Here is something interesting that many don't know about Electric Vehicles. Why do people move to electric vehicles because its not to save money since they cost much much more than internal combustion engines. Its not to save the planet since more than 80% of electricity we use is from coal burning power plants (so actually you are creating more of an issue by increasing the demand of the coal plants). EVEN if you "thought" your power from the wind power plants is what gave you your needed electricity, they are not as "Green" as you think. The blades are not recyclable and they have a landfill with just these damaged blades. Also a diesel generator is used to keep the blades spinning. Also the damage to our planet from mining all the rare materials that are needed to create batteries. Do you think it will be less expensive to run an EV versus an internal combustion engine? FALSE From the Department of Transportation they state it depends on what level charger you get. Level 1 The slowest, Level 1 equipment, provides charging through a common residential 120-volt (120V) AC outlet. Level 1 chargers can take 40-50 hours to charge a battery electric vehicle (BEV) from empty and 5-6 hours to charge a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) from empty. Level 2 Level 2 equipment offers charging through 240V (in residential applications) or 208V (in commercial applications) electrical service, and is common for home, workplace, and public charging. Level 2 chargers can charge a BEV from empty in 4-10 hours and a PHEV from empty in 1-2 hours. Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC) The fastest speed, direct current fast charging (DCFC) equipment, enables rapid charging along heavy-traffic corridors at installed stations. DCFC equipment can charge a BEV to 80 percent in just 20 minutes to 1 hour. Most PHEVs currently on the market do not work with fast chargers. Differences between the three but you'll need to understand the difference between PHEV and BEV PHEV: Plugin Hybrids, assuming an 8-kWh battery (obviously with plugin hybrid you get the best of both worlds. Internal Combustion for when your battery is dead or you need extra pulling power and electric when just cruising. It's the way all vehicles should be) BEV: Full Electric Only, assuming a 60-kWh battery (not a very smart design. This requires you to have a way to charger your vehicle to go anywhere. Which means a power outage, no charging available... They refuse your subscription to charge, no charging available... The government could refuse your ability to charge your VERY expensive EV. Always required to be near a charge station or at least one in route that is working since not all are working) So based on the time stated above cost to charge will run around: Level 1@home: the cheapest is $624 for 40hours (even though it says it could take up to 50 hours) and with the cheapest rate of .26/min + you have to pay $12.99/month to use the chargers Level 2@home or public: the average using the lowest rate is $109 for 7hours and add the $12.99/month to use the chargers Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC)@public: not really a lot of cars support this yet so not going to really talk about it until its standard and actually on vehicles.

