Paul Fink Motorsports: October 22, 2007

This weekend we headed to Reynolds, Georgia to compete in the NHRA Division 2 points race in Super Comp. It was the final points race of the year and we were looking forward to a weekend away. Seeing that we were going as a family and taking additional kids along, of course we got a late start Thursday night and arrived at the track around 3:00am Friday morning in the rain.

Friday turned out to be wet as the rain continued until early afternoon. We were finally able to get through tech about 3:00pm and the kids were bored to death because of the weather but we survived through it. Friday evening, Mid-State RV Sales threw a racer appreciation Bar-B-Q which was well attended and appreciated by everyone there. Sonny's Bar-B-Q catered the event and the pulled pork was excellent as well as the live music. It's really hard to argue with free food, especially great food.

As this was the last chance for most racers to earn points towards either a divisional or world championship, the place was packed to the gills with racers. There were at least 500 racers as the Super Gas field alone had 91 entries. The Super Comp field was filled with most of the really heavy hitters in the nation including Edmond Richardson, Gary Stinnet and Bob Fuller just to name a few.

On Saturday, the weather was great and we had ideal racing conditions of high 70°'s to low 80°'s with 25% relative humidity. Unfortunately, I was having serious fuel system delivery problems. On my first pass the fuel filter was clogged up and my main line fuel pressure dropped to under 10 lbs. Right after the 330 foot mark the car fell on it's nose as I ran the fuel bowls out of fuel. To remedy the situation I pulled the element out of the filter which visually looked clean and the pressure came right back up.

On the second pass the same thing happened and then I discovered that my fuel pressure gauge was defective as it showed 2 lbs of pressure with nothing connected to it. It's a good thing I had a spare gauge so I replaced it and had to reset the fuel pressure. While I was at it, I stripped the carb to make sure everything was clean. At this point because of the rain out Friday, I was out of time runs, had a new set up on the car and I was lost for a throttle stop setting, so, all I could do was serve up a WAG (wild ass guess).

Sunday was another Chamber of Commerce type of day. Beautiful racing weather as well as comfortable. For a Florida boy who is used to sweating like crazy in 80% humidity and temperatures in the mid nineties, it was great. I had some serious guessing to do, so, I threw some numbers in the box and crossed my fingers.

As it turned out, the car ran it's quickest 60 foot ever and ran flawlessly in the first round. I had to run a very experienced Skip Wall who is one of the owners of Lokar Products. He welded me to the tree and I ran an 8.98 on the 8.90 index because I threw way too much delay in the box for the throttle stop. Skip did a good job of not breaking out and took the race by .03. The only good thing about it was I figured out the problems and now the car is back to normal so dialing it in now should be a simple matter with a few runs.

The drive back home should have been uneventful but noooooo, not for me. Just south of Perry, Georgia a Greyhound bus driver pulled up beside me and pointed to me, then backwards. Yeah, I knew what that meant. By the way, thanks Greyhound! I blew a trailer tire. Actually not just blew it but shredded it. Take a look, what do you think? I'm just thankful that I had enough room on the side of I-75 not to get mowed over by a passing 18 wheeler. The rest of the trip went flawlessly and we did make it home by 11:00pm Sunday night.