Sorry I'm so late, guys. I didn't get home until about 4:30 this morning.
Yes, Jim, they were career bests. And Dave, my lights were .007, .014 and .016 in the final. What can I say? Things pretty much just came together.
We really had no intention of running like that. We were entered to run in the 7.00 class, but after time trials, we were the only ones left of the 6 or 7 that were there. They had seen our 6.84 from the time trial and asked us to step into the 6.50 class for the Chicago-style eliminations. We didn't want to initially, because with exception to the 6.84 that kind of blindsided even us, we're pretty much dialed in on running 7.00. But we've never run this car on that track and it's quite a bit better than what we're used to running on, and the air conditions were pretty decent too. Not to mention we have pretty ancient stuff; an old-school Mooneyham 8-71, cast block, no mag, etc. Hell, we even still run water! That's just not a good combination to try to run 6.50 unless you want to work on it around the clock.
The last 2 passes of 6.78 and 6.72 I had actually shut-off around 1100 foot. We were appearing to have some ignition issues down-track after we started leaning on it a little, and when you consider the incrementals on the 6.72 were showing a 6.68 if we could've kept in it all the way through, I don't think that was too bad. After all, we went there expecting to run 7.00 and had a 1-run notice to try to step up. Kudos goes to our crew-chief and engine builder, Kerry Grams. There's one hell of a gap between what's necessary to run 7.00 and what's necessary to approach 6.50. He was forced to make some pretty major changes on very short notice and managed to take some pretty big chunks of performance without really hurting anything. He's the man.
Why didn't anyone come over and check us out? With all the waiting around that went on, it would've been kind of nice to put some faces to names. I was, however, able to spot and introduce myself to the infamous Tony Smith, aka T-Smith. I caught up to him lurking around in the staging lanes and he was a real cool cat.
All in all, we had a pretty good time. With exception to what seemed to be alot of clean-up, we thought the show was pretty good, and that track..................geez. It's just awesome.
Later,
Sean D
