RogerDuke

Fitbits work great now that they put out a software update. Mine said I did 20,000 steps today while mowing, though that might be a bit off as no electronic pedometer will be 100% spot on.
On the way home this afternoon I took a shortcut through a nearby neighborhood thinking it would be safer than the main road after an incident I had yesterday with a jerk in a work van. It was until I came across a few hooligans recklessly riding ATV's doing donuts in the street. The one took off down a side street and the other two about ran into the side of my car as I drove past. Hooligans like this have become a problem in the inner city lately, even blocking traffic for their stupid stunts, and now it looks like they've spread out to the suburbs. 
I'll never forget the motorcyclist I seen on the road with his head split open. My grandma chewed my grandpa out for taking me over to the accident scene. The cop took me over to the body and said "that's why you should wear a helmet when you ride you're bicycle." I don't remember how young I was at the time though, 6 or 7 I think.

No, not them specifically; that was the Marine fighter squadron VMF-214, the "Black Sheep".  The squadron I did began their days in the same general island chain flying the same planes (F4U-1A Corsairs) and were also a bunch of outcasts from other squadrons due to behavior; they were VF-17 Jolly Rogers, a unit which technically still flies today as VFA-103 Jolly Rogers.  Was amazed at the information I was able to gather, and then having to create markings for decals that did not exist, and sometimes modifying to create planes for which there were no existing models either.  Was quite a project, but finally accomplished their entire aircraft history from 1943-present day.

Yes, but remember...it's the Moonshine 400....we were going to make it 500 but nobody could stay steady that long!! LOL!!   

I did see a kid just seconds before he was killed. I was in my car turning off the main road onto my road and he was on his motorcycle. We waved to each other. I found out later  that a lady didn't even see him and backed out in front of him just 300 foot away from that intersection. Since she never saw him I was probably the last person to see him alive. 

The Moonshine 500 is always my second favorite race of the year. Nothing beats the Buttermilk 5.00 where you chug a quart of buttermilk and try to run around the barn 5 times. Nobody has ever made it 5 times around without losing their buttermilk so we always give the trophy to the person who made it farthest. The trophy is a gallon of buttermilk in a moonshine jug signed by Hazzard's biggest buttermilk drinker, Enos Strate. 

Thank you my friend....and just like Jesse, you're always generous with the encouragement! 
Already have one more project lined up, been doing the research on it   That'll bring the fleet to ten!

I've seen people die....you always remember it.....

Belated birthday wishes from me too, Spike. Apart from the non-functioning Fitbits, it sounds like you had a good day.

Oh...and YES! ( Belated) Happy Birthday Spike! I hope it was a good one!

And now the last daunting challenge, the stripe.  To my knowledge no decals exist for this body type.  I do have the decals from the MPC kit of Daisy's 74 Roadrunner, but this is a different body type with different contours, and the subtleties of the strip were very different between the two vehicles.  
I also noticed the first '71s they painted for this had stripes that didn't quite fit the countours of the new type, but by partway into the second season the paint crews seem to have mastered the marriage of '71 body style and stripe style.
My solution: use the roof decals, the paint the thick stripe center along the sides, then use fine striping for the pinstriping.  
I used a photocopy of the roof decals from the MPC kit as reference to set up the masking for the side striping.  Through this I saw the side square from each end would have to be cut off.  The rest would work fine.








 

Okay, back to business.  Earlier I had gone to the trouble of cutting away the GTX emblem from the grill (since all such emblems were removed from all cars in the show), then priming/painting and re-chroming the bumper with Alclad.  

 
Next the chrome bumper was masked, and the grill and its surround was sprayed with enamel Steel, and a wash used for the grill's recesses.
Then to make the headlights.  I use acrylic gemstones because they're soft enough to have the facets sanded away to make it rounded, then polished.  When finished with Future/Clear acrylic floor polish, they make very convincing light lenses, better than what comes with any kit.  In this case I used 5mm gemstones for the headlights, and 3mm for the signal lights.

Thanks my friend!
Well, the replacement engine was finished (AMT '71 Duster), a small-block to replace the kit's big-block which apparently any smooth-hooded Satellite would never have had.  HOWEVER, many problems arose:
1) Drive shaft too short for the new engine (was lengthened, see previous)
2) Once installed, found it sat 'WAY too low.  Had to redo the already-redone engine mounts to raise it several mm.
3) Once totally installed, found it was still much too far back.  By this time I was far more committed....I would have had to lengthen the drive shaft AGAIN, and redo all three points the engine mounted to.  VERY disappointing to see the distributor almost touching the firewall.  Sadly, I gave in and went with it.
Remaining wiring was connected between the engine and the engine compartment.  Hopefully it looks busy enough to divert attention from the 2-3 mm the engine sits too far back.  Learn from this setback, kids....



 
Now the rear body skirt.  The kit's has two half-circle openings for the high-performance exhausts, which the actual car(s) did not have (see reference).  Easier to plug a square-shaped opening in this case; so it was done with plastic, then sanded and blended to shape.
Then once installed, it was blended into the body, then primed and painted to make it look like it's all part of the body, totally connected.  Couldn't do it before the chassis was installed; it wouldn't have fit and it would have been torn apart in the process (only have to make that mistake once to know). 

