Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 10:56 pm
First time I layed eyes on the Dunn&Gone car. This version I'm talkin!
2009 INDY GOOD GUYS
It is hard to believe the Rear Gears Nitro Funny Car has raced at the Indy event the last 3-years in a row. Anybody who has been around drag racing for any length of time, going to Indy to race is the holy grail of the year. We had high hopes for the weekend after running a career best of 6.18 at the St. Louis race.
Friday the team all arrived from various points of the compass. The plan for the weekend was to run in the qualifying session on Friday. Then sit out the Saturday early session to be ready for 1st round on Saturday night. That part of the plan worked out just fine, sort of. We were called to the lanes to run behind the top fuel dragsters. Randy Walls and I were going to be the first pair out, so when they were down to a few pairs of fuelers left, we both suited up, and got strapped in. It was nearly 1 ½ hours later when we fired up. If you have never gotten to sit in a Funnycar strapped down tight in the Midwest heat you are really missing out on one of life's little joys, NOT.
We let “the other” Randy fire and head to the water as we were going to do a short burnout and no dry hops. This was just to convince ourselves that we did indeed have plenty of fuel to make the run. Running low at St. Louis still had us a tad nervous. I pre-staged, Randy did the same. I put it on the high-side and then rolled on into the staged beam. It made a decent move off the line, and was stuck right in the middle of the lane. I pulled high around 400-feet out, and was really enjoying the ride. Around 7-800 feet I could tell it was running OK, but not really pulling as hard as it should. Just before the 1000-foot cone I felt it give a little quiver, and I lifted. We coasted across the finish line with a 6.44 @ 188 MPH. That ended up being good enough for #4 qualifying position.
Back in the pits we did a leak down on the cylinders, and found out #4 was hurt. It was still early, so we pulled it apart, replaced the sleeve and piston, the buttoned it back up. The run schedule at the race was really race team friendly. We left the track with time to go have dinner even.
Saturday we finished servicing the car, then Dave Hough {Nanook} came over and spent some time talking with us. Dave has been doing this Nitro deal so long he is like a walking book of knowledge. It is nice to bounce ideas around with him. Danny, Dave, Laura, and I went up and sat with Randy Walls team to watch the final qualifying session.
Before we warmed the car up, we richened the fuel system idle side to help out the pistons right at the hit. Time to go run 1st round. We had our friend John Dunn in his new Duster to race against. John likes to do long burnouts and 2-dry hops. We both did the burnouts, I waited behind the line after backing up from the burnout for John to finish the dry hops. When I heard his 2nd one, Danny guided me into the pre-stage beam. I put it on the high side, checked to make sure John was pre-staged, then put it in the beams. I knew I would have to cut a light, and was pretty sure John had stepped his hot rod up to race us. I was convinced I had something for him if ours would run all the way to the stripe. With a flash of yellow I stomped the pedal and was lucky enough to get out on him. I pulled high a little later on this run, around 450-feet and it was running like it was on a string. I could feel it wasn't really pulling like it should, and at 1318-feet she gave up. I stepped off the throttle and saw John's fender appear in my side window opening. I couldn't tell who won, but found out later John won by .009 thou of a second. John said he saw the back of our car for a long time, but could see he was gaining on us and kept his foot in it.
Our hopes of winning Indy were over for another year. While leaking the engine we found 3-cylinders that were hurt. Time to go back to the shop and look everything over, and start at square one to see why this is happening.
Danny came up with the reason it was being so hard on pistons during dinner that night. The brightened our evening considerably.
The car is apart, Danny and the crew are fixing the problem getting ready for Cordova Nostalgia Fest next weekend. Come on out and see us at the track.
I hope you liked my “What I did Last Weekend” story,
Rapid
