RAPID
Nitro Member
MO-KAN FUEL ALTERED LABOR DAY RACE
September 2nd and 3rd was Mo-Kan Dragway’s in Joplin, Mo. It was the annual Labor Day Fuel Altered Bash. There were 16-Outlaw Fuel Altereds competing for the 8-car field. This was also the season ending race for the Outlaws. The place was packed with Altereds, 10.5 cars, and bracket cars, along with Jr. Dragsters. This year had the largest car count I have ever seen at this track. The track was resurfaced last year and is nice and smooth now.
The Nitro Madness team arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday. It was so packed; we had to parkway out in the grass on the South edge of the pits. I was positive no one would come down that far to even know we were there. Boy was I wrong about the Mo-Kan fans. Our pits had people down to see us all weekend. I was surprised to find out how many of the people remembered us. It had been almost 2-years since we were last there. Jessie a friend we met when racing there a few years ago probably wore out a good pair of shoes coming down to see us.
Around 5:00PM our team, along with a few others went up and inspected the track. It looked pretty smooth. It has always had a bump in the right lane, nothing too major, just make sure you don’t shift at that spot and the car should go right over it. The track was scraped a couple of days prior to this race. It didn’t have much rubber past the starting line, but no bald spots in the starting line area. I watched a few of the faster bracket cars leave on the trans-brake with the throttle pegged. They were working pretty well. While we were up there, Howard Knowles made a test shot. He wound it out, and when he left it went 5-feet and smoked the tires hard! I went to his pit to see if I had miss read the track, but he told me he had it all "whooped" up trying to rotate the earth.
The first round was right on schedule at 7:00pm. Most of the racers know the drill. Do you go up there hopped up knowing that you are against the best Altereds around and only 8 get to play on Sunday, or do you set it up to go down the track and hope it has enough to put you in the show? Then you can try something more later. We decided that this would probably be the best session. So we decided to put our Draglist Nationals record run tune-up in it, but backed down a little. We believed it would go run a mid to high 4-teen and that should get us in. Waiting in line I heard some cars making it, and some on and off the throttle runs. When we heard Larry Reep, {Grim Reaper}, run a 4.12 in the right lane; I believed we made the correct call. We were in the left lane, but most of the quick runs were in the right lane during this session. It was our turn. The car came to life. Have you ever noticed before the 1st run of the race weekend, the car never sounds better or more ready for tearing up the track? It doesn’t matter what tune-up is in it, it feels like it will make the best pass ever. I did a nice long burnout and backed to the line. The car left great, about 350-feet out it started to fishtail. Not too bad at first, but every swing was further out. I was trying to explain to it that we only had to make an 1/8 mile run, so just hang on a bit more. I guess we had the Spanish-speaking chip in the computer, because it seemed like the car was in the "no habla" mode. I didn’t want to lift but around 500 feet it was making some pretty big swings. I didn’t feel up to explaining to the team, “Yeah, I thought about lifting, but it got too far out and drove into the wall. So I guess our season is over.” I lifted, and when it was pointed at the finish line I went back down on the throttle. We went 4.24 that put us in at #5.
When the crew came down to get me we were kidding around while turning off the air bottle, putting the fire pins back in, and wrapping the chutes around the wing for the tow back to the pits. Pappy said, “You know, a 4.24 isn’t so bad sliding thru the lights on your door handles!” I responded with, “Yeah, I guess it was a bit loose.” RC threw in a, “Ya think?” as he was getting into the truck. Laura supplied the “Look” and went back to the truck as well.
Well we are in the show with a decent #5 spot. So for the 10:30PM session the discussion was, lets run the right lane and see if it will take a wee bit more. Or to leave it alone since it was on the edge of not going thru there. We elected to soften it a bit and go with the theory that the lane may be better, but the whole track may be worse. We took a degree of timing out, adjusted the fuel for the weather and rolled back up there. I got suited up, down in the car and ready to run. A pair ahead of us had some trouble and oiled the lane; of course it is our lane. After about 45-minutes, it was time to run again. Since I couldn’t see the track I just waited in the car. It takes a little while to get strapped in, and I didn’t want to hold up the program when they were ready to run again. Even at night, sitting there in the –20 suit, it is good and hot. The car ahead makes a run and has to pedal it. Reap goes down the left lane we had some trouble with, to the tune of 4.11. He is number one qualifier. It is now our turn for a shot at the right lane. It turns out that our car, or no other got down the right lane after the oil down. We ran a 4.74 after going over to visit Travis’s car in the left lane. Hey, I didn’t take out any cones so they can’t prove I was ever over there. Pappy said he thought I passed some cones on the right side of the car. I asked him what was his point? After all the cars had run we were still 5th. We put the car in the box, went to the motel. The outside pool was cold, and the hot tub was closed already. It was only 12:30,,, darn early birds anyway.
