We have quite a few Moparts racers attending the PAO Bakersfield event this weekend. Just wondering if anyone has heard if any made into the show?

Nope, I dont believe anyone made it to the show..

Right after my 2nd run, I put the car on the trailer and started packing up (I was pizzed at my car)..

They ended up picking 10.40 and slower cars and the twist was every car was pre-1970..

As we were locking up the trailer, they annouced the car numbers, called them to the lanes and I watch them as they drove past me.. I didnt see any Mopars, however I will let other that stayed for the show chime in..

The real crappy thing about this is on the 1st pass the Duster ran the right numbers, on the arm drop it spun sideways all the way thru 1st gear and I not only didnt run a decent number, but I couldnt even beat the floating minimum..

This winter the car is getting a makeover with the suspension..

As a matter of fact, a really nice Mopar made the show and went a couple rounds. Doc McGuiness with his lime green 69 Valiant(Valiant Effort) ran 10.20s to get in. He has just freshened this car with a new bullet and some chassis adjustments and did a great job throughout the weekend.

We did not make the show although we made 4 passes within about .007. It was important to remember that this was not a bracket race so our consistency did nothing to help our chances. We must have just been too normal for the hollywooders. A lot of people came away confused and disappointed with the way the field was chosen but we had fun anyway. 110 degree heat and a snotty track didn't help matters.

Hey Mark.. it was really good to meet and talk with you..

I believe it was a 10.20-10.50 class
32 car field all cars we 1969 and back.
we stayed for the first 32 to 16 and then took the long ride home, it was to hot to just sit in the stands.


here are some of the cool cars that were there Ron...

Got a chance to talk to Doc McGuiness for a minute in the lanes. I ended up running against him in the final time trial on the "arm drop" pass. He is Poison Ivy on the board, but said he doesn't post much.
My 60's at Bakersfield were worse than at fontana. Went a 1.48 first pass on friday, then spun and went a 1.51 on the second pass. Spun worse on the first pass saturday and went 1.53.
ET's were 9.995, 10.080, 10.100.
Then, it actually hooked on the arm drop pass. Don't know the 60', cause they didn't give a timeslip on that pass, but it went a 9.96.

Hey Glenn congrats on the new best, did you change much from Fontana.

We were there and thought we may have a shot with Rich driving our 68' Road Runner as there were a lot of cars in the 10.70 - 10.90 range as well. Did any one mention it was HOT! yes it was HOT! LOL!
My Challenger went from 1.23 60's (usually at Infineon)to consistent 1.34's so I was .2 slow on the top end but consistent. Only problem was when they called the H class (9.0 - 9.50) there were only 6 of us, so we decided might as well do long burnouts and try and have some fun.
Then on my last pass a blown Camaro right in front of me lost drivetrain parts or something and left me sitting at the water box bakin' for 20 minutes. I think the heat cooked my 7al3 box as it would not fire, then after they pushed me back and said if I got it running they would let me go down the track last (there were only about 16 cars left) I hit the starter a few more times and I knew the ignition was gone no popping no nothin. I hit the starter one last time and the motor was locked up. Luckily it turned out to be a torque converter bolt backed out so an easy fix and grateful it happened there and not at the ET finals in a couple of weeks.

BTW had a great time meeting and pitting by a few members, Rob with the Challenger and Dan with his charger. Also had Don and Glen come by a few times great seeing you guys as well. Guess the next race to meet up will be next year in Vegas?

Oh, an Glenn congrats on the 9.96!

Hey Keith.. really good news on the TC bolt.. glad it was nothing more serious and yes.. it was freakin hot..

Man...it was hot. I want to apoligize for not being more sociable this weekend....but the heat just took it all out of me along with working on my car almost non-stop Friday.

I want to thank Dan (67Charger) for all his help this weekend.....I had a great time.

It was nice meeting Keith and Don and Doc for the first time....Good to see Glenn too.

Don, I should have taken you up on your offer to help figure out why my nitrous wouldn't come on....I never did get it working. I was just worn out by the heat friday night. Next time...I'm going to bring a trailer with A/C instead of sleeping in my truck...lol.

On a side note...it cooled down today with a high of 88 degrees. And tomorrow...the high is only supposed to be 76!!!!....lol.

Oh Ron...sorry I missed you.

Gee, I almost forgot about the heat...

After waiting nearly 4 hours to get teched in, my first pass was a 10.87 @ 125. Not bad considering The guy in front of me broke in the staging lanes and after they got him cleared out, I was sent right to the line. I was still buckling my helmet pulling into the water box. I got to the line and purged down from 1400 psi to a livable 1100, staged, and was greeted with all 3 yellows flashing then a steady green. ...wait a minute, that's a pro-tree, I should probably go!

Second pass was an 11.03 with a good bit of slip off the line. The 60' went from 1.54 to 1.61, and the rest was just bad air.

Third pass (Saturday A.M.) was bad. I noticed the bottle pressure was only 850, but I figured that was since the bottle was still cool from the cool evening air and would get more pressure as it sat in the already intense sun. I was wrong. I dropped below 600 psi during the pass, yet was still dumping in all the extra fuel, so I was rewarded with an 11.22 at 119.

Armdrop pass was great. It happened to work out that I lined up against Rob (rvoyles), and since all of his previous passes had been high 11's, the floating bump would have to be high 11's. His notrous had not been working up until then, but we thought we finally got it all figured out. As long as his spray worked, we should both be plenty quick to keep off the bump. On my fresh bottle I still spun, but ran my 10.87 again. Rob made it by the skin of his teeth since his nitrous didn't work for the 4th and final time. All was for nought though, since the bracket was still a bit faster than we were going that day. I heard one of the cars to make the show was 10.60's, so I didn't miss it by much.

