-
"Spare Parts"
-
My Office
-
Staged
And.... We're Back!!!
- Details
After a very long off-season of over 18 months as Maui Raceway Park gets a face lift, we are back to racing! MRP Shut down at the end of the 2017 season in order to get a new surface, concrete guard rails, and more. What was supposed to be a 3-4 month project turned into an 18 month layoff. With that, the track has a new concrete launch pad which now goes out to 300' past the start line, new asphalt all of the way down including the shutdown area, new concrete guard rails replaced the steel barriers, upgraded sound system, new timing system, new power lines and electrical, and more! We were a part of all of the work and through it all have now also become the Portatree Technical Representative for the central and west Pacific regions.
Now, on to our racing... During the off time, we made a couple of upgrades to the car and did some much needed maintenance. We installed an auto-shifter as I found out I am not supposed to do my burnouts in second gear only and since my line lock is next to the shifter, it would be hard to shift the car while on the line-lock. We also re-arranged the gauges in the car so they are easier to see while I am driving. Finally, we had the transmission. spare transmission. and torque converter rebuilt. During the rebuild, we found that the 3rd gear clutch plates were very badly worn.
So, in our first night out during test-n-tune earlier this year, we discovered that the front brakes were not releasing and were dragging. This drastically affected our elapsed times and our MPH. We also thought that it is what caused the car acting really weird on the launch. So between then and our next race, we rebuilt the brake system and that seemed to fix the releasing issue. However, during our next event, we found that the person that rebuilt our transmissions completely screwed them up! When we would load up the car on the launch (running it up to 3600 RPM) it would cause the transmission to lock up. When we let go of the brake, the car would fall on it's face until the transmission unlocked itself and then it would go. So after all of this work, we had to do it all over again! This was after our Labor Day 3-day race.
Once we got all of the work finished, we were ready to go racing again and some fire bug on Maui decided to light various brush fires and even though the track didn't burn, the dust and ash from the fires and afterward since there was no wind break, would constantly dump dust and ash on the track, we were shut down. With that down time, it was finally time to change the look of the car. So, we stripped off the old vinyl wrap and put on our new wrap.
A special thanks goes out to our vinyl sponsor, e-sign and design of Maui. Kevin and Zach knocked it out of the park on the printing of the vinyl. Also a big thank you to Tony and Mike of Tony's Auto Repair and Performance for the use of their shop to do the major vinyl install, and finally to Kathy and Elliott for their help installing the vinyl.
Now we had the car fixed, the new vinyl installed, and nowhere to race! Well, the folks at Garden Isle Racing in Kauai pitched in along with an unnamed group from Maui and sponsored shipping the car and trailer over to Kauai for their Labor Day races. Mary and Jessie Kealoha of Kealoha Transfer picked the car up and John Ishibashi of Kauai Vehicle Service Center stored the car until we could get there. Thank you everyone for your awesome help!
So Greg Howeth and I went over for the race weekend. After many years of crewing for Greg, it was his turn. Our first night of racing went OK with a #5 qualifying position and a first round win. However, I guess I didn't use enough Visine and got some red on the next round. (-.010). That ended our night and our chance at the Wally. So while we were licking our wounds, Greg came up with some ideas and more importantly, some coaching advise for the next day.
Day 2 started out bad. In our first and only round of qualifying, we cut a miserable .138 light and I figured I would be clawing my way up from the very bottom of the ladder. I guess others struggled as well and we ended up in the top half of the ladder in 7th. As 2nd round of qualifying started, so did the rain. It rained for about two hours and everyone thought we were done for. But, when the rain started letting up around 6pm, everyone including the fans pitched in to dry the track and in 3 hours not only was the track dry, but it was prepped and we later found out it was actually was better than when we started the day.
Here we go, into the first round of eliminations with all of the environmental conditions totally out of whack. I had no idea how the car was going to react so I just went up there and trusted myself and the fact that the car can handle almost any track condition. We staged up and cut a .001149 light (.00000 is a perfect light) and went on down. I didn't know we cut that good of a light and was now thinking about the other end. The car felt like it was on the pass of its life and it was. We ended up getting the win! First round nerves be damned, we are going rounds.
