September 4, 2003

August 9, 2003

We finally made it past round 1 at the NHRA National Race in Seattle!  Jirka Kaplan who's very tough to beat red lighted with a reaction time of -.003.  Round 1 is always difficult to get past and we were very excited to take this race team to the 2nd round.

Round 2 was a bit of a fiasco since the NHRA track official for Comp Eliminator never came by our trailer and called us to the starting line.  We were the 2nd pairing against Gil Anderson and rushed full tilt with truck and car through the staging lanes to make the pass.  The adrenaline was flowing, but everyone was trying to remain calm and methodical.  We pulled the car onto the starting line just in time for our starting sequence.  The car started, the burnout went fine, and we backed the car right down the middle of the groove.  Gil was slow to stage, so we held off before pulling forward up to the staging lights.  Dad lit the pre-stage bulb and finally pulled forward lighting the stage bulb.  Gil held back for some reason, but finally pulled forward lighting both stage lights.  The tree started the countdown sequence and Dad launched when the last amber lit.  Everything seemed okay until that red light came on.  I think the adrenaline was still flowing and Dad's senses were highly keen resulting in an ultra quick reaction time.  Our opponent Gil had been given his second straight gift since he hadn't run more than a hundredth under his index all weekend.  I have never seen this happen in Comp Eliminator.  Luck was obviously on their side.  However, we had been lucky too considering.

The car never ran better than a 7.31 et and 182 mph all weekend.  This was somewhat surprising, however, the track conditions were terrible.  Also, NHRA was supposedly using a new material on the track other than VHT which was supposed to give better traction.  This didn't appear to be the case not to mention it was difficult to remove from the car and driver.

June 17, 2003

We made the Division 6 Race in Seattle.  Should I say more.  It seemed like everything caused us fits once we got past the rain out on Friday which nixed our first 2 qualifying sessions.  We were left with 2 qualifying runs on Saturday to pull everything together.

Our first qualifying pass was in the right lane.  We were really expecting a 7.1 ... something.  The red light came on (-.001) and the reader board flashed a disappointing 7.23 et and 183 mph which placed us #10 out of a 20 car field.  Dad mentioned that his head leaned forward in anticipation of the launch before the car bolted off the line, but there wasn't much thought given to this until 1 day later.  

Our second qualifying pass was in the left lane.  No red light this time (.016), but a virtual repeat of 7.24 et and 182 mph resulting in a slide to the #15 spot.

We analyzed the data and discovered that we had considerable tire spin off the line and down the track.  This had never been a problem for us in the past, but was causing us considerable performance loss.  Not knowing what to make of this situation, we attributed our traction issues to a slippery track since several other racers were having traction issues. 

For our first round of eliminations, we paired off with Steve Wilmoth in a '34 Chevy C/SR.  Steve chose the left lane, so we knew that we were possibly faced with the red light demon.  The right lane seemed to have less roll out, because lots of racers were red lighting in the right lane including us during qualifying.  Well, we red lighted with a reaction time of -.003 seconds to a winning reaction time of .007.  That was really close, but no cigar.  Ironically, Steve chose the left lane for 2nd, 3rd, and yes ... 4th round of eliminations.  All of his opponents red lighted.  Man, when it's your day, it's your day.  Steve went on to take Jeff Lane in the final round and win Comp Eliminator.  Congratulations to those guys!  They drove all the way up from Peoria, AZ.  That's a long drive for a Divisional Points Race.

After it was all done and said, it was discovered by Garlan our crew member who took video footage of the launch that the car was doing a double lunge off the starting line.  Unfortunately, when Dad let go of the transbrake button, the engine rev limiter and transbrake valve body were not releasing and actuating simultaneously.  This was causing the car to hop over the starting line beam and spin the tires wildly out of the gate.  Aha, this explained the car hesitation that Dad was experiencing at launch.  Yep, it appears we smoked a couple of clutch discs too given the burnt color of the transmission fluid.  It's only money, right?

