This will be a rare comment from me (you all know that I have never been a big fan of John Steele, going back to when Curt Scott shined the light of exposure on him in the 1990's) but I believe there is a legitimate health issue at work here.
Last year, at Carlisle, I rode around with Tom Marantz in his JPS-built 356 coupe all weekend and Tom related to me that half-way through his build, John had one or more serious heart attacks which laid him up for quite a spell. That alone would be a major setback for a 1 or 2 person shop.
As it turns out, Tom is a recently retired Cardiac Specialist who understood completely the extent of John's heart problems and gave him a lot of slack in completing the build (as well as coaching him through some of the rougher patches, I guess). Coming back from something like that can be a long hard road, even for a person much younger than me or John - Hell, I've been stricken by illnesses less severe than a heart attack and sometimes it took me a long time to get back to a new "normal". I honestly do not know what's going on out there, but I suspect that this time John saw it as time to begin to bow out and brought in someone to sell the business to while he stayed involved as a "consultant" or something. Just guessing, but that's what I might do.
Anyway, the ultimate answer is to get someone over to the new place in San Marcos and get introduced to Patrick Crane and just chat about what's going on from his perspective, then swing it around to expectations of what's happening with any cars in queue, just to help reset expectations. Lastly, I would invite Patrick to have a presence on here, not to beat him up, but to get him included in the conversations - much like as has happened with Greg Leach and Carey Hines and a few others.
Anybody want to volunteer to be a "Long Range Recon Guy"??