vmax1500

The plan was to go out to TMP on Friday night and lay down a new motor best and go home… well, some things don’t work out as planned! I wanted to leave at around 4PM in order to get to the track by around 6:30… but with Friday being the end of the month & quarter a couple things came up and I did not end up getting to the track before 8PM… it was 9PM by the time I got all my tires swapped and got the car tech’ed. By the time I got there, Rampant and Bugblndr had already got a couple of passes in. Dale was a little bummed out after getting to the track all prepared with the exception of having left his lug nuts for the slicks at home! On my 1st pass I was lined up with Bugblndr, my launch went well (in the 1.5x range) but the car started swerving around the 330 mark… It was one hell of a ride, for a couple of seconds I thought I was going to loose it! Both Dale and Richard saw my car all over the lane… it was not pretty! I was pretty shaken up and was tempted to call it a night, but I did not want to leave on that note… after racing the car all summer this was the 1st time something like this had happened to me… Warbird arrived shortly after… My 2nd pass was the only decent pass of the night… an 11.2. By the time I got to my 3rd and final pass, the starting line was in horrible shape and car busted loose off the line. Everyone was nice enough to hang around while I changed my tires… Dale did most of the work; I was a little shaken up as result of the earlier events… I called Wade during the evening and repeated what he had said to me earlier, that racing at night when it starts getting so cold was not wise… I did not realize that dew could become a factor on the track; it was like racing on water!

I woke up on Saturday morning and was not very satisfied with the results of the previous night… Nat was busy during the day and I had nothing to do… So I decided to get back in the car and drive back to TMP… the car was still packed up from the night before. I got there by noon and was in the lanes by about 1PM. It was a beautiful day and the track was not too busy… almost no rice and lots of serious cars. I managed to get in 5 passes by 3PM. All my passes where in the 11.1X range and with 1.5X sixties, how’s that for consistent! I also managed a new best motor pass as well as a new best trap speed. My car was up 3MPH compared to the previous weekend mostly thanks to the shorter slicks that Dale gave me… unfortunately they where not hooking up like my new 28x10 Hoosier slicks and I was spinning a little off the line. On the motor the car likes a 27” tall more, but I need the 28” tire for the spray… it looks like I will need 2 sets of tires to run optimally. The DA was 1323 feet at 2PM based on
Temp: 70°
Humidity: 58%
Track Altitude: 600 feet
Pressure: 30.2 in.

Here’s what my best pass looked like in comparison to the previous best the week before… along with my collection of 11.1 passes!




I am looking forward to running again when the DA drops along with a new set of 27” tires… the car has already seen a couple 1.50’s and that was prior to the Wolfe sway bar, it now leaves even nicer… I am still planning on several small tweaks, but might wait until the winter to get them done at the same time as the bigger tweaks… I want to run in the OSCA 10.9 index class next summer running on the motor… I am feeling confident and comfortable in the car, but I need enough power to run consistent 10’9’s even when the DA is in the 3000ft range…

While driving on the return lane after my last pass I stopped at the scales to weigh the car… the scale was not working. Before getting back in the car I looked over at the track because I heard the sound of sports bikes coming down the track. What I was about to witness was the worst thing I have even seen at a drag strip… I saw a sport bike darting the down the track without a rider… the pilot of the bike was sliding down the track behind the bike. Apparently he had a speed wobble and was tossed off the bike. When he came to stop his leg was severely mangled… the guy he was racing swerved to avoid him and stopped next to the fallen rider… we where both waving to the starting line to signal something went very wrong. About 1 minute later one of the track officials drove down the track in his pickup and started administering basic 1st aid, basically just sat the guy up and made sure he was conscious… fortunately he did not appear to have any head injuries and was coherent. The track official radioed to call in an ambulance and about 20 minutes later one showed up (it seemed like an eternity!). At this point I decided to call it a day… this was the 3rd motor cycle crash I have witnessed… I was behind my best buddy when he crashed his Harley and broke his shoulder and was behind my wife when she went down and broke her clavicle… I love motorcycle riding, but really hate seeing people crash!