Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 7:22 am
Eye donn believe it....... 
Me edder .. JULY 25 .. JULY 25 .. JULY 25 .. JULY 25 .. JULY 25 .. JULY 25Eye donn believe it.......
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Nitro Madness AA/FA
Page 30 of 170
Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 7:37 am
Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 7:45 am
Eye think the Rapid One has several B'day's in the werx B4 July 25. 
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 11:57 am
Slingshot Nationals 2006
Last weekend the Nitro Madness team went to the Slingshot Nationals at Cordova, IL. The weather was perfect for the drive over and stayed nice thru most of the day on Saturday of the event. There was a new class this year for AA/FA’s and Nostalgia Funny cars to run together. For those who don’t like to read all the way thru the story, we qualified 3rd, and were 1 of the final 4-cars still in when the rains washed out the event later on Saturday night.
After a bunch of smack talk and good-natured ribbing back and forth we were looking forward to racing against the “Fiberglass Caves” as our team had taken to calling the Funny cars. I even had my Funny Car driver safety kit prepared just in case any of the funny car drivers came into our Altered pits. I had sunglasses and sunscreen at the ready. You know those guys wouldn’t be used to all the fresh air and bright light after driving one of those “Cave” cars for so long! Now, before anybody gets too far up on the tire over the kidding, I am good friends with the Nostalgia funny car guys and we tease back and forth all the time. It’s all good, and just for fun.
I have stated before, I don’t write this as a report on the whole weekend of racing, or the complete event. It is just what I did last weekend. I hope you enjoy it.
When we arrived on Fri evening to drop of our trailer, one of my favorite teams to race against was there preparing for the Saturday race, Kevin Newburg with his large team of family members were pitted right beside us. They are a great bunch of people that really know how to have fun, and run fast at the same time. Not only that, but 2 of my good friends are also on the team, Lucas and Justin. Some of you will remember Lucas from last years Slingshots report. He came over and talked with me quite a bit. I offered to help “Set up” his dad’s {Kevin} clutch before the final round. Lucas didn’t think that was such a great idea, and Kevin ended up beating me in the finals last year. I like the team, but I was ready to reverse the roles this year. Well Justin, Lucas and I started in on each other right off the bat. Lucky I was a wrestling coach and I was able to keep both of the youngsters in line by threatening to make them do push-ups! You would be surprised how much these boys know about running one of these cars. When they get their turn they will be tough competitors.
We stayed around to watch Kevin make a pass as they had a new blower and some new body panels they wanted to test. I should have left before I watched, I would have had a much better nights sleep! Kevin went out and ran a 6.21 at around 220 mph! It was a very nice pass, and sure proved they were ready for Saturday’s action. Just great, our best pass last year was a 6.47 and he runs a .21 off the trailer. Talk about the last thing I wanted to think about all night. Lucky for me, I knew we had learned a few things ourselves since that .47. So off to our favorite pizza joint in the area, and then back to the motel for swimming and relaxing.
Saturday dawned sunny and nice. It was supposed to be a high of 81 and no chance of rain. Did I mention how often the weather guys are wrong? When we got to the track our friends Leon, Steve, and Larry were there with the FED {Pipe Rack} all the way from Kansas. Justin was there with his Nitro funny car. You wouldn’t believe how many people from the Internet that were there and come over to say “Hi”. It is neat how it turns into a small world when it comes to drag racers. Not only were there a bunch of Nostalgia racers and fans there, we had Tony Smith and Mike from TJ Zizzo’s top fuel dragster down to check things out. I am taking credit for T-Smith coming down to hang out with me simply because I had invited him earlier in the week. He probably didn’t even remember it, but I am taking the credit anyway! So with a great crowd and a bunch of Hooligan drag racers there the day was all set to be a lot of fun and good racing.
Scott {car owner} and I had made some changes for this event. We increased our Nitro percentage, and a few other things we thought would help us run faster. The track at Cordova is always well prepped and we have run a number of our best ET’s and MPH numbers at this track. I want to introduce our newest full time crewmember Kelly Baker. We are working on his nickname and I will fill you in when we come up with one for him.
