Racing plans for 2024?

I'm probably jumping the gun on this, but will throw out a couple of things I have in mind...

First, although I was thinking pretty seriously about getting back into vet motocross, I think that ship has sailed. Instead, I'll do mountain bikes for fun and spend more time at the drags with the two Challengers.

I hit a lot of test & tunes and a few races w/ the 1320 in 2022, but I didn't go once in 2023. I'd told myself the next time I went back to the track should be in the '73... and missed out on the whole year.

The 1320 has one year left of warranty, so I might as well start hitting on it again before that runs out. Just ordered a new set of ET Street Rs for the back to replace the ET Street S/S I ran previously. Unfortunately, one of the S/S has a small abnormality in the tread that acts like a flat spot and "thumps" at higher speeds, so they'll probably get yanked off before they're fully worn out. I was never thrilled with the S/S on this car and am hoping the R provides a bit better consistency. I may also try pulling some weight out of the car at the track to try and keep it in the 11.99 and quicker range.

The '73 runs, but still needs some TLC and some wrenching to be road & track ready. It'll be 2+ months before the local tracks open up again, other than it's possible that Capitol may open for some days in February if the weather is decent. Need to lay out another project plan to nail down exactly what it needs in the mean time. Hmmm...

Good luck with your racing this year. I doubt we'll see a track open here in Minnesota until late April or May. But hopefully I'll make it to Sick Week in Florida the end of this month to get some racing and sunshine! Then in September, Drag Week. Other than that, a bunch of test and tune is all I have planned.
At Death Week this year, since I was always in a hurry to hit the road, I didn't make too many passes. Until the last day, when I made about 15 or so. Towards the end. I was hot lapping, trying to advance 1 position before the lanes closed. That reminded me how much I enjoy just making passes. Hopefully I'll be making more than usual in 2024.

Hoping my knees heal up well. If so my cousin and I will be taking the Valiant out to 41 more this year. I renewed my IHRA number so I can run points.

Car needs to have the motor pulled and the pan leak fixed. This is my old 232 motor, hoping I can run 7.90s or so with it. I'd like to put some 5.13 gears in, don't know if I'll get around to that or not.

I only ran 6 events in 23….. and only grabbed 6 round wins. 24 will probably be scaled back even more. My wife retires in 9 mos and we’re trying to get out of the desert so that will be priority #1. I will be at MaTS for sure and there’s a mopar event at Irwindale on our radar as well.

I like to just do Track rentals because of my health issues , BUT now that I fixed the 68 Chargers fuel problem my home town track Houston Raceway park [Baytown] has closed down & dont know what to do, VERY depressing , so my point is if you have a track to go to, GO as much as you can WHILE you still can

I got away from points / bracket racing last year and am now pretty much only doing pro tree / index racing .I had a lot of issues last year ( motor problem and a broken driveshaft ) but the car was good late in the year. I really like the .500 pro tree and can hit it pretty well but I lost to many races by not driving the stripe well enough : I plan on changing that !!! I will run 11.50 index and pro dial where I can with the Dart and run at my local tracks nostalgia races with my D150.

Yes - I didn’t make it to the track in 2023 either. Late ‘22 I got my Plymouth to the track and ran a few 12 second passes with the clutch slipping on the launch. I went a best of 12.56 @ 113 with a very soft 1.79 60 and some very SLOW shifts.

Since the clutch wasn’t too happy launching and I had a TA 3600 conveter I built a torqueflite a couple months ago and put it in. I want to see what it will do with the Torqueflite, hoping and think it should go 11s fairly easily but we will see. I have a set of trickflow 270s and a super victor intake, but I want to see what I can get out of the current combo before I change it. I should install some sub frame connectors and torque boxes before the track opens in April. I need new front tires though, mine are pretty dry rotted. I also just bought a Transgo TF3 kit, I bought a TF2 because I thought the TF3 was reverse pattern with no LBA, but I realized its forward with LBA. So I want to install that in another valve body I have and swap it out as well.

In April I bought a ‘22 Scat Pack Charger I want to bring to the track this spring, and I have a ‘97 Trans Am project I’ve been tinkering with that I’d like to take too, but that needs some brake work and an oil leak fixed.

