Licensing experiences...... (1 Viewer)

[TJ]

I have a unique thread.....and a little different than everyone here posting the same stuff like "go Hillary or good luck to A. Force" lets make this site more diverse. That fan stuff is boring unless you are a follower.

Anyone here care to share their licensing experiences for an NHRA comp. license?
I know some here steer some quick cars, as I do, and would be interested in your story/experience.

 

["Dr. Dirt"]

Terry, I fear the stories are too boring to repeat?
Two of my sons have licensed in our Funny Cars. Their passes were clean and un-eventful to say the least. Buzzz's first competitive pass had the Funny Car in the opposing lane roll three times and destroy a car but during licensing, things went smoothly. We have had dozens of "unique" experiences with competitors since but we've always kept it in our lane so far (he says with fingers crossed while knocking on wood.)
My middle son is getting his physical next week in preparation for licensing in one of our new dragsters. I hope it's as un-eventful as his two brothers' were but I promise, if it is not, I'll report in and share our glitches.

 

[Crash]

Anyone here care to share their licensing experiences for an NHRA comp. license?
I know some here steer some quick cars, as I do, and would be interested in your story/experience

While making my first licensing passes in a SC dragster, I had 3 broken ribs, but didn't let the car owner know, fearing that I may never get another chance...this was him doing me a favor, not me getting a ride. Cinching down the belts just about killed me, but not as much as the bouncing and deceleration at the end. Luckily it was at Seattle, which had plenty of shutdown, so I could coast down as much as possible. Couldn't get out of the car without help, though!
A couple of years later I was cross-grading to a door car, preparing for a Comp driving deal (which failed miserably) The owner of the SG car that I was borrowing didn't change the 4-Link preload. This might have been fine, but he was literally twice my weight. The car took a HARD turn as soon as I let go. Scared the sh*&T out of me. He was chuckling when I got back, and halfheartedly apologizing.

 

[TJ]

Good to hear some stories.
Mine was very unique. I was tuning a TA/FC and we did not run alot. Maybe 10 races in 2-3 seasons. Div 7 and CIFCA. The owner/driver was real supportive on all my tuning calls from day 1, which made me more accountable on keeping the combo in one piece. Well after 8 years of doing this racing on kind of a part-time basis he tells me to prepare to license as he is getting older, health, etc. I always wanted this as I most here do.....
I purchased a suit -20, not cheap, from Chuck Beal and boots/gloves from other places all for around $1000.00 total including air helmet, and all in good shape so here we go. The owner says the car is basically yours. That sounds easy but I used to do all the work/start the car/cordinate crew, etc.
A good veteran racer in CIFCA and chassis builder was my mentor. We showed up and the owner wanted to sit in the car for the warm-up for whatever reason and after the warm-up went to the line.
The track manager (LACR BERNIE) asked if I wanted to sit in the car for a warm-up or tow around to get familiar w/ a center steering car? I said "no" lets do this.
I am strapped in waiting for my turn when I realize I cannot reach the mag kill switch or even reach the butterfly properly, but I keep quiet and went thru a routine, so I thought.
The car fires and I feel the levers on the clutch trying to push my foot off of it and the car was making a ton of power. I was so intimidated I did not even look @ oil pressure. I would barely touch the loud pedal and the car would go
catch rpms like I never imagined. Did a burnout and slide into reverse and backed up straight. From tuning it I knew I had to much stall in the clutch, something I would not have known w/out driving, so I get it back and into forward gear and staged. This part I had day-dreaming about for years and thought I was ready. Fully staged and @ yellow.....BAM hit the throttle which threw my foot off of the clutch peday and went to 330' and bliped the throttle twice more to a 10.00 @ 125 mph...I was hooked and kind of scared.
Second pass was the same but a little slower to the finish line due to massive tire spin to which made me nervous on how far to push it w/out swapping paint w/ anything.
Made a total of three in the first day w/out ever lifting until half-track on the last pass. I could not wait til I could make 3 full passes but I had to make some changes. Steve Plueger made the steering perfect for me and some other small adjustments.
Well I had to wait three months to finish and could do it under LACR's 'fox hunt' evening when other funny cars/jets will be playing, but will not get paid. I felt this was a better way to go since I wanted to finish this license thing in two sessions. Good decision but bad as a half dozen nitro cars will be on hand as well and you know...we all are critics to some degree.
And lo and behold Steve densham is there licensing as well along w/ Dale Pulde tuning Dan Horan and others so I ask Gary and Dale if they would give me constructive criticism ao my final passes, and to sign off on my license if all goes well.
Since I am licensing the track lets me up first on a single. I added some weight and gave the timing a tickle of advance.
I launch and before I know it I am up in smoke near the guardrail and pissed cause I could of saved it. Back in the pits Pulde tells me to turn it up a little more w/ timing. I am thinking this guys nuts. I cannot handle the current combo and he wants to make more power?
4th run, second of the night I run right behind two fuel floppers who managed to get down track w/ high 5.90's. I think sh*t, I have to get down there or I will look stupid and scared.
I launch and the car goes straight and is really moving to me so @ 600 ft I abort and the car still ran quick. I did not like the speed as I felt the car was the boss. For a second I wanted to quit.
After some lengthy discussions w/ Gary Densham about having faith and being totally secure I went back out there and finished licensing that same day. Even realizing while driving when the clutch is near 1 to 1 and a little wiggle in the butt @ each gear change. Pulde and Densham signed my license along w/ a great mentor named Pete Mauriello who knows his stuff about funny cars. Pete always down played driving and never let you make a big deal over blown alcohol/fuel racing.

