We were trying to take the high road with this racecar thing, not thump our chests too hard about the way our Ford 302-powered Volvo 244 was going to annihilate the competition at Altamont... but then the gentleman in the photo above, Jason Torchinsky of Team Make:Way, decided to throw down the gauntlet with this taunting email:
And, yes, we'll be at Altamont— we're looking forward to helping push your car off the track and console your sobbings with the gracious tone of a victor
Now, Mr. Torchinsky owns a Reliant Scimitar, so you figure he'd know a thing or two about futility.
So let's talk about Make:Way's car. It's a 1993 Ford Escort; they claim that they were reduced to buying one of the weakest, most shoddily-built vehicles ever to creep out of Dearborn under its own so-called power because "nobody sells anything interesting AND running for $500 or less." This speaks volumes about their lack of experience with cheap car shopping. Why, you can get V12 Jaguars for $500!
Or, if you want something that can contend on a budget, what's wrong with a nice Cavalier wagon? Cavalier wagon owners will pay you to take their cars, and Team Two Wheels Too Many has proven to everyone's satisfaction that they kick ass at the racetrack. Now, the Escort isn't what you'd call the ideal car for the Altamont Motor Speedway, but spinning out repeatedly will be the least of their problems.
You see, Volvos are all about the safety. Because of that, they have massive aluminum battering rams for bumpers. Here's our car. Lesser cars will bounce off these bumpers like ping-pong balls off the side of a Big Boy locomotive.
And what happens when you get into a paint-trading situation with a vast hunk of Detroit iron, like f'r'example the Size Matters Fury? Well, if you're driving a Göteborg brick, you might get an unsightly dent or two... but a freakin' Escort will disintegrate like a popsicle-stick tower having a piano dropped onto it from ten stories up! We won't get into the terrible things that take place when a front-wheel-drive car takes a hard shot to a front wheel (which occurs about every 17 seconds at Altamont), because Team Make:Way will be too busy trying to get out of the way of the faster cars (i.e., damn near all of them) to worry about that!
Why, it's all we can do to keep Horgh himself from getting on the first plane from Norway to come out and teach these Make:Way fellas a lesson about Black Metal they'll never forget!
Any of you other teams headed to the Altamont race have something to say to us? Go ahead and crank up your wheezing propaganda organs and send me your best taunts- we'll print 'em!