This year getting out racing was really good for me personally, as my wife of 29 years left and divorced me in March. So what else to do than to get out your race car and go have some fun and keep your mind off the drama. I made it out 13 times, once to NTR and twice to Indy, the rest at Edgewater. Too bad Tri-State Dragway is closed up, that has always been my favorite track, it is still for sale and hopefully it will be revived again.
Moparts readers will know that Prochamp rebuilt my 440 last year with flat top pistons and a whopping .084 head gasket to enable me to run pump gas. This is a 2850 lb. ’72 Duster with a vacuum secondary carb that is eventually going back to street duty. It was a hot summer but most days I was dialed-in at 6.60 on the 1/8th mile. Isn’t it remarkable that the three tracks I ran at have seen Top Fuel cars run over 300 mph, but bracket racing is run only to half track? Best ET in good weather was 6.53 at 103.70.
Drivers at local tracks are getting better. They are like your buddy’s golf or bowling league and he asks you to sub for one of the missing and you go out there and those other guys show you how it’s done. You shoot an 80 or roll a 165 and they don’t ask you to sub again because you suck. This is one of the problems with local bracket racing, if you don’t have a serious effort and race only part time, you are usually going to get wore out. I made 52 runs on the season and my won-loss record was 14-12. I had problems getting out of the 3rd round. The car ran flawlessly, my driving was the problem, I could get .010 to .030 lights all day and then 3rd round hit a .070. The only mechanical failure I had was at my last race on October 2nd, I made it to round 4 and my starter failed when it was time to pull out of the lanes.
Overall I had a lot of fun with my racing friends and I am going to hit it harder next year with my same combo.
