What seemed improbable began to take shape in the night. A few people working to get the new motor in, lit under floodlights. The generator purring in the background, powering a laptop playing rallye clips. Gawkers, photographers, and general hangers-on gather around the light, giving the scene the look of an archeological dig. Someone comes by with a bug repelling smoke machine, and suddenly we're in the apocalypse.

Every Big Idea requires elements of the absurd, and the best are briefly overwhelmed by it, pushed along, rushed and sprawling like nature, to hope to rise above.

When the summer is over and the leaves blow across the midwest like a million pages unbound and free - when the ground turns hard and we spend our months huddled around fires and glasses of beer - that's when we'll tell the stories of Big Ideas.

After a few laps on the track with the new engine.