A lot of folks know this story, but for those that don't, here's the story of how the Valkyrie is always a lady, even when things go wrong:
On my way to the hill country last month, I had a bit of trouble. After running the first 70 miles with no incident whatsoever, I stopped for fuel. After filling up, I started her back up again, and started rolling. This was accompanied by a horrendous noise. I took two spins around the parking lot to try to evaluate the noise, and then parked it and started making some calls. It took some time, but a friend driving my truck, and pulling another friend's trailer, came and picked me up and we went back to a third friend's house, where we found this:
Thanks to an extensive collection of spare parts, a new part was readily available.
We had the Valkyrie on the lift within 9 hours of the failure, and repaired and back home within 12 hours. I was in Fredericksburg in 27 hours.
So, a big thank you to the Valkyrie for failing where she did. While it would have been perfect for it to fail in my own neighborhood, if it was going to fail on a trip, could it have been any better than failing in a gast station parking lot, where there was a fast food joint so I could have a comfortable chair and a cold drink, instead of on the side of some country road where I could have sat in the dirt and wished for some shade?
An even bigger thank you to the three friends who contributed to the fix: Phyllis (LynDel), Jeff (Houstone), and David (an non Valker, but still a good guy).
Mark
