I have to be real. I rarely have day without conflict. I suppose this is true for everyone, but there have been a lot of times when I feel like my life is consumed with it. I surely bring a lot of it on myself. I have a lot of ambition, passion and a very strong view on how things should be—how people should be—and I often find myself expressing that, most times to my demise. I’m not really one to hold back.  My mind is going 100 mph constantly. Even when I try to sleep all I can do is think—making for too many sleepless nights. I want to do everything I can, and preferably all at once. My favorite thing to do is throw sh*t at the wall to see what I can make stick. I am a self starter and will do it all by myself if I have to and am known for doing exactly that.

I have been in charge of a lot in my days because of my self starting ways. I have been solely responsible for a lot of pretty big things. There hasn’t been much time in my life for having to ask people to do things more than once. I haven’t had much patience for ignorance, slackers or complainers with no solutions. And there is nothing I hate more than a liar or scammer and have been known to call one out in a hot second. This is where we come back to the conflict. Everything I have said is a Molotov Cocktail just waiting to explode. From my perspective this is because the majority of people fall into one of the above mentioned categories of complainers, slackers, liars and scammers. Most others will tell you it’s just because of my bad attitude.

So, I’m not sure if you noticed, but I will point out that some of what I am talking about is being mentioned in the past tense. That’s because as of late, I have felt very much at peace. It’s weird because I didn’t “realize” it until I noticed a lot of people mentioning that they have seen a difference in me. I chalk it up to a few things:

• I am older.
• I am not in charge of anything anymore that is of any consequence. No shop. No customers. No events. I am in charge of making web sites and other arty stuff, chatting on the internet and marketing (which I like to call throwing sh*t at the wall).
• All of the dead weight in our life has taken a hike—as in people.
• Dan is happy at work for the first time in a long time.

And that’s about it. The moral of the story? To be honest, I’m not even sure. I was just sitting here thinking about how good everything feels right now. I went off on a little tangent in my head on what caused the unrest to begin with and what may have changed and decided to write it down—since I have this cute little blog and all

On to some car news? Sure, why not? Tomorrow is the final round of Triple Threat 3 brought to you by Southeast Drift at Turner Field and I’ll be durr driving my little heart out! Stay tuned for event coverage to come…probably accompanied by some pics from Marta’s new baller camera. That is if she can figure out how to use the right white balance for once. O0O0O0O B U R N !

Hey, Daddy, I want an Oompa Loompa! I want you to get me an Oompa Loompa right away!  The strawberries taste like strawberries, and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries.

Becca Stafford

And I mean it!!!! Marta and I finished up her head gasket yesterday and I have to say…MAN WAS IT A PITA!! It’s not that any part of it was particularly hard (well  maybe the part about trying to take of the crank shaft bolt), it was that we were not in our own workspace and had to call Dan for just about every tool that we needed that wasn’t a wrench or a socket. I am willing to bet that had we known where all of the tools lived, we could have had the job at least 5 hour earlier! A little more complaining to add to the pile is that my fingers are killing me, my hands are dry from Gojo, my knees hurt from standing up all day, I got brake cleaner in my eye and I broke almost all of my fingernails and had to cut the remainder that survived off—and I think that is it.

Anyways, we got it done, well aside from the crank pulley that we couldn’t get off to put the timing belt back on, so Dan is going to have to do that for us. We just weren’t strong enough to break that dang thing loose. I must admit that after all is said and done, I have a lot more respect for Dan and what he does. I have to be honest when I say that I have worked along side Dan alot on our cars, but I have never been left alone to fend for myself. Ultimately, I am proud, but I never want to do it again….that is of course unless one of my girlfriends needs me again. Alas, I am a sucker for friends and will do damn near anything I can to help them out. It’s a curse I tell ya!

I wish we knew if we have done a good job, but there the timing belt must go back on before we can start her up to see if we passed or failed! I’m going with passed since I know how hard we worked on it. Marta should have a post with some pics coming soon.

Oh and let me mention one more time…I am a driver, not a dang mechanic!!! But I do what I have to do sometimes and you ladies should have the confidence to tackle something like this if you are ever in need to. The Hane’s manual is a god send.

Took off spoiler, welded and fixed holes

Replaced plugs and wires

Radiator flush, new anti freeze

Fuel filter

Mast cyl.

replaced rack & pin

steering hose

brakes & rotors

starter

custom exhaust

So you would think $900 later that there should be no leaks, well guess what??? That is not true. I am constantly adding oil and radiator fluid. This car was a DD for about 5 months but as of 2 weeks ago it just sits in the driveway leaking like no body’s biz. I have the Evo IX as a DD now so I don’t have to rush to get the 240 in tip top shape. I do however need to get the radiator fixed this week. I plan to get one this week and try and put it in the car, yes I am gonna have help… Oh yes I also want to get paint, here is a funny pic of my car!

