Crunch. Yep, in February of 2001 I wrecked the car.

I was driving home from work. We were in the middle of a big problem so I had been putting in some long hours and I was still thinking about a problem I should have left at my desk, but that's hard to do sometimes. Anyway, I approached an intersection that has a dedicated lane for right hand turns. The traffic on the cross street had just got a green light when I entered the lane. The cars had just started to move and I knew I had plenty of time to get in front of them without slowing anyone down. As I turned my head to look down the lane I saw a new Chevy Malibu parked in the middle of the lane. Obviously the driver decided to wait it out. I stood on the brakes but it wasn't enough to keep from hitting him at about 5 mph. There was hardly any damage to the Malibu but my bumper went complety under the car and the hood and radiator bulkhead took all the energy of the collision. Actually, I think they didn't do much to stop the car at all, it was the brakes that stopped the car just about a foot farther from where I had hoped.

Anyway, it was still my fault none the less so I paid for the repair of the Malibu (the driver was from Canada and the car was a rental so he wasn't upset) and towed the CRX home. The estimate to repair the CRX at a body shop was way more than the car was worth but I wasn't ready to give up on it so soon. I spent a couple of months straightening the bulkhead, realigning the fenders with a replacement hood but the chassis was bent beyond my ability to restore.

I decided to look for an '88 or '89 HF chassis to swap my engine and tranny into which would yield a pretty competitive combination for the autocross class CSP. Engine swaps are legal in the Street Prepared class as long as the chassis is on the same line in the rulebook, which all 4th Gen CRX's are. A couple of people have done this swap and been very competitive at Nationals, so I thought this was an opportunity to build a great car.

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