2023 Watkins Glen (Part 2)

17 Aug 2025

Part 1.

“The Aftermath”

The next couple of months were quite an ordeal. I didn’t have transportation to work, and had to do something quick. I got back on the bike. It was hard work; more than 40 minutes each way! At least I was getting some exercise, and the new bike lanes made me feel a wee bit safer. I did have a rando trucker roll by me when I was in the bike lane and yell at me: “Get the F of the road, you F!” But this is par-for-the-course around these parts.

I spent the next few weeks beating myself up over it. “How could I be so stupid? Why did I deliberately hit the inside kerb to see if I could carry more speed? Why wasn’t I easier on the throttle? Why couldn’t I catch the slide?”

My car had data and video capture. I watched the crash again and again and again. I showed the video to everybody: my colleagues, my students, my wife, and my children, ad nauseum. I lived(!) and relived the moment. Was this some form of therapy?

I took the baby and my older son on several little biking trips. But my wife and I had to split up, so the kids could go to different classes at the same time, and this was becoming unsustainable with just one 15 year old rusty car. So I was in the market for a new car!

“The Market”

I looked at all manner of sports car on Craigslist and Facebook marketplace. The market was recovering from COVID inflation, but things were still pretty bad. I seriously considered an Accord with a blown transmission for 4k!

1. BMW E46 328, 330 and M3. There were a lot of options in the $15-20k options for the M3s and E46 330s. There were some decent 4 door E36 228s for around $5k, but ultimately, I decided I couldn’t afford to have one of these constantly sitting on jackstands in my “shop”. Old BMWs, though wonderful driver’s cars, need constant care.
2. BMW 645Ci. These have nice torquey V8s, and generally drive really well. One popped up on my local craigslist that I spent a lot of time and effort looking at. They’re known for leaky valve stem seals and major coolant leaks (remember what I said about BMWs?). The coolant leak had some decent aftermarket fixes, but the valve stem seals needed special tools and the engine out. The one I saw ran ok, and the V8 was nice and smooth. I paid nearly $200 for a nearby shop to put it on their lift (Eurocharged Performance). I wasn’t super impressed with them - you know the vibe when someone judges you on your identity? But they were the only ones willing to take me on short notice. Despite the issues, it was money well spent since we found that it was leaking coolant, differential fluid, engine oil, the tires were shot, the shocks were shot, and it had been repainted.
3. Miatas. We all know Miata Is Always The Answer (M.I.A.T.A), but this doesn’t solve my kid transport issue.
4. Integras. My first love was a DC2 GSR. See above.
5. Honda Accord v6 with manuals. Reliable and fun daily that could be good with the kids.
6. Acura CL Type S. A beautiful handling coupe, but heavy and hardly trackable.
7. Honda Fit. These have a Time Attack series in Gridlife, and as I later found out, a full-on wheel-to-wheel racing series in the SCCA called B-SPEC. They were cheap (sub 5k), manual, easy to work on, reliable.
8. Civics. These are great cars, especially the 5th through 8th gens.

My options are all over the place, aren’t they? What did I want to do with the car? Did I want it to run in a SCCA race series? Did I just want to get back to doing HPDE? Did I want to run away for six or seven weekends every the summer, leaving my wife to manage my kids?

The other option was to buy a truck or something that can tow first, and do it properly:

1. Buy a caged, dedicated race car. It would be safe, and I wouldn’t be risking my daily driver.
2. Buy a go-kart. Then I could take the kids with me. It was much cheaper, easier to go wheel-to-wheel racing, and you could get lots of track time.

Trucks and SUVs

The idea was to get a reliable family hauler that could eventually tow a track car or go-kart. We quickly narrowed it down to a few candidates, based on vehicles that could tow at least 5000 lbs (2500 Miata + 2500 trailer).

1. Honda Ridgeline: 5000 lb tow capacity, nice unibody frame so it would be smooth on long journeys. A truck bed that could haul lumber and maybe a go-kart.
2. Toyota Highlander. Famed reliability, but the tow capacity depends on whether it came with a tow package or not. This was hard to determine from pictures alone, and it depended on the build sheet and dealer- and owner- selected options. I now know that you can look at the build sheet on toyota.com.
3. Honda Pilot. The Pilot has decent tow capacity in the top trims with the tow package, but if it doesn’t have the transmission cooler, the tow capacity is only 3500. Like the Highlander, it was hard to determine whether or not it came with the tow package. That said, both the Pilot and the Ridgeline are built on the same platform, and the Ridgeline has a 5000 lb tow capacity stock, so the Pilot can easily be modded to up its capacity.
4. Acura MDX. As far as I could tell, this was more or less a more upscale Pilot. This has a better engine that the Pilot; or at least, it has many minor mods that give it extra horses. All trims come with a 5000 lbs tow capacity. However, early models had some issues: transmission blow ups and oil consumption (see this 2012 on mdxers.org and this 2010 on mdxers.org). However, overall, it is a very reliable vehicle. You just have to be careful about which generation you buy so that it doesn’t have the transmission or oil-consumption issues. The J35A5 and J35A6 Honda V6 are an interference engine (the valves overlap with the pistons), and have timing belts. If these aren’t serviced, then the timing belts could snap, leading to the catastrophic engine failure. So you should get one that has been correctly serviced at the right intervals. Incidentally, the BP engine in the early Miatas is non-interference. So even if the timing belt snaps, it wouldn’t explode. See how I told you Miata Is Always The Answer?
5. Toyota Tacoma V6. It’s the taco truck, what else can you say. Famed reliability, but ridiculously expensive. The very definition of the Toyota Tax^TM. Many, many, generations were plagued with frame rust issues and recalls. So one would have to be very careful with older vehicles from the rust belt. The 4-bangers had a pretty low tow capacity (3500), so those were a no go. The V6s were snapped up within hours of being posted on craigslist or marketplace. The ride quality was supposed to be bad, so maybe it wasn’t such a great vehicle for family hauling.
6. Toyota 4Runner. Again ridiculous prices thanks to the Toyota Tax^TM. But it also has the usual, famed Toyota reliability, especially its famed 1GR-FE V6 engine. These are coveted by the offroading crowd. They come with tow packages by default, with a minimum 5000 lb capacity. Not a great ride, since it is a body-on-frame like a truck, so not so great as a family hauler. But many people love these, mod these, lift these and hold onto these for dear life.

There were several other BMWs, Volkswagens, GMs and Fords on the list, but they all fell short on the reliability criteria. If I had to do it again, I would consider a 99-07 Tahoe with the 5.3L V8. Lots available for cheap. It’s a typical GM: it will run badly forever.

So with these options, I started looking. There were not too many on Craigslist and Marketplace in the 4-5k range, which was, more-or-less my budget. We test drove a couple of cars at a Honda Dealership: 2018 and 2020 Pilots and Ridgelines. The Ridgeline drove exceptionally well. But these were in the 30k price range at the dealership. There was a locally available 2014 Ridgeline with 120k for about 14k, but even that wasn’t super impressive. Moreover, it had had an accident and it was kind of rusty. There were several Tacomas, but nothing close by, and the best examples were usually snapped up within the hour.

Part 3.