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.