Nice, looking forward to see this closing action, back at Bithlo on Friday!
Good luck

I didn't see what he ran, but it looked like a clean pass. I'm still waiting to get call to the staging lanes.

Facebook find

Joel,
What’s the goal for the 5 day average?

I think his goal is to just survive the week with the Heartburn HEMI, then get home and rip it out to start on a new build.

I just want to finish, but if I can run low 10's I'll be happy. If I can break into the 9's, I'll be jubilant.
My first test pass was fraught with driver error. Went 10.92 @125.
I forgot to bring it up on the 2 step, and I let off before the end.
I'm in line for the all run session.

Second pass yesterday, spun the tires a bit, ran a 14360 ft, then I missed third gear and aborted the pass. I figured out that the new shifter I put in that I never should have put in sits a few inches further forward than my old shifter and when I'm strapped in the bucket seat and my arm is straight I don't have enough reach to get it all the way into third gear. So I'm trying to find somebody with an acetylene torch here in the pits so I could heat it and bend it. Otherwise I'm going to put a couple half rolls of paper towels behind my right shoulder before I strap in and see if that works.

Joel TnT

Just saw this

I wasn’t able to catch much of the live feed, but Joel turned in a 10.71 at 136 on day 1. Killer mph!

There were an incredible number of oil downs today, I don’t think D class made any passes until 3:30. Two of the radial cars went sub 6.50, and Jeff Lutz’s pro mod is there and went 6 teens.

We just got to the hotel in Bradenton at about 12:45 a.m. It has been a long day but a good one. My trunk monkey in training, Cam really stepped up to the plate and kept us organized this morning for getting everything that we need out of the trailer and organized in the trunk of the car and having us already before the driver's meeting.
At the driver's meeting I couldn't hear a thing they said. The PA system had a lot of reverb. But Cam heard it so he filled me in.
After the driver's meeting we had a half an hour to be out of the area where the trucks and trailers are being stored, and we made it with plenty of seconds to spare.
On both test passes Sunday, I missed the third gear shift. I have just installed a new shifter that I never should have put in there, and I was blaming the shifter. But this morning I figured out that The handle on the shifter is further forward than my old one was by at least a few inches. When I'm all strapped into the seat and my arm is extended straight forward as far as possible, it's not far enough to put it solidly into third gear. We tried to find an acetylene torch to heat and bend the shift lever but no luck. Someone lent us a mapp gas torch but it just didn't have enough heat to do the job.
So the solution was when I strapped into the car, I had two rolls of paper towels behind my shoulders holding me further forward. It was pretty uncomfortable but proved effective.
We got called to the lanes at 11:15 a.m. and we were ready. 3 hours and 58 minutes later, after a ridiculous number of oil downs and what seemed like slow clean ups, I finally pulled into the burnout box. The guy in the other lane pre staged first so I put a little pressure on the brake pedal and held my line lock button and bumped in to stage, then just as he was moving forward my stage light went off which threw me off a little bit. As I started to bump ahead just a little bit, I didn't have the engine up against the two step revlimiter yet. Oops.The yellow came on almost instantly after I staged again and we are on a pro tree so the light was green before I even got the engine up on the limiter. I wasn't really thinking about reaction time, because I'm used to drag weak where it doesn't matter. When I was ready, I launched the car and the rear tires spun and hopped a little bit but then they really dug in in the car took off! It felt like a really good pass and I was thrilled that I hit the third gear shift with no problem. The car pulled really hard all the way to the finish line and felt good and stable in the shutdown.

I ended up running at 10.31at 136, but got a penalty added to my official ET because of the slow reaction time. That's a Sick Week rule I'll definitely remember!
We got the car changed over to Street pretty good, but we have a few issues that we had to address and will have to address. It's too late now to tell any more of the story. Hopefully tomorrow goes as well.

Thx for the update, keep at it!
Interesting about the penalty, how much, and what reaction time triggers it?

Anything over 1 second gets added to the et.

I'm looking for an oxyacetylene torch near Bradenton Motorsports Park to bend my shift lever. If anyone is around here and has one I could use for a few minutes, please give me a call at 612-221-0910.

It can't hurt to try asking one of Cleetus's guys, either Tye or Zach. They have torches at both their shop and the Freedom Factory, and you're right next to them. Good luck, and it sounds like the car is running awesome!!

You can't just bend it with your brute strength you always talk about???

I found a guy, we are there now

At the track, ready to race, waiting for our group to be called. Hopefully one good pass.

One and done at Bradenton!

What did it run?