[TL Marcel]

So, I flew 5,000 miles from Switzerland to Little Rock, Arkansas to pick up my new Kirkham Cobra from Keith Craft (great man), and drove 2,400 miles to the Homecoming: across Oklahoma, along Route 70 near the Texas border (boy, it was Windy - had to look out for flying debris!), up Route 287 to Amarillo, along Route 40 into New Mexico and up to Sante Fe, further along Route 40 into Arizona and up to Canyon de Chelly, then up through Monument Valley and up to Moab for some rafting; then west on Route 70 and down Route 89 to meet up with the rest of the Homecoming gang at Bryce Canyon...
Was it worth it?.... You're damn right it was worth it! - I'll be back for more next year!

Met some great people along the way: from the farmers in Oklahoma to the two grave-diggers in Sante Fe with tattoos up to their faces who helped me out when the starter blew, and the garagist in Sante Fe who helped me out and would not take any money for his efforts ("I'm here to help folks" were his words). Good people and good memories.

Keith Craft's engine worked like a dream. Had a couple of minor issues initially with the Mass-flo fuel injection, but we later figured out what the problem was (our fault - we were sending an electrical spike through the system and blowing the solid-state gauges on the air intake) - more on that in a later post - and it worked like a dream after that. I unreservedly recommend the Mass-flo system. Was running at around 12-13 mpg, but the system needs time to settle down and better fuel consumption should come later. Also needed to change the starter, oh, and the windscreen wipers flew off; was hit by some rocks and will have to change the windscreen; a couple of bumps in the door, starter button blew,... all petty stuff for a bona fide road trip.

I had the Tremec TKO 600 transmission with the 0.64 overdrive - my own view is that it's not the right ratio (I hardly used it on the smaller routes), and I'll prob be changing it to the standard 0.82.

Route 12 heading East then north through Utah - which we all drove together, has got to be one of the sweetest drives in the whole US of A.

My sincere thanks to Keith and Shelly Craft for their great work on the engine and transmission and for being such good people; sincere thanks to the Kirkhams (friendliness, serenity and professionalism personified), Joe and the team for taking so much trouble for organising such a wonderful trip; and to all the other Kirkham owners who made up such a varied and cool group.

CANNOT WAIT to get my KMP back to Europe

Regards to all

Michael