Becca Stafford

Hey ladies!!! This is my first blog post and I am new at this so it may be a little rough until I get comfortable with coming up with random thoughts of interest LOL. As you are already aware, there are bios of each of the bloggers to kinda introduce themselves, but I am not sure if any of them really specify where we are located. I am probably gonna be the odd one out of the bunch seeing as I am located in a fairly po-dunk, country, farm filled area of Georgia, aka Dublin. Many recognize the name as a random town located just off of I-16 as they are driving in between Atlanta and Savannah. There are next to no girls from this area who are into cars aside from myself and one or two others. I guess the main point of this blog then is to send a shout out to any other ladies from the Middle Georgia area who are interested in cars but do not know how to get into the automotive scene. In fact it would be interesting to find out where everyone who is tuning into this blog is from so if you do not mind please let us know!!!

In all honesty, I think the best way to serve the masses is to appeal to women. They run the house these days. They aren’t mousy little housewives that do as told and cook dinner and have babies. They are strong and powerful decision makers who in reality do it all. I think it’s about time everyone realize that…including the women out there. I have been lucky enough to have a less than desirable life turn into an amazing one. I would love nothing more than to pass that on. Maybe the women I am reaching out to didn’t have a rough life, per say. Maybe they had it just fine, but generally got treated like a princess. Either way, some of us want a little something rough and tough in our life other than our men. It makes us feel cool and a little more respected. I am offering it up on a platter.

Anyways, I am really excited to have the opportunity to spread the good word about cars to the women who want to know. I’m not going to sit here and act like a genius when it comes to all of that. The only thing that I have that makes me even a little special is years of experience and a man who is willing to stand side by side with me. I know some women don’t necessarily have the support system I do and I totally get that. That’s why I would like to share mine. I have to admit, Dan was a little worried for me when I started to reach out to women regarding all of this car stuff. Mostly because of the fact that it is rare to see a woman out there doing what I try my best to do — and that makes me “special”. I have worked a lot of years to earn respect and some might say that I am just giving it away for free and trust me…I love being special, but I feel compelled. It could be totally selfish. I am honestly tired of being the only one out there.

Once upon a time, there was a drift event where all of the big name female drifters were (all 3 of them!! Ha Ha)…and I was there, too. I can’t tell you how cool it was to get advice from Verena rather than Dan. She just had a different way of explaining it to me. Somehow she was able to help me understand things that Dan couldn’t. Maybe it’s the way men explain things, maybe it was her demeanor, but whatever it was, it felt real nice to have her and the other girls out there and I will never forget it.

Here is a video from that event. We were totally acting like girls:

Anyhow, red the article. Get all warm and fuzzy and for crying out loud, tell your women — moms, sisters, aunts, nieces, wives, girlfriends — about the things I have coming up. If they have interest in ANY of it, have them email me tracyshayhorn@gmail.com. I am on a mission.

I will list some upcoming events for women below:

August 1st — First Auto Intuition workshop for women

August 15th — First all female drifting event at AMS.

December — Begin using our new Ford Fiesta to teach women how to drive a stick

March — Begin to share our new Ford Fiesta with other women who want to race but don’t have a car

And if you have any other ideas, please feel free to let me know. I am wide open to anything I can help with. I am in the process of trying to get together an all female grip driving day, but booking a venue this late in the season can be tough.

Add our Facebook page to hear about the all female driving events: Drive Like a Woman Events

Add the Momentum Motorsports all female race team here: Momentum Motorsports

Shout out to Kelly Lewis over at Garage Zero!

Access Atlanta link to the article

Racer’s Drive to Help Women –

Batlground Motorsports will introduce a monthly automotive basics workshop Sunday, August 1st, 2010. We are sponsoring these workshop sessions for women free of charge and they are intended to supply women an arsenal of vocabulary and knowledge that will give them confidence when it comes to speaking with their automotive service providers and salesmen. The workshops are open to women of all ages and will be held at the Batlground Motorsports facility in Smyrna, GA on the first Sunday of every month for 2 hours starting at 2:00 pm and will be c0-hosted by Tracy Shayhorn and Daniel Willie. To sign up and for more information, please email tracyshayhorn@gmail.com

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!

Becca Stafford

So here I am at the ripe, old age of 20, haha! (But seriously, I am 20 years old) And I haven’t really done anything with my life… I haven’t traveled. I haven’t gone to college. I don’t even have a job. But I know that I have all the potential and motivation to do anything I want. People have told me to follow my dreams and do what makes me happy but i’ve also heard that you shouldn’t make your hobbies your career. Well here’s what I know… I like cars. Here’s what I’ve heard… “there’s no money in cars”. Well if people never followed their dreams and there was no money in cars, we wouldn’t have performance shops like Batlground, we wouldn’t spend money on car shows and events, and we would never see people like Tracy Shayhorn or Ken Block tearin’ it up on the big screen or small tv… Whatever! I don’t want to miss out on any opportunities. I want to live! I want to drive fast and I want the world to see me! So if this is the beginning of the rest of my life… then this is my warning to the world:

My name is Jacque Resendez and I’m no ordinary girl. I spit like a man, curse like a sailor, slum like a bum, and drive like a woman. And I’m here to fuck shit up.