RAPID
Nitro Member
EDDYVILLE NIGHT OF FIRE JULY 5TH 2008
The Plastic Fantastic Nitro Funnycar had a match race with Justin Grant's Wonder Wagon Nitro funnycar this past weekend at Eddyville Raceway Park in Southern Iowa. The event is called the Night of Fire. It has become one of the main-stays for fans to get their Nitro fix here in the Midwest for as long as I can remember. A few of the other cars that were booked in were Jack Wyatt and Tim Wilkerson with their Funnycars. The Orange Crate and Nitemare TFD, Nitro Madness and Black Reign altereds, Ozark Mountain Super Shifters, along with jets and wheelie trucks were also adding to the show. The program was rounded out with a ton of bracket racers. I don't recall ever seeing so many cars at this track.
The weather was perfect, the place was packed. I can't tell you how many people came through the pits for hero cards, tee shirts, etc. The crowd, as always, arrived early and stayed until the last car and the final firework exploded in the air.
If you have been following along, you know that I have been a bit hard on the left side header the past few weeks. I got it at KCIR, and again at Cordova. As you can imagine, I am getting some kidding from the team about that. Well ok, around the internet as well. So the guys made a new option for the car, a curb feeler for the left header. It was pretty funny, and I got Al Booton to take a photo of it. I think the header was giving me a little warning that it was tired of brushing the wall. When I got out after the warm up, it reached out and gave me a nice long burn on my leg. I got the hint and kept it right in the middle of the groove this weekend. I just can't see the wisdom in having the car mad at me.
We have raced where Justin and his gang were running in the past, but we have never lined up against each other before. Being able to race with your friend in the next lane just makes the whole deal even more fun.
We both rolled up and hit the water box at the same time. Mini-me, Justin's driver, laid down a nice long smoky burnout. We had changed the throttle set-up in our car. I didn't get enough RPM's and the track grabbed the tires way too early. My burnout was good enough to heat the tires, but it didn't score any style points. Advantage to Mini-me. Drat.
Behind the line I did a dry hop, Mini-me did one, then I did another dry hop and pre-staged. He rolled in right after, I put the car on the hi-side and staged. When Mini-me came in, the yellow flashed and we were off. It felt pretty good, and stuck right in the middle of the groove. Around 450-feet I felt it nose over a little, so I pulled her into high gear and headed to the stripe. I didn't see him beside me, but I was sure he was right there close. There is plenty of shut down at this track, but you have to shut it off the finish line, and get your chutes out. Now I know for a fact you can make the last corner from 175-MPH without chutes, but it is pretty exciting and you only miss the wall by about 2-inches. HA! I don't recommend it. I hit both chute levers and pulled the fuel shut off. I knew it was a decent run from the way it felt. I was guessing it was a 4.20 or so.
The numbers from the run were"
R/T .092 60-ft 1.03 330-ft 2.75 660-ft 4.18 @ 169.38 MPH
It was a nice clean pass, a little soft, but it was a great baseline to build on. Back in the pits, we checked everything over, and serviced it for round 2. Everything looked good; we made a couple of small changes and expected to run a low 4-teen or maybe a 4.0 something if it all went well.
We swapped lanes for the 2nd pass. Everything was going great right up until I pulled the mag switch. No fire, we checked it over real quick, nothing was unhooked, still no fire. We unplugged the kill switch, still no go. We had them go ahead and send Mini-me on a single. It sure was disappointing to sit there and see the big crowd and have the Hot Rod not start. The guys pushed the car back in the lanes to allow the show to proceed. We offered to change the coil and mag and make another run, but the track personnel said that it was ok, no need to do that.
When we got to our pit, Danny changed coils and we spun it over, and she fired right off. So good news, it was the coil, bad news it cost us the run. The weird thing, here we are feeling low for not making the run and the crowd is lined up to get autographs and have me sign their shirts, etc. They were cheering us up, and nobody seemed to mind we hadn't made the run. They all kept talking about the 1st run being such a good one. It is pretty wild when the fans are that pleased with the event they don't even care if you made a pass or not.
