Since we aren't racing this weekend in Norwalk Gilby decided that he wanted to put an epoxy coating on the floor of the office at the world headquarters of TEMCO and Trick Tank.

Since we couldn't afford to have Bob Coffman and Glen Williams (You might know them as the Technicoat Cowboys, who hang out with the Kalittas) come east to do the job he decided to tackle it himself.

We found out about a do-it-yourself product called UCoat It at the PRI Show last December in Florida. Gilby bought some and applied it to the floor of the motocross shop in Blacksburg a few months ago and he was very pleased with the results. It's pretty easy to put down so we spent all day yesterday moving out all the cubicles and sanding the concrete floor in preparation for today's application.

Bright and early today Gilby, his son Rob and yours truly met up at the shop and went to work. While I masked off the baseboards, Gilby mixed up the two-part epoxy and he and Rob started putting the stuff down. Rob had the easy job of spreading the chips, sort of like throwing confetti.

I was really surprised about how easy it was to apply, all you have to do is roll it out on the floor and while it's still wet sprinkle paint chips over the floor and let it dry for about six hours. Then after that, you apply another coat of clear two-part epoxy and you're done. Let that dry overnight and it's good to go.

What a difference it makes, as you can see by the before and after photos it looks good and has a finish that's as hard as nails. I highly recommend it to all of you who want to coat your shop or even the floor of your trailer.

One last thing, I've got to give a shout out to my long time friend Frank Manzo. With the water seepage problem they had at Norwalk yesterday the powers that be decided that they needed to dig a trench along the right side guardrail to relieve the ground water pressure. They commandeered a backhoe from the Caterpillar display on the midway but didn't have a qualified operator who knew what they were doing. A lot of you probably don't know this but when Manzo isn't driving his Alky Funny Car at dragstrips across the country he spends his weekdays on some sort of heavy equipment digging trenches and installing sewer and water lines all over New Jersey for his and his dad's construction company. Frankie hopped on the hoe and went to work until Cat sent out an operator to finish the job.

This is a good segue into another one of our infamous contests. The first person to send an email to the address above with the correct answer to the following question will win one of our super-deluxe prize packages.

Frank started out racing an altered back in the early ‘70s but decided he wanted to race a Funny Car. Name the driver who Frank bought a car from way back then and also what was the name of that car? Bonus if you can name the connection that driver has to the sport today.

Put on your thinking caps, type at you L8R...

BB

PS: Before I sent in this blog I ran spell check as I always do. Do you know (Thanks Frey) that spell check sees Manzo as Mango? Frank Mango, I kinda like that. Next time you see him call him Mango and tell 'em Berserko sent ya...