April 28, 2003

We're not going to make the Division 6 Race in Mission May 2-4 due to time constraints.  This weekend was spent at Willy Earp's Village Transmission Shop repairing broken welds on the chassis, adding skid plates to the bottom side of the chassis rails, and laying out new rear end housing brackets in preparation for raising the rear end housing relative to the chassis.

Ultimately, the car will be ~ 75 lbs lighter with more horsepower delivered to the rear tires.  This should increase our performance considerably and put us in the hunt at NHRA National Events.

So, our tentative race schedule has changed and we'll be targeting the Division 6 Race in Seattle June 13-15.  We may hit a test and tune session or NHRA drag race in the meantime to check everything out.

Many thanks to Mike Spitzer for fabricating custom parts for us, Willy Earp for letting us work out of his Village Transmission Shop, Gary Peterson for taking time to TIG weld the chassis and machine components, and Jim Sibley for usage of his equipment.

We'll keep you posted as the weeks unfold and race day approaches.

April 21, 2003

What's happening?  As some of you know, we competed at the NHRA Winternationals, Phoenix NHRA Nationals, and Bakersfield Goodguys March Meet so far this year.  Our ET dropped from a best of 7.54 in 2002 to a 7.26 at our last race in Bakersfield.  However, we haven't been able to shake the Round 1 gremlin yet.

So, we decided to sit out the Las Vegas NHRA National Race earlier this month and the Division 6 Race in Boise to divert time and money towards some changes to the car.

Also, we're currently looking for some additional sponsors to finish out the 2003 race season as we set our sights on becoming competitive at NHRA National Events.

Expect to see us at the Division 6 Race in Mission May 2-4.  Our objective is to make it past Round 1.  Then we can focus on racing!

February 19, 2003

Winternationals ... can you say red lights?  I've never seen so many red lights before.  The new LED lights which are visible to the driver 3 hundredths of a second quicker than the incandescent bulbs put lots of top qualifiers on the trailer after Round 1 of Eliminations from a red light.  To make matters worse, NHRA will only be using the LED lights at National Events where Top Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars are run.  That should cause lots of confusion for those who are running at both Divisional and National Races.  I'm sure there will be more commentary from the racers on this matter as the race season unfolds.

For Round 1 of Qualifying, we ran an all time best of 7.40.  This was somewhat expected since we had run a 7.50 at Las Vegas the previous weekend at a test and tune session.

After looking at the Racepak data and attempting to read the spark plugs, we decided to decrease the main jet size significantly and feed the motor more fuel.  When we performed a warm up on the stands, you could definitely smell the raw fuel coming out the pipes not to mention that our eyes watered up pretty good.

For Round 2 of Qualifying, we layed down a disturbing 7.50.  Hmmm, what happened here?

The next morning, we made some setup changes and  increased the main jet size realizing that we had gone in the wrong direction.  Is it just me, or are the EGT's and spark plugs on these alcohol motors difficult to read?

For Round 3 of Qualifying, we ran an all time best of 7.30.  Wow, it's pretty satisfying to drop a full 2 tenths from your previous best in 3 passes.  It seemed like we were finally beginning to figure things out.  Here's a pic of my Dad on the way back to the pits after running a personal best.  I think everyone had a spark of excitement at this point.

That evening, we discovered that our experimental transmission band had worn excessively and needed replacing.  The filter had lots of metal filings adhered to it and the ATF fluid was lined with metal flakes.  This explained why the car was so jerky during staging.  However, we don't believe this cost the car any performance.  So, we spent the evening changing out the band and making some setup changes in hopes of gaining some additional performance for race day.

For Round 1 of Eliminations, we were surprised by NHRA officials when they announced unexpectedly that our session had been moved up by 90 minutes and we had 10-15 minutes tops.  We were completely out of sequence and ultimately pulled the car out of the pits as late as possible.  This started the adrenaline flowing a little prematurely.  Ironically, we were paired up against Brandon Huhtala from Puyallup near our hometown.  We red lighted hard with a -.086 reaction time and posted a 7.33.  The good news is that Brandon went on to the finals and finished as runner-up.  Congratulations to you guys!

