Paul Fink Motorsports

November 12, 2007

2007-11-13T17:53:00.001-08:00

I just got back from almost a week at Bradenton Motorsports Park for their annual 5 day Winter Series Bracket race. It all started last Monday night after work when we took our motorhome and trailer down to the track for early parking.

This may be a little hard to believe but we were about the 300th rig to pull onto the property which was more than a full day before the racing was scheduled to begin. It was an early indication of what was to come. Wall to wall dragsters.

Our trailer was against the fence at the head of staging with Edmond Richardson, Darren Long and Kurt Damron in front of us as well as Dave Janis to the side. Being surrounded by such talent, I was really hoping some positive energy would rub off. Monday night we returned home as work was a necessity on Tuesday, however, Tuesday night I returned to the track for the duration of the event.

After only a short period of time I was reminded of what it is about drag racing that I enjoy the most. It's the people. There is no other sport where people will give you the shirts off their backs to help you run and run well or where you're gladly willing to do the same, then fiercely compete, only to finish the day having dinner together.
During the race in Reynolds a couple of weeks ago, I took the fuel filter element out to cure the flow problem. I made a stupid mistake by not replacing it right away. On Wednesday, I went out and ran an 8.77 then an 8.84 ET which was very good for my set up and the weather. The car ran the quickest 1/8 mile ever at a 5.445 ET. I was also hitting the tree real hard with a -.003 red light. Well, when first round rolled around I was at the head of staging when the drag racing gremlins bit me hard and my own stupidity did me in. A small piece of trash in the fuel hung open the needle and seat in the carb secondary flooding and stalling the motor. I didn't even get to run first round. To say the least, I was not a very happy camper.

As a result of Wednesday, I sat out Thursday waiting for a new fuel filter element. Running Thursday would have been like adding one stupid move right on top of another and for me, one was enough. I spend the day getting the car ready, filtering all of my fuel and doing PR work for my sponsor. That evening my fuel filter arrived so I was ready for Friday.

On Friday, Dave Janis helped me tweak the fuel bowl levels in the carb and it responded very well to the adjustments, running the quickest passes ever 8.647 ET with a 5.467 1/8th mile ET. I was hitting the tree and won my first race as my opponent went red on the tree by -.001. In the second round I went red by -.004 and ran an 8.65 on an 8.63 dial in. Sooooooo close, yet sooooooo far away.

In the 1/8th mile race Friday night I dialed the car in at a 5.46 as I had run a 5.467 ET twice earlier in the day. During the burnout out in the first round when the tires hooked pretty violently it shook the bypass line loose on the fuel pump and created a small drip of alcohol on the track. The starter shut me off and I was toast in that race. Oh well....that's drag racing.
After all of this disappointment, I was ready for Saturday's $10K race. In the first time run, the car picked up a ton and it ran it's quickest pass ever with a 1.21 60 foot time, 5.401 ET at 126.10 mph in the 1/8th mile and 8.566 at 152.90 in the 1/4 mile. Couple that with a .008 green light and I was pumped with adrenaline and felt invincible. Needless to say, I came crashing back to earth as that feeling was short lived. I went -.011 red on the tree in the first round.

At this point in time my thinking was, well.....at least I can have another shot in the $5K 1/8th mile race late in the afternoon. My dreams of success were totally crushed in the 1/8th mile race when I fell asleep and went totally brain dead on the starting line. I dialed in with a 5.41 ET and the guy I was running had a real slow truck with a 6.81 ET dial in. I think subconsciously I didn't want to red light and I let him get to me. He ran .02 over his dial with an .033 light as he ate my lunch.

This sport is brutal. It is not easy by any means of the imagination and quite frankly, it's the most difficult thing I've ever attempted to do. So many of these racers are so very good and races are won and lost by only a couple thousandths of a second or less. (Edmond Richardson won the semi final race Wednesday night by .0004 seconds, that's 4/10,000 of a second) That's what makes winning so gratifying I guess. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. I just hate being that guy that crashes on the ski jump like on the Wide World of Sports.

