With summer upon us, activities are swinging into high gear. In May, several club members participated in the Mustang Stampede in Pueblo. Ron Kay, Ross Schwyhart, and I all received plaques for our cars. Also in May, the Cases, the Gowards, Jay Lindley, Ross Schwyhart, Wayne Smith, and I participated in the Abbey Show in Canyon City. Unfortunately, the weather looked like hail, so I left early, and don't know whether anyone took any awards.

Recently I heard that some members feel "out of the loop" on upcoming events. Starting with this newsletter, I'll be providing Terry Myers a more comprehensive list of events, along with telephone numbers for information. You can call any board member, or attend any board meeting, should you need more information.

In the last couple of months, I've thoroughly enjoyed bringing my '68 back to life. Back in '92 an uninsured motorist clobbered the car. That accident coupled with a badly slipping clutch led to long term storage for the car. Several club members offered mechanical knowledge, skill, and parts to fix the car's ills. Many thanks to you who helped; you know who you are. New member Tim Hegseth of the Mustang Center helped track down a few key parts, and now the car is back on the road, headed towards restoration. Getting through emission testing was quite a chore. Hoping to get lucky, I took the car in, promptly failing for high hydrocarbons. I took the car home, replaced the points, rotor, condenser, cap, and spark plugs, carefully setting the gaps. I also reset the initial timing. The car certainly did not idle any better, but I thought it should pass. Surprise! The car not only failed again, but was much worse. Following the mechanics advice, I rechecked all the ignition settings to ensure I hadn't made any mistakes. Well guess, what. I misread the timing marks on the harmonic damper, and had set the advance about ten degrees too far! I ran the car to Denver and back to blow out any residual gunk, and went back for the third test the next day. While in diagnostic mode, the hydrocarbons proved good, but now the carbon monoxide was too high. Thinking ahead, I had brought my timing light, distributor wrench, and screwdriver, in case I needed any adjustments to pass. The mechanic said, "she's running rich", so I gave each idle air speed screw one quarter turn leaner. Finally hitting the right combination, the car passed easily. With the car now sporting collector plates, I'll never have to go through that ordeal again. At least not with that car!

See ya'll at the upcoming events.

How do noise suppression, a hula dancer, and a horse that pulled a horse all tie together? Quite easily if you’re Mike Spoelman.

Mike is the owner of Muffler Masters so that make the tie to noise suppression. Mike’s wife Patti, when she is not working as a coordinator for the drama and dance department at Colorado College, likes hula dancing so there is another one.

Mike has lived in Colorado Springs and has been a member for 13 of those years. He and Patti have two daughters; Cori a student at Colorado College and Samanth who has helped the club beat the AMCer’s in bowling, just graduated from Saint Mary’s High School.

As for the horse that pulled a horse Mike says that his restomod ’70 Mach I fastback was used by the former owner to pull his horse trailer and to haul his German Shepard! Seems that he didn’t know about vacuum cleaners either since there was a lot of hair left in the car. Looking at the new interior you would never know that it had once doubled as a doghouse!

The lowered Mach has polyurethane bushings in the suspension, a 351C 4V with a hotter cam and a Pertronix ignition coupled to a 4 speed. And since stopping is as important as going Mike installed disc brakes at all four corners of the blue fastback.

While Mike was restoring the fastback he took the time to add a tach dash, tilt wheel, and front and rear spoilers.

When he is not bending pipe or working on his Mustang Mike likes to camp, fish, hike, and bowl.

"For as long as I have been a member, last year was the first time that I actually brought the car to any meetings. Nobody believed that I owned a Mustang. Thank goodness for garage tours!"

Seeing the looks that the blue Mach gets now I can say that seeing is believing!

PPIR has asked our club if we would like to show our cars at the NASCAR Busch Race on Saturday, July 22nd.

Each car entered would receive 2 general admission tickets/passes per vehicle.

Please contact Ross at 520-1670 so he can give a head count to PPIR.