The Plastic Fantastic Nostalgia Nitro Funnycar

[Jim Kalb]

now that's what i'm talking about.great stuff randy.
i can smell the nitro.

[Rapid Randy Baker]

Down for editing, back up soon.

[pro70z28]

Thanks for the report Randy. Sounds like you guys are starting to get the new car sorted out.

[jim sanders]

great report !!

[Rapid Randy Baker]

2008 Cow Town Nationals at KCIR

This event is well on the way to establishing itself as the kick off event for the Nostalgia season here in the Midwest. It has been held at Kansas City, Mo for the last few years now, after the original hosting track in Wentzville closed. The quality of the event just keeps improving. This year there were Alky funnys, FED, Ozark Mountain Super Shifters, and of course NITRO Funnycars. The weather was perfect with full sun, about time here in the Midwest I might add, and warm temps. It was by far the nicest weekend that we have had to date this year.

I want to start off by saying what a good job all the cars did of making the call and keeping the show moving along. It was set on a nice pace to keep the crowd entertained, but give the racers necessary time to service the cars for the next round. I also need to thank Frank and Scott Parks for welding a parachute support for us on Sunday morning. They are always friendly, and will do whatever they can to help out a fellow racer. I know they have helped me on various occasions as well as with any tech info when asked. It was great to see a bunch of friends, some of them fellow racers, some from the internet, and some that have just become friends through all the years of racing.

Next in line is a big "Atta Boy" goes out to Jake, Mike Litzau, and Mark Hutcheson with the All Star Dodge NFC. He made some nice runs, and put a whipping on us. Jake even had the nerve to leave on me a time or two. Hard to get respect from the Cave Dwellers for us Altered guys I tell ya. I just have to assume he did so well because one of his crew guys, Mike also works on The Wing" AA/FA. As you can imagine we had a lot of fun hanging out, and teasing Jake and Danny about making a roadster out of both cars. Congratulations to the team, a great bunch of guys.

I don't have the time slip info here in front of me. It might be in my racing suit pants pocket. I will have to dig it up. The 1st run was late afternoon on Saturday. We were running at the end of the session. Danny wanted a little more heat in the engine, so we fired first and I rolled through the water and hit it. At Indy last year, and at the March Meet, the only other times I have driven this car we were in a large group of cars. So the burnouts were short to match the other car and not hold up the show. With it already having been discussed with Jake, I did a little longer burnout. It wasn't a 1/2 track or anything, but longer than we had been doing. When the car rolled to a stop, back into low gear {Just for you Bob Bradley}, I moved the reverse lever to engage reverse, sweet success. It went in and I brought the car back behind the line. Danny has been after me to do a couple of dry hops. I haven't because I didn't want to do anything to change the way the car had been leaving the line. Since this was to be a match race, it seemed a good time to give it a try. OH YEAH, the dry hops are a lot of fun, and a bunch of people mentioned them when they stopped by to talk or buy a tee shirt. I pre-staged 1st, then Jake came in. We both rolled into the stage beams at the same time. At the flash of yellow we both left hard, but with one small difference. My steering wheel came off in my hands. It wasn't clicked onto the steering column and here I am with the car accelerating and no way to guide it except by osmosis! I got the wheel back on, as I took my foot off the throttle, but it would not click and lock into place. I finally ended up stopping the car on the track and tried messing with it. The track official came out, looked in and using hand signals said I could shut off if I wanted to. I knew if I did, we would have to push back out of the way, and there were some other cars waiting to run behind us. So I waved him off and idled down the track holding the wheel on. Of course, after I made the turn out, and pushed on the wheel again, you guessed it, CLICK right into place. Round 1 to Jake.

When Danny found out what went wrong, he went up to the tower. He told them we would run again, and not charge for that pass, as we didn't really make a run. I thought that was a pretty stand up thing to do. Not all racers would have made that same offer.

We serviced the car and went up for the last run of the evening. It seemed like a pretty decent burnout again. At the hit the car spun the tires and made a pretty big move towards the centerline. It was flirting with the 60-foot cone. A pedal or two and I was able to bring it back. Around 450-500 feet I put it in high and was heading for the finish line. Just about the 1000 foot cone, I felt it nose over so I lifted and coasted across the line. Chutes out, fuel off, and it was nice to hear the engine slow down and die. On other runs when it would hurt a piston, or worse, it would keep running on it's own oil. So I felt it probably was ok. The car was real hard on rods at the March Meet. Danny has just installed a new dry sump oil system with the help of Tom Motry. It seems like that solved that problem. It now carries 18-qts of oil on a run.

The 1st run on Sunday, we were back in the left lane. Jake and I did side by side burnouts, and almost at the exact same time lifted and coasted to a stop together. We both backed up together as well. A couple of dry hops, and into the beams. Jake left just before the tree flashed, I left when it flashed yellow and was gone right behind him. Right at the transition where they stopped spraying the track the car again went left. I was cranking the wheel to the right, but the car just kept driving to the left. I lifted right as it bumped the left outside wall. When I lifted, the car started responding to the steering wheel, so as it came off the wall I stabbed it again. It had a weird tone so I just let it idle down the track. Lucky the damage was only the header, and about 3-stickers that got too hot from the "NEW" angle of the exhaust header.

Man two launches, and both times the car drove to the left. It was time to investigate. The only changes to the car were new slicks, which measured out fine, and the dry sump. Hold it, a new dry sump tank on the left front, 18-qts of oil, on the left front. We had also previously mounted the weight bar on the left front,,,,humm starting to see a pattern here? Rich was actually the one who got me to thinking about that. The weight bar was moved to the right front, the car was serviced and we went up for the final race. Jake and his guys are really in the groove with Danny's guys. The cars fire together, we do side by side burnouts, a couple of dry hops and Jake and I stage together. Finally, I nailed the tree with a .066 and managed to leave on him. The car went right down the middle of the track like it was supposed to. It went rich just before the finish line, so I lifted and watched Jake take the stripe,,,again drat.

It was a great weekend. We were able to put the car in the box without damage. Greg Green supplied both teams with his excellent BBQ meals all weekend. The fans seemed to enjoy themselves; we sold some tee shirts and had fun. Thanks for all the effort from Seth, Rich, Harry, and of course Danny Miller. Dorothy, Danny's wife and Colleen, his daughter came to watch. Laura and Mike, my family, along with Paul a buddy of Mike's helped out on the car and enjoyed the nice weather and racing.

I hope you enjoyed my "What I Did Last Weekend" story,

Rapid

[Novel-T]

Great writing,Randy,I'll need to take some deep breathes and calm down now

[Rapid Randy Baker]

Thanks Wheelz, Pro, and Doc!

NovelT, Laura says to stop letting it act like an altered.

Thanks for the comments guys,

Rapid

[Mr. Jean]

Thanks for the update Randy. Hope things go better next time out.

[Eric David Bru]

Great report~!

EDB