Postby Rapid Randy Baker » Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:01 pm
THE 2007 WORLD FUEL ALTERED NATIONALS
Last weekend was the 2nd annual World Fuel Altered Nationals at Eddyville Raceway Park in Eddyville, Iowa. It ended up being a large gathering of the coolest Fuel Altereds on the planet. It was set up as 2-eight car fields, 1-8 and 9-16. The track surface was perfect. The weather which had been hovering near 100-degrees for the last 2-weeks finally broke and we were treated to mid 80-degree temps and only 50-60% humidity. Welcome to the Midwest in the summer!
As they are anywhere they go, Nanook and the Rat Trap were the headliners. They drew the largest crowds around them all weekend long. I was amazed at the diversity of the crowd that came for the race. We had people there from all over the country. There were people there from Mass, Ga, Fl, Wyoming, Texas, Co, all throughout the Midwest. I saw nothing but smiles on everyone’s faces, racers and fans both.
We have the results posted so I won’t go into that here. We started the weekend by going to dinner on Thursday with the whole Nanook crew, minus Steve the driver. Laura and I along with Scott and Peggy had a great time listening to the stories from the road. They put traveling racers on a whole new level. They have only spent 2-weekends at home all summer long. We arrived at the track on Friday morning just to hang out with everyone. The track was already being prepped for the evening qualifying round. Scott was busy as we “Nitro Madness” were putting on the event. It has been in process ever since the original event last year came to a conclusion. We have needed all of this time to get everything ready. Since the crew guys were not coming until later in the day, I recruited the Boston Monkey, Paul Conlin, and his friends along with Greg Green, the KC BBQ man, and his little ride stealer in training Jordan to help get the car out and the pit area set up.
Finally it was time for the 1st session. The Nanook set the pace with what turns out to be low ET, not only of the session but also of the event. Unfortunately, they had trouble getting it slowed down and ended up in the wall on the return road. That resulted in the car being out of competition, and needing a complete front half. We called around and as you read this it is at the chassis shop so they can compete next weekend at the World Series of Drag Racing in Cordova. It was my turn to see how the Nitro Madness car stacked up against the best of the Altereds in the country. I had planned on a reasonably short burnout since we were in race mode. Once it started boiling the tires by the time it was over I was nearly out of racetrack. Behind the line we had a throttle controller malfunction, resulting in the car doing a dry hop looking launch. The bad news is my crew guy Pappy was beside the car and it ran over his leg, tearing some tendons and muscles in his knee. I was unaware he had been run over. He drug himself out of the way as I rolled in to stage. The car left great, wheels up and I could tell it was on a great run. Suddenly at 400 feet it went flat, I lifted and coasted across the finish line wondering what had broken. I was in the shut down area with my chutes out and the All American fuel altered come blasting past me. His chutes weren’t out yet and he was going way too fast to make the last turn off. The chutes blossomed and I could see him trying to get it stopped. He hit the far wall, as I came up behind him. I stopped our car far enough back if he caught fire it wouldn’t damage it. I ran up to him in my full safety gear thinking that if he needed help getting out of the car I would be there to help him. Just as I got there the safety crew arrived. I asked if he was ok, then walked back to my car removing my gear. I though how ironic it was I had to run to this car again, as last year in Tulsa, KB and I had run to the end of the track when it went off the end with a hung throttle. I still didn’t know what was wrong with my car until I got time to look it over and discovered a blown burst panel. Now, was it hurt and broke the burst panel, or was the burst panel just 1-run past it’s life span. I was thinking about it when the crew came to get me. It was then I was told Pappy had been run over and was hurt pretty good. You can’t imagine how my heart sunk. We hurried back to the pits and found out he went to a local hospital. Scott and RC went to be with him. It was then that I found out Laura was worried sick that I had crashed. She had stopped watching our car when I lifted, to help Pappy. Then someone asked her if it was me who hit the wall. Of course she couldn’t see down there and now was trying to help Pappy and worry about me at the same time.
In our pits it was KB, Laura, and I left to service the car and load up for the night. Lucky for me Mike Cavilieri, Eric Bru, Greg Green, came around to see if I needed a hand. We checked the engine, leaked it and determined it wasn’t hurt. Mike asked how long it had been since I replaced the burst panel. He was sure that was the problem. It was just weakened and gave up on that pass. Into the box it went. We were in continuous cell communication checking on Pappy, but no news yet.
Back at the motel we got the call, nothing broken but probably surgery to repair. Pappy and RC came by so I could see him before they drove back to Des Moines. He had crutches and had his leg immobilized. It was good to see him in good humor and joking about how good the traction must have been on his jeans as our car was on a record run until the panel let go. We qualified 3rd coasting to a 4.18. I told him to at least send down his jeans for me to launch on if he wasn’t coming back on Saturday since they provided such good traction. I didn’t expect to see him he rest of the weekend.
I went to the track early to work on the car knowing we would be a man short. I was pleasantly surprised to see Eric waiting on me with an offer of any help I needed. Greg came up shortly there after, and I had a full crew again. Since we were busy with the car we conned the Boston Boys into doing some legwork to give out some of the special awards for us.
We decided to prep everything except setting the valves. I thought it best to have RC set both sides as he was used to doing his side. When RC arrived, he brought along Pappy! He told us he wouldn’t miss this event for anything. If he was going to be in pain, he might as well be enjoying the races at the same time. Now here is the kicker, he insisted on doing his side of the engine service. There was no changing his mind, so that is how it went. It was nice to have him back, and really gave the team a lift. Plus, it was easier to say, “Go ask him” when everybody would ask how our hurt crewman was.
Ok, time for the first round. We had a KB take Pappy’s position of backing me up. Unfortunately we had some mis-communication and he was in the wrong position on the staring line resulting in my not being able to launch the car with him there. We lost the round and our weekend was done. The good news is the car ran great, and good fun was had by all.
There is way too much that happened to fit into this space. I would highly recommend you come to next year’s event to see if for yourself!
I hope you enjoyed my “What I did Last Weekend Story”
Rapid
NITRO PILOT
[url]http://.www.rapidrandy.net[/url]
