RAPID
Nitro Member
DRAGLIST NATIONALS AT EDDYVILLE, IOWA 2006
It is in the books! The 1st annual Draglist.com message board nationals took place this past weekend at Eddyville Iowa. Most of the participants arrived in town on Friday the 14th, with racing set for Saturday July 15th. I am not going to try to capture all the excitement and doings of the weekend. I am sure all the members who were there will put their own posts up at www.draglist.com message board. Feel free to go check them out.
The weather was hot and humid, typical of the Midwest in the summer. It was 98-degrees and 50% humidity. Scott, the car owner, and I had decided to wait until later in the day to make a run. We felt when the sun wasn’t directly on the track we would have a better shot at making a good run. We planned to work on our tune-up for the World Fuel Altered Nationals coming up Aug 18th and 19th at Eddyville.
I spent the day making some changes to the fuel system to try to avoid our cars newly developed habit of knocking the tires loose around 20-30 feet out. In the heat of the day I was able to go to the line with fellow Draglist racers and inspect the track. It was very sticky and watching the faster bracket cars leaving made it apparent that the track was working pretty well. The track temp at that time was 140-plus degrees!
Around 8:00pm everybody headed up to the starting line for a group photo of all the members. I would be remiss if I failed to mention how great we were treated by the Eddyville Raceway Park crew. They were so helpful in anything we needed, even supplying us with the track owner’s golf-cart! If you ever have a chance to race at this track don’t pass it up. After the photos it was time to suit up and get it on.
Due to the amount of time that had gone by since our warm-up back in the pits our engine temp had dropped lower than normal. The track temp was down to 107-degrees. We were making a single run in the left lane. I rolled thru the water and lit-em-up! The car carried the burnout all the way to the end of the track. I rolled to a stop after the finish line. It is a good thing our car will back up and track ok, otherwise Pappy {my crew guy} would have passed out from having to run so far down track. He was waiting about our normal location, and proceeded to put me back into the fresh rubber. A quick check of everything, power up the throttle controller, clear the memory on the boost gauge, temp reading on the engine, one more last tug on the safety belts, then the ritual fist smack, and it is up to me.
The car was a little crooked so I adjusted on the way to stage. Then it was into the pre-stage beam, last quick check of the cockpit, then into the stage beam. Our car has a 3-speed Lencodrive in it. So the procedure is to roll into the beams, push the trans-brake button and floor the throttle pedal. When the trans-brake button is engaged, the throttle controller will open to our setting. This holds the rpm on the starting line steady. When I release the trans-brake button, the throttle controller snaps the throttle blades on the injector wide open. The car then launches with full throttle. At the first flash of yellow my finger slides off the button and the car jerked the front end up and carried the front tires about 75-feet or so down track. The car has made it thru the transition and if pulling hard, into 2nd gear. I am thinking that was cool, the track held our power. I have my foot buried in it, and the car picks the front end up around 250-300 foot down track!!! I am thinking this has NEVER happened before, but it sure is a cool feeling! I can tell it is spinning the tires a bit as the shift light comes on again, and it is way too early in the run for that. The car is moving over to the left guardrail, and doesn’t want to come back into the groove. I finally had to pedal it around 550 feet out. I was out, and back into the throttle and powered on thru the finish line. Hit the button for the parachutes, grab some brake, and coast around the oval track out onto the return road.
It felt pretty good, but since it was set up a bit soft early in the run, along with the pedal I was pretty sure it wasn’t a stellar run. The crew arrived all smiles and excited. The car has just made a record ET run for our team. It went 4.13 @ 173 MPH even after the pedal job!
What a perfect way to end the weekend with a great run in front of all our friends. I have to thank Scott and Peggy the car owners, my team along with my family for agreeing to spend a day out in the hot conditions just so we can hang out and have some fun.
I hope you enjoyed my “What I Did Last Weekend” report.
Rapid
It is in the books! The 1st annual Draglist.com message board nationals took place this past weekend at Eddyville Iowa. Most of the participants arrived in town on Friday the 14th, with racing set for Saturday July 15th. I am not going to try to capture all the excitement and doings of the weekend. I am sure all the members who were there will put their own posts up at www.draglist.com message board. Feel free to go check them out.
The weather was hot and humid, typical of the Midwest in the summer. It was 98-degrees and 50% humidity. Scott, the car owner, and I had decided to wait until later in the day to make a run. We felt when the sun wasn’t directly on the track we would have a better shot at making a good run. We planned to work on our tune-up for the World Fuel Altered Nationals coming up Aug 18th and 19th at Eddyville.
I spent the day making some changes to the fuel system to try to avoid our cars newly developed habit of knocking the tires loose around 20-30 feet out. In the heat of the day I was able to go to the line with fellow Draglist racers and inspect the track. It was very sticky and watching the faster bracket cars leaving made it apparent that the track was working pretty well. The track temp at that time was 140-plus degrees!
Around 8:00pm everybody headed up to the starting line for a group photo of all the members. I would be remiss if I failed to mention how great we were treated by the Eddyville Raceway Park crew. They were so helpful in anything we needed, even supplying us with the track owner’s golf-cart! If you ever have a chance to race at this track don’t pass it up. After the photos it was time to suit up and get it on.
Due to the amount of time that had gone by since our warm-up back in the pits our engine temp had dropped lower than normal. The track temp was down to 107-degrees. We were making a single run in the left lane. I rolled thru the water and lit-em-up! The car carried the burnout all the way to the end of the track. I rolled to a stop after the finish line. It is a good thing our car will back up and track ok, otherwise Pappy {my crew guy} would have passed out from having to run so far down track. He was waiting about our normal location, and proceeded to put me back into the fresh rubber. A quick check of everything, power up the throttle controller, clear the memory on the boost gauge, temp reading on the engine, one more last tug on the safety belts, then the ritual fist smack, and it is up to me.
The car was a little crooked so I adjusted on the way to stage. Then it was into the pre-stage beam, last quick check of the cockpit, then into the stage beam. Our car has a 3-speed Lencodrive in it. So the procedure is to roll into the beams, push the trans-brake button and floor the throttle pedal. When the trans-brake button is engaged, the throttle controller will open to our setting. This holds the rpm on the starting line steady. When I release the trans-brake button, the throttle controller snaps the throttle blades on the injector wide open. The car then launches with full throttle. At the first flash of yellow my finger slides off the button and the car jerked the front end up and carried the front tires about 75-feet or so down track. The car has made it thru the transition and if pulling hard, into 2nd gear. I am thinking that was cool, the track held our power. I have my foot buried in it, and the car picks the front end up around 250-300 foot down track!!! I am thinking this has NEVER happened before, but it sure is a cool feeling! I can tell it is spinning the tires a bit as the shift light comes on again, and it is way too early in the run for that. The car is moving over to the left guardrail, and doesn’t want to come back into the groove. I finally had to pedal it around 550 feet out. I was out, and back into the throttle and powered on thru the finish line. Hit the button for the parachutes, grab some brake, and coast around the oval track out onto the return road.
It felt pretty good, but since it was set up a bit soft early in the run, along with the pedal I was pretty sure it wasn’t a stellar run. The crew arrived all smiles and excited. The car has just made a record ET run for our team. It went 4.13 @ 173 MPH even after the pedal job!
What a perfect way to end the weekend with a great run in front of all our friends. I have to thank Scott and Peggy the car owners, my team along with my family for agreeing to spend a day out in the hot conditions just so we can hang out and have some fun.
I hope you enjoyed my “What I Did Last Weekend” report.
Rapid
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