 

[Tom]

Good to hear some stories.
Mine was very unique. I was tuning a TA/FC and we did not run alot. Maybe 10 races in 2-3 seasons. Div 7 and CIFCA. The owner/driver was real supportive on all my tuning calls from day 1, which made me more accountable on keeping the combo in one piece. Well after 8 years of doing this racing on kind of a part-time basis he tells me to prepare to license as he is getting older, health, etc. I always wanted this as I most here do.....
I purchased a suit -20, not cheap, from Chuck Beal and boots/gloves from other places all for around $1000.00 total including air helmet, and all in good shape so here we go. The owner says the car is basically yours. That sounds easy but I used to do all the work/start the car/cordinate crew, etc.
A good veteran racer in CIFCA and chassis builder was my mentor. We showed up and the owner wanted to sit in the car for the warm-up for whatever reason and after the warm-up went to the line.
The track manager (LACR BERNIE) asked if I wanted to sit in the car for a warm-up or tow around to get familiar w/ a center steering car? I said "no" lets do this.
I am strapped in waiting for my turn when I realize I cannot reach the mag kill switch or even reach the butterfly properly, but I keep quiet and went thru a routine, so I thought.
The car fires and I feel the levers on the clutch trying to push my foot off of it and the car was making a ton of power. I was so intimidated I did not even look @ oil pressure. I would barely touch the loud pedal and the car would go
catch rpms like I never imagined. Did a burnout and slide into reverse and backed up straight. From tuning it I knew I had to much stall in the clutch, something I would not have known w/out driving, so I get it back and into forward gear and staged. This part I had day-dreaming about for years and thought I was ready. Fully staged and @ yellow.....BAM hit the throttle which threw my foot off of the clutch peday and went to 330' and bliped the throttle twice more to a 10.00 @ 125 mph...I was hooked and kind of scared.
Second pass was the same but a little slower to the finish line due to massive tire spin to which made me nervous on how far to push it w/out swapping paint w/ anything.
Made a total of three in the first day w/out ever lifting until half-track on the last pass. I could not wait til I could make 3 full passes but I had to make some changes. Steve Plueger made the steering perfect for me and some other small adjustments.
Well I had to wait three months to finish and could do it under LACR's 'fox hunt' evening when other funny cars/jets will be playing, but will not get paid. I felt this was a better way to go since I wanted to finish this license thing in two sessions. Good decision but bad as a half dozen nitro cars will be on hand as well and you know...we all are critics to some degree.
And lo and behold Steve densham is there licensing as well along w/ Dale Pulde tuning Dan Horan and others so I ask Gary and Dale if they would give me constructive criticism ao my final passes, and to sign off on my license if all goes well.
Since I am licensing the track lets me up first on a single. I added some weight and gave the timing a tickle of advance.
I launch and before I know it I am up in smoke near the guardrail and pissed cause I could of saved it. Back in the pits Pulde tells me to turn it up a little more w/ timing. I am thinking this guys nuts. I cannot handle the current combo and he wants to make more power?
4th run, second of the night I run right behind two fuel floppers who managed to get down track w/ high 5.90's. I think sh*t, I have to get down there or I will look stupid and scared.
I launch and the car goes straight and is really moving to me so @ 600 ft I abort and the car still ran quick. I did not like the speed as I felt the car was the boss. For a second I wanted to quit.
After some lengthy discussions w/ Gary Densham about having faith and being totally secure I went back out there and finished licensing that same day. Even realizing while driving when the clutch is near 1 to 1 and a little wiggle in the butt @ each gear change. Pulde and Densham signed my license along w/ a great mentor named Pete Mauriello who knows his stuff about funny cars. Pete always down played driving and never let you make a big deal over blown alcohol/fuel racing.

Neat! What year was this?