Some days you have to just ask yourself, "What the heck is the world coming to?" and I find myself saying this often lately with the big push from the government to go electric only. Yea, they are not supporting the more reasonable approach is to demand Hybrid Technology which is more realistic instead of strictly Electric Only vehicles since our country is not ready for everyone to have everyone plug in there electric vehicles to begin the hours of waiting time while electricity trickles into your vehicle so you can go somewhere. Let me ask you, What is the most popular time for car battery sales? It's simple, its winter time when temperatures get extremely cold which batteries don't handle well. Since half the country has some serious winters it's not realistic to have EV vehicles. Its said that cold weather reduces the EV's range by as much as 40%. Also let's not forget there will be a battery shortage if the government attempts to force us to buy EV's by increasing the gas tax so high that we won't be able to afford not to. Also let's not forget that most of the states in the north you will be struggling to even find a charging station since the majority of charge stations are in the big cities and you'll more than likely still find yourself waiting in line. It's not like someone is sitting in there car for hours waiting for their car to charge. They plug it in and walk away and go do something else the hours it takes for it to charge. With that in mind, I might not wait for a station to become free to charge your dying EV. And yes no matter if you charge at home or at a charging station it still costs you money. After all, nothing is free to include the amplified cost of EV's. Let's not forget the shortage of semiconductor chips which the EV's are heavily reliant on. Our dependency on China supplying these chips is crazy.. without China, we don't have EV's and with friction between China and Taiwan, we could be severing that relationship soon (within a few years). It's not just the chips we would be loosing out on but batteries since the majority of all cobalt mined for the EV batteries are mined in the Congo which China owns all rights. Unlike Oil which the world has plenty of for 100's of years if we never moved to EV's, cobalt (required for the EV batteries) is limited/rare. For all those that tout EV's will save the planet are blind. How is electricity generated today. COAL and NUCLEAR are by far the most used methods for producing electricty which accounts for most of the worlds pollution. Gasoline powered vehicles only account for 4% of the air pollution in the world (graphs show vehicles are like 27% but it includes busses, tractor trailer trucks, etc, when you dive into the 27% in more detail it shows gasoline vehicles are only 4% of the air pollution). So why is the government pushing EV's so bad? Probably makes them feel like they are doing something and its the easiest versus focusing on the rich corporations that account for the majority of the pollution. Luckily we are in AMERICA and the government can not take away our combustion engine vehicles and honestly there will always be mechanics that fix our very common Gas powered vehicles and parts will remain easy to find compared to EV's that you will have to bring to a dealership to get repaired and if you look at Tesla, they charge a BUTT load to fix. So moving to an EV means you will pay more for everything, limited range, mandatory hours of waiting to charge if you can find an open charging station and the worry that your car may explode (don't you remember the samsung phone that had the battery that was exploding in people's pockets) (Also don't forget all the EV vehicles that burst into flames when water from the storm in Florida happened). Not to worry though.. its impossible to force this poison called EV's down our throats for many many many years. They can't tow with an EV more than 200 miles if pulling an average trailer weight of 10,000lbs which is a medium sized RV or hauling a vehicle. Once you reach the 200 miles since the manufactures aren't smart enough to go Hybrid, you'll have to find a charging station and wait and wait and wait while your vehicle is charged enough to continue towing. The longer you wait you could get up to full charge giving you another 200 miles and the less you wait the less you can reach. Let's face it.. trucks that do work, real work in the middle of nowhere doing construction, the working class american the EV isn't realistic. Also knowing that these expensive EV's will have issues and many of the manufacturers are going to run into tons of issues but they want you and your wallet to be the test subjects. When you buy EV you are also contributing to all the job losses from top vehicle manufactures like Ford, Volkswagen, Japan but I'm sure most of the world doesn't care as long as its not them. Just like the method used to mine for the necessary minerals (cobalt & nickel) needed for all the batteries. REF: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-samsung-moved-beyond-its-exploding-phones/2018/02/23/5675632c-182f-11e8-b681-2d4d462a1921_story.html REF: https://www.fox9.com/news/electric-vehicles-are-exploding-from-water-damage-after-hurricane-ian REF: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/nov/08/cobalt-drc-miners-toil-for-30p-an-hour-to-fuel-electric-cars REF: https://blinkcharging.com/is-a-cold-climate-a-deterrent-to-ev-ownership/?locale=en REF: https://granitegeek.concordmonitor.com/2021/11/09/in-an-electric-car-world-who-will-be-the-auto-mechanics/ REF: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/20/electric-car-batteries-what-happens-to-them

Address: 2488 Lions Rd, North Pole, AK 99705 Phone: (907) 388-3003 http://www.northpolespeedway.com/

Address: Mile, 75.5 Parks Hwy, Willow, AK 99688 Phone: (907) 495-6420 http://www.capitolspeedway.org/

Alaska Raceway Park is a motorsports complex conducting races from Mother's Day to Labor Day. Located near Butte, the Knik River, and Knik Glacier at Mile 10.4 of the Old Glenn Highway, it is in Palmer, about 41.5 miles northeast of Anchorage, Alaska, US

