Build the Build Sheet
The car on Craigslist had a blown motor and a promising future, which I supplied.
It was an ’80s Toyota MR2 on Whidbey Island. I wanted to get on a racetrack, an ambition that had come to me while a friend was doing his level best to stay on one.
He’d added a supercharger and given his engine more power than the gearbox could take. When the first gearbox blew, he put in an upgraded six-speed with straight-cut, cryo-treated gears in second and third. It seemed a reasonable fix. The car agreed for about half a season and then blew that one too.
That was when he showed me a build sheet. He started with what he needed the car to do and what he could afford to spend. He eventually went with a sequential gearbox that shifted on compressed air. That’ll fit on one line. The next one might ask where the air is coming from. That’s a cheap question when all you’ve got in your hand is a pencil.
The Toyota on Whidbey needed an engine anyway. I found I could get a JDM 20-valve Silvertop engine and transmission for it. More horsepower, as it happened, which by then I’d been given every opportunity to think twice about. I started a sheet of my own and read through posts by people who’d got themselves into something similar. I put prices next to the parts I knew I’d need and left some money for the ones that hadn’t introduced themselves yet. I gave myself sixty days to get to the track and made a punch list in Excel. Every job got its own row.
Mike helped me pick up the car. I bought the engine that same day. Twenty-eight days later, I was on the track, working out the alignment. I’d come in under budget, with more than a month to spare. A dream coming true can be surprisingly particular about which way the wheels point. The alignment ended up taking more time to get dialed in than the build itself.
Last week I wrote about learning Spanish through Portuguese. I’ve asked my Spanish teacher for songs to sing and little projects I can finish. With Portuguese, I’m after something that already happens in English. Somewhere between my head and my mouth, going to becomes gonna. I want whole phrases in Portuguese to come out that easily, with little words like me, te, and nos finding their places before I go looking for them. I’d have more attention left for the person I’m talking to.
Living here gives me plenty to listen to. I still have to spend time with the words and the ideas they carry, hear where a phrase fits, and try it out myself. I’m making room for that a little at a time all year. The hump between me and cultural fluency looks suspiciously like a whole street’s worth of lombadas. The apps I use are thin on slang. And when it comes to cussing somebody out, I’m still waiting for the lesson on how to xingar tastefully. Maybe I should write that into the build sheet.
I’m going pro-amateur at tennis. Four parts training to one part play. Who knew so much of my tennis practice would happen in the gym and the Pilates studio? I want a forehand and a backhand that send a heavy topspin ball deep enough to draw a shorter reply. That requires that I have both the physicality to get there and the technique to do so. And this ability gives me a chance to step in and take charge of the point. Lots of little things coming together to reach a desired future state.
Someday is a roomy place. I can fit a race car, another language, and a decent backhand in there without giving up a single Saturday. If a project takes three steps or more and I can see how easily it could go sideways, working it out on paper gives me a better shot at finishing. Sometimes the step I thought was first turns out to be third.
A year from now, how will I know I pulled it off? Give one idea a page. Write down what you’d be doing if it worked, what’s missing now, and how much time and money you can spend. Leave a little room for surprises. Then write down the first thing you can do to get started. Then file that draft with the date in the file name.
Dream in specifications. Or just play it safe. I could still be on Craigslist looking at Toyotas that need a motor.
Next week I’ll take the plan for a test drive on an ordinary Tuesday a year from now. If I get what I asked for, will I actually like the day it gives me?
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