A peek inside the kimono
For those who are interested in how the Space Cowboys sausage is made, here’s an excerpt from an email from Space Cowboy James sent a couple days before the event opened. Pootie and crew were ushering the Mog to the playa, and Steve J was driving up Martha, and both faced and overcame adversity:
Both Steve’s get extra bonus points for their mechanical first aid procedures on their way to the playa. First off, Steve J. started his Burning Man adventure Friday night with transmission problems with Martha, and was able to limp back home to Sacramento whereas he proceeded to stay up until 5am welding on the transmission fluid pan to get a water tight seal. Then, he was rewarded with a tire blowout 20 miles outside of Empire where he made the wonderful discovery that Martha’s spare tire had been effectively sealed off and unaccessible given all of Martha’s mutant vehicle modifications. After cutting out the tire with a metal grinder, he got to replace the tire with no lug wrench, and part of his jack missing. He arrived Saturday afternoon, finally!
Steve H. (Pootie) and entourage had their own fun with the Mog in Reno. After being delivered via flatbed to Reno, they discovered that oil had gotten into the gasoline mix and fried all of the spark plugs. After doing an oil change and cleaning, then swapping all of the plugs (what fun in the parking lot of a Kragen in Reno on a 100+ temperature day), they proceeded to get the truck running, blowing black smoke for a while. Then, again near Empire, after stopping the truck wouldn’t start again, due to a fried/dead battery.