I sold my old S/P 1970 Cuda two years ago next April or May to a racer in TX. He resold it last year to another racer in Canada. It was a 1970 Cuda chrome Moly tube chassis car that ran a best of 8.86 at 150.+ MPH with me in it at Woodburn 3 yrs. ago, 5.50 at 125.+ MPG in the 1/8 mile at Madras the year I sold it. It weighed 2850 Lbs. with me in it race ready on E85 and would repeat within .003 from 1st to last run all day long on the local pump E85 .
I bought a 1973 Duster Bracket car from a guy in Phoenix, AZ that never race it, he thought it He siad it would run mid 13.s in the 1/4 mile which should make it perfect for me to use to teach my youngest granddaughter ( 24YRs. Old) who is married with no kids, drag racing, if she and her husband can drive a drag car at the track and learn to get good at bracket racing .
I'm putting my 1965 Dart heads up no prep car on hold until later this spring to have Forest finish the chassis, wheelie bars, headers, mount the motor and tranny and rear spoiler so I can focus on taking a good hard look at the new bracket car to make sure it is safe and ready to race to help teach them, my granddaughter and her husband, drag racing at both ends of the tracks and how to get good at that
Time to either send a carb out to have it converted to E85 or buy a new E85 carb for the Duster: confused: Decisions, decisions
I think if the Duster has any kind of a decent 360 SB in it, it should run faster than mid 13s, maybe high 11s to mid 11s

After a year hiatus, our local Kansas International Dragway is opening back up lthis year! So glad to see it open again as it's only 20 minutes from the house and easy for me to do on a Friday or Saturday night.

I don't have a ton of upgrade and racing plans for the year. Have some minor things I want to do to the car before Sick Summer in June, hoping to average 11.5x and spray it at each track this year instead of just running on motor. Also need to install the tailpipes + TTI exhaust, fix a pinion seal leak, replace the tailshaft bushing in the trans, and I may also swap over to manual brakes. I have the pedal assembly but need to track down a manual pushrod.

Depending on the tracks I am thinking about doing Drag Week this year as well. I will probably apply to Roadkill Nights again. Beyond that, I don't do any real t&t nights or have any other race plans. There are some local daily driver type races at Milan but my rear tires are too big for the class and don't want to put small tires on it for just one series.

Have started collecting parts to build a mild-ish 540 to replace the 440 currently in the Fury but I don't expect it will be done this year. Still need machinework, custom pistons and most of the valvetrain.

Made 125 passes last year. The most I've ever made in the Belvedere since it was first on the track in 2013. Bracket raced, ran Stock S/S events, N/SS. and Open Comp. For the better part of the year the car was very good. The driver not so much. I switched glasses towards the second half and was much better. The .500 pro tree in Open Comp is a on going learning curve. On the practice tree I'm fine, at the track not so good. N/SS we struggled some as well. Deciding on 9.00 or 9.25 index. The weather has to be pretty decent to run 9.00. We tried new ways along with weight to slow down to 9.25. Running roughly 150 lbs with 27 total timing works in some weather. Not great all the time though. Currently rethinling that. To do it all with weight we need to be capable of adding 250 lbs. Did manage two finals, both wins. Along with four semi-finals. Currently adding a larger alternator. The entire motor plate layout needs to be changed to fit. So as soon as the turbo Duster is finished that will be next. Also appears to have a trans leak so that will be addressed. Thinking about the possibility of adding a trans brake for Open Comp and brackets. Looking forward to Great Lakes stk S/S, Buckeye stk S/S, NSS bash, Milan Open Comp, some NMCA and what ever Mopar events pop up.
Doug

No racing for us in '23 after waiting for engine parts and a house move. We bought a property but still haven't moved, it needed more work than we first thought. We did get all the engine parts we needed which included some new 600-13 X heads for the 655 engine. The 580 motor was rebuilt / refreshed after nipping a ring land in late '22. This occurred after the head warped, allowing #3 cylinder to pull in oil via a head stud. It still ran a pb of 9.51 prior to that. We had to skim the heads 0.010 which has now upped the C/R from 12.5:1 to almost 12.9:1, the heads are 572 -13 and this must be the 4th time they have been skimmed.
2023 plan is to do a couple of meetings with the 580 to make sure all is well, see how it performs and then fit the 655 for later in the season to try for 8's N/A with a 4000lb race weight.

I have some options: Mason-Dixon runs a limited "Street Car" series; UNSS runs at Cecil County; Capitol has regular Friday Nights and some Index races scheduled; MIR has some speciality events that I like. However, I don't see myself doing any track's weekly bracket program at this point. I'll pick and choose depending on which car suits the program better, but I need to get some on-track time w/ the old car simply because so much has changed that it's basically a new combination to sort out.

I tried doing two classes w/ the 1320 and not sure that worked to my benefit. It got me more seat time & hits on the tree, but that car doesn't hot-lap well which made it really tough to dial in accurately going back-to-back rounds. Making an 1/8 pass and coming right back to the lanes for a 1/4 pass 5 minutes later (or vice versa) totally screwed me up on how much it was going to slow down on the subsequent run. I need to check the various tracks' schedules and see what's in the plans.

