After our last outing in the Frigon Racing, Competition Wedge Pro Top Outlaw dragster, we were ready for some cooler or at least cloud covered racing. Or so we thought. We were in 97* temps a few weeks ago at Empire Dragway in Rochester, NY. This weekend we decided to head to Thompson Ohio for the Asphalt Wars series there. We set the track record there last year, but we already had a new gauntlet laid down by Paul Molnar this past Fall when he reset it just one one hundredth faster!
Bob Frigon headed out late Friday afternoon after we found a bad lash cap on one of the intakes. ( More on that later). He got a late start and rolled into Thompson around midnight, I left at 5AM Saturday for the 5 hour drive, with my son and the other crew member. It appeared that we might get some good weather, maybe low 80’s and reduced ( from like 100%!) humidity. Sounded like a great plan. Well, as luck would have it, it was nice for a few hours, and then the humidity and heat started taking over. First round of qualifying was at high noon, and of course, they were running about 45 minutes late, which only made it hotter,. The track was still fair however, with the starting line not looking too bad and we thought it would hold some fair power. First qualifier rolls around, and we run a safe 3.88 at 187MPH. Our ole buddy Molnar runs a 3.89 right behind us. We also knew Jeff Chatterson would be hot on our heals as well in another PTO car, and sure enough, he wasn’t too far behind as well. We decided to sit out the second qualifier, and thought Molnar would have to put a real good run together with the existing conditions, especially as its now about 2:30 or later, and the track was getting a sunshine bath. Well, Paul lays one down at 3.86 for the #1 spot, which we didn’t mind, as it would put us on the other half of the ladder and hopefully against him in the final. In retrospect, we thought maybe we should have ran, but it really didn’t matter, and we couldn’t see the sense of just going out and going thru the motions. It wasn’t really going to tell us anything we didn’t know at that point. The track was going to be hot and greasy.
Round one, I think around 5:30. ( was supposed to be 4:00PM). We get Keith McLellan in the Koffels Place Lake Erie Monster. They were pitted next to us, and we enjoyed chatting and hanging with Scott Koffel and Keith. Bobs a little late ( especially for him) on the tree and Keith gets out on us till about half track and then we power on thru for the win. Us 3.90 @ 186 and Monster 4.06 @ 174 .Not stellar, but a safe pass in the soup. We look at the data and graphs and decide to not make any real radical changes, but we do make a one degree timing change for early in the run. Next round we get only blown Ford entry of Jeff Chatterson out of Canada. These guys are the real deal and they will always bring their A game. They have a very very light car, and it always 60’s well. We had been doing ok in the 60’s, but we knew these guys could bring it. We make another minor fuel and timing change, and it paid off. We 60’ .937 and Chatterson goes .913! It’s a dogfight till the finish and Bob pulls it off in a [Email]3.92@185[/Email] to 3.93 @ 181 contest. ( you can see the weather and track now affecting MPH) Whew, that was close. Bob did his job on the tree and we had the MPH advantage at top end. As it progressed, it was going to be us and Molnar in the final. Pauls opponent blew a head gasket prior round, so he had the bye into the Quick 8 finals. We knew he was running exceptionally well in his brand new Spitzer PTO car. He had a power advantage as well with his 526” engine, vs our 451” plant. He runs a SSI blower with fuel management, we run a PSI roots blower.We make some changes, but we weren’t feeling good about the previous few, as the car wasn’t responding as we thought it should have. Oh well. No guts, no glory. We head to the line and off we go. It looked like we’re out on him ( and we were) and I had my fingers crossed, but to no avail. Paul runs [Email]3.84@195MPH[/Email] ! We only run a 3.88 at 183MPH and assume the worse, that we broke something. We get back to the pits, look at the data, and we find out that our car went from over 2.5 G’s to almost .6 tenths, ( yes TENTHS) of a G for almost a half a second and driveshaft RPM went on a big spike. Yep, we smoked the tires at about 400-500 feet, and our efforts were in vane. No one, door cars or otherwise made a fast pass in the left lane, which we now know. Paul has a fast machine, and we wont sit around and cry about it. We got beat, but we’ll be back! Bob called me Sunday night to inform me we did in fact have a wounded rocker arm, and we will get that fixed and get back in the saddle. We had two exhaust valves with a minor lash issue and a intake rocker arm roller went bad. The EGTS were showing some erratic cylinder EGTs and now we know why.
The show was great, with 17 cars qualifying on each side of the show, and the door cars were real bad indeed. Some bad hombres there for sure.
We prepped the car, trailer and gear, and head back East only with more desire to kick it up a notch for the next event. Hopefully better results, but it aint ever easy against these guys. We arrived home about 3.30-3.45 AM, and we wasted no time hitting the pillows!
On a side note, I got to meet Mr Super Satellite ( modified1090? On Moparts) and I saw him going deep into what I think may have been the finals. I also hooked up with Roadhazard( Greg) as he and his wife and the new addition, the Superdog himself “ Charger” for a few hours of BSing in between rounds. It was great to meet a few people, as my schedule hardly ever gives me much time to do any of that. It was a pleasure and also having my 13 year old son there with me, starting to help “ crew” a bit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smbPlzvOCjE&feature=channel_video_title
