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An afternoon at the track
Published Sat, Jul 14 2007 11:03 PM
Technorati Tags: Entertainment, Drag Racing, Cool Stuff
As most of you know, I'm letting my old racing buddy John drive my racecar until it's sold. Last week they went a few rounds and I decided to go out to the track to watch, and to work out some details about my shop. I'm going to have to move my stuff out within a month after the property where the shop is sells, and there's a lot of used parts to sell.
Anyway, I went out to the track. Pacific Raceways has raised their spectator fees this year by 50%. It cost $15.00 to get in. At least I didn't have to pay for the team to race. They raised racer fees too. Of course there have been some major improvements to the facilities, including finally fully paving the pits. There's a lot less gravel to get stuck to the tires and chip paint.
When I got to my team's pits, John was there with the car parked. Pro bracket was running their first time trial and I wondered what was up. It turned out that Cal had gone out to get some extra transmission fluid. When he got back, the first round of time trials was done.
They fired up the car, topped off the fluid, then ran it through all the gears. Then John took the car for a short warmup ride. Shortly after he got back it was time for the second round of time trials, and my car's first time trial.
The car's performance was dismal to say the least. John and Roger (who drives a 1980 corvette) faced off against each other. They both did decent burnouts, but when John came out of the burnout and cleared the carburetor, there was a loud pop from the car. I haven't heard it do that in over a year. Back then we were having ignition timing issues.
They came to the line, and in an event that's not unusual whenever my corvette and Roger's face off, both drivers red-lit. That doesn't matter during time trials though. What does matter though was my car ran horribly. For the last year and a half the car has been running solidly in the 11s. Not this time though — it ran a 12.86, more than a full second slower than is usual. It also ran 12 MPH slower too.
Back in the pits they did some more work on it. When it came time for eliminations John dialed an 11.99. The car just wouldn't run the number though, finishing out at 12.7 seconds. They did identify the problem though. We only had 3 and a half pounds of fuel pressure. You can't get good performance without sufficient fuel.
Oh well, the big guys are coming to town next weekend for the NHRA Northwest Nationals, so they've got two weeks to fix the problem. I bet next time they come out to race it'll be running mid to high 11s again.
Here's some video of the car...
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