I experienced my first sense of mechanical fear with this 1990 Lotus Omega when I backed it into a parking spot in front of the motel pool the night before. The clutch felt very unhappy chattering into place. This might end up becoming a problem. I’m used to older cars; a little bit of noise from the clutch throw-out bearing and transmission input shaft isn’t unheard of. But this was the worst I’d ever heard from a car that was, for the time being, still roadworthy.
The next morning, it fired up — after the usual half-second of hesitation — and puttered off like nothing was wrong. I repeated the same routine as the day before: car wash, high-octane breakfast, and a cursory check of vitals. Not only did everything check out, it remained unchanged. I fully expected she’d have burned or otherwise lost some engine oil, but the level was exactly where it was many miles ago. I felt emboldened. It had been a few days now, and not only was the Omega doing well, it was being exemplary even by modern standards. The clutch throw-out bearing was a little unnerving, sure, but not overly worrisome.
My debate for the day was whether or not I should bother stopping in Regina. The drive from Calgary all the way to Winnipeg spans two provinces, but it’s more or less a straight shot across the Trans-Canada Highway. I’ve heard over and over that it’s probably the longest, straightest, flattest, most boring section of road on this planet. All of my and everyone else’s apprehension about this journey circled around getting across the Great Plains safe, but more importantly, sane.
I decided to skip Regina, instead opting to sailing across the Prairies in a day and conclude my day in Winnipeg some 14 hours later. That way, I blaze through the boring part of the drive in one long day, maybe get some out-of-this-world light painting photos under the stars, and begin the beautiful trek through northern Ontario and the Canadian Shield the following day.
Here’s something I haven’t told many people prior to writing this out: I really enjoyed sailing across the prairies. In fact, I was mostly raw-dogging it as the kids say, without much in the way of music, podcasts, or audiobooks to keep me company. I chose to be alone with my thoughts for a majority of the day, saving the entertainment for later when I really needed it.
In a primal, hunter-gatherer kind of way, I found being able to see everything around me for miles very calming. Despite embarking on the most notoriously boring drive on earth, I was also enjoying it quite a bit. It felt rather therapeutic and almost felt myself healing as the miles ticked away, soaring across the earth. People say the Prairies are hypnotic, and they’re right, but not in a horribly imprisoning way like sitting on the 401 back home. Photos don’t convey it; it’s nowhere as boring or visually dull as you’d think. There’s a lot to take in.
It was such a shame when the rapidly rising sh-sh-sh-sh sound of a flattening tire ripped me back to hard reality. As I pulled off to the shoulder of an exceptionally straight stretch of the Trans Canada Highway, about two hours west of Regina, I applied the brakes but was met with a sickeningly expensive sounding thud, following by the brake pedal falling to the floor and the car very uncomfortably wobbling itself to a stop. It felt like a wheel was actively falling off.
What actually happened was worse. If a wheel had started falling off, I could at least put it back on.
Instead, a brake caliper started falling off. It gouged the wheel, which flattened the tire, which obliterated both the wheel and tire when I applied the loosely attached brake. I took a beat to gather myself at the side of the highway, then skipped past panic and went into crisis management mode. I was in a very broken, very valuable car, in a very remote location, very far from home. Whatever happened was not just a flat tire. Okay, I told myself. Let’s get out and assess the situation. You bought tools for a reason. Your friend entrusted you with this task for a reason.
Short of checking to see if a jack was present at the beginning of the journey, which was a dumb assumption on my part, I don’t know what more due diligence I could have done. I bought extra oil and coolant. I bought a set of tools. I checked fluid levels and tire pressures every morning. I carefully monitored the few symptoms it did have. Short of borrowing a bay and a hoist at Porsche Centre Victoria, then checking over the torque of every single bolt under the car, I wouldn’t have found this.
The only telltale of this impending failure was an ominous bonk sound right under my feet, about an hour before it all went wrong. Through the power of hindsight, I deduced it was caused by one of the brake caliper bolts backing out. I pulled over, had a quick peek to be sure, and didn’t see anything awry. I wouldn’t have seen the missing bolt off the back of the caliper, anyway. I moved on, assuming I’d picked up some debris. It’s probably fine.
It’s unfortunate because the Omega was doing so well. With the exception of a grumbling throw-out bearing and a mild shimmy at speed likely from the aftermarket wheel spacers, it gave me no cause for concern, and now it was gravely injured through no fault of its own. Not only was I worried about this precious artifact of automotive history, I was bonding with this thing. Seeing it hurt, hurt me.
