Throttle stop linkage came apart on New Years Day. I "fixed" the car in the garage while going over everything for this weekends race. I thought I had it fixed but I connected the linkage with a cam in the wrong position and while the secondaries were opening the primaries were closing. Not an easy fix on a hot car at the track. I got burned but I got it done and got one good time run Saturday then went 5 rounds for the Super Pro win at Sonoma.
Sunday I sat out the first two cold a$$ time runs. I cleaned up the car and went over everything. I made the last time run and got out past 60' and noticed the car hadn't made the shift so I reached over and shifted it. The pass seemed really good and fast and I was surprised with a -.002, 9.15 at 146 and change. It went 5.82 at 118 in the eighth. I went back and checked the shift routine and low and behold my shifter was missing the piece that the automatic plunger rams into to move it forward. No time to get it apart and fix it so I replayed the run on the Mega450 and I shifted at 7,200 rpm. A little bit more rpm than I really wanted to run so I set my shift light to 6,800 and put a 9.20 on the car for 1st rd. When I let go of the button I thought all day long that I was RED! The tree came down and lo and behold it was .003 green and the chase was on. Because of the thought process about being red, not to mention the force of habit, I forgot all about the shift light and short shifted at 6,400 according to the replay. My opponent was .005 and dead on 7! I got waxed! I probably could've got under him if I had shifted correctly but a 9.24 on the brakes wasn't close. Great weekend at Sonoma with perfect weather in the afternoon.
It's funny that I was having a good conversation that morning with another racer who was telling me all of his automatic shifter woes and why he disconnected his.
So! Do you think that if I removed the 240lbs. of ballast and replaced the throttle stop with a super sucker my car would go 8's???