October 31, 2007

2007-11-02T18:44:00.001-07:00

Tonight was a good opportunity for me to use the test and tune session at Sunshine, to get the car dialed in for next week's high dollar five day bracket races in Bradenton. After finding the problems in Reynolds, GA last week, I hadn't had a chance to run the car all out to see where I really stand. I desperately needed these time runs.

I was one of the first cars out at 6:20pm and ran a 5.592 ET at 120.87 mph. For a green track this evening it was a good pass for me. The 60 foot and 330 foot times were pretty much what I expected. However, what came next was an unbelievably pleasant surprise. I ran again at 6:42pm, 8:07pm and 8:34pm and my ETs were 5.574, 5.574 and 5.573 respectively. 3 passes, two hours apart within .001 seconds. WOW!! Talk about being deadly consistent! I could not have possibly been happier. If I can run like this next week in Bradenton, I should bring home a whole boat load of money, as long as I can hit the tree with reaction times in the teens that is.

Instead of running Top Dog tonight, the track had a Halloween costume contest which was a real hoot. Personally, I liked the cow.

Tuesday night after work I 'm headed to Bradenton for 5 days of bracket racing. Each day is a separate race and they are paying $10,000 to win each day. They also have a second chance 1/8th mile race each day that pays $5000 to win if you lose in the first round. Really exciting stuff. I expect there will be 600 of the best bracket racers on earth there. Stay tuned.

October 22, 2007

2007-10-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

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.

Just another adventure in the wild wonderful story book world of a drag racer.

October 13, 2007

2007-10-14T20:14:00.001-07:00

This was a non-racing weekend for me so there were several things that I needed to do for my sponsor. This weekend the Florida State Fairgrounds hosted the Street Rod Nationals which drew over 1600 entries. Is was an opportunity to go chat with some new potential trailer and motorhome customers so I spent most of the day just walking though the monstrous sea of the most beautiful street rods you have ever seen and chatting with their owners. I really don't impress easily but this 68 Camaro Pro Street machine was probably the most beautiful car I have ever seen in my life. It was so clean, you could have eaten off of it and it was probably capable of low 8 second passes. Explode this photo just to get an idea of the immaculate detail. I so wanted to take this car home with me, I was drooling like a baby.

Anyway, I spent the day drumming up business then went home, had dinner and headed to Sunshine as they were having a heads-up night with Pro Mods, 10.5" tire cars, 6.50 cars and the wild stock suspension class. This is a group of racers that run in different circles so even by racing at Sunshine so much on Friday nights, Right Trailers isn't exposed to them. It was the largest fan and car count turnout that I had ever witnessed at the track. They were 6 deep at the fence to watch low 4 second 1/8 mile passes. Right Trailers wound up putting up an extra $100 for the winner in the lower 3 classes which really pleased the racers and generated a little additional excitement. I wound up talking business to the racers until I was hoarse and finally got back home by 11:30pm, way before the final. It was definitely crash and burn time.

Sunday is going to be a full clean up and load up day. I need to wash the motorhome and trailer, wax the race car, fix the water heater in the motorhome and change the oil in the motorhome. All of this is to prepare for leaving with the whole familyThursday right after work for the Division 2 points race in Reynolds, GA. Now with a good Super Comp set up in the car, I'm anticipating being very, very competitive. I can't wait.

October 1, 2007

2007-10-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

This weekend was great at Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Georgia. It didn't necessarily have the outcome that I desired but the path to the top is a very long, slow process that usually requires one step at a time. As a team, our main goal this year is to get a real good handle on the car, learn how to dial it in, go some rounds then make a hard charge next year. This weekend we made some huge leaps in this process.

Friday was hot in the afternoon hitting 99.3° on my weather station but the relative humidity was down around 15% with a density altitude over 3300 feet. Even though it was hot, there was so much oxygen in the air that the car picked up again running an 8.76 ET and a 1.224 60 foot time. Not bad for the combination in the stage it's in. I was also starting to get a good handle on the tree with 2 reaction times within .002 of each other.