Second round I was paired up against a dragster. I have never run against a dragster, nor have a run against someone that is 3.5 seconds faster than I am. I have to admit, I was a little nervous and anxious about that. Can I see him, will he just be a blur coming at me, how can I judge the stripe? Again, we had to be on our game and we were. We cut an .040 light and sent it off to the other end and ran our numbers. We are still going rounds.
Third round, I was paired up against an altered, which again I have never run against as well. Also Wendell is an excellent racer so I knew I had to really be on my game. I cut an .013 light to his .071 light and put it out there. I saw him coming but also knew now what the car was going to run that night and was confident on my dial in. We ran a 10.508 on a 10.49 dial and beat him at the stripe by seven thousands of a second. We just won the semi-final and are now in the final round!
In the final round, I am now paired up with the winner of the coveted Wally Parks trophy from the night before. Now keep in mind, I am the ONLY Maui boy running this weekend and the ONLY Mopar in any of the lanes. No pressure, right? At least I knew I was on the podium and in the money so I had nothing to lose. I also knew the car was deadly consistent so I rolled into the beams dialed in with an 11.49 again to his 11.30 dial in. The tree drops and I guess I used too much Visine because I cut an .069 light to his .053 light. I could see he cut a good light and was coming. I also knew that the air got a lot heavier so I will probably be running a solid 11.50 or slightly slower. When we got to the stripe, I could hear him blipping the throttle and hitting the brakes but he was still ahead. I started to worry that I was way slower than my dial as we passed the stripe. After a moment or two, Greg comes on the radio and informs me that I just won a sh*tload of money!! I had won the final round! I ran an 11.51 on an 11.49 dial and he ran an 11.25 on an 11.30 dial and broke out. After hooping and hollering and praising the man above I pulled back into the pits with a lot of the drivers not only from my class but many others coming over and congratulating us.
Greg was instrumental in making this happen. Despite having to deal with the new computers for the timing system, helping dry and prep the track, along with a lot of other stuff, I knew the car was ready, checked, set, cocked, and ready to fire every time I strapped into the car. I had no doubts about the car and could focus on my job once I strapped into my office and fired it up. I could not have done this without you Greg and I owe you big time!
A special thank you goes out to Garden Isle Racing, the friends and fans of Kauai Raceway Park, Mary and Jessie Kealoha and John Ishibashi. Without all of you this would not have happened. Also a big Mahalo to everyone that came out and helped to dry and prep the track. If that didn't happen, then I would not have had a chance at the win.
End of Points Season
- Details
Well, here we are at the end of the points season and our final points race. Going into the races, we sit 12th in points with only competing in 3 points events. Since we are so far out of the points hunt, it is time to continue testing and seeing what we can do to make the car even better. Plus, it is time to say thank you to my wife and one of my crew members with giving them a ride-along in the car. Kathy's ride was first and boy, she was not ready for what a launch feels like. She tried filming it with her phone and almost whacked herself in the forehead when we launched. After the pass, she had a big grin on her face for hours. Next was Elliot. Again, not knowing what to expect he almost lost his phone on the launch and all I heard at the big end was 'Holy Sh*t'. Nothing like going from 0 to over 90 mph in 1/8th of a mile. Since I cannot go faster than 14 seconds in the quarter mile, all we could do was a 1/2 track pass but it was enough to have some fun.
So, on to our night. We managed to qet the number 1 qualifier position with a .5058 light which gave us the bye into the first round. Next round we went up against Rich in his 32 Ford coupe. Since we were chasing him, he got the first light and turned it red. The next round, we got paired up against John again and I was trying to make him worry and wanted to cut a good light. Well our light was too good by .003 and we turned it red. Oh well, just need to go back to the basics and stop trying to be cute with close lights and stuff like that. However, we still managed to make it to the semi-finals and had them thinking and worried.
