new direction for me

Finding one's life path can be a tough thing. I've been looking for my whole 35 years. I'm not just talking about a career but thats definitly part of it. Money is deceptive. Chasing the almighty dollar is fruitless. You can never have enough and there is always more stuff to own. Sooner or later you have so much stuff that it begins to own you. You can't sleep at night because you are worried about all your stuff. It might get stolen, it might rust away, it might break down or get destroyed by a storm etc.... I live on an acreage so there is certain exspensive pieces of "stuff" i need but i hate owning. A good example is a tractor. They are very exspensive, require lots of maintenance, exspensive to repair, should be stored indoors (especially in winter) and with a diesel engine they can be hard to start in cold weather. I need a tractor for moving snow and vehicles but i hate all the aggrivation of owning one. Another annoying machine is a snowmobile. I love ice fishing and hunting so a snowmobile is necessary but they are such unreliable pieces of junk that i also hate owning them. All these exspensive items brings me to my recent life lessons on money. Over the past 8 years i've been living a double life. All summer long i've been working at a small factory building agricultural structures. It is hard, tiring, unhealthy work but it has a few benefits. The plasma and welding smoke is brutal and lifting heavy steel all day along with kneeling on the floor to weld is very hard on my body. I will likely not live to be an old man if i worked this job my whole life. The main benefit is the good pay and i work good hours (7-4) and its not very far from home (15 min drive). In the summer I make good money but the job doesn't allow for much time off. I'm paid in such a way that if i take a day off, i lose more money that what i would have made by working that day (ya its hard to understand) so i don't take time off in the summer which is the best part of the year where i live.  The other half of the double life that i mentioned is at home in my shop working as an auto mechanic, selling performance car parts and building performace cars/motors. This career also has positive and negative results. I get to be home and spend lots of time with my wife and three children. I have lots of time to travel and hunt / fish with my family. I love working on and building hotrods. I love meeting and talking with other gear heads. I have time to work on my own projects (just put a bigger cam in my malibu) and for all this i am thankfull. The big downer is that i don't make any money. There is only 10 - 15% markup on speed parts and all hotrodders seem to know of somewhere cheaper or easier to get stuff. Hotrodders love buying stuff online from the states (they don't seem to mind paying freight / brokerage) and it seems like a dying hobby. Few young guys are getting into it. If your dad wasn't a hotrodder chances are very slim you will be. So to conclude my story, in the winter when i have all the free time, I have no money to enjoy all that free time!
  This all leads me to share my newest adventure. The Rocket Shop School of Performance! Over the last 3 weeks i have been hosting evening classes out in my shop that i have really enjoyed teaching. We learn about building performance cars and spend a bit of time in a classroom type setting then move to hands on work. Then near the end of the evening i take a few minutes to share a lesson from the Bible. I try to make God the most important part of my life and this class has allowed me to use my gifts to serve him. This class is what i look forward to so much each week. Building into the lives of young men is very important to me. There are much wiser hotrodders out there than me but God has gifted me to share my faith with these young men. One of the tough parts of the class is keeping stuff in my shop to learn on. So far we have tore down four small block chevy's and i'm ready for something different! Through a friend who has the same vision as me we felt it would be good to have a project car. This will help the young guys to unite and have a common purpose. The idea that came to my mind was a drag race car. Not a street car (been there, done that many times). The goal i presented was for 5000 dollars to run low 10's and do a wheelie! This is a tough challenge. The best way to meet these goals that i could think of is a 500 hp 350 chevy built from mostly all used race parts (remember its not a street car) and a 200 dose of spray all in a light, cheap car such as a g-body. When its all done it would be so rewarding to haul it to the strip and give each student an opportunity at making a pass with it. This is also a big test of faith for me because i neither have the money nor free parts to make it happen. So far we have a 4 bolt 350 block and a set of resized stock connecting rods. I'm looking for a used forged crank, forged high CR pistons, aluminum heads, solid roller cam, turbo 400 tranny, 4000+ stall convertor, shifter, roll bar and many more things. Being a race-only car makes things simpler and cheaper but still a good challenge. I also haven't nailed down a car yet for sure but i do have my daily driver 81 malibu wagon. It still runs and drives great with a V6 so i hate to tear it apart just yet, especially since i might need it to drive to work this summer. This is an opportunity for my vast readership (good one eh?) to help. Finding deals on parts plus telling me of possible other methods of meeting our goal. Do you think there is a better way to run low 10's for $5000 and do a wheelie? Let me know! Also if You are a Christian or even better a Christian hotrodder, please pray for me and the young men who are a part of this ministry. Deep down i'm hoping and wondering if God might be changing my life path through this ministry of his. God bless you and thanks for reading.
brian