I hope you enjoyed my "What I did last weekend" story,
Rapid
The Plastic Fantastic Nitro Funnycar had a match race with Justin Grant's Wonder Wagon Nitro funnycar this past weekend at Eddyville Raceway Park in Southern Iowa. The event is called the Night of Fire. It has become one of the main-stays for fans to get their Nitro fix here in the Midwest for as long as I can remember. A few of the other cars that were booked in were Jack Wyatt and Tim Wilkerson with their Funnycars. The Orange Crate and Nitemare TFD, Nitro Madness and Black Reign altereds, Ozark Mountain Super Shifters, along with jets and wheelie trucks were also adding to the show. The program was rounded out with a ton of bracket racers. I don't recall ever seeing so many cars at this track.
The weather was perfect, the place was packed. I can't tell you how many people came through the pits for hero cards, tee shirts, etc. The crowd, as always, arrived early and stayed until the last car and the final firework exploded in the air.
If you have been following along, you know that I have been a bit hard on the left side header the past few weeks. I got it at KCIR, and again at Cordova. As you can imagine, I am getting some kidding from the team about that. Well ok, around the internet as well. So the guys made a new option for the car, a curb feeler for the left header. It was pretty funny, and I got Al Booton to take a photo of it. I think the header was giving me a little warning that it was tired of brushing the wall. When I got out after the warm up, it reached out and gave me a nice long burn on my leg. I got the hint and kept it right in the middle of the groove this weekend. I just can't see the wisdom in having the car mad at me.
We have raced where Justin and his gang were running in the past, but we have never lined up against each other before. Being able to race with your friend in the next lane just makes the whole deal even more fun.
We both rolled up and hit the water box at the same time. Mini-me, Justin's driver, laid down a nice long smoky burnout. We had changed the throttle set-up in our car. I didn't get enough RPM's and the track grabbed the tires way too early. My burnout was good enough to heat the tires, but it didn't score any style points. Advantage to Mini-me. Drat.
Behind the line I did a dry hop, Mini-me did one, then I did another dry hop and pre-staged. He rolled in right after, I put the car on the hi-side and staged. When Mini-me came in, the yellow flashed and we were off. It felt pretty good, and stuck right in the middle of the groove. Around 450-feet I felt it nose over a little, so I pulled her into high gear and headed to the stripe. I didn't see him beside me, but I was sure he was right there close. There is plenty of shut down at this track, but you have to shut it off the finish line, and get your chutes out. Now I know for a fact you can make the last corner from 175-MPH without chutes, but it is pretty exciting and you only miss the wall by about 2-inches. HA! I don't recommend it. I hit both chute levers and pulled the fuel shut off. I knew it was a decent run from the way it felt. I was guessing it was a 4.20 or so.
The numbers from the run were"
R/T .092 60-ft 1.03 330-ft 2.75 660-ft 4.18 @ 169.38 MPH
It was a nice clean pass, a little soft, but it was a great baseline to build on. Back in the pits, we checked everything over, and serviced it for round 2. Everything looked good; we made a couple of small changes and expected to run a low 4-teen or maybe a 4.0 something if it all went well.
We swapped lanes for the 2nd pass. Everything was going great right up until I pulled the mag switch. No fire, we checked it over real quick, nothing was unhooked, still no fire. We unplugged the kill switch, still no go. We had them go ahead and send Mini-me on a single. It sure was disappointing to sit there and see the big crowd and have the Hot Rod not start. The guys pushed the car back in the lanes to allow the show to proceed. We offered to change the coil and mag and make another run, but the track personnel said that it was ok, no need to do that.
When we got to our pit, Danny changed coils and we spun it over, and she fired right off. So good news, it was the coil, bad news it cost us the run. The weird thing, here we are feeling low for not making the run and the crowd is lined up to get autographs and have me sign their shirts, etc. They were cheering us up, and nobody seemed to mind we hadn't made the run. They all kept talking about the 1st run being such a good one. It is pretty wild when the fans are that pleased with the event they don't even care if you made a pass or not.
I hope you enjoyed my "What I did last weekend" story,
Rapid
