the guy selling me Tina-2 was going to a vintage race in Pittsburgh Pa. He offered to trailer the car there, and meet me there, saving me about 3-4 hours driving - one way! Greg Zelazek decided to join me this trip. Why? Maybe he's crazy too! He owned a Lotus Cortina many years back, and wished he had never sold it. He still has wet dreams about owning another one some day. Maybe I'II have enough spare parts when I'm done to build another one. Maybe I'II sell all the spare parts to Greg! This trip would also gave us a LOT of time to talk. I picked him up at about 8 in the evening and away we vent. We hit the road, and we talked and talked and talked. After about 6 hours of talking, we proved that we were definitely males and not females. Hey, I didn't mean what you are thinking! What I mean is that we couldn't just go on talking and talking and talking forever like some women we know. Certainly not our wives.
Driving straight through with just a stop or two for gas and switching of drivers, we quietly arrived in Waynesburg, Pa. about 5 in the morning. (I wonder who they named the town after? Is Waynesburg a part of Wayne's World? I Wonder how many of you will get my joke? I wonder how many of you are still actually reading this!) We got some gas and found the hotel where we spotted our catch sitting on a trailer in the back. It was pretty much as described. Obviously not running for some years now. It actually had as much rust on the outside as my other Cortina at home, but there appeared to be little or no rust hidden underneath. There was a lot of rust on the right front fender, but there was a brand new fender sitting in the back seat. After about a half hour of checking it out, we decided to get some breakfast, because Michael (the current owner of the Cortina) wasn't supposed to wake up and meet us for another hour, and we both needed some coffee. The only place open in Waynesburg was a 24 hour restaurant that had a big sign out front boasting that they featured a "FuII menu" and "Waitress Service". I knew something was wrong, when the huge parking lot did not contain any trucks! When a restaurant has no trucks, it's either too expensive or the food is terrible or both! I have never had a worse meal. I've heard some horror stories about certain Lotus Corps member's wives and their cooking, but they would be gourmet chefs in this tomaine palace.
We headed back to the hotel to check out the car some more and wait for Mike to wake up. I felt a little uneasy, as we must have looked like someone trying to break into the car. We opened up the side windov and grabbed the keys that were hanging out of the ignition, and opened the trunk, Iotsa goodies in there. A spare tire and wheel that look like it went down with the titanic, a couple of EIan wheels, a steering column, pedal assembly and some strange looking hubs. (More on those Iater) Michael came out of the hotel and said, "I hope you're Bob Herzog and not a car thief." "Who would steal this?" was my reply, and after conversing for a while, we butted trailers up against each other and pushed the car off one and on to the other without even letting down the ramps !
The trip home was eventless, we took the southern route through Indianapolis, saved some tolls, but had construction back ups all the way home. Now I got another car to strip!
