Well thought I would share my race weekend experiences. I am sure most have seen the post from Chris congtatulating us for the win. I want to say thanks to him for that and his constant encouragement on the car. We have just taken the ball and run with it. Still working it out but getting closer, so thanks to Chris for giving us a good ball to run with
I also want to say thanks to Don(jeepmon)and his son John for coming all the way out to Vegas from NorCal and helping me with the car. To bad they could not stay for the winners circle pictures though. I could not have done this without thier help. My son could not be there early Friday and the help with tech and the first run Friday got us off to a good start.
Ok now that that is over onto the excitement. It all started for us Thursday night. A buddy of ours runs a car in outlaw 8.5. Not just any car this thing has been the #1 qualifier by a fair margin all year long. But in the quest to make it better it needed a new convertor and a header fixed that got smashed at the race the weekend before here in town. Did one of those power wheelie deals and came down hard. So I was up til 3:30 helping get it ready, my son til 4:30. But we got the convertor in and header fixed and they were good to go. They qualified #1 again and got the final but something in the trans broke, sounds like the converter, to bad. So after the thrash on Thursday night/Friday morning I got two hours sleep as I had to take the wife into work at 5:30, she is still recovering from knee replacement surgery. So needless to say I was a hurting pup.
Don and his son show up just as I was pulling in the gate. So we got parked and unloaded everything and got ready to tech in the car and make a run or two. Pass tech with no issue and begin to prep the car to run. Warm up the oil, start the car and run it through the gears etc. Well we fire it up and after a coupple of minutes are greated with a horrific clatter from the pass side valve cover. Well looks like when we reistalled the rockers one adjuster did not get tightened properly and backed off. Well that destroyed the rocker and one pushrod. Lets just say that was a few dollars worth of parts. At any rate we tore into it to find the problem. Thankfully we have plenty of spare parts and all in all not a huge deal just an issue that needs to be delt with. I am sure the pace we have kept the last couple of weeks allowed this to slip by. It is the last rocker we adjutsed on Thursday night. Anyway get that fixed and fired up the car and all was well. Now cool it down and go make a pass and see what we got.
So Don and John tow me up for my first attempt. I do not recall the particualrs but I do remember it was a tire spinning 8.5 something. I think the 60' was in the 1.49 area. In the shutdown problem #2 came up. Seems the shiney freshly painted hood was catching to much air up front and put a little crack in it. I was not real happy about that at all. My son spent a lot of hours making that hood and here it is messed up after one hit. But we had other issues, the track namely. We had decided to try and limit the front end travel and it appeared the car did not like that as it spun as soon as the front hit the limiters. So more to fix.
BAck to the pits, run the valves and check the springs. All is well nothing to change at all. I am very happy with the tweaks to the valvetrain and it looks like we have all that behind us now. Springs still check the saem as they have for the last few passes. So on to addressing the other issues. We moved the limiters back to rull extension on the front. The hood deal appeared to just be to much air under the front lip so what to do for the next and last pass of the day. Oh yeah for you MATS guys that did not like $60 for three hits we paid $75 for two. We decided to just try and tape the front of the hood and then address it later. Did not have the stuff in the trailer to fix it any other way really so we made the best with what we had.
So into the lanes we go. By this time Steve was there, he wanted us to wait for him for hit #2. Since the T&T was open til 7 we had time. We made no other changes to the car other than the limiters. So pull into the beams and let go of the button. Left decent, not near as much spin as the previous pass. It was wiggling a bit down track but not bad. Get to the 1000' mark and off flew the tape, get to the stripe and the hood dont look good. I did make a decent pass. Went 8.40 at 163.8. This was the second quickest pass of the day for our class, and the most MPH by a couple. Get the car off the track and get out to survey the damge to the hood. Well it dont look good. Pulled one of the front dzus plates completely out of the header panel. Front of the hood was all tweaked up and cracked really bad. not the fiberglass just the giller over it. It was pretty ugly for sure. I was not happy at all at this point, happy with the car not happy with the hood deal.
Back to the pits to do our "maintenance" routine. Pulle the covers check the lash and spring pressures, download the racepak and crunch info. Valve train is rock solid, spring pressure are great. Data showed the car was lean, and had a good deal of spin again off the line. Which was confirmed from the outside video and the 1.29 60' time. Felt good though. 60' was still off from the MATS passes and we were within .024 of the fastest car, I know I can hit the tree and we had MPH on the quicker car. So going into Saturday qualifying IF the hood will hang in there we feel really good.
So the thrash on the hood begins. We look at it for awhile an discuss a few options. We knew we needed to go to the store and the house to pick up supplies to make some changes. We decide to make a plate to block off the air between the radiator core support and header panel. So my son heads to Lowes to get some sheet metal and home to get some tools. It was 8 o'clock by now. So off he goes. He returns with the supplies and begins to fab a panel. We get it on and put the hood on and survey the situation. We did not feel this was going to be enough, and wanted some more insurance. So I send the kid to bed, he was up til 4 the night beofre and then worked all day. I head back home for more stuff, it is now midnight. I get home and procure what we need and head back to the track, get back at about 1:30 and just went to bed. Will finish in the am.
Sleep would have been great. But at 3:30 the wind wakes me up. We had left the awning up over the car, mistake. Thise things happen when yuor tired. BTW when I say wind, I mean Vegas wind. For those who have never been here you wont appreciate that but for those who have you will. So I wake up Steve at 3:30 and we wrestle the awning down and throw it in the trailer half asleep. The wind proceeds to howl all night long.
