September 27, 2007

I arrived at Atllanta Dragway last night around 2:30am after a 9 hour drive from Clearwater. As you can see I wasn't the first in line by any means. There were 42 racers in front of me and this morning there were about 70 in line by the time they let us in the track at 11:00am.
The weather here is great. I woke up to 79 degrees and a relative humidity of 32.83 %. Just beautiful. There was a small threat of a few rain drops this afternoon but they never appeared.

Today is a testing and tuning day as official time runs begin tomorrow. It's a really good thing. After my first two time runs the best I could run was a 9.011 at 145.39 mph. I need desperately to pick up over a tenth. After calling Kris Nelson for some advise, I took the 189 jets out of the carb and leaned it out with 176 jets, lowered the tire pressure to 5 lbs and added 15 degrees more heat in the motor before pulling out of the staging lanes. The car responded well with an 8.78 and 8.81 ETs right at 150 mph. I was also knocking down the tree with a great .003 reaction time. Things are really starting to look up. Now it's just a matter of dialing the car in to the 8.90 index.

One of the benefits of going to big races like this is getting to see racers that travel who you haven't seen in a long time such as Gary Stinnet, Sherman Adcock and others. Some guys come to the test and tune sessions to work hard on getting their cars to run right and some guys come just to relax and get away from the blistering pace of everyday life. And then again, maybe some of us do both.

Thanks to the marvels of technology, Atlanta Dragway has a WiFi connection that allows me to update my blog from inside my motorhome at the track. How cool is that?

September 24, 2007

Throttle stops are a necessary evil if you do any type of Super class racing like I do. I'm a die hard Super Comp racer and I love nothing more than running a Pro tree in the heads up 8.90 class. However, in order to slow the car down and be deadly consistent we all need one of these little, evil, Co2 powered puppies. It's this little jewel that has been at the heart of my problem of not being able to get wide open throttle.

Tonight I bought a new one and put it on the car. It fit perfectly first time and I made a couple other little tweaks and it appears that I now have full throttle and a good idle. This has been driving me nuts for some time now so I'm happy to have the problem resolved. I'm ready to be gremlin free once for a change.

I'm now all geared up and prepared to run the NHRA Division 2 points race this weekend in Atlanta (actually Commerce, GA about an hour northeast of Atlanta). I'm hitting the road Wednesday right after work and I'm really looking forward to a great weekend. I really hope we have good weather.

September 23, 2007

This weekend was interesting to say the least. After discussing it with Mike Scott, we deciding not to race this weekend because of the horrible weather forecast. The prediction was for rain all weekend just like Wednesday and Thursday. As it turned out Friday was beautiful. About 11am I decided if this great weather keeps up I'm going racing. I worked straight through lunch so that I could bail out at 3:30pm and head home to load up. I made it back to Sunshine by 6:00pm just in time to miss the first time run. Long story short, I found most of the performance however, I lost in the second round. My competitor strapped a .006 light on me and I broke out by .001. But...that's drag racing. I ran a 5.679 with 2/3 throttle so I was pleased with the performance. Now I just had to get the full throttle thing worked out.

Saturday I took care of some of the motorhome maintenance things then headed to Bradenton. I got to the track about noon and then proceeded to load and unload the car I think 4 times between spritzles. Dick Swenson and I were at the head of staging ready to race when it started sprinkling again and that was the one that polished off the event. After that one they couldn't get the track dry enough to race. We all got rain checks for October 20th. Other than getting to meet new people and bench racing the day was rather miserable because of the rain. Drier days are ahead.

September 20, 2007

As promised, the torque converter situation turned real ugly. As it turns out, there wasn't enough meat on the side walls of the converter hub to take it down as planned.

After intense conversations with John Winter Sr. at J.W. Performance Transmissions and after giving him my new converter to modify, we compromised and took the hub down .110" and I had to massage the inside of the crankshaft with a grinding stone to gain the balance of the needed clearance. It was a painstaking, slow process of grinding, checking with a caliper, trial fitting the converter and repeating the whole process until it fit. This process took hours but it finally fits perfectly and the car is all back together.

Of course seeing that we were planning on running Friday and Saturday nights the weather forecast is 60% chance of rain. We decided to give up on any chance of racing Friday night and we'll go to Bradenton early Saturday morning to test and tune before the evening race. We just need to get a few passes in to prepare for next week's NHRA Division 2 points race in Atlanta. At least now we should be able to easily run the number.

Isn't it just amazing how much work goes into one 8 second pass down the quarter mile or one 5 second pass down the eighth mile? Phenomenal!

September 15, 2007

This picture is getting to look way too familiar. However, believe it or not, there is light at the end of the tunnel. As you can see we are in the middle of a torque converter change which we are hoping will really pick the car up both by ET and mph.

