Fire

What a day... I have to say this was a final hit to a shit new year. I broke off a relationship, my home country got invaded, I was severely overworked and then my car spontaneously caught fire. I was raised very traditional with cultural values from my homeland. Mental health was not a thing, I didn't believe in it very much. I'll say it though, I was completely trashed after all of these blows. This was a step to maybe taking that more seriously.

I drove it that day to the hardware store. When I came back home I parked the car and had lunch with my friend. I realized my wallet was gone and we decided to go look for it at the hardware store. Upon returning I noticed the moment my garage door lifted up about an inch that there was this yellow light. The light moved. That exact moment I already knew what It was. It had to be a fire. Sure enough as the garage door pulled up even further it revealed the flames coming from the bottom and side of the car. I immediately ran in, reached inside the car to try to put it in neutral and push it outside. The moment I got to the drivers side door, a plume of flame grew next to me and I had to back off. My friend quickly thinking ahead ran in and grabbed a garden hose. I ran back to him and told him what to spray. Since I ironically work in the fire protection industry, I told him to immediately spray the garage walls and ceiling. Then I took the hose and started spraying my fastback. God I didn't want to try and buy another one. I got the fastback wet and then immediately moved to try and spray the fire at the source. However, it was not clear where exactly it was coming from. The best I could do is get as much stuff wet as I could and keep spraying my fastback to minimize the damage.

As the fire crew rolled in, we got moved back and I couldn't see what was happening. They were in the garage for a while. I thought for a fact that when all was done I would walk in to find a completely destroyed car. Luckily that wasn't the case. It was severely damaged but the body looked ok.

Most of the parts I saved up for were damaged in some way. I couldn't believe it. 8 years of work, saving up and sacrificing my personal life to build a car was gone in a moment. I had just finished the car too. I was really enjoying a season of autocross and track days. I was done with the car, all that was left was to actually compete and dial the car in. The car at that stage was getting to be really dialed in and I was making plans to compete in the SCCA Solo Nationals the following year. Only got to enjoy my dream car for about 5 months. It made no sense to rebuild this car. A smarter person would have bought another NA and just swapped any parts onto it. Personally, I'm sentimental and I don't care about money. It doesn't rule my world in any way. So onto the future, this car will be back.

Also, after 4 investigators no one could determine a cause of the fire. The insurance company was ready to send an engineer to come and inspect everything. They held off.