The team serviced the car, and we were called to the lanes around 11:00AM for the first of two qualifiers. They ran Jr-fuel, A-fuel, AA/FA-Nostalgia Funny Car, and Top fuel at this event, along with a number of Nostalgia eliminator classes. I was suited up and strapped in and someone oiled the right lane. Of course it was the lane we were going to run. We still weren’t worried, as the track guys here are very good. We felt it would be as good as or better than before when they were done. Due to the time constraints of the morning, our team had failed to go check out the starting line and track surface. I figured if Kevin could run that well the night before the event, today would be even better. Normally when I get strapped in the car, we run with-in a very few minutes. With the oil down and clean up, I was in the car for almost 45-minutes. The team keep themselves entertained by shooting my racing suit with the temp gun and giving me the reports. It started in the upper 90’s and ended up 118 degrees sitting there in the sun. Humm, maybe those “Cave Guys” are on to something to being covered with a body after all,,,,Nah!
The altered ahead of me made his pass, and it was pretty loose. He had a new combination in his car so I don’t give it a ton of thought. Our turn, As it rolls forward I hit both air shift buttons so the car is in high gear, roll thru the water and idle ahead about 10-feet, and ease into the throttle. We do a shorter than normal burnout due to the track temp being 118 degrees. We have removed the tach this year, so I listen to the engine to keep the RPM’s down and the shift light off. Scott likes it when the burnout doesn’t turn on the shift light, that is almost like stuffing money for valve springs back into his pocket! It felt pretty good, ease to a stop, give the crowd a wave, and back towards the starting line where Pappy {Larry Bailey crew guy} comes into view to guide me back into our fresh rubber. When I get the signal to stop, before he gets to the car, I moved the Lencodrive trans from reverse to forward, and hold the brake. Then Pappy checks over the engine for leaks or problems. He also checks the temp of the engine. While he is doing all that, I activate the starting line controller, clear the supercharger boost memory, pull the air shifter buttons up so it is now in low gear, and give my belts one last tug. When the temp is correct, Pappy and I do the “fist smack” so I know everything is done and it is in my hands now. I pick a spot down track to move to the starting line so the car stays square going to the line. I roll in, hold the brake and engage the trans-brake. We have the throttle controller set for around 3000 RPM now, the tree comes on, with a .02 light I am off. The car pulls the wheels a bit higher than normal, dang this is fun!
Wow, who tossed the water under the back tires? The car went about 10-feet and blew the tires off. I am talking about smoking the tires like John “Bottom Line” Force doing a track long burnout at a match race. It was the last thing I was expecting from this track. I pedal it, back into tire spin, off throttle again, back in it, and the car moves to the right guard rail, lift, back towards the center of the lane, into the throttle again, more spin, try easing into it again. Now normally I would have given up long ago on this run. Since I don’t know how many cars are in our class, I fig a bad run is better than an “idling” thru run. It finally will take some throttle, and runs on down thru there. It went 7.58 @ 208 mph. I can’t believe we went 208 on that bad a run. Guess who I had in the other lane during this mess, yep Tom Motry, with the Drastic Plastic AA/FA. He ran a mere 5.97 @ 253.80mph. I looks like he didn’t have any problems with his lane did he! He is now the number 1 qualifier.
Back in the pits we found out that Kevin Newburg blew his engine during the warm-up. However, he was busy putting a borrowed one in. Justin’s funny car had set the fire bottles off during the unloading process, so he missed to first session while trying to fix that problem. They would both be ready for the 2nd session. We discovered our aluminum dry sump tank was cracked, which explained why the car was so loose. While some of the crew removed the tank to clean and prep it for welding, Scott talked to Tom Motry, who said he would weld it for us.
The rest of us worked on calming the car down. We pulled some timing out, added more fuel to the injection system, lowered the wheelie bar a touch, serviced the engine, and cooled the transmission and converter with our new air blower. After our race in Tulsa with the car rolling thru the beams due to the trans being too hot, we made the change to cool it between rounds. I also hold onto the brake and the trans-brake while the car is staged. No more rolling thru the beams for us! It appears that about 20-minutes of cooling gets it back to normal temps.