I'm not a rookie at changing torque converters. I have probably done it 200 times in my lifetime and always with small blocks. It's really a pretty simple procedure. You drop the converter in twice onto the input shaft, put the transmission in the car, line up the bolt holes and bolt it up. The center hub of the converter fits in the crankshaft socket and that's it. However, we just discovered that my stupid crankshaft has a 1.63" hole to accept a standard 1.70" converter hub. That's like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. When you look at it from the bottom you can't see that the hub doesn't fit inside the socket. Did this crankshaft come from Mars? No wonder the car won't run right, geeeezzz. I'm going to catch so much flack over this, it's gonna be ugly.

On Monday I'm going to have both converter hubs turned down .20" a quarter of an inch deep and that problem should be history. The car should then pick up a ton and really run it's potential. I just can't wait as I have a hard time dealing with miserable performances like last night at Sunshine.

Last night at Sunshine, Nicole Markwart won the Right Trailers Dead-On money with a perfect 4.950 ET run on a 4.95 Dial in. She accomplished this in the eighth pair of the first round. It's a good thing for her that she was up front as Mark Young was a few pair behind her and ran dead on also. As a result, Nicole is $50 richer.

Seoptember 12, 2007

Tonight is a test and tune night at Sunshine and they run the Top Dog program. The evening started out well and I got one time run. Taking the advice of Hugh Scott, I upped my tire pressure to 6-1/2 lbs. The results were interesting. It didn't effect either my 60 foot time or ET but it did do two very distinct things. It increased my mile per hour between 2-3 and the launch didn't feel like a washboard. The advice in my opinion was very good.

About 8:00pm we were in staging for our first Top Dog qualifying run. I was keeping my eye on the clouds as the eastern sky was developing huge black ominous looking clouds that were rapidly moving right towards us. I had been in staging to long and things weren't moving so I decided to break ranks and head to the trailer. That was the smartest thing I've done this week. No sooner had I finished loading the car and hooking up the trailer than the sky let loose to a tremendous downpour. I made it just in time.

So...I guess we just wait for Friday night and go racing.

August 8, 2007

Today, Right Trailers had an open house at their facility in Lakeland. This morning I took the dragster over there to display and chat with customers. It was a great time as they had a live radio station feed, great hot dogs and a bunch of inquisitive customers. It was also great to spend time with the employees and to get to know them all better. It was the first time they had seen the car with the graphics and I think everyone enjoyed the experience. I know I did.

You can see all of the pictures in the photo section of the website www.paulfinkmotorsports.com/photos.htm

August 7, 2007

In my many years of drag racing, I have had races cancelled due to rain, snow, mud, bugs (yes, once we were bugged out at Gainesville because of love bugs), lightning, asphalt peeling up off of the track, power loss and now tonight, we had a race cancelled because Sunshine's computer system went down and couldn't be repaired. Humpty Dumpty fell off the deep end and nobody could put him back together again. And so, we all got rain checks for next Friday night.

I did get one time run in and the car ran the identical 60 foot time from Wednesday night so the car is deadly consistent. I was ready to race, however the saga continues of how to get the car running right again. Add more tire pressure, run less tire pressure, it's the motor, it's the converter. I've come to a decission and a game plan. This coming Wednesday night I'm going to bump my tire pressure up to 6-1/2 lbs and see what happens. Next, I'm sending one of my converters off to J.W. in Rockledge to have it freshened up. I'll throw it in the car when I get it back and if the car picks up, I will know I have a junk converter. If the car runs the same I will have a serious conversation with my engine builder. So, it's eliminate one thing at a time.

September 5, 2007

The key to success in drag racing boils down to two things, consistency and making less mistakes than your competitors. I'll address the later first.

Sunshine Drag Strip is the winningest drag strip in the country. The track holds more NHRA Division II championships and consecutive championships than any other. When you race here, you race against the very best of the best. These guys make very few mistakes. They will eat you for lunch and spit you out if you make even the slightest slip up. So this part of the equation is very difficult to achieve.

Consistency is also a two part affair. First is driver consistency and the second is the consistency of the car. Our car right now, even though it is slow, is deadly consistent. Hooray, we have part of the equation licked. As a driver I'm still working on my consistency but I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I'm still getting quicker reaction times but I expect they will level off soon as in the past two weeks I've had to add .068 more delay in my delay box just to keep from red lighting. To no avail, I still went .006 red tonight after adding another .015 delay to the box from what I had in it at Bradenton. I'm chopping the tree down and not even using an ax.

Tonight I took the car to Sunshine for the Wednesday night test and tune and tried to qualify for the Top Dog quickest 8 car shootout. Well, it took a 5.12 ET to make the Top Dog field so that was out of the question. I really wanted a few hits at the tree and attempted to figure out why the car is slow. In Bradenton we discovered that the butterflies on the carb weren't opening all the way so that adjustment was made but it still ran the same. Go figure???

