We survived the longest burndown ever!
03-14-2005, 05:14 PM
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We survived the longest burndown ever! This weekend in Bradenton, Florida, I got to give a hand to a very awesome guy, Jarrett Halfacre. He has an NMRA-Spec SSO car that he's just made some big changes to and is going to compete for the world championship in the NMRA SSO class.
My job was to serve as a tuning-liason. The person actually doing the tuning was Don Bailey, out of Orland Park, Illinois. He's head and shoulders above 99% of the FI tuners in the business today. His list of credentials would astound you. The problem was that Don had some obligations to attend to back home, so he was unnable to attend the race. The only option was an over-the-phone tune. Anybody with any FI experience can tell you that trying to tune a car over the phone can be nearly impossible. It requires a lot more than the ability to recognize what's happening to a car as it goes down the track and reading plugs. It requires a lot of good communication and years of racing experience, something I'm still short on. LOL.
So anyways, Jarrett would make a pass and I would relay every bit of information about the pass that I could to Don. We ended up qualifying 9th in a 16 car field. We had the potential to qualify as well as 4th, but due to a huge power-wheelie, we were stuck in 9th.
Supprisingly enough, this new team made it all the way to the semi-final round, where we were going to face a nitrous powered LX. This car had consistantly gone .70's and .80's, so we had to be on our game. We knew that they were going to try to burn us down. Afterall, this very same thing happened last year at the NMRA World-Finals in Bowling Green.
So long story short, we ended up sitting in the pre-stage bulbs for just under 8 minutes. I believe the official time was 7:43. The crowd was going nuts, the crews were going nuts, and I can only imagine what Jarrett was thinking.
Without further ado, grab a drink and check out the video!
http://trmirror.rage-board.com/files...wnFinalCut.wmv
My job was to serve as a tuning-liason. The person actually doing the tuning was Don Bailey, out of Orland Park, Illinois. He's head and shoulders above 99% of the FI tuners in the business today. His list of credentials would astound you. The problem was that Don had some obligations to attend to back home, so he was unnable to attend the race. The only option was an over-the-phone tune. Anybody with any FI experience can tell you that trying to tune a car over the phone can be nearly impossible. It requires a lot more than the ability to recognize what's happening to a car as it goes down the track and reading plugs. It requires a lot of good communication and years of racing experience, something I'm still short on. LOL.
So anyways, Jarrett would make a pass and I would relay every bit of information about the pass that I could to Don. We ended up qualifying 9th in a 16 car field. We had the potential to qualify as well as 4th, but due to a huge power-wheelie, we were stuck in 9th.
Supprisingly enough, this new team made it all the way to the semi-final round, where we were going to face a nitrous powered LX. This car had consistantly gone .70's and .80's, so we had to be on our game. We knew that they were going to try to burn us down. Afterall, this very same thing happened last year at the NMRA World-Finals in Bowling Green.
So long story short, we ended up sitting in the pre-stage bulbs for just under 8 minutes. I believe the official time was 7:43. The crowd was going nuts, the crews were going nuts, and I can only imagine what Jarrett was thinking.
Without further ado, grab a drink and check out the video!
http://trmirror.rage-board.com/files...wnFinalCut.wmv
03-14-2005, 06:13 PM
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Here is the rest of the story. This whole thing started last year at the NMRA finals in Bowling Green. Burton (Nitrous car) tried the same thing there and Halfacre (turbo car) wouldn't have any part of it. So this year Burton tried the same thing. Same result. Halfacre tree'd him twice. Halfacre wins on a holeshot.
03-14-2005, 06:36 PM
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whats up ben?
heard the SAM Mustang made only 1 qualifying pass and had a spark plug issue in the semi-finals (your post on the NMRA board), whats the news with both those?
i should of went down to Florida.... i found myself waiting for the updates on the hardcore50 website
heard the SAM Mustang made only 1 qualifying pass and had a spark plug issue in the semi-finals (your post on the NMRA board), whats the news with both those?
i should of went down to Florida.... i found myself waiting for the updates on the hardcore50 website
03-14-2005, 07:42 PM
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After the first qualifying session we were #1 with a 9.06. Booze was unable to run that day due to some engine problems, but he got them taken care of in time to run rounds 2 and 3. By the time everything was said and done, the 9.06 was good for the #3 spot.
We ended up finishing a strong 3rd behind Booze and Max Gross. The plug issue caused a pretty large loss of power, which resulted in a semi-final loss to Max Gross. I'm sure they'll get the engine back up and running in no time at all. Can't wait for Georgia!
We ended up finishing a strong 3rd behind Booze and Max Gross. The plug issue caused a pretty large loss of power, which resulted in a semi-final loss to Max Gross. I'm sure they'll get the engine back up and running in no time at all. Can't wait for Georgia!
