The Story of My Roush
by Kim Frank
When I was a kid, my father worked as a salesman for the local Chevrolet dealer in Great Falls, Montana. As a result, we always owned Chevy’s or other GM products. When I reached driving age I, of course, drove family’s Chevys, Cadillacs, and Pontiacs. When I could afford them, I bought my own GM cars over the years, including several Camaros. I was perfectly happy with them, until…
My younger brother who lived in Spokane and the Tri-City area for a number of years started autocross racing with the Sand and Sage Sports Car Club. He called me one day to tell me about it. I was intrigued so I joined him for an event one hot August day in Kennewick. At that time he was driving a large Audi, all wheel drive sedan. I had an IROC-Z. After that event we realized that this was going to become one of those sibling rivalry things where competitive nature shoves brotherly love to the back seat.
My brother soon realized that the big squishy-suspended Audi was not going to compete well with most of the other cars. Plus, it was not in the same class as my Camaro! Well, at an event not many weeks later, my brother, being the rebel of the family and the one who always had to do exactly the opposite of everyone else, showed up with a new FORD ’95 Mustang GT. The battle was on! Over the next few years we traded wins and really enjoyed the brother vs. brother, Ford vs. Chevy rivalry. I later upped the ante with a late model 5th generation Z-28, and the war continued to rage.
Fast forward to 2002: My brother had since moved to Denver and our days of mono-e-mono racing were over. Then, out of the blue, he appears at an ASNW (Spokane’s autocross club) event with a brand new Roush Stage 2, Sonic Blue, Mustang GT. WOW! What a beautiful car. I had to admit that I was pretty jealous of that ‘Stang and I WANTED IT!
The opportunity to buy the car came sooner that I would have imagined. After a difficult divorce, my brother offered to sell the car to me at a substantial savings and I jumped at it. The plan was that I would fly to Denver and drive the car back to Spokane. No big deal, it should only take a few days. It’ll be fun, right?
Wrong. Upon arrival in Denver on a warm September Friday evening, my brother mentioned that the car’s check engine light was on and we should take it to the dealer to have it checked out before I drove it back to Spokane. The tech’s explanation of the problem went something like this:
“the trouble light was triggered because a fuel vapor return line running back to the gas tank had a hole in it, but that’s not the worst of it”.
Apparently, my brother’s affinity for adding extra cool stuff to the car included a fancy billet rear end cover that was significantly thicker than the factory stamped steel unit, which would have been fine on a car with the factory suspension and ride height. The Roush Stage 2 suspension sits the car 2 inches lower than stock. That meant that the fancy rear cover made contact with the under body on rough roads and speed bumps, thus rubbing a hole in the line and, unfortunately, loosening the cover causing the gear lube to leak out and friction to destroy the rear gears.
Fifteen hundred dollars and four days later, the car was good as new and ready to go, but I couldn’t stay and wait as I had to fly home to Spokane for work. So, after some wrangling over the cost share, we agreed on a shipper to bring the car to Spokane. I anxiously awaited the day, a couple of weeks later, when the car would be loaded up and ready to ship. Then I received a call from my brother. He said the car was ready to go, but it was snowing hard in Denver and the shipper refused to attempt to load it because it required special jigs and platforms because of its low ground clearance and the risk of slipping off the trailer was too great. So, I waited. And waited. And waited again.
The second attempt to ship the car was going to be a breeze, I just knew it……Wrong! I received a call from my brother. He said that the transport company had just about finished the loading procedure when something went terribly wrong and the car rolled nose first off of the trailer striking the air dam on the asphalt. Twelve hundred dollars and three weeks later the car was looking great with its new front end, fog lights and paint. The only problem was, we still had to get it to Spokane. Then it snowed again.
There are not many snow-free days in Denver in December, but with NASA-like precision we were able to coordinate with a new shipper to pick the car up on the one day the roads were clear and dry. The car was finally on its way. Yeah! My worries we over……Wrong again.
On the day the car arrived in Spokane I received a call from the shipper who said that because of the snowfall in the area he had concerns about off-loading the car from his rig and asked me to suggest a large parking lot near my home where he could transfer the car from his trailer to a roll-back truck and then to terra firma. Oh, and would I please call a tow company and arrange for that roll-back truck. I did, and I’m glad I did. When I saw the trailer the car was shipped on I couldn’t imagine how they accomplished loading it. The trailer was at least neck high and three times longer than the car. Well, the trucks lined up back-to-back and transferred the car from the trailer to the roll-back. Forty-five minutes later, and using every piece of lumber and all the shims they had, they had inched the car to the ground, stopping the winch every few seconds to move and adjust the 2 X 6’s and 1 X 6’s. It was finally home!
Was it worth all the trouble and expense? If nothing else, it was worth it just to find and join the IEMC and get to know the fine folks who make up the membership. Thanks for the opportunity to tell my story and share my love for cars with all of you. By the way, I have enjoyed autocrossing the Roush and invite other Mustangers to join me on the course.