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Have fun Perry!!

Well...
We had fun, then we had more fun, we actually had a lot of fun - but then it kinda ended on a sour note...

I'll save the sour part till the end (just to keep ya hangin')

The weather turned out pretty nice. It was HOT and humid - the air was terrible. But it only rained on Friday afternoon after we were done racing, and Sat afternoon between the time trials and the race, so it didn't affect us. (OK, it rained out Sundays activities, but that didn't affect us either..)

First run Friday - Did my burnout, staged, got ready to hit it for the first time and chase it all over the track. Hit the throttle and nothing happened, then it went - barrel valve is a bit on the lean side. When it did pick it up it went right on the new bar, veered slightly left then went straight on down. I figured after all that it can't be going too fast, so I didn't pull the chute. Whoa nelly! I realized the mistake after getting bounced all over the shutdown on the brakes. Got the time slip - 9.06 @ 151 - the little guy likes the top end.

2nd run - Fattened the barrel valve up - it came right up on the hit this time. Again it veered slightly left on the bar, then I straightened her out and smoked the tires a bit. 8.81 - getting better.

The rain came and we were in the trailer.

Saturday 1st run - Adjusted the wheelie bar a little to the right (half a turn on each heim joint) and left everything else the same as it was. That did it - like running on a wire! Still smoked the tires at about 30-50'. 8.85.

We're running an 8.60 index, so I've got to find 2 tenths somewhere. It's running fat as a pig - the plugs still look like new after 3 runs. I took .008 fuel away.

Saturday 2nd run - Another straight run (this is getting almost boring ) 8.76! Better - and the air hasn't changed much, so the fuel adjustment definately helped. That qualified me #7 for the nights race.

Changed the oil and did the general maintenance for the race. Watched it rain at the far end of the track. We didn't get wet where we were at the starting line, but they took a half hour to dry the shutdown off.

1'st round - The air is not great but it's better than it was this afternoon. I left the tuneup where it was. I was paired up with Randy Sacksteder's Hemi-fied Willys. I've been cutting terrible lights all weekend, and this one wasn't very good either, but I got him on the tree and stayed ahead the entire track. It was a great race - his front fender was right with my door the whole track. I won - 8.64 over his 8.67. This sent the home town crowd into a tizzy - it was definately a good feeling!

2'nd round - (beware of impending doom...) I was paired up with Ryan Sacksteder and his yellow Corvette. Ryan is one heck of a racer and can really kill the tree. I had my best light of the weekend - a .500 (remember - I said I was cutting terrible lights ) But it was nothing against his .406. My hope was to get close enough to him to get him to break out. My hope ended with the car vibrated and the noise stopped at about 900'.

So my weekend was done with a crack in the block and half a rod cap in the diaper. I haven't gotten it out of the car yet to do a complete survey, but the initial look doesn't look real good. We'll stay optimistic for now though

So it looks like the wheelie bar has definately helped in the erratic behavior. It's very stable and straight on the bar now. It's kind of weird lauching it and not looking at the sky - but I can deal with that It looks like I may be under-tired. I'm running 12" tires where most of the class is running 14's or more, this may be why I'm smoking them off the line. I need to try lowering the pressure, maybe running a higher rear end gear to knock off some of the low end power at the hit.

On the motor side - it looks like we've got some serious oiling problems that we need to resolve. When it's hot, I've got 50-60 lbs of pressure, which we've figured is enough - maybe we're figuring wrong with the clearances that we're running. I'll get it apart and survey the situation - and the bank account - and figure out what the next step is.

Congrats on the first part, and awwww crap! on the second half. Racing sure is fun though.

Good report. Sorry about the diaper dump though.

Yeah - racing is fun - I'm glad we got the race in on Sat night. We were originally scheduled for Sunday - which got rained out. We weren't even supposed to run on Sat night, but then the tower opened a couple lanes up for time trials between the gamblers race rounds. We all go together and decided to go up as a group and pair off in the time lanes. So we got everyones best times from the earlier runs and made up our own ladder. The tower got wind of what we were up to and they put us in there as part of the program. I think the crowd enjoyed us more than the rest of the 'show' that they were running.

Perry sorry about that deal. Definitely something goofy there. You may be on to something with the big clearance low oil press deal.

Ouch. Hope you get er' back together soon Perry.

Perry I was digging it,,,until the bad news came. It sounds like things are on the right path,,,Good luck and I hope it isn't too bad!