Hey, you guys be getting ready! The annual Moonshine 400 is coming up August 31 and I think Enos might be in it this year! I know I will,  because ANY thing with the word Moonshine in it , has GOT to be good stuff!    ( LOL!)  There's also a rumor ( though not confirmed!) , that Cooter will be there too!  I think Rosco is going to try something sneaky and underhanded though....so.....be watching for it!   

It feels like F1 is moving away from this sort of controversial/arbitrary rule enforcement. Hopefully they've realized how badly it goes over with the fans!

Jeff Gordon is leaving the broadcast booth to become Vice Chairman/2nd in command at Hendrick Motorsports https://nascar.nbcsports.com/2021/06/23/jeff-gordon-named-hendrick-motorsports-vice-chairman/ he will do the rest of his Fox contract duties till the end of the year. Wonder who they will get to replace him. Dale Earnhardt Jr is locked into a multi year deal with NBC and to be honest he's really not good at calling the races. 
Chase Elliot's 13th place finish at Nashville has been disqualified, for of all things , 5 loose/missing lugnuts. Chase vented his frustrations on Twitter with a pretty good observation that if the wheel would have come off and he wrecked he would have been able to keep his points. I can understand DQ'ing because of skirting the rules on the car but for too many loose lugnuts is absolutely absurd. Just when I think Nascar Officials have done the most ridiculous thing they do something else even more crazy.

Belated happy birthday Spike! It's good to hear you had a good one.
I've been doing a lot of kayaking lately. 
On the sad side, I just heard that a 20 year old from Ohio was killed instantly when his neck was broke in a local Pennsylvania dirt bike race on Saturday. I go to that race track often but wasn't there Saturday. I'm glad I didn't see it. If I would have that would be something that would be tough to get out of my head. I've never witnessed anyone die in an accident. 

puppy

Belated happy birthday Spike! It's good to hear you had a good one.
I've been doing a lot of kayaking lately. 
On the sad side, I just heard that a 20 year old from Ohio was killed instantly when his neck was broke in a local Pennsylvania dirt bike race on Saturday. I go to that race track often but wasn't there Saturday. I'm glad I didn't see it. If I would have that would be something that would be tough to get out of my head. I've never witnessed anyone die in an accident. 

Had a good birthday yesterday. Went to a park to watch the sunrise and see what creatures were out early, mostly red winged blackbirds but the surprise was fish swimming in the ditch that goes through the park. Never seen fish in there before. Then went mini golfing, flipped the rules to most strokes wins  my putting was way off lol. Only complaint is I took advantage of Amazon Prime day and had a local Best buy match the price on a pair of Fitbits but apparently Fitbit is having a software issue at the moment so they're basically $60 paperweights at the moment. If they don't get the issue resolved in a week I'm returning them.
On the weather front we were in a drought locally but the almost 3 inches of rain we got Sunday night-Monday morning really soaked the ground. Our tomato's shot up a few inches taller already. 

Charlie Daniels as Uncle Jesse!!! That's brilliant daisyXenos!!
Of course I'm a little biased because Charlie is my all-time favorite singer and Denver is my all-time favorite actor. I was thrilled to see you make that suggestion.
Of course nobody could replace anybody on the Dukes (especially Jesse) but Charlie is the only person on this planet I wouldn't mind seeing try.
Jesse is my biggest hero and Charlie is definitely second.

And it didn't matter how big and tough you were. Nobody messed with the Postmistress of Hazzard.

She didn''t ASK you to take a number...she  TOLD you!

1984 was the last cup race at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. Geoff Bodine won the final cup race there. The last Xfinity and Truck series races were held there in 2000.
 
Kyle Larson won his fourth consecutive race in dominating fashion leading most of the laps and winning stage two. Ross Chastain kept the Hendrick teams from another consecutive 1-2 finish. Ricky Stenhouse Jr also had a good race racing in the top 10 all day and finishing 6th.
Top 10
1 Kyle Larson
2 Ross Chastain
3 William Byron
4 Aric Almirola
5 Kevin Harvick
6 Ricky Stenhouse Jr
7 Daniel Suarez
8 Kurt Busch
9 Christopher Bell
10 Joey Logano

over 30,000 fans! I think it's the first NASCAR race they've had in like .....50 yrs???  I hope to see it in person one day. I'm born and raised 20m south, in Franklin Tn.

SRX series was on the dirt at Iowa's Knoxville Raceway. Tony Stewart dominated winning the first heat race and main Feature Race. Indycar stars Marco Andretti and Helio Castroneves seemed giddy as kids playing in the mud racing on dirt first time since they began they're racing careers. Helio would have finished 2nd in one of the heat races if he didn't get the laps mixed up at the end. Michael Waltrip was a strong contender despite not racing on dirt for well over a decade if not two. Bill Elliott's car suffered another similar malfunction in this race as at Stafford. Paul Tracy and Michael Waltrip played bumper cars again. The third race this Saturday night should be interesting between those two.
Main Feature results
1 Tony Stewart
2 Hallie Deegan
3 Ernie Francis Jr
4 Helio Castroneves
5 Michael Waltrip
6 Bobby Labonte
7 Marco Andretti
8 Brian Brown
9 Scott Bloomquist
10 Willy T Ribbs
11 Bill Elliot
12 Paul Tracy