Sean D, shondoo
Nitro Member
Hey Gang,
We just returned from our 9-hour excursion to Eddyville, Iowa for our 2-pass match with the notorious Sean Belt in Scott Gaulter's Nitro Madness Fiat. The weather was perfect, the staff was excellent and I was really impressed with the facility itself. It was our first trip out there and we left with very high marks for the place.
We arrived around 1:00pm and actually had a little trouble getting in the gate to get parked. There were quite a few exhibition type vehicles booked in for the night's festivities, most notably, Jack Wyatt and current Funny Car points leader, Tim Wilkerson, so the place was just jam-packed. Once we got a path cleared, we got ourselves parked and almost immediately was able to add another 'Mater to the great list of folks I've been meeting this year. David Williams and his son, Sam stopped by and we had a nice conversation while we were getting set-up, as well as several other small conversations throughout the night. It was great to finally meet you, Dave, and tell your boy I said, "Hi"!
After a brief opening ceremony, which included Sean Belt launching t-shirts into the stands with an awesome home-made bottle launcher, we got paired up for the first shot. After side-by-side burnouts, we rolled them into the beams and let 'em eat. After a 4.31 prediction by my Crew Chief, Kerry Grams, and a decent .030 light by yours truly, the Black Reign altered posted a nice 4.32 @ 161Mph. The Nitro Madness team had some issues in the left lane behind me and shut-off. I ribbed Sean B a little because he was a little tardy on the starting line, but it was all in good fun! After all, I had to get on him about something. His car is quicker and he made me look really bad on the burnouts! LMAO!!!
The second match we switched lanes, and boy did I get a front row seat at the troubles he had on the previous run. Sean B's light was much better this time, but I was red, so I never saw him. Right after the gear change, the car got severely unsettled and started hopping around quite a bit. I managed to get her reeled back in and held on for a 4.43, while the Nitro Madness car ripped by me just past the lights with a nice 4.26. When we got back and reviewed the time slip, we managed to uncover something that may have been haunting us for more of the year than we realized. Although I was red, it was severely red (-.12) which I had a hard time understanding to start with, because I saw plenty of yellow. But the fact that the 60' was only 1.09 from the .996 from the first pass told us something was up. The car felt much stronger than that early, and what was more telling was the fact that incrementally, the car was running as good or a little better than the first run, so it appears that we may have leaped up out of the beams instead of forward. We had a similar issue when we first got the car, but Kerry solved it by removing the stagger in the front-end. Back then, it was twisting a little when it left, so when we removed the stagger, it always maintained one wheel in the beams where it should be. But we obviously have something else to address, so I see a test session in our future before we return to Eddyville next month for the World Fuel Altered Nationals.
All in all, it was a super nice Saturday night of racing. There was an awesome crowd, I got to meet 'Mater Dave Williams, I also got to see the Rapid One again and meet his car owner, Danny Miller (Who was a super nice guy, by the way), and I even got Wilk to sign my helmet again. And I can't say enough about Scott Gardner, Joy and the rest of the staff at Eddyville. They were all very accommodating and the facility was top-notch. I even want to give them extra props for the payout. We got a check less than an hour after completing our last run, which was just awesome. We've raced in many match races in the past and had to deal with every imaginable issue you can think of. There was no jacking around out there. We drove over, Scott cut us a check, and we were outta' there. Anyone who orchestrates match races should take a note out of Mr. Gardner's book, because that's how it should be done. Hell, we have races that we're still waiting for payment on months after the fact, so many props to Scott and his team at Eddyville!
I also want to take a quick moment and thank Scott Gaulter and Sean Belt for asking us out. You guys are an awesome group to hang out with and we had a tremendous time running with you! I hope we can do some more of this in the future, because it just couldn't get much better than the time we had with you guys Saturday night!
Thanks for listening!
Sean D
We just returned from our 9-hour excursion to Eddyville, Iowa for our 2-pass match with the notorious Sean Belt in Scott Gaulter's Nitro Madness Fiat. The weather was perfect, the staff was excellent and I was really impressed with the facility itself. It was our first trip out there and we left with very high marks for the place.
We arrived around 1:00pm and actually had a little trouble getting in the gate to get parked. There were quite a few exhibition type vehicles booked in for the night's festivities, most notably, Jack Wyatt and current Funny Car points leader, Tim Wilkerson, so the place was just jam-packed. Once we got a path cleared, we got ourselves parked and almost immediately was able to add another 'Mater to the great list of folks I've been meeting this year. David Williams and his son, Sam stopped by and we had a nice conversation while we were getting set-up, as well as several other small conversations throughout the night. It was great to finally meet you, Dave, and tell your boy I said, "Hi"!
After a brief opening ceremony, which included Sean Belt launching t-shirts into the stands with an awesome home-made bottle launcher, we got paired up for the first shot. After side-by-side burnouts, we rolled them into the beams and let 'em eat. After a 4.31 prediction by my Crew Chief, Kerry Grams, and a decent .030 light by yours truly, the Black Reign altered posted a nice 4.32 @ 161Mph. The Nitro Madness team had some issues in the left lane behind me and shut-off. I ribbed Sean B a little because he was a little tardy on the starting line, but it was all in good fun! After all, I had to get on him about something. His car is quicker and he made me look really bad on the burnouts! LMAO!!!
The second match we switched lanes, and boy did I get a front row seat at the troubles he had on the previous run. Sean B's light was much better this time, but I was red, so I never saw him. Right after the gear change, the car got severely unsettled and started hopping around quite a bit. I managed to get her reeled back in and held on for a 4.43, while the Nitro Madness car ripped by me just past the lights with a nice 4.26. When we got back and reviewed the time slip, we managed to uncover something that may have been haunting us for more of the year than we realized. Although I was red, it was severely red (-.12) which I had a hard time understanding to start with, because I saw plenty of yellow. But the fact that the 60' was only 1.09 from the .996 from the first pass told us something was up. The car felt much stronger than that early, and what was more telling was the fact that incrementally, the car was running as good or a little better than the first run, so it appears that we may have leaped up out of the beams instead of forward. We had a similar issue when we first got the car, but Kerry solved it by removing the stagger in the front-end. Back then, it was twisting a little when it left, so when we removed the stagger, it always maintained one wheel in the beams where it should be. But we obviously have something else to address, so I see a test session in our future before we return to Eddyville next month for the World Fuel Altered Nationals.
All in all, it was a super nice Saturday night of racing. There was an awesome crowd, I got to meet 'Mater Dave Williams, I also got to see the Rapid One again and meet his car owner, Danny Miller (Who was a super nice guy, by the way), and I even got Wilk to sign my helmet again. And I can't say enough about Scott Gardner, Joy and the rest of the staff at Eddyville. They were all very accommodating and the facility was top-notch. I even want to give them extra props for the payout. We got a check less than an hour after completing our last run, which was just awesome. We've raced in many match races in the past and had to deal with every imaginable issue you can think of. There was no jacking around out there. We drove over, Scott cut us a check, and we were outta' there. Anyone who orchestrates match races should take a note out of Mr. Gardner's book, because that's how it should be done. Hell, we have races that we're still waiting for payment on months after the fact, so many props to Scott and his team at Eddyville!
I also want to take a quick moment and thank Scott Gaulter and Sean Belt for asking us out. You guys are an awesome group to hang out with and we had a tremendous time running with you! I hope we can do some more of this in the future, because it just couldn't get much better than the time we had with you guys Saturday night!
Thanks for listening!
Sean D
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