After the longest winter of all times.......which started last October when the rods leaped from my trusty 376, to the day after Thanksgiving when a friend and I roundtripped Portland Oregon (637 miles each way) to January when i had the new motor in the car and broke an input shaft testing, and subsiquently hurt the new motor, to last friday when i made the first a-b pass on the new (again) motor. It feels SO good to be back in the seat.
During the offseason I upgraded to ISP pads (if you don't have them, you need them. They are SO MUCH NICER than 45.1 padding), and a 20# fire system. I feel safer in the car, and i like that. All winter Paul New & I discussed tune-ups on his old motor, my new motor. He ran it heads up in mid 6's and i am running NE/1 (7.60 index). Quite a different approach to racing.
I decided on a wet & safe tune up, 10% underdrive, and 30 in the mag. When we unloaded last friday for Test & Tune, the air was in the 1100' range, but 60 some water grains. Not bad, but not mineshaft either. decent air to get a baseline. We had an unofficial pool going on what it was going to run on it's first pull. My guess was 7.80'ish. The kid thought it would run a .40. when i stepped on it in the burnout, i knew it wasn't going to go .80.
it felt like home. it felt happy and peppy. Backed up, staged the car, and pulled the trigger. First run since october? couldn't tell. .016 RT, 7.620 ET.
Well, finding the index didnt' take to long........
We made a little change for another TnT lap, but the driver did a bad job and when the car moved out of the groove he wasn't fast enough getting it back and had to abort about 1/2 track.
During the weekend we made a couple little tune up changes and it responded perfectly, so i think we are ready for the ANRA season starting in just over two weeks.
I saw the tree 5 times over the weekend. .016, .000, .011, .016, .001 (red) The red was first round of eliminations. oops. 5 hits at the tree after 4 months, average light: .0084. I think we are ready to kick some butt this year.
Pics & video links to follow.
Time slip from first pull
Game face...you must have one.
My crew last weekend. L-R AJ Thomas, Leona Means, Me, Austin Means, Liz, and Jake
Jake & Liz. He works on the Fighting Irish NFC most of the time, with some work on big show cars, and Liz is my old B.U.G. from years ago, and his fiance.
My B.U.G. She is a seamstress and makes her own BUG outfits. I like this one.
A still from one of the videos. This was TnT2. I told ya i let it drive to far out of the groove. I fought it back, it fought harder so i stepped off.
Giving grace and thanks w/ Chaplian Matt Miller
Gettin tight for Q1. Ran a 7.549 after turning it up a little to see what it would do.
My kid, and my adopted kid, AJ Thomas. He is a very good driver as well. Hope he stays out of NE/1
Chute packing class with AJ
TnT 1 Rear
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TnT 1 Hat
TnT 1 Front
TnT 1 Phone
TnT 2 Rear
TnT 2 Hat
TnT 2 Front
Q1 Rear
Q1 Hat
Q2 Rear
Q2 Hat
E1 Rear
E1 Hat