Saturday's weather was very similar to Friday's and the car ran just as planned. Mike and Hugh Scott from Right Trailers flew up to join us for the day helping out with the car and visiting with other racers who were interested in a new trailer or motorhome. That's Hugh with me in the staging lanes.

I won my first round race when the other guy had a .237 light and I was able to slow to a 9.10 ET for the win. Good, bad or ugly, geez..winning is fun!!!

If you were wondering just how good the traction was in Atlanta, take a close look at my front tires in this photo. The car is hooking really hard and the launches are great. I feel pretty good about the way the car transfers the weight at the launch so the set up appears to be just right.

Sunday however was a totally different ball game. Very early Sunday morning I needed to turn the furnace of the motorhome on it got so cold. At 8:00am it was 47.1° and when you exhaled outside you could see your breath. Additionally the relative humidity increased to about 45% so cars were going to fly today. The Super Street cars picked up over .15 in their 9:00am first round so the track was really fast.
We ran our second round around noon and by that time the temperature was up around 71° and it was what they commonly refer to as a Chamber of Commerce day. It was the most beautiful drag racing weather I've seen in years. My day ended in the second round. Good 'ole Tom Joseph from South Carolina strapped a .008 light on me and I slipped up with a slight stumble at the tree to loose.
Afterward he was kind enough to steer me to Tony Morris with BLP to give me some good carb pointers so that it wouldn't happen again.

Probably the coolest thing about drag racing is the people. Just about everyone you meet has the same friendly, positive and helpful attitude. That's what makes this the greatest sport on earth. Going to a race like this is fun because you get a chance to rekindle old relationships and meet so many new people. We spent a lot of time with Super Street racer James Noel with his family and racer friends. They were a lot of fun and really made the weekend super enjoyable. I seriously think James must be the drag racing King of the grill as he served up feasts every night.

September 27, 2007

2007-09-28T06:33:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-15T13:42:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-12T19:15:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-08T16:29:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-02T22:06:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

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.

August 25, 2007

2007-08-26T13:17:00.001-07:00

After getting rained out last night for the race at Sunshine, we were really hoping for better luck today in Bradenton. I arrived at the track around noon and the sky was clear and sunny. I unloaded the car bought a $10 test and tune run card and this is what the sky looked like just before I was supposed to run. A few minutes later mother nature took over the program and as you can see here, she hit pretty good.

However, being from Florida, we do learn that many times these are brief intermissions rather than program enders. As it turned out, by 4:00pm the rain had stopped, everything was dry and we were able to make one and only one time run. I hit the tree with a so-so .028 light but the shift linkage wasn't quite adjusted right and I didn't get high gear so I abandoned the run. It was OK though, as it was a quick fix and I anticipated losing first round then could buy back in to the second round. What a plan.

As it turned out, we were all in the staging lanes for round one, ready to race when it started raining again. This time it was all over for the day. Eventhough it rained, it was still a good day for marketing my sponsor, meeting new people and spending time with my crew chief, Paul Witting and his daughter Teresa. You know the old saying, "A bad day drag racing is better than a good day at work anyday".

August 24, 2007

2007-08-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

The dictionary defines the word "thrash" as, "to beat soundly in punishment". We in the sport of drag racing use the word to mean "frantically repair or repair in a highly expeditious manner". In most cases it is definitely synonymous with the word punishment. Let me describe for you a thrash as I interpret the word.

Thursday night after work I loaded the trailer to take to work with me in preparation for the Friday night race at Sunshine. I had loaded everything except the car, which I drive down my driveway and into the trailer. It was 8:00pm when I sat in the seat, hit the starter button and all I heard was crunch, crunch, crunch whirrrrrr. I got out of the car and there were five or six flexplate teeth laying on my garage floor. If you read my last blog, you know that we had just put the transmission and torque converter back in the car etc., etc. Oh crap !!!! This feels like Deja Vu. That means I have to do it all over again and have the car ready to race in less than 24 hours.