PREP, PRIME AND PAINT YOUR RIDE LIKE A PRO! After you’ve sprayed your primer you might wonder what exactly to do next. Prep for paint can seem tricky at first but it’s not tough once you’ve got the proper steps down. First you’ll need to prep your primer. How exactly you prep your project depends on which primer you’ve used, which products you’re using next, and your overall project goals. It’s important to note that paint prep is a widely debated topic and there are many ways to arrive at the same high quality result. The methods I’ll detail here are simply what I would consider the best balance between speed or effectiveness and high quality results. Block Sanding Sanding scratches will be either straight or circular. Straight scratches don’t hide as well and may be seen in the final product if you don’t use the proper grit. Straight scratches come from block sanding and hand sanding in a back and forth motion. In my experience the best blocks to use for this process are Durablocks. They’re rigid enough to not bend when you’re trying to block a flat surface but they have some ‘give’ to them so that If you don’t have access to a DA (dual action) sander and you’ll be finishing your project with straight sanding scratches you’ll need to use a higher grit so that your color covers them better. Using a DA sander creates random circular scratches that are effectively finer than the same grit paper when used to block sand. A DA sander is a very important tool to use in the prepping process because it allows you to create a surface that is rough enough to allow for proper mechanical adhesion yet hide those sanding scratches in a way that they won’t be able to be seen through the paint when you’re all finished. Wet sanding offers a unique way to prep a panel that some people prefer over dry sanding. First, there is no dust to breathe in and we all understand the benefits of that. Wet sanding also allows you to work with finer grits more easily because the paper won’t clog with dust. The benefit there is that you can use those finer grits on a block and make straight scratches that will be easily covered by your sealer and color. So what grit sand paper should you use? This is where each primer will be slightly different. Prepping primer like our Contour Polyester Primer could go one of two ways. You could “finish” prep it in order to paint directly over it or you could treat it like body filler and simply block sand it flat and then prime over it with another material. If you’re going to be finishing it in order to paint directly over it you should use a combination of block sanding and DA sanding. You can rough out your work with 80, move to 180, 220, and then finish blocking with 320 grit. To get rid of those straight scratches you should DA sand with 400 grit. You could add another finer grit like 600 but in my experience 400 has proven itself to be fine enough to paint over with most materials. You should never wet sand polyester primer; it will absorb the moisture and could potentially cause issues down the road if it doesn’t completely evaporate before painting. If you want to prep polyester primer in order to prime over it with another material, start block sanding with 80 to break it open and roughly knock the panel down flat and then do the majority of your blocking with 180 grit and finish with either 180 or 220 grit on a DA sander. This will give you the flat surface you need and avoid the extra work and time spent finishing with the finer grits. 2k Urethane Primer would be the next step from here. When prepping 2K Urethane Primer it’s very similar to prepping polyester primer for paint except that you’ll skip the rougher grit steps. 320 grit is the best to use for dry block sanding 2K Urethane primer, it’s both rough enough to be able to sand quickly and fine enough to not need much more after you’re done. Once you’ve blocked your panels with 320 grit you should go over your work with 400 grit on a DA sander. Wet sanding 2K Urethane primer is best done with 400 to 600 grit wet/dry paper on a Durablock. Under most circumstances you will not need to DA sand over your work after wet sanding because wet sanding creates much finer scratches. Wet sanding epoxy primer is usually the best way to prep it because epoxy has a tendency to clog paper when sanded dry. You would sand the same way as 2K Urethane Primer—400 to 600 grit wet. Regardless of whether you’ve wet or dry sanded it’s always a good idea to go over your work with a gray or red scuff pad. This will ensure that you don’t have any areas left that are shiny. Everything must be scuffed or sanded in some way. The scuff pad makes it much easier to get into smaller areas where it might be difficult with a block or your DA sander. After you’ve done your sanding and scuffing work, thoroughly blow off your entire project. You want to keep going over the entire thing with your blow gun until you see no more dust or debris. Pay close attention to corners, crevices, gaps in panels, door jambs, etc. Dirt and debris from prepping likes to hide everywhere. Even after taping everything up dust will always find a way to get into your paint work. After you’ve blown off all of the loose dust and dirt thoroughly wipe down all of your panels with PRE cleaner. Let’s start mixing it up! At this point you’ll be ready to start thinking about mixing your paint. There are three components that come into play with nearly all top coats – the “solids” (color pigment or clear solids), activator, and reducer. It’s easiest to think about the solids and the activator as the main ingredients and the product instructions as the recipe. The instructions for each material will tell you exactly how much of each ingredient to add. The solids and activator are required items and the ratio is absolute. If you deviate from the instructions here your paint will not harden or dry correctly. The reducer would be most like salt or spices. Most recipes give a recommendation but how much you use is up to you, it’s all personal preference. Some people prefer to use reducer and some prefer to spray without it, the choice is yours. Mixing ratios are easy to decode, take our Single Stage Urethane for example – the mixing ratio is 3:1. The first number in a mixing ratio always refers to the solids, in this case the color. The second number is the activator. Here we’ll have three parts paint to one part activator. Bring reducer into the picture (15% reduction for example) and the ratio would be written like this: 3:1:15%. That means that you’ll use three parts color, one part activator and then add reducer to equal 15% of the total volume of the first two components. 9 oz. of color : 3 oz. of activator : 1.8 oz reducer (which could be rounded to 2 oz. for easy mixing). Once your paint is mixed you’ll need to strain it and pour it into your paint gun. Straining the material is a very important step If you don’t strain the paint there’s a good chance you could end up either clogging the gun with stray particles or metallic chunks that might not have broken up properly. If it doesn’t clog the gun it only has one other place to go – onto your fresh paint work. That means you’ll end up with unsightly chunks in your final product, some which can’t easily be sanded out. At very least you’ll create more work for yourself when you’re sanding and buffing later on. Applying your color will be about the same whether you’re spraying basecoat or single stage. Remember that it’s always best to apply lighter coats of color and build up the coating gradually rather than load on heavy coats. You’ll need to focus on consistency and make sure that you have even color coverage. Making passes with a 75% overlap while holding the gun about 8” away from the surface is a good place to start. It will take some experience to learn just how fast you’ll want to go. There are very few absolutes when it comes to applying automotive paint, most of it comes down to personal preference and you’ll learn a lot as you go. Make sure to adhere to the recommended flash times between coats to avoid any issues. Your final coats of single stage will go on the same way you’d apply every coat of clear – medium to wet, watching for the material to flow out smoothly. If you plan on doing wet sanding and buffing to finish your project, spray three full coats of clear. Fixing imperfections in your paint When you’ve sprayed your final coats of single stage paint or clear coat you’ll probably see quite a few areas you’re not so happy with – runs, sags, drips, or most common – dirt nibs and orange peel. Don’t worry! It’s possible to correct most of these problems with sanding and buffing, no matter how bad they seem. First you’ll need to knock down the dirt and any runs or sags. Most of the time you’ll stick with 1500 grit paper for the dirt nibs and the larger orange peel. This will allow you to work quickly but without making scratches that are too deep. Once you’ve knocked down most of the dirt or peel, do the majority of your sanding with 2000 grit. To take care of the runs you could use one of our nib files or even a single edge razor blade. Carefully scrape the high spots on the runs or sags. It’s important to be patient with this step. Be sure to avoid cutting into the paint with the edges, just gently scrape away layers of the built up clear coat. When you’ve knocked down the run and brought it back down to the level of the surrounding clear, finish it up by wet sanding with 2000 grit. If this is your first time painting a vehicle, then this is a must see, two-part video series on painting basics by Kevin Tetz: When you’ve sanded out all of the imperfections you’ve found it’s time to buff. Use a rotary buffer like one from 3M or Dewalt with compound on a wool or foam compounding pad to do the majority of the work. It’s easiest to work on one small section at a time and do two or three passes with the buffer until you’ve removed all of the sanding scratches. Move on to polishing after you’ve made two or three passes with the compound. For the polishing steps you’ll use a clean foam polishing pad and machine polish. Make sure to set the buffer speed slower and keep the pad as flat to the panel as possible to avoid swirl marks.

