Race day started off in a pretty generic fashion. IT WAS RAINING when I got up.....but I digress. Anyway, a few north enders met up in M-sville for coffee & cruised down 405 to hook up with the Monorvia contingent. Felt odd that Ellis wasn't there. But Don wasn't either.....

So we hung out for a few & then rolled down 405. While the traffic was a little heavy for that time of day, we seemed to see a smaller number of ***-hat drivers. Something about a caravan of race cars that brings the worst out in people.

Soon after we clear the Narrows, Don calls me. He was up til 3 working on the Duece....loading up now....save me a place. Cool, can do buddy!

After we get to the track, we pit in our regular place. Set up our tents, tech in, get the CCC thing set up. Seems like a fari trunout - 10 F-bodys, same for NW Muscle Cars.....and 20 Fords! These guys are getting serious. I think they want the crown this year.

We make our first time trial. SOmething like 51 cars are there so far, more are on the way. All things indicate it's going to be a good day. And then ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!

First some moron in a Super Street Wedgie Dart (his name for the car) breaks his rear end & drives ALL the way down the track. They cleaned for an hour, ran a dragster, and shut it down for another hour. Once they get things going again they run the SS cars again. And then the 10 sec Bug blows over at the big end....I mean endoed a few times in the air.

Once they get that cleaned up then they run everyone but us again & back into the SS cars. By then Don & Mike Lattin & everyone else was there. It was 1-fuggin-o'clock & we had made 1 pass. We had eaten lunch & smoked a stoggie, but CHRIST, let us make another pass already guys!!!

Just when it looked like we were going to get a run, the rains came. At 2 the track was dry & we were......wathcing more rain come down. For some strange reason, at 4-*******-O'CLOCK, people started to leave.

As I was headed out I stopped to talk to Barb (the track owner?). She wouldn't give us a rain out, blah blah blah so I unloaded my car & FINALLY we got to race. After they ran ALL the other cars we got our time trial & dialed in. Long about 7-MOTHERFUCKIN:30, we made our first round of elims.

After that they ran the SS class again, and to everyone's surprise, somebody broke & oil the track!

We finally got the race finished at 9-GOD-DAMN-******-******:30 & corwned the winner. Sherry Barnett (who beat me) lost to her husband. All 4 cars in the semis were from NW Muscle Cars. Don wen out in the previous round, and I went out the round before that.

Anyway, what a glorious day at the track. The whole experience was so bad, that Zeke running a 12 & me yanking the front tire was lost on everyone. As was the GREAT turnout by the Ford Drag Team. Gee, I just can't wait until the next race.....I think I'll take up nitting.

PS Two more nice things that I ignored, the announcer said my car "looked sweet, almost like a Pro Stocker....." and John (esoteric) didn't break anything!

 

Wow. I guess my day wasn't so bad then. At least I made a few passes before the brakes.
So... what did you run with the QTP's? What size are they?

 

I ran two 1.48 60' times with Ellis' wheels & tires (with a wheel off the ground from what I hear). But I could only muster a best of 10.86 (on a 10.90 dial) for some reason. The car felt great, & was more stable than with my radials. The QTPs are 27x11.50/15s on 10" Bogarts.

 

thats a real nice 60', so you broke out and were eliminated by it?
Have you ever run the M/T Street ? What do you think is better the QTP or the M/T?
Obviously I'm very frustrated with my inability to launch. I need practice for sure. I launch better on the streets. I really think I was expecting to be able to leave the line at 2500 rpms without tire spin. But I also couldnt hold a steady idle either, kept goosing the throttle waiting on the light . I need practice

Would it be worht it to use a 16x8 stock rim and put a qtp or mt on it? The tread width is only 8 inches if I go that route, would that even help?

Any altering to get that 27" under there? I've been looking at the 26'ers should I think 27 instead?

 

Unbelievable! I'm thinking that as bad as PR is, maybe we need to have more of our Races there from now on. It's not worth it to go to B-town and sit there all day...Hanging out with everyone is fun, but not at that length...I've only been to B-town a couple times and those times were just like that...sitting all day waiting to run..not fun in my book...