I want to express a big thank you to all the members here that made the event what it was. Some gave/loaned me parts without knowing me (Sub95 and 71 DEMON340), some fed me (rvoyles and racebeeper68), some helped with the loading/unloading (jeepmon and sons), and others were just great company and conversation. Y'all are the reason I love this sport and specifically this board so much.

Hey Mark (Grape Ape),

Next time you are in Sacramento - we SO have to line our cars up to get a starting line picture together.

We left last night about 11:00 after all the days activities, lots of walking, got some interviews for the show (Thanks G-Bob) and a friend won the race so all and all it was a good day. I got to meet Dan in the pits, didn't see Rob though, talked with Jeepmon in the lanes and opened the door so Keith wouldn't sweat to death in the water box area. It totally sucked that his car wouldn't fire especially after waiting for them to sweep up the Camaro mess right before him. I got to see the inner workings (and fighting) of what goes on to make this show happen and some of it wasn't pretty. The show is supposed to air Thanksgiving weekend so keep an eye out for the coverage, it's amazing that so much film time can get put into a 1 hr show. Hope everyone had a good time and made it home safe.

Mark

Here's some pics that were just given to me....I have a few Dan (67Charger) would like to have too (him whooping me). I told him I wouldn't give them to him...but what the heck...I'm not proud.

Just a few questions/comments..
Is it free to register for this??
If not, i would be rather upset that you would go (with say a beautiful 71 silver challenger or 73? red duster ) and would race (possibly break) and find out that you can't get picked because your car is too new. did they state this before racing started. maybe it's just my thinking, but seems kind of screwed up.

i know its stil a cool opportunity to race
or possibly win a lot of money

While I understand that line of thinking, look at it from this perspective. It's a casting call. They want to put on a show that will draw in viewers. The overall premise is a group of cars that can run eachother heads up and still be close. If they can make a few tweaks and get a vintage spin on it, all the better for them. Sucks for the couple of guys that had newer cars running the right time, but again, all you were doing was auditioning. There was nothing that EVER said if you ran the right number, you were guaranteed a spot. Also, look at the older cars on either end of the group that got to be included since they eliminated some of the core group for being too new. 315 cars tried out, 283 of them would be disappointed.

Nope...it's not free...it's like $65.

I don't think they knew before the race that our cars were too new....I think they just found a cool group of older cars that showed up for the show and raced similar times and decided to make a group out of them. They tell you at the drivers meeting that they are considering other factors like finish, etc. Most of the cars they picked were pretty cool.... I ended up staying to the end because my 10 year old son wanted to see the whole thing.

The coolest thing about the weekend for me was that this was the first time my son ever saw me race (I havn't raced in a year and a half)....he's been to the track with me...just never with me racing. He had a blast...thats all he has talked about all day. And he's sitting across the room from me right now reading a Car Craft magazine...lol. He's been talking all day about trying to buy Dans 67 Charger parts car....lol. Suddenly he has a "Car Fund"...

sweet car Glen,i'm building a 67 Coronet with a 340 for a friend of mine,minitubs and ladderlink coilover rear suspension and narrowed rear for wider deep dish wheels.Also a fuel cell where the rear spare use to be, but removing the stock trunk floor and building new

Cool pictures Rob!
I am in hopes of somebody with pictures of Rich and I will surface. Somehow we got paired up together on our second pass Friday. I can guarantee those cars have never run each other ever.

Keith...I was lucky to get those, my sister-in-law took them and she walked in the gate while we were in the lanes.

Did you try the website of that photography place that took pics at the show? I have their web address I think in the car....I'll look tomorrow and see if they have pics online.

Since neither of my sons wanted to record the racing.. I was able to talk Glenn's wife into taking a couple videos.. one of me and one of Glenn..

If your interested...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esgLge1gj6Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIoRZYOrfys

Yes...it was hot.....for you guys....during the hottest part of the day I was up with John Matajasic(Famoso's track announcer)...I left Chowchilla at 7am...arrived at the track at 9am...got home at 2:27AM sunday morning...I'll tell you one thing...I'll NEVER be a spectator again...it's miserable out the without my fans and A/C in the trailer...LOL....I went down to watch and chat with Mopargilley...only did that for about 15 minutes.I saw where GBob and Jeepmon were pitted as I rode past in one of my buddies Rhinos.It was miserable til the afternoon breezes kicked up.But hey guys how did ya like the nostagia TF rails and Funny cars?...come on back for the March Meet...it has almost twice the cars...twice the spectators...half the heat...and no damn down time for TV issues...GEEZ! they drug it out!...And was Glad to see my old buddy Doc in the Valiant Effort running.

Looks like somebody found a way to make the track hook! This is Danny Roslan's car- small tire/ small block. He's a really nice guy, lives over here in Atascadero, CA. I've been to his shop a few times, probably going to have him build my next motor. He's done quite a few Mopars too! his 60' on this run was like a 1.35 +/- on the back tires. My friend who was there with Danny said he hit a 1.24+/- on an earlier pass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2AGrhbex74

I totally forgot Pinks was this weekend... haven't been on the boards in a while & missed the posts. Anyways... it was low 70's high 60's the whole weekend @ the coast

Hey Bill (Lil Demon)

Don't line that Demon up next to my heap! Your car makes mine look like it was just drug out of a barn and somebody slapped grape jelly on it to cover the chicken dookie!!!!!

Seriously, hope to meet you soon. Phoenix? Vegas? Divisional?

Please make sure to look us up.
Mark & Nancy