Sunday it was a sleep in until 8:00AM or so. Off to the hot tub, showers and we all went to breakfast at Harrys. It is a local café that is all 1930’s décor. I believe it has only had 2-owners in all the years it has been there. Great food, and lots of fun with the ladies who are the owners and the wait staff both. We all went back to the motel to watch the videos of the runs from Saturday. It appears that the technology to manage this has escaped us, or the town of Pittsburgh, Kansas, one or the other. It is now 1:00PM. I am dying to go to the track, only to discover I am the only one, everyone else is for taking a nap. I left them there with a, don’t be too late and headed to the track. Note to self, it isn’t fun unloading the car, setting up the big awning all by yourself. Don’t fall for the sleepy crew trick again. I wanted to change some things in the fuel system to help us get thru the 200-400 foot section of the track. The time really flies by and after I got more fuel, and checked our car, the crew was there to service it for the 1st round.
7:00PM Sunday night we are ready for the 1st round. We have the Grim Reaper in a repeat of the final at Tulsa earlier this season. I lost to him when our Lencodrive transmission wouldn’t hold on the line and the car rolled thru the beams. He told me before the race he was fine with me doing that again. It ended up with him red lighting. I saw his bulb go red. I went ahead and left to save our converter from any more heat. We ran a 4.25 to advance.
9:15PM it was time for the 2nd round. I had Travis Bouchey in this round. His car runs real great with a big load of Nitro and a 3-speed Lenco in it. I knew he had hurt a piston in round 1. I asked him if he needed me to set his clutch up, or maybe adjust the timing for him. He said, “I needed you a for the piston change.” I told him I heard about that and got up out of the hammock to help. However, when getting up I spilled my Pepsi, which put me into a bad mood and decided I wouldn’t be any help without my Pepsi. So I got back in the hammock and rested. Travis said, “Great, I am up here working my butt off and you are resting in a hammock!” I said, “Well Travis, there was a nice cool breeze while I laid there relaxing.” I can’t print what he said next.
We had a great race and our car won with a 4.22.
Then it was time for the finals. It was with Brad Rigler who turned out to be the Outlaw Fuel Altered Season Champion. He showed me why he is the champ in the finals. I left on him, but our car spun and the hit, and was loose all the way down the track. At around 550 feet it suddenly turned sideways and I had to lift. When it came back around I mashed the pedal and slid thru the finish line smoking the tires. Brad made a great pass in the other lane for the win.
The reports I am getting indicated that Laura expressed some rather unprintable words when our car turned sideways. Well, more like one word, repeated a time or two until she saw the chutes came out! RC wasn’t sure she was going to wait for the truck to take her to the finish line. When they arrived on the big end, she asked if I was ok, yes, is the car ok, yes. Smack, don’t do that to me again! I probably will!!!!!
I hope you enjoyed my “What I did Last Weekend Story”.
Rapid
September 2nd and 3rd was Mo-Kan Dragway’s in Joplin, Mo. It was the annual Labor Day Fuel Altered Bash. There were 16-Outlaw Fuel Altereds competing for the 8-car field. This was also the season ending race for the Outlaws. The place was packed with Altereds, 10.5 cars, and bracket cars, along with Jr. Dragsters. This year had the largest car count I have ever seen at this track. The track was resurfaced last year and is nice and smooth now.
The Nitro Madness team arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday. It was so packed; we had to parkway out in the grass on the South edge of the pits. I was positive no one would come down that far to even know we were there. Boy was I wrong about the Mo-Kan fans. Our pits had people down to see us all weekend. I was surprised to find out how many of the people remembered us. It had been almost 2-years since we were last there. Jessie a friend we met when racing there a few years ago probably wore out a good pair of shoes coming down to see us.
Around 5:00PM our team, along with a few others went up and inspected the track. It looked pretty smooth. It has always had a bump in the right lane, nothing too major, just make sure you don’t shift at that spot and the car should go right over it. The track was scraped a couple of days prior to this race. It didn’t have much rubber past the starting line, but no bald spots in the starting line area. I watched a few of the faster bracket cars leave on the trans-brake with the throttle pegged. They were working pretty well. While we were up there, Howard Knowles made a test shot. He wound it out, and when he left it went 5-feet and smoked the tires hard! I went to his pit to see if I had miss read the track, but he told me he had it all "whooped" up trying to rotate the earth.
The first round was right on schedule at 7:00pm. Most of the racers know the drill. Do you go up there hopped up knowing that you are against the best Altereds around and only 8 get to play on Sunday, or do you set it up to go down the track and hope it has enough to put you in the show? Then you can try something more later. We decided that this would probably be the best session. So we decided to put our Draglist Nationals record run tune-up in it, but backed down a little. We believed it would go run a mid to high 4-teen and that should get us in. Waiting in line I heard some cars making it, and some on and off the throttle runs. When we heard Larry Reep, {Grim Reaper}, run a 4.12 in the right lane; I believed we made the correct call. We were in the left lane, but most of the quick runs were in the right lane during this session. It was our turn. The car came to life. Have you ever noticed before the 1st run of the race weekend, the car never sounds better or more ready for tearing up the track? It doesn’t matter what tune-up is in it, it feels like it will make the best pass ever. I did a nice long burnout and backed to the line. The car left great, about 350-feet out it started to fishtail. Not too bad at first, but every swing was further out. I was trying to explain to it that we only had to make an 1/8 mile run, so just hang on a bit more. I guess we had the Spanish-speaking chip in the computer, because it seemed like the car was in the "no habla" mode. I didn’t want to lift but around 500 feet it was making some pretty big swings. I didn’t feel up to explaining to the team, “Yeah, I thought about lifting, but it got too far out and drove into the wall. So I guess our season is over.” I lifted, and when it was pointed at the finish line I went back down on the throttle. We went 4.24 that put us in at #5.
