We were seriously dragging Saturday morning, and barely made it down to get breakfast. "My oil cooler is cracked, and is leaking," Boone informed us, "So I'll have to bypass it before we run today". "What do you have left?" I questioned Dale. "The head is on, everything is done on that side, but Gary loaned me a tool to change the valve springs on the other side as well...as they all tested down, which probably led to the problem." "We better get moving then!" "Actually", Dale looked like he was hung over as he sipped his coffee, "I think John is already out there working on it!" "He's saved your butt several times on this trip!" "Agreed. He's not the only one...James, Boone, the mopar pollack..." "That's not very nice!" Rachael commented as she sat a waffle in front of me. "That's what he calls himself", Dale laughed, "besides, his last name has way too many syllables for me to remember!"
When we arrived at Gateway, I pulled the fresh nitrous bottle out of the disabled Belvedere, and bolted it into the Valiant, then added another couple gallons of Rockett racing fuel.
They put us in four lanes, and pulled cards for random pairing. 37 cars made the call, Schroeder's Vette and McGilton's ZL-1 Camaro were also present, but they elected to make time runs only.
Adam Hodson's single turbo 73 Camaro was the first to advance, with a 9.87, followed by Chris Bishir's twin turbo LS powered 82 S-10, cranking out an easy 8.92, so things started out with two wins for the Street Race Small Block Power Adder class. The pretty red EFI stack injected 67 Chevy II of Josh Norris advanced with 10.35, followed by the twin blue late 70's Novas of Tom Taylor, and Tom Hogshead, reeling off a 10.38 and 10.35 respectively.
I was in the sixth set, paired with Jeff Oppenheim's 86 El Camino. Another member of the SR SB PA class, he had used a single turbo LS to lay down nearly identical numbers to mine all week, so if I ran him NA, it should be a close match...I had no intention of running him NA. I left on the trans-brake, had the tree by a bunch, and the Valiant did a nice wheelie, but it headed right and landed outside the groove. I pulled second guided the car back to the groove, then finally grabbed the nitrous button. On the shift to drive, I looked in the mirror, realized he was well back and let off the bottle. Finally, I eased back on the throttle and took him through by 5 cars or so. 10.88-110, apparently he had problems, and I just used the nitrous and the trans-brake to run my slowest pass of the week!
A couple of cars behind me, Jeremy Heizer, and Nick Taylor, who had both turned in low 10's all week, laid down a 9.78, and 9.83 respectively to win their races, but were eliminated for running faster than their 10.0 tech, but I don't think they really cared! Nick brought his green 80 Malibu around for a couple of 9.75 time hits later, and was clearly leaning on the turbo LS.
"Livin' in a powder keg and givin' off sparks"
4 Street cars, 5 Race engines