 

Congrats on the personal best, Mark. A personal best is even better than winning!

For my part, I actually got to talk to people instead of dealing with getting home. Of course, my box stock 157 hp '82 Mustang doesn't have enough power to break anything. It sounds like Team F Body had decent results, but it was a very very long day. At least the inter club competition is more interesting this year. Mark, I will miss the next two races so I won't need to be trailered until the end of July when the white car will almost certainly be ready.

 

Honestly I wanted to stay but my buddy couldnt stay too much longer (he had plans with his daughter for fathers day). It didnt look like we would get back to racing anytime soon and you were all packed up ready to go. It just seemed like the best thing to do.

 

I'm pretty sure Esoteric's Mustang was the one that ran against my Impala... I think we both dialed in at a blazing 16.05 and 16.70 respectively.

The Impy won that round with a 16.72 on a 16.70 dial... but the next round I broke out with a 16.50. What sucked was the Impy ran like a 16.71, 16.72 right before that, so I figure... hell, 16.70 should still be safe. Nope, the Impy was truckin' that round!

 

what a ****** nightmare. glad I slept in yesterday.

 

I wasn't flipping anyone **** for leaving EJ. As you racall, my car was on the trailer when you left, and I was headed out....

True, there were things going on that the track couldn't control, but B-town seems to let us sit for 2-3 rounds before we get a pass. THAT killed us yesterday! Obviously RC & I need to talk to them.

As for giving you a tow John, for 5bazilllion, mintillion dollars......

I would have offered the other Mustang a ride yesterday, but with Ellis' wheels & tires on the car, I was about to try to drive the TA anywhere.

 

Wow I am blown away that they actually got around to racing. Guess I should have stayed

 

That was me! We had to be the slowest cars on the track -although mine can run a blazing 15.80!! I was struggling to cut a reasonable light (I never did): my white car runs 1.50 short times and my '82 runs 2.2 short times. I was leaving before the third yellow went on... Oh well. You ran a good race. 2/100ths off your dial and an .0 light. Even my fender racing couldn't nab me a win when you drive that well. It's hard to control all that power, isn't it?

 

What a horrible,

Horrible,

HORRIBLE day of waiting.

lol.

After hours of waiting, ran a 16.504 on a 16.5 dial only to redlight by -.004.

So close, but damnit I was going for it.

These really are social events though, and it was a lot of fun to bounce around tents and behind enemy lines to make sure everyone was in line.

 

Here's the synopsis of my day...

Jason, Sarah, Jonathan and I met up at Shari's for breakfast and arrived at the track about 8:30... put the tires on the car, teched. 9:16AM I made the first pass, which was a 12.981 @ 105.23 - and I didn't hammer the car as hard as I could (force of habit from running stock converter / street tires all these years).

So I'm jonesin to go out and run again... then the Dart douches the track. Cleanup takes forever.. they start running again and then right away they're out cleanup up again. While this is going on we're having a little barbecue and me and several others sat and ran the practice tree.

Then it starts raining... we're thinking this is gonna be a rainout at this point. Finally the rain lets up, so they start drying the track, we noticed that the pavement was finally starting to dry but then the second wave of rain came. Now we're positive it's gonna be a rain out, and I'm so sure we're not gonna get to run at that point I took the DR's off my car and put the street tires back on.

The rain finally lets up, but they still haven't called a rainout... WTF? So I figured I would stay until they did call a rain out, I didn't want to lose points or my entry fee or something.... but then they never did. So I'm kinda like screw it, I am not going to change my tires again, I'll just go out there and run on street tires (bad idea, BTW).

So they start running again, and it's like 4:00-4:30 now... and that was about the time that the Beetle bit it at the end (it was after the rain, Mark).. So now we've got another delay to clean that mess up.

It was 5:40 when I got my next run... our only time trial before eliminations... so I'm running street tires, and the first thing that happens on the launch is I spin hard at the line and the car doesn't even move... so I cut a 2.407 on my 60 foot, and a .300 reaction time... the announcer in the tower made fun of me for the reaction time, and I wished I could have stuck my middle finger out the window at that point. *******. Then I realized half way down the track that I had the car in "2" and not "3", and started banging off the rev limiter... ****! So I just called it a wash and let out. 15.221 @ 83.97 mph. The first thing I did when I got back to the pits was throw the drag radials back on the car... it was either that or know I was gonna go out in the first round.