Looking forward to racing this year never got out last year. Besides motor rebuild a lot of other things going on. God willing 24 is better year.

If I do any racing at all this year, I'll probably do 1 or 2 of the King of the Street races.

Hope to see you there , i plan on making all of these races in 2024

Not sure how much longer the restoration phase will last, but am enjoying not being in a rush.

All my stuff is expired except for cage/chassis. Window net, seat belts, fire suit, helmet etc. I will probably just do No E.T./No Prep/Back Half stuff since there are no rules for certs.

The hard work is all finished, Rich!

Ill be back at running S/ST before the years is over. Truck is ready minus some cosmetics I need to touch up but track time is an issue out here for sure to get it ready to run competitively. The is in pieces making some engine changes and such. Hopefully be back together before summer, but I don't race it much anyway. And we will be running the heads up car until St Louis NMCA then it comes apart for some big changes. But we hope to be able to make Norwalk and Indy with it. We will be in "limp" mode til then as she's been in thetre for a bit.

I like to get out 8-10 events a year, last year I sort of lucked out as my local track had multiple T/S events and Blown Door car events so I didn't have to stray far (30 min away). Coincidently none of the tracks within a 3-4 hr radius held any similar events so I didn't have a lot of options. There are 4 T/S events planned at the local track and rumors of some Q 8 stuff to the east and west. Also considering a East Coast Truck Wars event in VA. so we will see where we wind up.

That's what I keep telling myself.

Especially two nights ago, laying in the trunk, putting the trunk lid torsion bars back on lol.

Get "lil bull" dialed in to run 8.50 every round! Currently motor is apart for repair, pin cam bearings, new rod and main bearings, then acquire wheels and a nostalgia style hood scoop to run with nostalgia cars in the MELTSOWN DRAGS at Rockfalls wis.

Switch to manual? You have power with the 590 Purpleshaft?

I plan to hit it hard in Ohio, after being out of it for about 12 years, got a car going last year again. Took most of the season to get the bugs sorted out and going some rounds. So plans for this spring are pretty light, fluid and filter changes, new trailer and race as much as I can right outta the gate. Kicked around the idea of heading to Bristol for the Footbrake challenge, but this year probably stay somewhat local.

I don't have any drag and drive plans this year but I do hope to race more often at home.

I have no plans for racing in 2024. In fact, I'll most likely put the '65 Coronet up for sale this year and I'll continue to sell off parts now that I no longer have a big heated shop to store stuff in. I will most likely go to the track a bunch in 2024 but as a tuner, not a racer.

Well, I'm shopping for a car...so I'm pretty far behind...

Yes, but it had a vacuum canister on the car initially that didn't work well at all, you'd get one stop and be out of luck for braking assist. I put a Leeds vacuum pump on it and that works really well, but the booster itself is starting to fail so I think it's time to swap it to manual to clean up the engine compartment some and save weight.

well our season has been underway for me since last September . New national series & points scheme with it running as a Western & Eastern division with a stand alone invitational Grand Final to find #1 racers in the various classes . Only thing odd is conference finals are in April & June with GF in October
We run both 1/8 & 1/4 tracks .
This is complicated that we have 2 sanction bodies so I need 2 licences and 2 tech inspections .
So I will be doing a few more away events and almost no local track championship events .
Certainly easier now I have a ute and open trailer plus a tent .
Currently sitting ok with 2 finals , a semi & a 1/4 final from 4 events run .

Tex

Try to go as often as possible, weather permitting to Redding, Sonoma and Kingdon drags. Sorry to see Sacramento gone.

Hopefully some test and tune. Sure miss Kennedale......

Y'all almost make me yearn for my old car back, but not quite! I sold my stock eliminator car in June (after having it mostly sit for 39 years) so now, I'm building a new and my last one. Class racing has become too expensive for my poor old butt and when I see and hear some of the guys talk about how much their Don Little/Steve Wann/Eric Jones parts cost and I dig into my pockets only to find lint...I'm done! Hahaha, even though I'm building it as a SS car, I know it's just a dream I can no longer chase, BUT...this one will probably be a lot more fun!!! Hope y'all have a great time at the track...wb

Going to add a vacuum pump and oil accumulator to the AMX. I plan on racing Fridays at Lassiter Mountain and Saturdays either I22 or Montgomery International Raceway. Brakets and 6.00 index. At the end of 2024 I'll probably sell the AMX and try to get my 68' Valiant finished for the 2025 season.

Had a lot of fun in 2023. Made ~75 runs in the NSS car and another ~80 in the stocker, finished top 20 in every points series including Div 3 stock my first year.

Just moved into a new house, so not a whole lot going on with the cars, but I plan to run similar events as I did in 2023 (NMCA, NSS Bash, NHRA, Buckeye S/SS, etc). I will also try to run Indy this year as well since it is on the ol bucket list.