Cough, cough...I was going to have to take a sick day to stay home from work on Friday and I was going to have to get the transmission out of the car Thursday night. All of which I did. I had the transmission out by 10:00pm and called it a night. Friday morning I went up to United Speed World, bought a new flexplate and had the car all back together again, loaded in the trailer race ready before 4:00pm Friday just in time to make it to Sunshine on time. Whew!! What a close one.

The dictionary defines the word "irony" as "an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected". Let me describe for you irony as I interpret the word. No sooner had I loaded the car in the trailer than the sky opened up with a deluge of rain (3 or 4 inches worth), thunder and tons of lightning. The thunder was so loud it made my sliding glass door rattle. I have heard people use the expession "it's raining cats and dogs". Well, this afternoon it rained elephants and hippos. Looks like a hurricane doesn't it?

That's what it's like to be a drag racer. Maybe we can race tomorrow in Bradenton. As for tonight.... it's a Best NY pizza all the way and a couple Samuel Adams brewskies as I'm headed for my easy chair.

August 20, 2007

2007-08-20T18:39:00.001-07:00

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.

August 16, 2007

2007-08-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

During my lunch hour today I picked up my repaired converter and freshened up transmission from CRT That's Steve with the big smile posing with my converter. While we were at it, we asked Steve to increase the stall speed from 5500 rpm to 6000 rpm. These small blocks just love the rpm and the car should leave like a banshee at that rpm.

No one ever said drag racing was all fun. It's a lot of work even though it's enjoyable work. This evening Paul Witting and I put the transmission and converter back in the car, installed the rear wing, the electronics tray and a variety of other little things. I'll finish up the wiring and fluids tomorrow morning and should have it all done and race ready before noon. That's me on the floor with my back to you bolting on the shifter cable bracket.

The next two weeks we are going to be changing up our schedule a little as we'll be racing at Sunshine on Friday night and in Bradenton on Saturday. Today I talked with the track manager at Bradenton Motorsports Park and we will be kicking off the Right Trailers Dead-On program there next Saturday night.

I'm really looking forward to having the car running at it's true potential which should be in the 5.20 zone in the eighth mile at Sunshine and in the 8.30 zone in the quarter mile at Bradenton. We'll see...

August 15, 2007

2007-08-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

Well...I got a call from Steve at CRT yesterday and sure enough, we bent over the blades in the torque converter and broke a sprag. Thank goodness for warranties!!! Steve has also offered to check the transmission because there were metal particles in the converter and we want to make sure nothing in the tranny was damaged.

If I'm lucky I'll get everything back tomorrow but trying to make the race Friday night is very doubtful. We'll take it out next Wednesday and or Friday night (weather pending).

The long range weather forecast shows a potential Category 3 hurricane south of Espanola which may affect southern Florida by this time next week. We're keeping our fingers crossed that it dissipates.

August 11, 2007

2007-08-11T16:55:00.000-07:00

This has been a long day. Paul Witting came up this morning to help test, then tear the car apart. The first thing we had to do was a leak down the motor to verify that our problem wasn't motor related. After three conversations with Kris Nelson at Nelson Competition and reviwing the results, we were thoroghly convinced that our problem is converter related. As a result, we extracated the transmission and converter as well as a bunch of other parts that were in the way. We also changed the oil, adjusted the valves and broke a spark plug in the head. We were able to extracate the spark plug also with no real problem. Hopefully with a trip to CRT on Monday, we can get the converter turned around by Tuesday or Wednesday and be ready to race next Friday night and finally get the car to run what it should. We expect it to run in the 5.20 ET, 130 mph range at Sunshine. That's a far distance from the 5.80 range that it just ran after putting the fresh motor in it.