2nd qualifying session was at 2:00PM. We were called to the lanes, and again had the pleasure of having our lane oiled. This time, in the left lane. We were lined up with a neat little small block Chevy altered from Chicago. This time I went ahead and did a longer burnout to lay down some rubber. Another wave to the crowd, caught by Jerry Giles and Bandit along with some others in the crowd. Back behind the line, Pappy gives me the fist smack and I creep into the beams. I want to be shallow for ET, knowing Newburg and Motry are making life tough on us. The car launches, still wheeling higher than we like to have it, and starts heading for the centerline. I pedal it, and got it headed back into the groove in my lane, and back down on the throttle. I am hitting the air shift buttons and have the steering wheel turned to the left, foot to the floor. The car just keeps on thinking it needs to be in the right lane. That would have been ok, except that we started in the left one. Most tracks require you to finish in the same lane you start in. I know, for a fuel altered it seems like a silly rule, but it is a rule none-the-less. Around 1100 foot it is pretty near the centerline again, so I finally have to lift, crank the wheel even further to the left, and nail it again. As you can imagine, when you lift on one of these solid suspension cars, they get a tinge loose after that. It was moving around pretty good, but I convinced her to tip-toe down the centerline without getting any timers. It went 6.55 @ only 208 mph with lifting 2-times on the run. It would have been another team record run if not for having to lift. That put us #3 in the show!
As I waited on the guys to come down get me, Justin’s funny car did a burnout, and Mini-Me {his driver’s nickname}, was unable to get the car into reverse. It idles on down the track. Then my old buddy Kevin Newburg, with the borrowed engine, ran another 6.21 in the lane I was just in. Now how do you like that? He ran a 6.21 Fri night, blows that engine up, borrows an IHRA legal Alky funny car engine, and ran another 6.21 the next day. That was impressive I thought.
The car is serviced. I jumped on the fuel some more to calm it down a bit. We are ready for 1st round. While waiting, the first of the rainstorms came thru. It delayed things a little over an hour. Around 8PM the 1st round began. We were going to race a black Corvette. I was told it hadn’t been run on Nitro prior to this event. It sounded darn good in the pits when they pulled the Nitro lever on! Nothing against the big show 85% cars, but if you want to hear a car snap and pop go to a nostalgia event and listen to one on 95%! They don’t compare.
Justin has Kevin in the 1st round. Mini-Me does a burnout, and has the same problem. As he idles down the track Kevin has the option, and elects to back up and not make the run. He will be in the next round by default. Little Justin and Lucas came by, wished me good luck and updated me on what was going on. When it was our turn, I held my guys back from firing our car until they started the funny car. I felt since they hadn’t run their car, it might take a bit longer for them to complete the starting line procedure. It turned out to be a good call. I was able to sit there and wait while they tried repeatedly to get it to start. Since I wasn’t running, our team and the track gave them every chance to make the race. Finally, we were told it was a single, and motioned to fire our car. Since it was a single, and the rain has washed the track I did a very long burnout. It was another tire smoking 7.56 at 200 MPH. I knew the track wasn’t going to be there after the rain so I was ready for it to do exactly what it did. One thing that amazed me. We had to work really hard to be able to run over 200 MPH a couple of years ago. Now that we have broken that barrier, the car seems to run 200 no matter how much I pedal. A 7.50 Et shouldn’t be anywhere near a 200 MPH run.
We serviced the car, and were ready for the next round. It was Tom Motry, Kevin Newburg, the altered from Chicago and us still in. Then the major rain came and ended all the fun. I believe I would have raced Kevin in the next round, and it would have been a good one. Of course I told Justin and Lucas I would have whipped him!
Thanks for reading my what I did last weekend report,
Rapid
Last weekend the Nitro Madness team went to the Slingshot Nationals at Cordova, IL. The weather was perfect for the drive over and stayed nice thru most of the day on Saturday of the event. There was a new class this year for AA/FA’s and Nostalgia Funny cars to run together. For those who don’t like to read all the way thru the story, we qualified 3rd, and were 1 of the final 4-cars still in when the rains washed out the event later on Saturday night.
