Well, in my case I owned an old farm for a while, far out rural, 300 foot driveway with a circle. In 1991 we got what they refer to as the "Halloween storm". They try to say it was worse than the storm in 1940, but from everything i've read it never came close to it. But "officially" we got 29" of global warming, followed by a drastic drop in temps (below zero F.). I had a drift in about the middle of the driveway that was up to my eyeballs and even with a big Ford diesel tractor with a big articulating bucket, it took me most of a full day to get out to the road. Neighbor came over with his skid loader a few times and the thing impressed the heck out of me being so fast. Later, when I was building a pole building, I had one to use and found it just so handy for picking up things and moving it. I can put the bucket way up and use it like a scaffold 11 feet off the ground. It moves dirt, rocks, digs holes, yanks stuff out of the ground, and can carry like almost 2000 pounds of crap around the yard. It grades a driveway so easy it makes you look like a pro when you don't even know what your doing. But it can also really move a lot of snow in a hurry, and thats why I kept it. It also hasnt really depreciated, so its kind of an investment that you can use a lot. I hope to be able to buy a better one if I can get this stupid line fixed and get it cleaned up (again).
You have every right to be PO'd. The family member that loaned it knew you'd be mad, but they did it anyway, so who's in the wrong? I don't follow their logic at all. I'd say they've shown more about their own charachter than about yours.
I borrowed a friends race car last weekend. First day during race a yahoo came up inside for a little too late braking and when I rightly took the corner he punted me off the track. That wasn't much damage, but this was a high speed corner and we were going off in unison. I came to rest a little short of him and he basically t-boned me at low speed. Frame is OK, but will still require a body shop to weld tacks and pull. I sent him detailed pics the next day and will get it fixed better than new. All cool between us, as far as I know , but funny when I called "hey Greg, you know how you told me to stay away from Lance, well, Lance t-boned your car." FYI, Greg isn't very up on race prep, so he got plenty in return for loaning his car. My crew chief and I spent 8+ hours sorting the car out mechanically.
Sorry to hear about the BS you're going through Paul. I didn't read every post in here, but from what I did read I totally agree with you; I'd feel the same way.
Thats how things should be, Rob. Thats how I was raised. I know full well that if I was up front, a few racer friends over the years would have acted the same way. But had I then borrowed said machine to another, and kept it secret, lied when asked about it, and brought it back dirty and messed up, the friendship would be over. Somehow with family your just supposed to eat everything. If they had asked if thier friend could use it, I would have said no. Ive told everyone no, mostly because its a high maintainence machine and can be deadly if not treated right. One friend wanted to use it in his sand pit and I said no simply because I didnt want it in sand. But really because I didnt want to go through what I'm going through now. When you talk about the race car thing, I think that is really cool, and thats how many car guys are. Heck, not just car guys, but airplane guys, many forms of machinery that people can come together on and work on. Its really neat letting "your" machine be used by someone you trust and standing back watching it, hearing it, yet knowing and trusting the person operating it knowing they arent doing any better or worse than you, and knowing that at the end of the day you will both be working on it to put it back right. Non-car guy people on the other hand, have no clue how things work, work things that arent working right anyway because a) they have no clue, and b) they dont really give a darn because (read a)). They wonder through life destroying machinery, cars, anything they use, and just laugh it off because to them its just dumb stuff. Putting a dent in your Ferrari wouldnt bother them because thier car is full of dents. They cant understand why you would want it looking so nice, and they wouldnt bother to try to find out.