August 10, 2007

2007-08-11T16:22:00.000-07:00

As we couldn't race today because of our converter problem, we just went to Sunshine to take care of sponsor business, display the car and take some photos. Tonight we announced the Right Trailers' Dead On program for Super Pro and Pro racers at both Sunshine and Bradenton. It's a pretty good program that pays any racer that wins a round of eliminations $50 if they run dead on their dial in with a 0 or has a perfect reaction time. The program was well received by both the track management and racers alike.

I have to say, that from a racer standpoint, there we two things that really impressed me tonight. The first was that the race was won by John Mella, who at age 72 literally drilled the competition and never varied more than.01 from his dial in. On top of that, the crowd at Sunshine is probably the toughest gang of bracket
racers in the country and he beat them all including former national bracket champion Paul Dorn on his way to the final. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. I hope I can race like that at 72!!!

The second thing that really got my attention was the Junior Dragsters. There were 17 of them that showed up for first round. That's a good sized field of cars. One car was dialed in at 8.47 and ran over 70 mph. Keep in mind that's with a Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine for goodness sakes. Impressive to say the least.

In talking to some of the folks that run these cars, they are spending $9000 plus for the dragsters race ready, which to me is just amazing for kids 8-16 years old to race. The clutches alone cost over $1000. Additionally, these kids are dead serious racers. Just wait until they hit the Super Pro class and most of them will be very, very good adult racers.

August 8, 2007

2007-08-09T17:08:00.001-07:00

Well, today started out great. Mike Scott from Right Trailers came over to Clearwater to have lunch with me and Paul Witting in order to discuss our progress and develop some short as well as long range marketing plans. We're on a great track.

In the late afternoon we headed to Sunshine for the Wednesday night Top Dog Race. They take the quickest 4 dragsters and the quickest 4 bodied cars and run the 8 cars off in eliminations for $300. As it turned out, I qualified 4th and made the program.
My first time run was a 5.806 ET which was not speedy but very consistant with the previous Friday night. I had taken .015 out of the delay box and had a spectacular .005 reaction time. Boy was it hot though, 94.2° with a relative humidity of 47.29%, barametric pressure of 29.88 and (get this) a density altitude of 2715 feet. Geez, there was so little available oxygen in the air we were two-thirds as high as Denver. All you have to do to sweat is breath.

Time run number 2 the car picked up 2 hundredths to a
5.78 just like the previous Friday night. Wow, I was
starting to feel pretty good about my chances of winning
as I knew exactly how the car would run and I had
qualified. NOT!! I was bitten by the TDR (That's Drag
Racing) bug. All of a sudden the car slowed up
progressively on the next 3 runs. I think the converter
took a hit. To top it off I discovered (the hard way) a
loose wire to my electric water pump and the motor got
hot driving back after my last pass.

So...It looks like this weekend I'm yanking my transmission to get my converter back to Steve at CRT. Thank goodness he'll warranty it. Another day in the life of a drag racer. It sure beats work though!!!!

August 5, 2007

2007-08-05T19:43:00.000-07:00

Today I had some minor maintenance to do to have the car ready for this week's Wednesday and Friday night races. I disconnected the throttle bypass and readjusted the fuel pressure both at the fuel pump and at the regulator. I'm hoping that this will really pick the car up ET wise. I think I was starving it for fuel. I also had to stuff the new oil absorbant pads into the new catch pan Will Bodley built for me.

After Friday night's embarrassing episode by leaving on the other guy's top bulb, I installed an extension to my dial in board with the letter "N" (for No)so the track will know that I want to opt out of the Cross Talk system and get my own top bulb even if I'm the faster car. This little addition is what the track requires and should take care of the problem.

Friday night at the track the generator in the motorhome was acting up and sputtering. We found a small hole in the fuel line but we were able to fix it right there. However, having that air in the fuel line it reacted similar to a PCV valve and sucked a lot of oil up into the air filter. As a result, today I had to take that apart as well and wash out all of the oil in the foam part of the filter. Now I just have to buy a new paper air filter and that's taken care of. Geez...it's always something.

Bottom line (as John Force would say), we're race ready.