Looking forward to a great year.

Casey FJ

I got out like 2 times to test n tune last yr but I commited to the next 2 yrs to more tnt with new M/T slicks,new belts,newer helmet good for 8 more years so I will see how many tests I can get out to.I am working on my 60' with the slicks and cal tracs and fresh Rossler th400w/brake and some carb tunning and a new intercooler pump/tank from 1 gal for 10sec to 5gal for 10 sec with a rule 2000 pump.I wish you all a great year,good luck,have fun,be safe. PS: I just switched pumps to a Meziere wp336s 55gpm and will be a direct swap with the wp136 in line w/3gall cell still.

I only made it out for 4 test/Tunes last year. The car did not run what I hoped for. The new 505/w crossram is being more difficult than I planned. The car should run 10.50-10.70 the best I ran was 10.86 with a single 4. So this year I'm changing converter and maybe lose a little weight. I going to run some Friday night test/tune to get it figured. I hope to have it figured out for the MELTDOWN drags at Rockfalls in September.

no place to go here unless you want to drive a couple of hours.
airport drags are up in the air [HAHAHAHA !!!!!] because of insurance reasons, so it's no wonder "street racing" is on the increase.
then there is the ridiculous 2 year seat belt rule, but 50 year old factory 1 3/4" belts are ok..............

I plan on going vintage racing in B-sedan if I can get the car finished.
Also going to try and make a couple T&Ts and Mopar day at Mason Dixon

I will probably just hit the Mopar shows and make a few passes. Putting the Richmond trans back in the car so I don't break a perfectly good quiet and smooth shifting Hemi box. Was considering making the switch over to E85 and see how that works out.

Gus

With all the troubles I navigated last year, I'll just have to copy/paste my goals for '23!

Mine are up in the air...I did not get out much last year, but all is lining for a better time this year except for all the associated costs. But, If I keep at it, I should have 2 of my 3 rides ready to go. I intend to forgo some racing for cruise nights, and the other 2 hobbies I enjoy that tend to cost a little less.

I am about to order all the wiring & relay board to re-wire the Cuda, and then new 31x16 street tires...That right there is $2k, and I already bought nice Weld wheels...Might even upgrade the ignition box to somthing a bit more modern so I have more rev limiters.

I also have a spare Hemi I want to build a short block for this winter. Got a block & pistons, next will be crank and find someone that can put roller cam bearings in.

The Duster, has somthing up with it. It burned a ground wire off the head, and keeps draining the battery down hard when trying to start it. So that needs attention, but will wait till better weather.

The lawn ornament does not get a lot of love...We will see.

The trailer needs an upgrade or two as well, and that worries me the most. I bought it used last year, and already had to put 4 new tires on it, and a spare, plus it ate a wheel bearing and a brake shoe. Not sure what's going on with that.

All in all, everything is more pricey and I need moving money for the anticipated move south. As the date gets closer, some stuff might be available.

I'm planning on getting out my challenger stocker. It's been sitting for 2 yrs, 1 year to build a house, 1 year with back issues. Just finishing disassembling/cleaning/new o rings on the brake calipers and some new lines. And of course the yearly hone, rings, bearings. Hopefully pick up a tenth, at least not slow down.... Good luck to all racers.

^^^ Pics?

What class do you run?

Keep us posted on your progress and race results.

Big fan of NHRA Stock and Super Stock racing.

G/SA 383/335

Cool !!! Good Luck with it ! I am also a big fan of Stock and Super Stock!

Just trying to make a season for a change, I’ve wounded so much stuff in the last 2 seasons…ugh…

Wow, NICE Challenger...and with Holeshot Wheels(?) to boot. Looking forward to watching it online. No plans on this end besides selling out.

Thanks, yeah holeshot. I think I heard about them thru you actually. I talked to you at VMP years ago when I was just starting to build the car. I think you had your wagon project at that time ?

Brian

Myron - You've been doing this for a long time, so it's gotta come to an end sometime. I remember speaking w/ you at MIR when you were there for an IHRA National and that was probably 20+ years ago.

Yes, I still have it and my Dart, The Aspen project never got sorted out, even just bracket racing locally. Along with other factors, it was time to retire. But looking forward to keeping track of the Mopars out there. Good luck with the Challenger. My first car was a '72 and served me well bracket racing.

Yea, nothing lasts forever. I started IHRA in 1999. Budds Creek was one of my favorite tracks. Good friend Don Dimeler lives & raced there. I had a great streak going later on - Won nationals 3 years in a row and got RU the 4th due to a rookie mistake.
No more racing in MD but some consolation is that there's a Ledo's Pizza near me in FL now!