Archive for October, 2009

Well… I got eliminated in the first round again.  Due to a red light of course.

I think I am still in the top 10 which was my goal from the beginning.  I looked at the points and stayed at the track until the finals before going home.  Nearly everybody close in ranking below me got sent home in the 1st round.  Zimmerman who is #8 (I am #9) got sent home in the 1st round.  She doesn’t get the bonus 30 because she missed one race.  So I am #8 at least, hopefully!  I probably got an extra 5 points for the double 0 reaction time in time only runs.  Henry got a triple 0 reaction time (I think something like 0.0004).

The first 3 time only runs I was perfect.  Like a robot.  Checked air in the tires, exactly at 12 in the slicks – I was real anal about that… 12.0 on the slicks.  Not 11.9 or 12.1… and exactly 30 in the fronts.  Except 1st round, which they were 32 and then I knocked off 2 to get a safer RT.  I even put fuel in the cell after every run to bring the level back exactly where it was before to maintain the same weight.  I cooled the car down after each run and while in the staging lanes I brought the car back up to exactly 150 before burnout.  At the end of every run I checked the temp and it was exactly 180 at the end of every run.

I screwed up the shifting on time only run 3 – anticipated and shifted exactly when the shift light came on so that hurt the ET a bit.  I didn’t do that again.  However, I was still able to predict the ET of my first round run within 0.0015 (yes 15 ten thousandths).  So that is how dead on the car was.

The problem all comes down to… me.  First 3 time only runs, I did the burnout, it was exactly 5000 rpm, and when I let go of the button it stayed at 5000 (i feathered the throttle to maintain it) and did it all consistently.  Shifted it into neutral, blipped the throttle gently a couple of times.  Staged.  I just barely turned on the stage light in all my runs, so I know I’m very close to the same position each run at the line.

The first elimination round I basically over-thought everything - thinking ahead way too much and too far.  When I did the burnout I forgot to let go of the brake pedal.  So of course, when I pressed the gas down, the motor died.  I took a deep breath and tried to shake it off – put the car in neutral and started her back up, shifted into 2nd, let go of the brake, and did the burnout.  No biggie right?  Wrong.  My head was already messed with.  So I staged.  Then waited for the other guy to stage as usual.  When both bottom bulbs came on, I slowly floored the gas as usual.  Everything seemed to be going great.  Then I do the dumbest thing ever.  I watch and count each bulb going down.  One… two… three… let go.  WHY!!?!!  Why did I do that?!  The first 3 runs I just stared at the bottom bulb and basically tuned the other two bulbs out.  I could see the other 2 bulbs but my mind was set on watching the third one.  When it comes on, I let go.  Third bulb, then go.  Third bulb, then go.  Third bulb, then go.  Then first elimination round, first bulb, second bulb, third bulb.  *Sigh*

The car was running great.  Here is a short clip – I think this one is the third time only run launch.  It is pretty cool. I show a launch in slow motion and you can really see how the Caltracs work.

Shelley filmed the last 3 runs (she got to the track a little late, right when Jules crashed her car).

This is what losing your brakes and going into the sand at the end of the shutdown does to your car (picture below).  In Tucson, David (her boyfriend) blew one of the slicks on his car, spun the car 180 and hit the wall.  I think I sent you a picture of that.  Now 2 races later, his girlfriend loses her brakes and drives off the end of the shutdown into the sand.  Now both cars are wrecked.  Jules is in the hospital getting checked out.  They checked her liver, kidneys, etc… all are good, but she is complaining about a lot of pain in her neck, so they transported her to a different hospital for overnight observation.  David of course quit the race to go with Jules to the hospital – she crashed in the middle of the first round.  Jules was the one that I raced against when she was driving that black pickup truck back near the beginning of the season.

My buddy Keven has a set of Cragar wheels with run flat radials on them.  He was going to use them for his Barracuda project but since it’ll take years before his car gets to the point where it can use them, he is letting the Dart borrow them for a while.  We test fitted one of the wheels on the car and wow, what a world of a difference!  Those wheels scream “muscle car!”

Unfortunately we don’t have all of the correct lug nuts to get those wheels on the car – I got some lug nuts from Checker Auto Parts but we need to turn the shanks on the metal lathe to get it to fit properly.

Here are some before & after pictures:

I was looking around and found someone selling a fully machined R1A race block for cheap.  The block is already at Ryan Johnson’s Shady Dell Speed Shop in PA.  It is a 48 degree block, has both motor mounts on it, 4 bolt main caps, ARP main studs, was CNC square decked to 9.560″ deck height, CNC bored and diamond honed to 4.070, lifter bores bushed for .904″ lifters, .060″ oil feed holes so it can be used with pushrod oiling if desired, has a short fill of hard blok, and was sonic checked to be good up to a 4.100″ bore.  This block would be great to use with W5 heads – I could really get some power out of them and not worry about having a stock block fall apart.  So today, I went ahead and wrote a check to the guy and bought the block.