August 4, 2007

2007-08-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

We finally got to race last night as all the bad weather had cleared out of the area. We kept our schedule to go to Sunshine in St. Petersburg.

It was hot! It was humid and the track temperature was up over 120° at 5:00pm. The track was also slick and it wasn't hooking up that well.

I ran a 5.83 ET on my first pass with the new motor. Needless to say, I was disappointed in how slow the car was but I think I know why. The throttle by-pass has to go. My second pass was a 5.808 ET as the track had cooled off a little, down to 114°. Even though it was slow, I was consistent and I hit the tree hard so I had a -0.015 red light reaction time. Hey, I can always put more delay in the delay box.

First round rolled around about 8:00pm and the track was cooling off even more so I decided to dial the car to run a 5.78 ET and I rolled another .025 delay into the delay box hoping for a .015 reaction time. I was pretty pumped and felt confident I could give just about anyone a run for their money.

However, no one told me that the track runs a Cross Talk system in eliminations. I was the faster car in Round one with a 5.78 dial and my opponent had a 6.13 dial. When I left the line I left on his first yellow bulb because that's how the system works. Needless to say I got a -.375 red light and my night was over. If that had been my top bulb I would have had a .015 reaction time and I ran a 5.788 on my 5.78 dial (Dead On).

Live and learn I guess. Now I just have to make a decision if I'm going to use the cross talk function in my delay box or fix a way to put an "N" on my dial in board to opt out of the cross talk. Seeing that I use heavy frame distance only glass for racing which aren't bifocals, setting the delay box is difficult so I think opting out is the way for me to go.

Having a new sponsor is pretty cool because I have a purpose to go introduce myself to other racers and the interaction is really great. Drag racing is very much a social sport as well as being super competitive.

Rick Townsley (above) used to work with us at GE and goes racing with us quite often. Rick helps out with the car and is responsible for most of these photos. He does a great job with them. As you can see, he also has that "Hollywood" smile.

August 1, 2007

2007-08-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight we were ready to start the Fall racing season by racing for Top Dog at Sunshine Drag Strip in St. Petersburg, however, Mother Nature just would not cooperate. As you can see, we were rained out with a large band of storms that waved through the area. Disappointed maybe but we're not discouraged.

In case you're wondering about Top Dog, on Wednesday nights at Sunshine it's basically a test and tune night. They take the 4 quickest full bodied cars and the quickest 4 dragsters then run them off for a $300 cash prize. With a dragster, sometime you can get in the program with a 5.50 ET and sometimes you have to run quicker than 5.10 to get in. It just depends on who shows up.

We're really looking forward to racing the first bracket race of the Fall season this Friday night. We're pumped, our sponsors are pumped and our friends are excited as well. Look for a big batch of photos after Friday night's race.

July 27, 2007

2007-07-30T18:20:00.001-07:00

Last Friday morning, because we were pushed for time, we left Will Bodley's shop without the new oil containment device installed as required by NHRA's new rule that goes into effect January 1st. The rule allows dragsters to use a 2" deep pan rather than a diaper. An engine diaper in a dragster is a physical nightmare. The concept is to catch any oil that may leak and have an oil absorbent material in the pan to soak it up, keeping it off of the track and your rear tires. Actually, this is an excellent rule and a great safety device.

This evening we took the car back over to Will's to have it put in with new tabs and have the wing adjusted to a 1° forward rake. Just enough to offer a little down force and stability on the top end but not enough to slow the car down. We are now race ready for next Wednesday night at Sunshine.

July 22, 2007

2007-07-30T18:18:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday, but there is still more to be done in order to have everything ready for the beginning of the fall racing season that begins on August first. I forgot to mention that when we arrived in Lakeland last Friday morning, we found a big bulge in the sidewall of one of our trailer tires. Seeing that it was a disaster just waiting to happen, we bought a new tire and wheel that would eventually be used as a spare and changed the tire while some of the graphics were being applied. Today however, we needed to put a new tire on the Alcoa rim (so they would all match) so we went down to our local friendly Goodyear store and bought one then mounted the new spare tire in the trailer for any potential future emergencies.

