The day the music almost fried
I’m lucky.
So are my running friends. So are you.
You—because I came this close to knocking off one of the icons of Charlottesville’s music scene.
It all started back at the end of last year when I started smelling a strange odor in my car.
I thought it might be exhaust. Maybe I had a hole in the muffler. But the muffler appeared to be functioning in the proper manner. No telltale obnoxious noises.
Over the next few weeks I gave rides to several friends. They, too, noticed the odor. Fast Kathy even said it smelled like gas.
So, it just wasn’t me. And, it just wasn’t going away.
Saturday night after attending the Dean Musser Tribute Concert at Bel Rio, I was about to tote Purple Haze and Easy Deb back to their domiciles, when Charlie Pastorfield, with guitar in hand, asked if he could get a ride to his car.
Well, of course.
That was the day the music could have fried.
Because today, my friends, I learned that my car had a major malfunction with its fuel pressure regulator.
One of the folks at the shop, which is appropriately located on Gasoline Alley, told me that the faulty part had been throwing gasoline up on the engine.
The car was unsafe to drive—or ride in. It could have caught on fire or exploded.
“You’re lucky,“ I was told
We all were.
Posted by Mary Alice Blackwell at 02:55 PM. Filed under: Entertainment •
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Mary Alice Blackwell was a sportswriter for 11 years before turning in her scorebook to cover cops and courts. The Virginia Tech Hokie joined the staff of The Daily Progress in 1987 and has spent the past dozen or so years writing about actors, musicians, artists, authors and, occasionally, her running buddies. 
