Sean D, shondoo
Nitro Member
The Black Reign gang made the trek north to beautiful Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, OH this weekend for the Goodguys Blue Suede Cruise. Right of the bat I must say just how awesome that facility is. I hadn't been in the house since the '95 Night of Fire, and man have things changed since then! The facility is beautiful, the staff was impeccable and in typical Norwalk fashion, the show ran as smooth as any race I've been to in years. Kudos to the Bader gang and their entire staff!
Our weekend started off on the sourest of notes. As I was writing the check to get in the gate, our trusty motorhome died and wouldn't restart. So here we are, right off the bat, broken down. The sun isn't even up yet and we're blocking the lane of traffic to get into the gate. After about 30-minutes, here comes a fellow with a backhoe to pull us out of the way. No, that wasn't embarrassing! LMAO!!! But we luckily ran into one of our own from back home, Bob Meiring, who was there with his beautiful Corvette (which won best appearing car, by the way) and he brought his truck back and put our trailer in the nearest spot we could find so Kerry could get started doing his thing while Bill and I tried to deal with the motorhome issues. Thanks to Nick at the on-site speed shop, we were able to hook up with a local fellow named Matt Tipple, who talked us through several scenarios which ultimately diagnosed the problem as a bad relay. We were just sure the fuel pump was out of it, so many kudos to Matt for not taking advantage of the situation, because he could've easily took us to the cleaners.
On the first qualifying pass, the car sprayed fuel out of number 2 right before the gear change, but immediately picked the cylinder back up after the gear change. We went over a bump around 400-feet or so and the car started moving around and the motor began missing intermittently. It missed out the rest of the run, but we ended up number 1 at the end of the session with a 7.10 on the 7.00-flat index of Pro Comp 1. When I told Kerry what had happened, he had said he didn't like the way the car sounded during warm-up, so he got busy going through all of the ignition parts. He put on a new cap, changed the number 2 plug wire as well as the coil wire. However, when we fired it back up, he was immediately nodding his head and later said the problem was still there.
When we finally got our shot in the second session, we had been bumped clear back to 4th. This time, when I staged and put the car on the wood, I could tell it was at a much higher RPM. When the car launched, it blasted the tires immediately and was all over the track all the way down, and as Kerry had predicted, the problem was still there as it was missing out from about 800-feet on. We did step up, though, with a 7.025 to steal the number 1 spot for the event by .001 over Mike Sexton's new dragster. We later found out that the launch control cylinder had come unplugged, which made the launch rpm go from 4,000 to between 5,000 and 5,500.
There were 10 cars trying to qualify for the 8 spots, but due to some attrition, there were only 7 left to make the call for first round, so that meant we got the bye for our number 1 effort. I had really wanted to take the opportunity on the bye to try to slam the tree and find my spot, but like I've been doing all year, I made another mistake on the starting line by putting my foot down on the throttle at the same time as setting the brake. The car lurched forward, but at least this time it didn't break the beams and I was able to make the pass for a nice 6.99 to put us in the semi's against Steve Walczak's altered, who had posted a nice 7.08 of his own.
I know Steve is usually hard on the tree, so I was pretty nervous about that round. I normally have the starting line under control, but this has just been a bad year for me. Fortunately for me, though, I stayed on the good side of green with a .032, and Kerry gave me another 6.99, but Steve went red by less than a hundredth, putting us in the final against two-time reigning Pro Comp 1 champ, Richard Edwards and his Fiat, who had run as quick as 7.01 in the first round. In the final, I finally got back on my game, getting away with a nice .015 light and holding on for a holeshot win over Richard with an off the throttle 7.05 to his 7.04.
It was good to get the monkey off my back, let me tell ya'. I feel like I've been doing nothing but red-lighting all year long, so it was good to get my performance back to the level of Kerry and the rest of the team because I've been letting them down all year. Plus, I got to rub elbows with the Rapid one, who was in the house piloting the nitro Maverick of Danny Miller's gang. I also added yet another couple of 'Maters to my long list this year when I was able to meet Mike Minick and Justin Grant. They were on the grounds with the Motown Shaker and Wonder Wagon nitro funny cars, respectively. Both of them, as expected, were very nice guys and I'm glad to now know them.
