"then I get in my race car and drive away"

Often I make a hilarious joke about having an Ambulance. The conversation usually goes like this:

Person: you have an ambulance?! WHY do YOU have an AMBULANCE?
Me: WHY do YOU NOT have an AMBULANCE?
Person: good question. I don't know. now why do YOU have an ambulance?
Me: so I can tow my race car.
Person: wow, your car can't drive on the street?
Me: well, it can ... but it's not very comfortable. also, if it breaks, I can tow it home.
Person: what happens if your ambulance breaks down then? ha ha got you there!
Me: then I get in my race car and drive away

Okay, it's not as funny when I type it. I think part of the hilarity involves my perfect timing and miming of "drive away"?

Whatever. As not funny as that joke is, it got less funny when it actually happened on Friday night. I spent all week prepping for a weekend at Thunderhill. By "prepping" I mean fixing a bunch of random stuff, swapping out the transmission, and putting in a fancy racing clutch.

Due to procrastination, I ended up getting the clutch at 6pm on Thursday. So I worked Thursday night and just about all of Friday on getting the clutch and transmission installed along with a few other things. I aimed to get out of town around 1pm, but ended up really being ready to go at 8pm. Just 2 broken bolts, and only 1 required extraction with a torch. Things were going great. That was sarcasm, broken bolts are not great at all. No worries though, I was done at 8pm! Exhausted from the day, all I had to do was throw the race car on the trailer, fire up the ambulance, and drive 3hrs to Thunderhill. Then I could go to sleep. What could go wrong?

Thunderhill ETA: 11pm

BRRRrrrrRRRRrrrrrrrrRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

...

...

(that's the sound of the race car not starting, then silence when the battery died)

So I had to jump start the race car. Awesome! I put it on the trailer, packed up my stuff and threw it in the ambulance. Then I got in the ambulance and turned the key. Not even a light in the dash. The batteries were dead. So, I jumped the ambulance. That takes half an hour or so, due to the current required to start a diesel. I don't know where the rest of the time went, but I left at 10pm.

Thunderhill ETA: 1am

All was going well til I was climbing a hill in the East bay and I smelled a hint of the sweet sweet smell of antifreeze. I thought the ambulance was trying to tell me something, so I aimed to check it out when I stopped to fuel up a little later. The ambulance wasn't pleased that I ignored its cry for attention, got angry, and blew plumes of antifreeze steam at me to get my attention. As the cabin filled with smoke, and the windshield fogged up, I pulled off an exit and had the coherence to limp into a lighted parking lot.

Thunderhill ETA: ???

I hopped out of the ambulance and was sad, but not surprised, to see large quantities of coolant on the ground. I opened the hood to let out a billowing cloud of antifreeze steam. The hood on the ambulance is not very large, so with a flashlight I could determine that the antifreeze was coming from precisely ... somewhere under the hood. After some of the steam cleared I could deduce that it was coming from the top of the engine somewhere. Awesome. I called Beth and let her know that I was in a park and ride parking lot somewhere near Dublin, and I may require assistance so she shouldn't get too comfy.

I dumped the 1 gallon of water I had in my ambulance into the radiator, hoping to get it to show me where the leak was. That didn't help. So with the ambulance in unknown broken state, I examined my options. I could call AAA and try to get them to tow the ambulance and trailer with a race car on it. I could back the race car off of the trailer and abandon the ambulance. I could try to fix the ambulance.

Thunderhill ETA: maybe not

I had all night to give up, so I decided to try to further diagnose the ambulance. Since the hood is so tiny, and I could only see a little bit of the motor, I decided it'd be wise to pull the center console out to get a better look. In vans like this, the motor sits almost under your feet at in the middle of the dash. The exercise in panel removal revealed a passenger footwell with antifreeze in the carpet, and antifreeze all over the top of the motor. After a little further examination, I noticed a big hole burst in the 3" diameter hose that goes from the top of the radiator into the top of the motor. It was on the back side of the hose so I couldn't see it from the front. The hole was pretty large, maybe 2" long or so.

Thunderhill ETA: ???

So here's the plan: patch the hose, find some water and fill up the ambulance, limp it to somewhere "safe" to abandon it, then take the race car to the track. No sleep 'til Thunderhill.

I pulled the hose and raided the ambulance for supplies. I came up with a few hose clamps, some racer's tape (duct tape, but non-permanent adhesive), and some zip ties. I ended up taping the hose, reinforcing the hole/crack with a band of zip ties, then taping over it again. It looked pretty stout, but the whole strategy hinged on the racer's tape adhesive holding under the high temps.

With the hose reinstalled, I had to fill the radiator with water that I didn't have. There was nothing around, so I was contemplating taking the race car to pick up water somewhere. Then I heard it. SSSsssshhhhhhhhh. The sprinklers just kicked on. I grabbed my 1 gallon container and wide mouthed water bottle to go harvest water from the sprinklers. The sprinklers turned off just as I had 1 gallon of water. Well, that's better than nothing. I filled up the radiator and heard the sound of sprinklers again, but further away. So I went further down the road to find the next set of sprinklers in the rotation. I repeated this routine a total of 3 times, for 3 gallons of water to fill up the collossal ambulance radiator.

So I fired up the ambulance and headed to my safe drop spot: Edge Motorworks. I know some of the Edge guys, and I figured they'd let me stow an ambulance for a few days if I had to. I fired up google maps and got directions. Then I promptly drove the wrong way for 10 minutes. The good news is that in those 10 minutes the ambulance didn't overheat. Eventually I got to the drop point. At 1am I was hoping that the race car would start so I could back it off the trailer. It fired right up, I backed it down, and threw a random selection of tools and stuff in the back of the car.

Then I got in my race car and drove away.

Thunderhill ETA: 3:00am

The rest of the trip was, to sugar coat it, miserable. The race car isn't very pleasant to drive on the highway at night. It's loud, uncomfortable (for long distances), and there are no front windows. I was sporting a hoodie with the hood up and tightened around my face and I was still shivering. I struggled to maintain focus to finish the drive. I didn't want to caffienate because I needed the few hours of rest I'd get to actually count.

I did make it to the hotel around when I expected to. I went into a sleep coma at 3:30am, and looked forward to a cheery 7am wake up call. At least I made it to the track.