We had hoped for better results, but you can't complain about clipping 2 tenths off your previous best at a given race.  So, back to the drawing board in preparation for the up coming race in Phoenix.  Hopefully, we can manage to find another tenth or so to make things more interesting.

February 3, 2003

I started this insane project back in late 2001.  My intent was to be somewhat competitive towards the latter half of the 2002 race season.  I think the licensing runs followed by a couple of test and tune sessions humbled me quickly making me realize that this was a somewhat ambitious goal.

The car was actually a roller by May 2002.  Here's a couple of pics taken of the car near Spitzer Enterprises before being placed into a semi-trailer for shipment to Lynnwood, WA.

Everyone,

Thought I would send you a few pictures so you can see what I have been working on for the last few months.  We were at the famous Famosa Drag Strip at Bakersfield CA, home of the fabled March Meet since the 1950s .  Now it is better known for the annual Hot Rod Reunion and Cackle Fest put on by the Goodguys.

I was working on my Licensing runs.  The photo work was done by Bob Nickle from Pro Action Cylinder Heads.  He helped Bob and I run the car on Friday evening.  Bob's regular crew helped us on Saturday.  The Saturday crew included Bob McKray (himself), Don Enriques (The world's fastest drag racing Mexican) , Mike Kennedy, and Don's good buddy Carlos.  Don started racing in 1968 (two years after I originally started), with Gene Adams and hasn't stopped yet at a tender age of 61.  Bob is the motor and cylinder head specialist that has helped me significantly with this project and acted as the crew chief  for my licensing runs.  I would not have made the runs without Bob running the show.

We managed a best of 7.74 ET with some valve train harmonic problems that left one cylinder near dead after 5.0 seconds and another on the way out, per the race pack EGT data.  We are working on that problem with Ron Shaver, CraneCams and others.  The time before the 4.8 sec 1/8 mile were in the park for the 104 degree temperatures and the corrected altitude of 4900 feet.  The 60 foot times were 1.10 and could be slightly improved.  The speed is also close.

I did accomplish my six licensing runs so it looks like the old guy is still in the fast lane even though it may only be a freeway on ramp.   : )


Ray

Afterwards, we were determined to run the car at a major event.  We made 3 combined test and tune sessions at Mission Raceway in Canada and Bremerton Raceway in Washington attempting to sort out the gremlins.  We managed a best of 7.49 ET, but obviously we were looking for something better.  After pondering our next step, we decided to enter the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals and Goodguys 4th Fuel and Gas Finals to avoid prolonging the start of our 2003 race season.  Luckily, my former NHRA former World Championship granted me access to the Las Vegas National event with no divisional points.

In Las Vegas, we went through 3 rounds of qualifying attempting to sort things out.  No matter what we did, the car just didn't respond to changes and we settled on a 7.67 ET which wasn't good enough to get us in the show.  This was frustrating, but we had fun experiencing a wonderful facility and talking with the Carter's who loaned us a main jet between qualifying rounds.  Also, Bernie Wadekamper spent a few hours catching up on some lost time with Ed McCulloch over in the Skoal Racing Funny Car Camp.

The following week was a mad thrash at Bernie's house in Lake Havasu, AZ including the installation of a new camshaft and headers.  With these changes, we expected the car to respond.

In Bakersfield, again, we went through 3 rounds of qualifying attempting to improve our time.  Luckily, we did manage to qualify.  Alright, we were making a step in the right direction!  In Round 1,  we were paired up with Kelly Craig.  The first 330' was anyone's race, but Kelly pulled away from me on the top end and put me on the trailer.  Rats!  Obviously, we had some more homework to do.

For the last couple of months, we've been working non-stop to turn this race team around.  Obviously, we're looking for 3 tenths of a second or so.  These types of performance improvements typically don't come from minor tweaks.  So, we've made some drastic changes and hope that our hard work shows up at the race track.  I can't wait to try everything out.

I look forward to an exciting race season in 2003.  The competition should be fierce which makes for some wild racing.  Best of luck to everyone and I'll see you at the races!