Sorry for running on so long, but it was a long weekend!
Drag Race Central | Presented by Summitracing.com
Sean D
Our weekend started off on the sourest of notes. As I was writing the check to get in the gate, our trusty motorhome died and wouldn't restart. So here we are, right off the bat, broken down. The sun isn't even up yet and we're blocking the lane of traffic to get into the gate. After about 30-minutes, here comes a fellow with a backhoe to pull us out of the way. No, that wasn't embarrassing! LMAO!!! But we luckily ran into one of our own from back home, Bob Meiring, who was there with his beautiful Corvette (which won best appearing car, by the way) and he brought his truck back and put our trailer in the nearest spot we could find so Kerry could get started doing his thing while Bill and I tried to deal with the motorhome issues. Thanks to Nick at the on-site speed shop, we were able to hook up with a local fellow named Matt Tipple, who talked us through several scenarios which ultimately diagnosed the problem as a bad relay. We were just sure the fuel pump was out of it, so many kudos to Matt for not taking advantage of the situation, because he could've easily took us to the cleaners.
On the first qualifying pass, the car sprayed fuel out of number 2 right before the gear change, but immediately picked the cylinder back up after the gear change. We went over a bump around 400-feet or so and the car started moving around and the motor began missing intermittently. It missed out the rest of the run, but we ended up number 1 at the end of the session with a 7.10 on the 7.00-flat index of Pro Comp 1. When I told Kerry what had happened, he had said he didn't like the way the car sounded during warm-up, so he got busy going through all of the ignition parts. He put on a new cap, changed the number 2 plug wire as well as the coil wire. However, when we fired it back up, he was immediately nodding his head and later said the problem was still there.
When we finally got our shot in the second session, we had been bumped clear back to 4th. This time, when I staged and put the car on the wood, I could tell it was at a much higher RPM. When the car launched, it blasted the tires immediately and was all over the track all the way down, and as Kerry had predicted, the problem was still there as it was missing out from about 800-feet on. We did step up, though, with a 7.025 to steal the number 1 spot for the event by .001 over Mike Sexton's new dragster. We later found out that the launch control cylinder had come unplugged, which made the launch rpm go from 4,000 to between 5,000 and 5,500.
There were 10 cars trying to qualify for the 8 spots, but due to some attrition, there were only 7 left to make the call for first round, so that meant we got the bye for our number 1 effort. I had really wanted to take the opportunity on the bye to try to slam the tree and find my spot, but like I've been doing all year, I made another mistake on the starting line by putting my foot down on the throttle at the same time as setting the brake. The car lurched forward, but at least this time it didn't break the beams and I was able to make the pass for a nice 6.99 to put us in the semi's against Steve Walczak's altered, who had posted a nice 7.08 of his own.
I know Steve is usually hard on the tree, so I was pretty nervous about that round. I normally have the starting line under control, but this has just been a bad year for me. Fortunately for me, though, I stayed on the good side of green with a .032, and Kerry gave me another 6.99, but Steve went red by less than a hundredth, putting us in the final against two-time reigning Pro Comp 1 champ, Richard Edwards and his Fiat, who had run as quick as 7.01 in the first round. In the final, I finally got back on my game, getting away with a nice .015 light and holding on for a holeshot win over Richard with an off the throttle 7.05 to his 7.04.
It was good to get the monkey off my back, let me tell ya'. I feel like I've been doing nothing but red-lighting all year long, so it was good to get my performance back to the level of Kerry and the rest of the team because I've been letting them down all year. Plus, I got to rub elbows with the Rapid one, who was in the house piloting the nitro Maverick of Danny Miller's gang. I also added yet another couple of 'Maters to my long list this year when I was able to meet Mike Minick and Justin Grant. They were on the grounds with the Motown Shaker and Wonder Wagon nitro funny cars, respectively. Both of them, as expected, were very nice guys and I'm glad to now know them.
Sorry for running on so long, but it was a long weekend!
Drag Race Central | Presented by Summitracing.com
Sean D
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