August 20, 2007

Over the weekend I finished up the car and I just took my good 'ole sweet time going over a lot of little details because we have two races this week. We're racing Friday night at Sunshine and Saturday night in Bradenton.

On Sunday, we were having a little cook out at the house with some family and the Wittings were going to come up and join us. As it turned out, I got a call from Paul late in the afternoon and he had just gotten out of the hospital. He took his girls boating early in the morning and they stopped on a reef to get out of the boat and cool off when he stepped on a sting ray. Ouch !!!! He was at work today, sore but OK. Paul said the tetnis shot made his arm hurt as much as the sting ray barb hurt his foot.

We run methanol alcohol in the race car and the stuff is very corrosive. As a result, you have to always pay particular attention to the fuel system and keep all of the components like the fuel pump, carb and regulator well lubed so that things don't stick or oxidize. I use WD-40 like it's going out of style but it works very well. I did take the fuel filter, regulator and carb apart just to check everything and make sure there were no problems. I did replace the needles and seats in the carb because I dicovered a small burr in the brass seats. I normally check these with a magnifying glass just because they are so sensative to a good running fuel system. When you think about it, it's hard to believe this little motor uses 189 main jets.

On the way home from work tonight I stopped and picked up a new tow ring and mounted it in the nose of the car. The old one was rusted and I wanted to beef it up from a 3/8" shaft to a 1/2" shaft. Sometimes more is better.

Tomorrow night I'm going to throw a coat of wax on the car, Armor All up the tires and we'll be ready for Friday night.