We've had an electric jack on the trailer and it was wired directly to the motorhome. Well, for some reason, sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't. We had reached the end of our rope so we hooked up the spare battery as a full time trailer battery, then wired the jack to the circuit. Now the jack always works and we can save all of that hand cranking. Whew!!

July 21, 2007

2007-07-30T18:17:00.001-07:00

Today we cleaned our trailer. In the past we had washed it with soap and water and even pressure washed it but it still had these black streaks that we just couldn't get off. When in Lakeland yesterday, Mike Scott gave me some Streak-B Gone and Wow! It really did the job as you can see from the photo. The trailer now looks like it's brand new however, doing this job which takes a few hours in 95° heat can really take it's toll on you. Whew!!

July 20, 2007

2007-07-30T18:15:00.000-07:00

Today we signed our sponsorship contract with Michael Scott at Right Trailers in Lakeland, Fl. The deal is for most of the 2007 racing season with and option in late 2007 as well as options for the entire season in 2008 and beyond. This morning we took the race car and trailer to Dixie Signs in Lakeland and had the new graphics applied. To say that today was exciting would be a gross understatement.

July, 19, 2007

2007-07-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

What a day. Right after work I went to pick up the motor home and trailer to take to Will's shop as we must complete the car tonight in order for us to be in Lakeland on Friday. Well, the battery in the motor home is dead as a door nail so I have to take the spare out of the trailer and put it into the motor home. By the time I get to Will's shop, he has the motor and transmission bolted in the chassis. Now we have to add all of the accessories, complete all of the wiring and plumbing, prime the motor and button up all of the odds and ends. During this, Will's shop is a metal building and the temperature had soared to 104°. We pushed on and finally fired the motor at 2:00am. No neighbors and no cops showed up (thank goodness) so we loaded up the car and came home. It's done!!!!! After a 45 minute drive home I finally hit the sack at 4:00am and oh...I have to be in Lakeland at 9:00am. The price we pay for success.

July 18, 2007

2007-07-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

Chris Nelson delivers the motor to us at Will Bodley's shop at 9:00 PM and it's almost too late do anything with it tonight so we give up.

Going Through The Rebuild

2007-07-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

Going through a major repair or rebuild is not an easy task. This project started in the end of April and should be finally finished this Thursday (July 19th). We are in the process of having the motor freshened up by Nelson Performance in Pinellas Park. It includes new rings, bearings, valve seals, springs and a new set of shaft mounted rockers on top of correcting all of the little things that were wrong.

Seventy percent of the engine work done by Nelson Performance is developmental, monster cubic inch motors for NMCA or Pro Mod racers and they are typically very backlogged. We were lucky to have been able to be squeezed into their schedule. But, waiting is a big part of it and that's the price you have to pay for quality. We're hoping for 400 passes from this motor. All of the chassis work was done by Bodley Racing and Fabrication in Clearwater. The car also needed a more professional look so we enlisted the help of American Powder Coating in Tampa to add a little Candy Apple Red color to the car, just to spruce it up.One of the big projects was to move the fuel cell to the nose of the car to allow easier access to the entire fuel system and then to move the batteries to the rear of the car to lighten up the front end and get all that weight under the rear tires. This should help our consistency greatly on a slick race track. We also had Will Bodley ( on the right in the grey shirt ) redesign the deflector shield to allow more room between the front of the motor and the back of the roll cage.

When we bought the car, the rear wing came with it but wasn't installed. We wanted to put the wing back on the car just to add some stability on the top end when running quarter mile tracks. We also thought that while we had the car in the chassis shop that now was a good time to go ahead and have an oil catch pan installed to meet the new 2008 NHRA rules requirement. We have a commitment from Chris Nelson to have the motor back tomorrow night so with about four hours of buttoning it up and with a little polish, she should be ready to take to Lakeland on Friday for new graphics. Now, it's starting to get exciting