Race Report January-May 2008

I’m running only the Barracuda now since selling the Demon back to Paul Hazslauer.  Paul is converting the car to a super stocker and it should be ready to run by the end of the summer in time for the Fall races. I started the 2008 season very well with a runner up finish in the January NHRA National Open.  Two weeks later I was in Pomona for the Winter Nationals, the official start of the NHRA 2008 season.  The car ran very well, driver error in the first round of eliminations sent me home early!

I missed the next three races due to illness and changes to the car.  I put a new motor in for the MOPARS at the Strip race, tested it at the Jerry’s Nugget race the week before.  The car was considerably slower, very unexpected and disappointing.  Not everything works the first time!  I changed motors, put the old motor back in for the Summit.Com Las Vegas national event, and sent the new motor back to the machinist to figure out why it was so much slower than the old motor.  The old motor continued to run well, much better than the driver. Another early exit.  The story on the new motor is that there was nothing wrong with the motor.  The machinist took it apart and examined everything, then put it back together and spent a day on the dyno with it to make sure everything was working well.  The motor put out almost 460hp on a “tight” dyno which is excellent for the small carburetor.  Turns out, though, the ATI balancer did not correctly indicate top dead center.  It actually was 5 degrees retarded from the indicator marks.  Consequently, I was running the motor severely retarded which would account for the relative poor performance.  The motor is ready now, just have to pick it up!

Early in May I ran the Divisional race at Fontana, lost in the third round in a close race.  I continue to do fairly well at the Fontana track.  Finally, back to the Jerry’s Nugget series at The Strip.  I had a very good showing in the first race but have struggled getting past the first round in the other races.  No problems with the car, my reaction times have been very inconsistent, probably a result of having to relocate the two-step button from the shifter to the brake pedal to comply with new NHRA rules.  It just doesn’t work as well off the brake pedal.  There are some fixes for this that I will be working on.

I’m anxious to get the new motor back in and see how it compares with the old motor. The old motor needs to be freshened, it has over 140 runs on it now and is due for a hone and new rings and bearings.  The next road trip will be to Fallon the middle of June.  Hopefully, I’ll have the new motor in and get a chance to tune it before the July race in Denver, the MOPAR Nationals.  Summer racing will slow down due to the heat and long travel distances but we will still be racing.  Stayed tuned!