After a bunch of smack talk and good-natured ribbing back and forth we were looking forward to racing against the “Fiberglass Caves” as our team had taken to calling the Funny cars. I even had my Funny Car driver safety kit prepared just in case any of the funny car drivers came into our Altered pits. I had sunglasses and sunscreen at the ready. You know those guys wouldn’t be used to all the fresh air and bright light after driving one of those “Cave” cars for so long! Now, before anybody gets too far up on the tire over the kidding, I am good friends with the Nostalgia funny car guys and we tease back and forth all the time. It’s all good, and just for fun.
I have stated before, I don’t write this as a report on the whole weekend of racing, or the complete event. It is just what I did last weekend. I hope you enjoy it.
When we arrived on Fri evening to drop of our trailer, one of my favorite teams to race against was there preparing for the Saturday race, Kevin Newburg with his large team of family members were pitted right beside us. They are a great bunch of people that really know how to have fun, and run fast at the same time. Not only that, but 2 of my good friends are also on the team, Lucas and Justin. Some of you will remember Lucas from last years Slingshots report. He came over and talked with me quite a bit. I offered to help “Set up” his dad’s {Kevin} clutch before the final round. Lucas didn’t think that was such a great idea, and Kevin ended up beating me in the finals last year. I like the team, but I was ready to reverse the roles this year. Well Justin, Lucas and I started in on each other right off the bat. Lucky I was a wrestling coach and I was able to keep both of the youngsters in line by threatening to make them do push-ups! You would be surprised how much these boys know about running one of these cars. When they get their turn they will be tough competitors.
We stayed around to watch Kevin make a pass as they had a new blower and some new body panels they wanted to test. I should have left before I watched, I would have had a much better nights sleep! Kevin went out and ran a 6.21 at around 220 mph! It was a very nice pass, and sure proved they were ready for Saturday’s action. Just great, our best pass last year was a 6.47 and he runs a .21 off the trailer. Talk about the last thing I wanted to think about all night. Lucky for me, I knew we had learned a few things ourselves since that .47. So off to our favorite pizza joint in the area, and then back to the motel for swimming and relaxing.
Saturday dawned sunny and nice. It was supposed to be a high of 81 and no chance of rain. Did I mention how often the weather guys are wrong? When we got to the track our friends Leon, Steve, and Larry were there with the FED {Pipe Rack} all the way from Kansas. Justin was there with his Nitro funny car. You wouldn’t believe how many people from the Internet that were there and come over to say “Hi”. It is neat how it turns into a small world when it comes to drag racers. Not only were there a bunch of Nostalgia racers and fans there, we had Tony Smith and Mike from TJ Zizzo’s top fuel dragster down to check things out. I am taking credit for T-Smith coming down to hang out with me simply because I had invited him earlier in the week. He probably didn’t even remember it, but I am taking the credit anyway! So with a great crowd and a bunch of Hooligan drag racers there the day was all set to be a lot of fun and good racing.
Scott {car owner} and I had made some changes for this event. We increased our Nitro percentage, and a few other things we thought would help us run faster. The track at Cordova is always well prepped and we have run a number of our best ET’s and MPH numbers at this track. I want to introduce our newest full time crewmember Kelly Baker. We are working on his nickname and I will fill you in when we come up with one for him.
The team serviced the car, and we were called to the lanes around 11:00AM for the first of two qualifiers. They ran Jr-fuel, A-fuel, AA/FA-Nostalgia Funny Car, and Top fuel at this event, along with a number of Nostalgia eliminator classes. I was suited up and strapped in and someone oiled the right lane. Of course it was the lane we were going to run. We still weren’t worried, as the track guys here are very good. We felt it would be as good as or better than before when they were done. Due to the time constraints of the morning, our team had failed to go check out the starting line and track surface. I figured if Kevin could run that well the night before the event, today would be even better. Normally when I get strapped in the car, we run with-in a very few minutes. With the oil down and clean up, I was in the car for almost 45-minutes. The team keep themselves entertained by shooting my racing suit with the temp gun and giving me the reports. It started in the upper 90’s and ended up 118 degrees sitting there in the sun. Humm, maybe those “Cave Guys” are on to something to being covered with a body after all,,,,Nah!