When the crew came down to get me we were kidding around while turning off the air bottle, putting the fire pins back in, and wrapping the chutes around the wing for the tow back to the pits. Pappy said, “You know, a 4.24 isn’t so bad sliding thru the lights on your door handles!” I responded with, “Yeah, I guess it was a bit loose.” RC threw in a, “Ya think?” as he was getting into the truck. Laura supplied the “Look” and went back to the truck as well.
Well we are in the show with a decent #5 spot. So for the 10:30PM session the discussion was, lets run the right lane and see if it will take a wee bit more. Or to leave it alone since it was on the edge of not going thru there. We elected to soften it a bit and go with the theory that the lane may be better, but the whole track may be worse. We took a degree of timing out, adjusted the fuel for the weather and rolled back up there. I got suited up, down in the car and ready to run. A pair ahead of us had some trouble and oiled the lane; of course it is our lane. After about 45-minutes, it was time to run again. Since I couldn’t see the track I just waited in the car. It takes a little while to get strapped in, and I didn’t want to hold up the program when they were ready to run again. Even at night, sitting there in the –20 suit, it is good and hot. The car ahead makes a run and has to pedal it. Reap goes down the left lane we had some trouble with, to the tune of 4.11. He is number one qualifier. It is now our turn for a shot at the right lane. It turns out that our car, or no other got down the right lane after the oil down. We ran a 4.74 after going over to visit Travis’s car in the left lane. Hey, I didn’t take out any cones so they can’t prove I was ever over there. Pappy said he thought I passed some cones on the right side of the car. I asked him what was his point? After all the cars had run we were still 5th. We put the car in the box, went to the motel. The outside pool was cold, and the hot tub was closed already. It was only 12:30,,, darn early birds anyway.
Sunday it was a sleep in until 8:00AM or so. Off to the hot tub, showers and we all went to breakfast at Harrys. It is a local café that is all 1930’s décor. I believe it has only had 2-owners in all the years it has been there. Great food, and lots of fun with the ladies who are the owners and the wait staff both. We all went back to the motel to watch the videos of the runs from Saturday. It appears that the technology to manage this has escaped us, or the town of Pittsburgh, Kansas, one or the other. It is now 1:00PM. I am dying to go to the track, only to discover I am the only one, everyone else is for taking a nap. I left them there with a, don’t be too late and headed to the track. Note to self, it isn’t fun unloading the car, setting up the big awning all by yourself. Don’t fall for the sleepy crew trick again. I wanted to change some things in the fuel system to help us get thru the 200-400 foot section of the track. The time really flies by and after I got more fuel, and checked our car, the crew was there to service it for the 1st round.
7:00PM Sunday night we are ready for the 1st round. We have the Grim Reaper in a repeat of the final at Tulsa earlier this season. I lost to him when our Lencodrive transmission wouldn’t hold on the line and the car rolled thru the beams. He told me before the race he was fine with me doing that again. It ended up with him red lighting. I saw his bulb go red. I went ahead and left to save our converter from any more heat. We ran a 4.25 to advance.
9:15PM it was time for the 2nd round. I had Travis Bouchey in this round. His car runs real great with a big load of Nitro and a 3-speed Lenco in it. I knew he had hurt a piston in round 1. I asked him if he needed me to set his clutch up, or maybe adjust the timing for him. He said, “I needed you a for the piston change.” I told him I heard about that and got up out of the hammock to help. However, when getting up I spilled my Pepsi, which put me into a bad mood and decided I wouldn’t be any help without my Pepsi. So I got back in the hammock and rested. Travis said, “Great, I am up here working my butt off and you are resting in a hammock!” I said, “Well Travis, there was a nice cool breeze while I laid there relaxing.” I can’t print what he said next.
We had a great race and our car won with a 4.22.
Then it was time for the finals. It was with Brad Rigler who turned out to be the Outlaw Fuel Altered Season Champion. He showed me why he is the champ in the finals. I left on him, but our car spun and the hit, and was loose all the way down the track. At around 550 feet it suddenly turned sideways and I had to lift. When it came back around I mashed the pedal and slid thru the finish line smoking the tires. Brad made a great pass in the other lane for the win.
The reports I am getting indicated that Laura expressed some rather unprintable words when our car turned sideways. Well, more like one word, repeated a time or two until she saw the chutes came out! RC wasn’t sure she was going to wait for the truck to take her to the finish line. When they arrived on the big end, she asked if I was ok, yes, is the car ok, yes. Smack, don’t do that to me again! I probably will!!!!!
I hope you enjoyed my “What I did Last Weekend Story”.
Rapid
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