I would like to thank Larry and Mark from Eksten Autoworks for all their help this weekend, and I would like to enthusiastically recommend them to anyone in western NY.

Apologies in advance for the long post - short version is that Larry and Mark Eksten went out of their way to help me out of a really tough spot on the track this weekend.

This Saturday at Watkins Glen (BMW CCA event), in the middle of the third session I got a meatball flag. The car was running well, and up to that point I hadn't seen any warning signs or lights. Almost as soon as I saw the flag, I got a "check coolant level" alert on the dash, and a red light on the temp gauge (temp level itself was normal).

Pulled into the pit and was told to kill the engine. Walked around and saw a bunch of spray on the rear of the car, some steam/smoke was starting to come out of the engine area, and some fluid drops trailing the car. At this point I started to get a bit concerned. I'm not a religious man, but I was kinda hoping for some divine intervention at that point. Towed the car to the paddock and started poking around.

Now, I know the difference between a crankshaft and a head gasket, but peering around that tangled mess of an engine compartment gave me no clues at all. About 5 minutes later, Mark Eksten comes over, spends 10 seconds with his head under the car and tells me a coolant hose has lost a clamp. We push the car over to his garage and wait for it to cool down. I'm getting relieved that this isn't a huge deal, and my car may survive to fight another day.

I come back about 30 minutes later, and Mark and Larry Eksten have the intake off and are already installing a new clamp. Mark spends the next 10 minutes pouring multiple bottles of water into the car (these cars take a lot of coolant!), and the thing started up and ran perfectly for the rest of the weekend.

Larry and Mark, thank you both very much, you really saved me.