 

[TJ]

Year was 2002/03 .....
On my last pass the I knew I had to get to the finish line @ WOT. The track was slick, as always, and @ half track the car was moving way to quick for me and I slighty lifted then thought "your okay and safe" so I stabbed the throttle back down, banged third, put one hand on the parachute lever and waited for the finish line to which I thought "c'mon finish line" and right before the lights I thought to myself "it'd be bad if the left front wheel came off of the car" and drove into the chute and when I lifted the chute 'hit' which caused my foot to 'blip' the throttle and made it bounce after the finish line and caused a lot of excitement for me getting it stopped. I honestly thought I was gonna wreck this guys car after the lights w/ that incident. After all that I really had no desire to drive...kind of scared me a little.
As Densham and Pulde are signing off on my license I am telling em I do not really like being a pilot and both told me that if I ever ran an NHRA event or a better track I would love driving as LACR is one of the worst tracks for high horsepower cars.
In fact Densham felt that getting seat time on a loose track makes you a better driver in the long run.

 

[Nunz]

Terry, cool story. Have you driven since and do you currently? What are your best stats?

 

[Mikey]

First of all let me tell you that getting a fuel license is no easy matter. I have had the chance to be on two teams who's drivers had to make the required upgrades from TAD to T/F. The first experince was in 2001 and it was an eye opener. I soon realized just how hard the switch from A/Fuel to T/F really was going to be. At that time the required speed was 275mph. This sounds farely easy, a blown and injected fuel burning dragster under power should go 275 easy. thats the catch, under power. The thing would do silly stuff after half track almost every run. The blower belt would come off or break, the thing would smoke the tires ect.. To make a long story short it took us most of the summer to get the two passes at over 275. Fast foward five years, I got a call from my good friend Troy Buff. Tim and Renee Coghlan hired him to drive their new T/F car. I was hireed to do the bottom end. We were going to license Monday after Topeka. Well the only thing that could run that day was a boat, it rained. I got to thinking, oh no here we go again, this might just take a while. On to Chicgo we go. The Monday after the event was as good as it gets. Perfect conditions. Kieth Adams plan was to get it done that day. The first pass, a half track moderate, went pretty well, however the car made a little move towards the wall. Troy caught it and clicked it. We go back, service the car and pull up for our second hit. Troy's first full pass, he clicked a tad early, as was the plan, and went 4.61@316 "right down Broadway". Troy's reaction was WOW. We serviced the car and pulled up for the second full pass. The two cars before us smoked the tires about 300ft out. Tension was a little high because we need to get this done now. The second full pass Troy went 4.64@325 and tears came to my eyes, the process was over. We got it done just like Kebo planed. To my knowledge that is the quickest and fastest licensing pass ever and I have also heard that Troy's the first to complete the licensing upgrade in the minumal amount of runs.

 

[Sean D, shondoo]

I got one........

I got a burr in my butt in the early 1990's and decided to go to Roy Hill's and drive a Pro Stocker. On my way back from Pomona, I sat next to a big name chassis builder on the plane that told me that I had to be an idiot to go to that school. Evidentally there had been some issues between them and he didn't recommend it at all.

However, I was young, full of piss and vinegar and bound and determined to make it happen. It was a special 4-day school that immediately followed what was then the Winston Invitational @ Rockingham. There was a host of big players that were supposed to stay behind after the event as guest instructors, Warren, Kurt, Alderman, Geoffrion and Bruce Allen (Bruce was why I chose that week). But on Monday morning, the only one that stayed was Scott Geoffrion. Man, I was hot! I wanted to hang with my hero, Bruce Allen, and learn to drive a Pro Stocker from him. But you know what? Geoffrion couldn't have done a better job. We kinda buddied up and things just went like clockwork all week.

By the last day, I was the only one making passes in the Pro Stocker and was scheduled to make my license runs on Thursday morning. However, there was some sort of malfunction with the generator on the hauler and it couldn't be opened. Both Pro Stockers were stuck in the trailer on the final day. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy and asked if I could come back another time and get my final day, and hopefully my license. They obliged 4 months later and I drove 13 hours straight through after working all day and got there just in time to blast off the runs to get my license. I was a little rusty after taking those 4 months between, and tired as hell from being up for over 30 hours, but we got 'er done. The drive home was murder!

I heard alot of horror stories about Roy's school, both prior to going, and after I went. But I must say that it was the time of my life. I had absolutely no trouble, thanks largely in part to the late, great Scott Geoffrion, and have memories that will last a lifetime. The only thing I regret about the deal was that Bruce wasn't there. But after the experience I had with Scott, it more than made up for it.

SD

 

[Nick Name]

I have a unique thread.....and a little different than everyone here posting the same stuff like "go Hillary or good luck to A. Force" lets make this site more diverse. That fan stuff is boring unless you are a follower.

I agree... The fan stuff is almost enough to make you gag.

Jay

 

[scott]

Ran all 6 of my passes in about an hour and a half. Ran 3 without ever getting out of the car. Took a break. Ran the last 3 without getting out. Raced the next day in a double tech bracket race, and went 5 rounds on one card, and 4 in the other.

Ran it on the stop during testing since it was a Friday night and the track can be suspect. 8.89 at 171.

I'd been driving my dads No E footbrake car that only runs 11.60s so it was an eye opener when it came off the timer that first time.

 

["Dr. Dirt"]

Welcome to the Mater Scott!