I want to start this blog by letting everyone know I have no idea what I'm doing but wanted to share in my experience with taking care of the bodywork on my 1964 Chevy Truck. (not the one in this image but I do want this light olive paint color) From my understanding you have four major stages SHAPING PREPPING PAINTING BUFFING NEWBIE SUPPLY ORDER FROM EASTWOOD SHAPING Get down to the bare metal is my first step (no rust, no paint, less issues) PRE Prep offered by Eastwood to clean the metal of any residue EPOXY Primer to seal the metal (protect from flash rusting) - GRAY FILLER aka Bondo aka Contour which you don't want to mix a ton since you have only about three minutes to use but you don't want the filler to be more than 1/8" thick which is about the thickness of a .25 quarter edge. Obviously use spreaders (you can clean your spreaders with that PRE Prep). Also the quick sheets Eastwood offers is another way to clean up your work area very quickly. BLOCK SAND (start around 36, move to 80 then possibly hit it with 180 grit sand paper) PREPPING (220 grit or higher number) 2k High Build Urethane Primer - BLACK SOUND DEADNER needs to be installed on floor and firewall. PAINTING (Olive Green) BUFFING

Woodward Dream Cruise 2017 Still crazy as ever. Very very packed from bumper to bumper with a whole wide range of vehicles. You have the typical what you expect classic cars To the bit crazier vehicles (how much motor can I put in the smallest space) An then you get the art on wheels. Always something to catch your eye as they drive one way then they turn around and drive the other way and then turn around again It's worth going. Tons of fun but if you aren't a patient person, you may not want to go since you'll be stuck in traffic for hours.