I got two passes in, a 5.83 and a 5.84. Nothing to write home about but they were very consistent (only .007 apart) especially when you figure that the relative humidity jumped from 56% to 66% between runs. Tomorrow I'm going to get together with my engine builder and transmission builder to try and figure this out. The car should run in the 5.30 zone so it's a full half second slow in the eighth mile (which is light years by our standards).

We're going to give it a hard shot this Friday night. Kris Nelson offered to video tape our runs so we can slow motion the run to try and find out what's happening and explain why we are running slow. That's something I wanted to do anyway, then post the video on the website. Stay tuned.

September 1, 2007

I arrived in Bradenton just after midnight and parked in the Cracker Barrel parking lot so I would be there for breakfast at 6:00am, then get to the track around 7:15 or so.

Today there are two races in one day. A $2500 to win quarter mile race that begins at noon and a $5000 to win race that begins at 6:00pm. It's going to be a long day and I'm supposed to meet Mike Scott from Right Trailers at 7:30am as we have lots of promotional things to do as well.

I had a lot of confidence today because the car is consistent. I'm not yet but I'm getting there. In my time run I ran a 9.329 with very similar incremental times as last night at Sunshine. The only thing was I killed the tree with an .064 red light. Holy cow!!! Where did that come from? I guess I'm just getting more acclimated to the tree.

For the first round I put a bunch in the delay box to slow my reaction time down and dialed a 9.32. I ran a dead on 9.320 but still red lit by .022. I just can't believe I'm knocking the tree down like this. Well, I paid the $35 and buy back into the second round. For the second round I decided to dial a 9.31 and I added a bunch more delay to the box to slow down the reaction time. This time it works and I get a beautiful .010 light and the run feels good. As I hit the finish line I'm looking around everywhere to try and find this 7.90 dragster I'm running and I can't find him so I tap the brake near the stripe and he blows right by me at 176 mph to take an .0086 margin of victory. I was ready to scream because I gave that one away. Ahhhhhh !!!!

In the first round of the second race I had a major brain fart at the starting line (I don't even want to discuss it) and still lucked into a win. How? I haven't a clue, but a win is a win is a win. I'll take it!! In the second round I bulbed away another one by .018 and ran .02 over while the guy I was running ran .02 under. Ahhhhhh !!!!!!

Ok.... what have I learned from this? I think it's that as a driver, I'm still adjusting to finding my point to stage and getting used to the tree again as it seems my reactions times just keep getting quicker and quicker. I think soon I'll reach a point where they level out and I'll find that driver consistency that I need.

I guess there's always next weekend......

August 31, 2007

After all the rain we have had, we finally got a race in Friday night at Sunshine and kicked off the Right Trailers Dead-On Dollars program. It was hot and it was muggy but thankfully, it was dry.

The photo is of Fred Johns who is the first Right Trailers Dead-On winner. It didn't take any time at all. He won in the first round by running a 6.800 ET on his 6.80 dial in. That was an easy $50 Fred!

Whoever said that drag racing is easy should be taken out back and flogged. It's hard, very hard. Last weekend (if you read my previous blog you'll know) it rained right as we were about to run first round in Bradenton. After wiggling my way out of the staging lanes when I was quickly driving the dragster back to the trailer while the rain was coming down I drove the dragster directly into the trailer to avoid getting the electronics wet. I've done this many times before with the nose attached to the car with no problem. However, I didn't realize Paul folded the flap of the trailer door up so as I drove in the bottom of the nose caught and needless to say it was mangled piece of aluminum. I now have a new fiberglass nose after struggling to get it done by Friday night. It does look good though.

Having been away from the sport for 14 years, there are a few things you forget until you are reminded of them like adjusting shifter linkages and then there are the new things like crank triggers and setting your timing with one that is completely different than your typical put the timing light on the balancer and twist the distributor. I had to get a quick lesson about rotor phasing. I really have to thank Kris Nelson (my engine builder) for coming out and offering his help squaring away a few minor things.

As soon as I got to the track I noticed I had a big bubble on the side of one of my trailer tires. First thing right off the bat was change it out and put the spare on. The good thing was it didn't happen after the race as I was driving to Bradenton. That would have been a real nightmare. It's always something.

The car is running slow however it is running slow very consistently which is perfect for bracket racing. Tonight I won the first round with a 5.85 on a 5.80 dial with a .034 light. It was a miracle win but hey..I'll take them anyway they come. The other guy fell asleep at the tree with a .155 light and I squeezed out the win by a .0787 seconds.

For the second round I was dialed in. I dialed a 5.83 and ran a 5.831 the only problem was I red lit by .032 and gave the race away. The other guy was asleep at the tree with a .176 reaction time and ran almost .03 over his dial so I should have been into the 3rd round. Oh well..that's drag racing.

I packed up and left the track around 11:15pm and drove straight to Bradenton to get in line for tomorrow's race.