Then they start running the other brackets, and about the time they start running we're talking about which one of the pro cars is going to be the next one to douche the track with something or crash... and sure enough, about 15 minutes in we see a car go down the track with a cloud of blue smoke billowing out of it pretty much from launch... does the driver let up? NO!! Hell, ride it out, your one run is more important than the rest of us sitting here for an hour while they clean up your mess. So now they gotta stop and clean up AGAIN.. fortunately it wasn't anything big and they weren't stopped but a couple minutes.

7:30 they call us to the lanes... Okay, so now I gotta dial in, and I got two runs... a 12.981 from 10 hours ago... and a 15.221.

So I just dialed it at 13.10 since I knew it would run it. Got lined up with one of the NW Musclecar guys, a mid 70's Malibu with a missing rear bumper dialed at 13.30. Got the jump on him at the tree, and I was ahead of him the entire race... knowing I had the faster car I just stayed about 5 feet ahead of him the entire length of the track, and we both ended up breaking out. He ran a 13.239 on a 13.30, I ran a 13.078 @ 99.68 mph on the brakes at the end... so I took that round.

Next round I get lined up against a blue/silver Fox body from the Ford team dialed at 13.00... I dropped my dial to 12.95 cuz I knew it was definitely gonna hit 12's in this weather, so this is almost a heads up race. So the tree goes down and I see that I launched before him, so I know I treed him by at least .05.. What weirded me out is that I got WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY ahead of him, like 2-3 car lengths, and I'm trying to figure out what to do... so I let out and coast for a second, let him catch up and then get back on it again.. then he sneaks past me at the line. I dunno what's up with that car, he must have a little cheater nitrous shot or something on it... cuz I dunno how that car could have suddenly pulled that hard on me at the top end.

So anyway, I'm out... I get my time slip and see that I had treed him by .231, and he ran a 13.213 @92.02 to my 13.423 @ 98.31. Talk about a screwed up run.

At that point it was time to go home, I was tired.

I really can't wait to be able to run the Formula out a few times to see what it will do now and see if it's gonna be consistent.

 

It could have been much worse! You could've been towed home!!

 

No kidding. Already had the Cobra towed home last week!

 

That guy is really struggling with some tunning gremlins on a new combo. That car has run 12.80's at 108 but it stumbles off the line every time. I was trying to help him sort it out. Both of you guys were off the gas.

 

What I say mid 16's to 17's V-6 Mustangs are slow ...My 04 Silverado runs faster than that!

What a day. I think both tracks Treat CCC like crap. But if there are more races at Pacific next year I will just run points at Bremerton. Driving to Pacific and sitting is no great picnic either and the points run at Bremerton is the 11 races, just like CCC.
I wouldn't blame you for having the races there as you are all closer and not many people from this side run the CCC and I am sure you would have a better turn out!

Lots of the stuff that happened yesterday was beyond B-towns control...Rain, breakage, wreakage etc etc. I would really like to Flog the guy who broke and then ran all the way down the track...What an idiot...

I did have a great time chatting with everyone though! I mingled through most of the teams chatting it up with everyone! That is more than half the fun if you ask me!

 

While the rain and cars breaking was not in the tracks control, running the other cars multiple times without running car club seems ridiculous to me. I would like to see Mark run either just test and tune next year or for money and skip car club. Personally I would like the car to have a chance at bringing in some money instead of it just being the perpetual cash drain that it is now.

 

Yeah I hear ya , not so much about the money, but track time. I can go to Bremerton on friday night test and tune and no **** make like 20 passes and hot lap which is invaluable for practicing on your reaction time! I couldn't tell you why they run everyone else, they do it at PR also. I guess we don't bring in enought money or some bullshit like that. At anyrate that is what pisses me off the most about both tracks and CCC. I feel like we are treated like second class citizens just because we are CCC!