When we wake up in the morning, at 7 am due to the inherent guy who has to do a converter check at the crack of dawn. Grab some food get cleaned up and head outside. I decide to check the wind just for fun .Well it was a steady 20mph gusting to 35 or so. It was also a headwind. But did calm down a little during the day. We get back at the car and decide to bolt the scoop down on the hood with a nut and bolt through from the frint carb through the hood. So out comed the drill in the nice newly painted hood. But now we feel confident it will work and be ok. So back to the task of getting the car ready. Warm the oil, fire the car to get some heat in the trans and rear and then cool it back down.
We head up for first round of qualifying. When my son check the tire pressure the gauge goes wacky. It has done it before and gone back and never had an issue. So we assume it is ok and good to go. Pull up and proceed to just blow the tires off! 1.7 60' and I just gave up, I did get back in it to see what the hood would do but let out before the 1000' mark and saw no issues there. Go back to the pits, look at the data, of course hit the limiter at 10200. Check the valves and all is well. Now look at the video and it did not move 6" before it juts blew the tires away. I talk to me fellow competitiors and they say the saem thing. Track sucks and they spun. The guy pitted across from me who's car always works said he had his worst every 60' (1.26). So we think not a lot of it, just figured it was the track. So we make some adjustments to the car in hopes of getting a little better chance.
head up for round two of qualifying. Stage the car, let go of the button and spin again, I caught it quick and decide we need to know if the hood is ok. So I stayed in it. I think we were 8.57 at 160 and change. Not bad MPH for 4400' and a 20mph head wind. Hood stayed on and looked pretty good so at least we have that problem resolved for now. Back to the pits for maintenance. Another 10200 chip deal But once again all is well. Look at the video and the saem result. Car moves maybe 6" and just blows the tires off. I have gotten pretty good at catching it at this point so the run was ok.
So time for more adjustments. We decide to throw the kitchen sink at it. Matbe some HUGE shock changes trying to get it to hook. Then my son decides for some reason to check the tire pressure with a friends new gauge, same brand as we have an Intercomp, not a cheap gauge. Well we find that ours for some reason is reading 3psi to low. D'oh, well that explains some of our problem. We have been trying to run at 15psi not 12. So we borrow thiers for the last qualifier.
Drag upo to the lanes, we left all the other changes in the car. Still not totally convinced at how far off the gauge really was. We checked it in the pits so the air was not where we normally have it. So pull into the beams let go of the button and eh...1.39 60', did not really fell great just ok. Went 8.50 at 161.70. Still good MPH for the headwind and aat this point 4500'da.
Well hoods on, valves and sprinigs still look great so what do we do for Sunday eliminations? After looking at the data and video we just crushed the tire. It got on the bars quick and hard and that unloaded the tire and hazed them. So we need to make some changes. We put the shocks back to where they were for the MATS. Talk to the other guys and everyone is complaining about the track. We are all having issues with the starting line and down track being a bit loose. Well except for the one car with Davis Traction Control, something I feel shoudl not be allowed in the all motor deal but I dont make the rules. So we feel ready for Sunday. Our first round opponent qualified .02 ahead of us so I feel good about my chances as I know i will be on the tree.
So we do our morning routine. Then head up for round one. We are listening to what is going on on the track. Cars are not getting donw the track, lots of tire spin and skating around. So we are abit worried but I am prepared to catch it and go if need be. So we get up and staged. Let go of the button and you got it, SPIN...A good deal this time. I catch it quick and get back on the throttle. Had a horrible pass at 8.6 something but drilled my opponent on the tree at .014 and win on a holeshot. WooHooo.
Back to the pits to check things over and look at the data and video. We see it hit the tire for a split second then spun. So we decide maybe a shock twaek will keep it hooked up. Loosen up the compression in the rear in hopes that once it hits it will stay stuck. So this was the only change I made to the car.
After waiting most of the day due to our low cara count, we had some breakage on Friday and with the delayed anouncement we were going to indded have a class to race this year a couple of guys just were not ready. So off to the final we go. Against Rod Dewild and his Chevy II with an SB2.2 motor. This car always hooks and runs well. He is consistenly first or second qualifier. So we knew we had our hands full. But feel if the car will hook we can run with him. His best pass of the weekend was only .24 quicker than us. So hit the tree and take my chances. I kept telling him I was outgunned but I was going to win at the tree. He may win on track but I felt good about my chances in the tree. So we pull in and stage, let go of the button and still spun but not as much.
I look up and see my win light
Rod is an awesome guy and hate to see him loose that way but hey not gonna complain. Would have been a going red but hey I have done it twice this year and maybe kharma was on my side. Plus maybe my pep talk got to him
Would have been a good race had he been green with his usual reaction times.
At any raet I am still stoked. I think we have thier attention now with the MPH. We just need to have some test time on the chassis. We need to find a way to get it to hook consistently and then be able to apply more power. We still have it with timing out at the hit and leave at a pedestrian RPM. It shows on the data log we are to low. The engine will bog and loose momentum on the good passes. You can hear it in the in car video as well. We also have a bad vibration in high gear. About the 1000' mark it gets really bad but the car drives through it. But it also slows everytime it happens. So we have to get that figured out. Will be calling Rossler this week as we feel it is a trans issue. Only happens in high gear. So we still have work to do, the trans, block off some air in the front, seal the carbs to the scoop, fix the hood and build some longer wheelie bars, in hopes we can raise the launch RPM and just use the bars as a tuning aid.
I want to say once again thatnks to Don and John as well as my son Steven. he is the crew chief I let him make the calls on the car and what to do. Also want to thank Chirs for providing me with a great foundation to get this done. Also thanks for PAC Racing Springs, AFCO and M/T for thier help on the car. Stay tuned we are not done yet and we will be FASTER!!!
