CURRENT ISSUE 08/19/03 Front Page Weekly Features Advice From Strangers Ain't That America? Musing With Mitch Moth's Diary News From Travistan Info Archives Crap Shop Who's at Fault? Contact Us! Aye, mateys! Get you some Daily Probe booty!	Homemade Go-Kart Goes Unfinished for Third Summer in a Row MENTOR, Ohio (DPI) The summer of 2001 began with the promise of high-speed adventures for 10-year-old Perry Price. The plan: Use the engine from the discarded push mower to build a go-kart that was sure to be the envy of the neighborhood. Now that the third summer has come and gone without completion, the project seems to be on indefinite hold. "I know I could still do it," said Price as he nostalgically looked over his old sketches. "But I just never really had the right materials." Forced to work on a shoestring budget of $5 a week allowance and parts from neighborhood yard sales, the odds were never in Price's favor. A large orange crate served as the chassis, the wheels and unattached engine were taken from the push mower, and the immovable steering assembly was a patchwork of tricycle parts, lumber and duct tape. "It's a shame, too," he lamented. "This thing would have really been a babe magnet." "I remember when he told us about the go-kart idea," Price's next-door neighbor, Johnny Beach, recalled. "We spent most of the first summer fighting about who would get to drive it first, but we never really did any work on it. But we did name it 'Toro.' Last summer, we actually took the engine off that old lawnmower, but we couldn't figure out how to attach it to the go-kart or how to make the engine make the wheels turn. Which really didn't matter, since the engine didn't even work. This summer, Perry spent most of his time at his stupid grandma's place in Michigan, or practicing the piano like a fag." With the school year nearing and the go-kart sitting under a tarp behind the garage, Perry now seems content just to drive the riding mower as fast as it will go while he mows the yard. "Sure, it would be nice to have my own wheels," he said. "But I can usually cruise around in fourth gear on our new Husqvarna for about 10 minutes before Dad yells." And Price even has a few new ideas for next summer. "After this school year, I'm gonna get a place of my own," he said. "Either the crawlspace under the house or our broken storage freezer should be perfect." (Reported by Buddy Fisher)
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