The altered ahead of me made his pass, and it was pretty loose. He had a new combination in his car so I don’t give it a ton of thought. Our turn, As it rolls forward I hit both air shift buttons so the car is in high gear, roll thru the water and idle ahead about 10-feet, and ease into the throttle. We do a shorter than normal burnout due to the track temp being 118 degrees. We have removed the tach this year, so I listen to the engine to keep the RPM’s down and the shift light off. Scott likes it when the burnout doesn’t turn on the shift light, that is almost like stuffing money for valve springs back into his pocket! It felt pretty good, ease to a stop, give the crowd a wave, and back towards the starting line where Pappy {Larry Bailey crew guy} comes into view to guide me back into our fresh rubber. When I get the signal to stop, before he gets to the car, I moved the Lencodrive trans from reverse to forward, and hold the brake. Then Pappy checks over the engine for leaks or problems. He also checks the temp of the engine. While he is doing all that, I activate the starting line controller, clear the supercharger boost memory, pull the air shifter buttons up so it is now in low gear, and give my belts one last tug. When the temp is correct, Pappy and I do the “fist smack” so I know everything is done and it is in my hands now. I pick a spot down track to move to the starting line so the car stays square going to the line. I roll in, hold the brake and engage the trans-brake. We have the throttle controller set for around 3000 RPM now, the tree comes on, with a .02 light I am off. The car pulls the wheels a bit higher than normal, dang this is fun!
Wow, who tossed the water under the back tires? The car went about 10-feet and blew the tires off. I am talking about smoking the tires like John “Bottom Line” Force doing a track long burnout at a match race. It was the last thing I was expecting from this track. I pedal it, back into tire spin, off throttle again, back in it, and the car moves to the right guard rail, lift, back towards the center of the lane, into the throttle again, more spin, try easing into it again. Now normally I would have given up long ago on this run. Since I don’t know how many cars are in our class, I fig a bad run is better than an “idling” thru run. It finally will take some throttle, and runs on down thru there. It went 7.58 @ 208 mph. I can’t believe we went 208 on that bad a run. Guess who I had in the other lane during this mess, yep Tom Motry, with the Drastic Plastic AA/FA. He ran a mere 5.97 @ 253.80mph. I looks like he didn’t have any problems with his lane did he! He is now the number 1 qualifier.
Back in the pits we found out that Kevin Newburg blew his engine during the warm-up. However, he was busy putting a borrowed one in. Justin’s funny car had set the fire bottles off during the unloading process, so he missed to first session while trying to fix that problem. They would both be ready for the 2nd session. We discovered our aluminum dry sump tank was cracked, which explained why the car was so loose. While some of the crew removed the tank to clean and prep it for welding, Scott talked to Tom Motry, who said he would weld it for us.
The rest of us worked on calming the car down. We pulled some timing out, added more fuel to the injection system, lowered the wheelie bar a touch, serviced the engine, and cooled the transmission and converter with our new air blower. After our race in Tulsa with the car rolling thru the beams due to the trans being too hot, we made the change to cool it between rounds. I also hold onto the brake and the trans-brake while the car is staged. No more rolling thru the beams for us! It appears that about 20-minutes of cooling gets it back to normal temps.
2nd qualifying session was at 2:00PM. We were called to the lanes, and again had the pleasure of having our lane oiled. This time, in the left lane. We were lined up with a neat little small block Chevy altered from Chicago. This time I went ahead and did a longer burnout to lay down some rubber. Another wave to the crowd, caught by Jerry Giles and Bandit along with some others in the crowd. Back behind the line, Pappy gives me the fist smack and I creep into the beams. I want to be shallow for ET, knowing Newburg and Motry are making life tough on us. The car launches, still wheeling higher than we like to have it, and starts heading for the centerline. I pedal it, and got it headed back into the groove in my lane, and back down on the throttle. I am hitting the air shift buttons and have the steering wheel turned to the left, foot to the floor. The car just keeps on thinking it needs to be in the right lane. That would have been ok, except that we started in the left one. Most tracks require you to finish in the same lane you start in. I know, for a fuel altered it seems like a silly rule, but it is a rule none-the-less. Around 1100 foot it is pretty near the centerline again, so I finally have to lift, crank the wheel even further to the left, and nail it again. As you can imagine, when you lift on one of these solid suspension cars, they get a tinge loose after that. It was moving around pretty good, but I convinced her to tip-toe down the centerline without getting any timers. It went 6.55 @ only 208 mph with lifting 2-times on the run. It would have been another team record run if not for having to lift. That put us #3 in the show!
