10. SALEM TO WAREHAM, MASS. - EMOTIONAL VISIT

Well, after a couple days in Salem, we had had enough Halloween-theme tourist fodder, and were ready to move on. Weather was not being our friend again: drizzling rain at dawn, with heavier stuff coming in. So, we checked out of our funky but lovable parking lot campground, to hit the road. But … NOT before I got a tour of the abandoned Coast Guard flying boat hangar  we’d been camping in front of. 

I was checking out at the camp office when one of the old guys there heard me asking questions about the place, and gave me a quick tour with oral description of the place as an airfield. What a piece of history we were camping on! Coast Guard troops manned the base there from WWII days til the 1970’s, with fantastic huge old flying boats housed in the hangar, and other buildings long since torn down. I took pics of the photos my new friend  hauled out of storage, and plan to read up on this piece of military air history I never heard of before. This was the most interesting “check out” from a campground ever! 

The morning was spent driving a couple hundred miles from Salem to Wareham, MA, on a motorhead-mission to visit two of the most important guys ever in my car-life at their businesses in Wareham: Dave Smith at Factory Five Racing, and his brother Mark Smith at Smyth Performance, just down the road. My life building and playing with cars, and the friends and experiences that have come my way because of cars, are almost totally due to these two guys. I never get to see them for long, and hoped to get a chance to say “Hi” and have a short visit. The driving was mostly miserable pouring rain on roads with big trucks and city traffic. Good day to be moving, we couldn't have done much sightseeing or outdoor activities otherwise.

Factory Five Racing was our first stop, where we got to meet up with Dave, right in the midst of full-on efforts of the FFR crew to prepare for several upcoming hugely important car events. In spite of that, Dave spent a huge amount of time showing us around the entire FFR complex, including showing us some new developments and cars in the development stage that blew our minds (well, mine mostly, Lynn was taking pics!). 

Most touching was this framed memento Dave showed us holding two small pieces of the burned-up frame of the first FFR I ever built, #1152, ordered in 1996. It got a little famous among FFR guys back then. That car was destroyed in a freak fire at our house in 2002, after I had 65,000 miles of sheer fun in roads and racetracks all over the USA. Dave replaced my burned car by shipping me a new FFR kit gratis, an unbelievable kindness, then he kept these pieces of burned car all these years…geez, it was a little overwhelming. 

What a wonderful visit…ending with a thorough exploration of FFR's new Gen3 Coupe kit, which I’m now anxious to build and play with on race tracks. Goodbye was hard to say, but we were definitely keeping him from important work, so we had to split.

We drove over to Smyth Performance, run by Mark Smith, who has been an amazing part of my life. He walked me through building the “Beta” version of a specialty rear-engine sports car he invented several years ago. I learned a LOT about engineering, product development, electricity, and business in general on that project! Mark was away on business this day, so we couldn’t explore what was going on at Smyth Performance, but I DID photo several pickup-truck conversion projects in the parking lot. Look how cool these things are. 

Mark’s company now specializes in conversion kits to make amazing pickup trucks out of boring sedans. AND you get to chop up the sheetmetal of the car as you build  your pickup kit! The fiberglass and aluminum parts you see here replace the stuff you cut off the original car.  I’m hoping to get me back up to see Mark and Dave again before long. These guys are priceless.

The day was a total motorhead paradise (for me). We decided to get out of town a ways and do the unthinkable: stay the night in a MOTEL! Driving was harsh and wet, it was late, and we were pooped. So, Lynn found a place that we could crash for the night with an easy trailer parking space. Supper in a regular restaurant, nice big bed, free breakfast, and steamy-hot shower with fluffy towels Yeah, we liked this change of pace! Tomorrow, we head for our campsite in Delaware. 

Here are more trip pics if you are interested:
TRIP PICS ALBUM