In April of 2018, my friend, automotive journalist Jeff Zurchmeide, put out a call for help. The Subaru Rally Team was at Portland International Raceway, preparing to compete in the Oregon Trail Rally. Unfortunately, their new fire suits were stuck in customs, and their old fire suits had the names of sponsors that were no longer sponsoring the team. Would any of his sewing-capable friends be willing to help? Of course I volunteered LOL.

I arrived at the track with all kinds of tools, thread, and fabric. It turned out that the sponsor names were embroidered to the fire suit fabric, and I would cause way too much damage to the suits if I tried to remove the names. Instead, I would have to cover them up. I brought several shades of plain grey fabric with me. None were an exact match, but I picked the best one and began making patches to cover the sponsor names.

This all had to be done by hand, partially because some names were located on the sleeves, giving me no way of accessing them with a sewing machine. But also, a sewing machine would pass the cotton thread all the way through the fire suit layers, creating a way for fire to easily get inside the suit. That had to be avoided! Therefore, I had to stitch the patches to only the outer most layer of the fire suit, which meant stitching by hand. It took a while, but I finished just in time!

I was set up to work in the team trailer. You have to admit, the view from my "office" was pretty nice LOL. And here you see Chris Atkinson wearing his modified suit. I think it turned out pretty nicely, considering the rush job it had to be.