I initially thought the spongy brake pedal may have been caused from a flex line getting nicked by the disintegrating tire. Maybe I can get the spare wheel on, limp it somewhere, replace the brake line and tire, and press on, I thought. That’s also I was what I told my friend, who bought the car, when I called him. Closer inspection revealed that not only was the wheel destroyed, the caliper snapped in half from impacting the wheel. This was a bizarre, catastrophic failure, and there was no way I was going to find another vintage AP Racing caliper in Saskatchewan.
The show was over. I sent a photo of the mechanical gore to my friend, who replied with little more than, “oh.”
Oh, indeed. It was obvious I was heading home on a plane. Where does the car go in the interim? When I called CAA for roadside assistance, they asked where I wanted to go, and I just said “a garage in Regina. Pick one.” After some back and forth trying to figure out how and by whom I was going to be retrieved, I was told a driver is on the way, but might be a while. No worries, I figured as much. I made back-and-forth calls with my friend, who was trying to coordinate where we could drop the very broken Omega and keep it safe. I told him a truck was eventually coming, and we have time to figure this out. He then asked, “what are you gonna do in the meantime?”
There wasn’t much else I could do. Having resigned that my once-in-a-lifetime adventure was having the curtains drawn on it, I grabbed the mixed pack of IPAs I bought a couple days prior in Kamloops, wandered into the field away from the highway, sat down on a rock on the soft, salty beachfront of Reed Lake, and cracked open a beer. At least it was a pretty place to resign.
Jay arrived on behalf of CAA about an hour and a half later. He was very kind and took great care in loading the Lotus onto his trailer. Over the course of the two hour jaunt to Regina, we talked a lot — Formula 1, my trip, his role teaching auto mechanics at a nearby college, and living on the prairies. Like me, he was from Ontario, came out here on a work trip years ago, and didn’t leave. Having seen the lovely community he lived in — he stopped to get a low-profile jack from his house, just in case we had trouble getting the car off the trailer — and the spectacular auburn sunset of the bald plains as he called them, I could see why. We also picked up a passenger, a Golden Retriever named Bailey, who was such a sweet girl, yes she was.
Over the course of the drive, I worked with my friend to hammer out where the car was going. Mark, a mutual friend of ours and former contributor to the site, is now a higher-up at Midas Canada. He came in clutch, telling me “the guy who runs the two stores in Regina owes me a favour.” I felt terrible calling him out of the blue, but Mark was more than helpful, passing me along to the regional manager Nathan, who ended up meeting Jay and I on a Saturday night to make sure the Lotus was tucked away safely into a diagnostic bay until shipping could be arranged. Daryn, the owner of the store I was also using as a hotel, came in the following morning to fit the spare tire and remove the broken caliper, as it wouldn’t otherwise roll onto the truck home.
When I got out of the car for the last time after driving it off the trailer in Regina, I felt so defeated. Saddened. The driver’s seat became a home away from home. It was supposed to be my home for a lot longer. I was enjoying the journey, I was healing, the car was relishing it, I looked forward to more. And now, through no fault of either myself or the vintage exotic car that once seemed so dubious, the journey ground to a halt. I was heartbroken, despondent that I’d been robbed of experience I’ll never get to have again.
I still am.
On the evening of May the 4th, I arrived at Pearson airport in Toronto defeated. The Lotus followed a little over a week later. As you read this, the caliper — and amazingly, the wheel — have been repaired. But it hurt everytime seeing the car is sitting outside, on its donut spare, still covered in smashed gnats from the cruise across the prairies. Even if my friend did the more sensible thing and had it shipped, this would have happened anyway. But the odds of it being caught in advance are close to zero, and probably not at the side of a quiet lake with the clearest sightlines on Earth, surrounded by the kindest folks.
In the wise words of the great philosopher Jean-Luc Picard, “Sometimes it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not failure, that is life.” I’m annoyed at how much comfort I’ve been forced to find in those words over the past few months not just with this, but my personal life as well. I’m glad I’ve had them rattling around in my head to keep me somewhat composed.
I couldn’t be more appreciative of the people that went out of their way to help me over the course of this quest. I was in an extremely vulnerable position and at the mercy of others’ goodwill on multiple occasions. The good nature of Young Brad Pitt, Jay from CAA, and Mark, Nathan, and Daryn from Midas saved me from ruin over and over again on this journey. All I can do is express my gratitude, and as Young Brad Pitt said, try to pay it forward when the time comes. I may be down about the whole thing, but I know I am incredibly lucky, not only to have been in this position at all, but that it worked out the way it did.
There’s still work to be done, but it will all get done in time, and this 1990 Lotus Omega will storm across the highway once again.