As I waited on the guys to come down get me, Justin’s funny car did a burnout, and Mini-Me {his driver’s nickname}, was unable to get the car into reverse. It idles on down the track. Then my old buddy Kevin Newburg, with the borrowed engine, ran another 6.21 in the lane I was just in. Now how do you like that? He ran a 6.21 Fri night, blows that engine up, borrows an IHRA legal Alky funny car engine, and ran another 6.21 the next day. That was impressive I thought.
The car is serviced. I jumped on the fuel some more to calm it down a bit. We are ready for 1st round. While waiting, the first of the rainstorms came thru. It delayed things a little over an hour. Around 8PM the 1st round began. We were going to race a black Corvette. I was told it hadn’t been run on Nitro prior to this event. It sounded darn good in the pits when they pulled the Nitro lever on! Nothing against the big show 85% cars, but if you want to hear a car snap and pop go to a nostalgia event and listen to one on 95%! They don’t compare.
Justin has Kevin in the 1st round. Mini-Me does a burnout, and has the same problem. As he idles down the track Kevin has the option, and elects to back up and not make the run. He will be in the next round by default. Little Justin and Lucas came by, wished me good luck and updated me on what was going on. When it was our turn, I held my guys back from firing our car until they started the funny car. I felt since they hadn’t run their car, it might take a bit longer for them to complete the starting line procedure. It turned out to be a good call. I was able to sit there and wait while they tried repeatedly to get it to start. Since I wasn’t running, our team and the track gave them every chance to make the race. Finally, we were told it was a single, and motioned to fire our car. Since it was a single, and the rain has washed the track I did a very long burnout. It was another tire smoking 7.56 at 200 MPH. I knew the track wasn’t going to be there after the rain so I was ready for it to do exactly what it did. One thing that amazed me. We had to work really hard to be able to run over 200 MPH a couple of years ago. Now that we have broken that barrier, the car seems to run 200 no matter how much I pedal. A 7.50 Et shouldn’t be anywhere near a 200 MPH run.
We serviced the car, and were ready for the next round. It was Tom Motry, Kevin Newburg, the altered from Chicago and us still in. Then the major rain came and ended all the fun. I believe I would have raced Kevin in the next round, and it would have been a good one. Of course I told Justin and Lucas I would have whipped him!
Thanks for reading my what I did last weekend report,
Rapid
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:34 pm
Excellent recap as always Randy 
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:42 pm
You and Lippy are gettin' MUCH better on report'n, Rapid...Great Read!!!
Glad things are heading the right direction....(ummm...just a reminder though...the "right" direction is Forward.....NOT side to side.....LOL!!!)
Glad things are heading the right direction....(ummm...just a reminder though...the "right" direction is Forward.....NOT side to side.....LOL!!!)
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:52 pm
He just thinks he's marchin on the battlefield .. left, right, left, right
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 1:23 pm
Great report Randy as usual, some day I'm gonna get me some power! I always enjoy your in depth reports, I feel like I'm in the car with ya!! 
You guys are a class act, you will always be in the hunt. I hate to say this but.....Randy, you are my favorite driver!....... there I said it!!! I can't wait to see how your car runs on a good track with your new tune. Way to go bud, it was a hoot!
I always enjoy your in depth reports, I feel like I'm in the car with ya!! You guys are a class act, you will always be in the hunt. I hate to say this but.....Randy, you are my favorite driver!....... there I said it!!! I can't wait to see how your car runs on a good track with your new tune. Way to go bud, it was a hoot!Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 1:27 pm
These are great. I didn't even realize they were here. 
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 3:33 pm
You oh, Rapid one, are one of the story tellers hall of famers. I be lookin' over your shoulder as you be sawing on the wheel and stomping the go pedal. Very good.