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Teen Mustang Owner Fighting Cancer, Gets Bad News https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2024/04/23/teen-mustang-owner-cancer-jim-farley-ford-charlotte-motor-speedway/73411364007/     Joseph Tegerdine had never been on a professional racetrack, let alone behind the wheel of a Ford Mustang Dark Horse actually rocketing 112 mph. He remained fearless even as his life continued to be dominated by sharp turns and tight corners.   "It was kind of terrifying at first. Then I was like, 'oh, this is actually pretty chill.' It's just really, really fun," Tegerdine, 18, of Springville, Utah, told the Free Press. "There’s so much to be thinking about in this car that your brain is 100% occupied — a little more gas, hit the brake hard, turn, turn. It’s just surreal."   He mentioned the Oscar-winning film "Ford v Ferrari" and asked, "You know that famous line?" — referring to the part where legendary racing driver Carroll Shelby says, "There's a point at 7,000 rpm ... where everything fades. The machine becomes weightless."   Tegerdine said, "It was 100% that feeling. Everything fades and you're floating."     Why a racetrack in Charlotte The young man traveled earlier this month from Utah to North Carolina with his father, Joe Tegerdine. (Father and son have the same name. For clarity, we'll refer to the father as Joe and his son as Joseph). Ford CEO Jim Farley offered the two a trip to the Ford Performance Racing School at the famed Charlotte Motor Speedway. The auto executive, himself a competitive race car driver whose first car was a Mustang, wanted Joseph to experience the untethered thrill of a Mustang on the track. Farley had read on social media that Joe Tegerdine bought his son a 2020 Mustang because the teen's bone cancer was moving too quickly to not grant all wishes immediately.   "For those wondering why I’d buy my 18yr old son a 330hp Mustang, well, he’s been given months to live and can’t work long enough to buy one himself," Tegerdine tweeted on X. "His comment on the way home, 'Dad, I’m going to squeeze a few extra months of life just to be able to drive this.' ”   More than 13.8 million people read the post, and nearly 200,000 have commented, shared, liked or bookmarked it.     Dad, the general manager of North America for Reencle home composting systems, has heard from people who survived cancer, who lost children, who urge the family to remain strong.   "There's so much social upheaval and so many people are hurting right now ... to be able to have literally thousands of people reach out, you just realize most of us are just good people doing our best to try and live a fulfilling life," Joe said.   "We get caught in this doom cycle," he said. "I attribute a lot to politics and politicians trying to divide us and focus on negative and dark things to maintain power and generate wealth for themselves. The rest of us get caught in these cycles. To be able to step out and see the goodness of humanity and people is super inspiring to me. It reminds me that, for most of us, that’s our reality."   Feel yourself airborne When Farley offered the trip in a private message to Joe, the father-son duo accepted immediately. Other Mustang owners were at the track that day, too. Ford put the father and son, with custom helmets, in their cars to create unique drive experiences they would share later.   "We had a drifting course," that taught how to make controlled skids sideways through turns, and smoked the tires, Joe said. "After driving, we did a timed skills course with cones and instruction with professional drivers. That was really cool. In the afternoon, we headed to the main track, where we had a pace driver, and three cars would follow. It was Joseph and I and another car. We hauled butt behind the professional driver. I think I got up to 115 miles per hour on the side wall."   But that wasn't all.   "In the end, we got to ride with a professional driver and it was like, I mean, G-forces after G-forces. You could feel yourself airborne in the seat. You come through a turn and you feel all the pressure in the turn and as soon as they hit the throttle out of the turn, you're pinned to the sat," Joe said. "Joseph was so excited. I had not seen him have that much energy for months."   They attended a dinner hosted by the racing school on April 11, the night before heading to the track. Joseph ran into Laurie Transou, chief engineer of the Mustang program, and talked design and engineering. (Last year, Transou encouraged young adults to take their moms to the racetrack for Mother's Day instead of brunch.)    

For the record, I’m not against unions.  I’m against union tactics like strikes just to get more compensation - especially when it’s significantly higher than the rest of the market.  It puts employers at a competitive disadvantage and it absolutely drives business to other states and countries.  And it protects bad employees and stifles productivity.  I’ve seen it first hand.   I believe an employer has the right to determine employee pay.  Period.  If you don’t like the pay or benefits then go find another job.

Nah, I was raised by someone who worked for the UAW and I was on strike when I was 17 years old working at a local grocery store for a few weeks. My old man said the union was pretty much useless outside of him being able to retire a little early due to the Edison plant being shutdown.    The issue is that the vast majority of the time, the union is a self serving entity with ties to ideologies I don't particularly care for.    Demographically unions may have more influence due to a shortage of workers due to smaller cohorts and labor becomes harder to fill in certain positions. But to blindly put your faith into a union is downright stupid. 

Got it...you both are anti-union....good to know.

Unions don't stand tall for anyone except a small portion of union reps. They hurt the workers by encouraging companies to relocate factories to foreign nations. They hurt the American consumer by driving up the cost of the product, and they hurt brands by dragging down profit margins.Unions are the HOA of the corporate world, they don't help anyone. Everyone understands why they were created, but believes they don't have as much of a reason to exist in modern day society. 

Tesla is being enigmatic about this, the basis of the 2 being low cost was changed construction process. I assume that was cutting out more time consuming steps in the body shop area, the rumour was the vehicle being gigacastings in a few major pieces that could be quickly joined…that process could be applied to the next generation 3, Y, S and X if Tesla chose to do so.   And I suspect the deflection of the rumoured 2 to an autonomous taxi vehicle is probably an smart way to cover what is really planned without lying in investment calls. Of course, this is speculation but you’re  right about Musk announcements ending up being inaccurate but it serves the purpose of redirection  away from disappointment over Q1 results falling short of expectation.   At some point, Tesla sales wil start to level out unless it offers a 2 sized vehicle that markets like  Europe and China crave but I doing so that will probably carve into 3/Y sales as people in those regions probably chose a smaller vehicle for their needs.

First of May inventory numbers for Ford will tell us the actual days supply for each vehicle type. If combined F Series inventory remains below 200,000 I think that will help supply rather than  hinder. We all know how much Ford has jacked up MSRPs over the past few years or even encouraged XLT buyers to buy  higher trim levels so this is where incentives and discounting gets interesting…..remember those XLT that used to have lux PACs? All I’m saying is that Ford may take a different route….

For $4.99 get the forscan app, also need a obd adapter avail for around $35 on Amazon, I just downloaded to makes some computer changes to my 24 f450, working pretty flawlessly so far,,,,, just an affordable option

I know that CAP (Chicago Assembly Plant) has a poor reputation for build quality. Not sure if that will improve with the new model. I have a 23 Basequatch and love it! How do you like yours?