I woke up this morning to hear the phrase, “chance of snow” being proclaimed by the  local weatherman’s forecast. To me, this was unwelcome news. I live in Youngstown, Ohio, which is about an hour east of Cleveland, which apparently, received a generous amount of the cold white stuff the night before.

I kept getting phone calls and text messages all of last night by my friends and family members who reside in that area, proclaiming the sighting and suggesting that it was a positive thing, judging by the amount of exclamation marks in their texts. People even shared their enthusiasm for it on their Facebook statuses. Gag me.

I might as well take some time to explain my lack of excitement for this season. For us gearheads in the Midwest, it usually means a solid 5-6 months of having the car(s) put away, shoveling snow, chopping and splitting wood, driving something slow and dull through snow/ice/salt-covered roads which eventually become riddled with pot-holes as a result, and basically being stuck on the couch watching TV.

Sure, this gives you time to recoup some of the funds you blew through during the summer going to the extracurricular automotive events, and it helps keep wear and tear to a minimum on said toys, but that sort of makes it worse when you go out to the garage to visit your cars, and they’re relegated to “storage status.”

The closest you can get to driving them is sliding behind the wheel and make engine noises while you peer through the windshield at the six feet of snow and the below-freezing temps that now reside just outside of the garage door.

But for the more hardcore and enthusiastic, it means firing up the space heater and pulling the motor, tearing it down and starting all over again. Replacing key components such as the camshaft, intake manifold, and having the heads ported. Or maybe it means setting up the old spray booth and laying a fresh coat of lacquer on the old beast, erasing any proof of any existing scratches, stone chips, dents, rust or any paint defect that was put there by a previous “expert.”

It may also mean sitting in front of your computer for countless hours ordering new parts, getting ideas for a new set of rollers or maybe even picking up a new project. That’s another good thing about this time of year; people are willing to let their cars go for cheap, since not many are willing to foot the bill for storage fees on cars that they’re not attached to, and what with Christmas fast approaching. So if you’re a hot-rodder looking to score a deal on a new toy, now’s the time to buy.

Working all winter in the garage is great if you’re coldblooded or an Eskimo, but for myself, working in cold temps with a kerosene-fueled or limpwristed electric space heater to only keep me warm never filled me with much enthusiasm. Sure, I love working on my cars, but I’m one of the most impatient people you will ever meet, as I want to reap the fruits of my labor almost immediately.

If I put a cam or a fresh set of valve springs in my car, I instantly want to fire it up and drive it around the block as soon as I tighten down the last bolt. It’s instant self-gratification. But this is a no-go if it’s the middle of January in Ohio.

So, I’m left feeling like somebody who’s impatiently waiting to use the restroom while they’re standing in line at the DMV, or like the adolescent young man who’s deperately looking to lose his virginity in the latest teen comedy. The anticipation kills me.

I also hate being cold, as anything below 50 degrees feels cold to me. Residents of Arizona complain about the traffic, illegal immigrants and the dry, immense heat, but give me that over 6-feet of snow, 12-degree temps, and barely being able to drive a normal car down the road at snail-like speeds without sliding into a ditch or another car. Don’t forget your ice-scraper.

But before you say that this is a price worth paying over the high-cost of Southwest residency, you also certainly have to consider the fact that it’s almost imperative to own at least two cars in the Midwest. It’s next to impossible to navigate even a completely stock 4th Gen F-body through much of the winter weather our area sees. Trust me, I know. So you have to factor in costs for a second vehicle (maintenance, upkeep, insurance, fuel, etc).

As much as I would love to tear the cammed-LS1 out of my Trans Am and build a much more potent ‘plant from scratch, it’s just not in the cards right now. My other toy, a Buick GN, could use a fresh coat of paint and I would love to throw a set of GNX wheels on it just for kicks, but other priorities get in the way. But I wouldn’t have these problems if I lived somewhere that never snowed.

Like I said in last month’s editorial, I would most likely be found cruising around daily in a LS-powered ’57 Chevy or maybe that ’69 El Camino SS driver I spotted over the summer for $20k. So before I can join the hardcore-elite gearhead who enjoys laying on ice-cold concrete all winter long, I don’t even have the funds to bother with any of that to begin with.

While most of the local automotive enthusiasts choose to tool around in 4WD trucks and SUVs over the winter, I’m a little more stubborn. I’m currently in the market for a set of Blizzak snow tires for my second-hand CTS-V that I scored for less than the the price of what a turbocharged Cobalt SS stickered for new.

I hate owning a slow vehicle of any type, even the supercharged Pontiac Grand Prix GTP I had owned before the HiPo Caddy felt slow and worthless to me. In fact, it was pretty terrible in the snow too, come to think of it. I drove the “Vee” most of last winter and it actually fared better than the old GTP, most likely because the 1st Gen CTS was a better engineered car than what the late ’90s W-body was. But I digress.

The ironic thing about my hatred for working on cars in the winter is that I previously agreed to help a friend perform an LS swap in his ’85 Monte Carlo SS over the next few months. I suppose my love for cars and working on them, while helping a friend out, wins over my bias of freezing, wearing insulated flannel shirts, and bitching about having to invest in cough and cold medicine. That’s hot-rodding, after all.

Just as long as he has a really good heater…

-Rick