Next month will be a two-day event on Friday and Saturday, just for money, trophies, and bragging rights. We are going to try a few things and see what we can do to make the car a little bit faster. These changes will actually reduce the load and wear on the motor while picking up a few hundredths of a second. After next month, the track will shut down and get a major face-lift including a new racing surface. So almost all of our run data will become worthless and we will be back to playing the guessing game. Oh well, that is OK though as everyone else will be in the same boat.
And.....We Did It!
- Details
After months of setbacks, mechanical issues, and heartbreaks, we managed to pull it together and get the car dialed in. After making some adaptations to the valley pan by welding some 1/2" square tubing along the length of the pan under the intake manifold, it seems that the warping and movement that was breaking the seal before has stopped. We also upgraded the headlights to halogen projection lamps that also have RGBW LED halo rings that allows us to run any color halo we want. We ran them in a color cycling pattern and got rave reviews from the fans and other drivers.
We went into test-n-tune hoping to push the car hard and see if our repairs took care of the leaking valley pan. After three passes everything was dry and the car was running strong. The passes were in the 11.29-11.30 range and we were hitting the rev limiter about 50-75 feet from the finish line. We were also shifting at 6200 RPM with the rev limiter set at 6800 RPM. After some discussions with our tuner and Howard, we decided to use qualifying to test a couple of things. We dropped the shift point to 5800 RPM and raised the rev limiter to 6900 RPM. With these changes, we went from 11.29 range down to 11.21 and 119+ MPH.
We managed to qualify 5th and went into the first round against a very wise, long time racer known as being deadly on his lights and his dial-in. We managed to lay down a .011 reaction time and the other driver felt he had to try and do better and launched too soon and red-lit. Remember, most of these drivers in the Pro-Sportsman class run delay boxes, throttle stops, transmission brakes, and all kinds of wizardry to get them as close to a perfect light and their dial-in and we are old school just using our foot brake, mirrors, and a really good educated guess at our dial-in. Second round we went up against another really good, multi-time champion. Our reaction time was not that good, but we did hit our 11.24 dial-in with an 11.244 run. His reaction time was a little better, but he ran 2 thousands over his dial-in and broke out. In the Semi-finals, we managed to tree our opponent, and in his attempt to catch up, he broke out by almost a tenth of a second.
Final round was against another really good driver. He was running a newer Mustang and has been pretty successful in it. We lined up and since he dialed-in slower than I did, he launched first and I had to wait almost a half-second for my light. I guess he has been seeing my lights and felt he needed to cut a good light, but got over anxious and red-lit by almost a full tenth of a second. Since we had the win, we ran it out the back door and if he didn't red light, we would have broken out by fourteen thousands of a second. Of course I would have touched the brakes for insurance as he had the stripe already and was off his dial by 7 hundredths of a second. But hey, we won and I will take it.
A very dear friend of mine once told me: "Would you rather be lucky, or good?" As I have learned along the way in all of my years racing, I would rather be lucky, and if need be, twice on race day. We got lucky and got the win. I have to thank the man above for watching over us and blessing us with the win. I also have to thank my wife Kathy, and my crew Greg and Dana, Elliott (even though you were out chasing the Seahawks this race), Ken and Robyn, and a new crew member, Aaron. Also, I have to thank my sponsors, Lahaina Divers, Tony's Auto Repair & Performance, e-Sign & Design, & O'Reilly Auto Parts. Without my crew and sponsors, I would be sitting in the stands wishing I was racing.
We have put some videos up on YouTube in case you are interested in watching them:
Round 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XznclWMVjY
Round 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p1RGbBY4ys
Final Round: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAKXsskNE-g
The Mystery Continues
- Details
So last month, we had an issue with the lifter valley pan splitting down the middle for no real reason. To fix that, we went with a 16 gauge aftermarket pan with a relief for the exhaust crossover welded into it. We figured that a heavier duty, racing specific part should deal with our mystery, but that didn't seem to be the case. The pan cracked at one of the welds for the relief and again spewed oil all over the engine compartment. So, we put a bandage on it and lined up to qualify, figuring we are going to be cleaning up oil from each pass and we were ready for it.
While in staging, and next to go, someone oiled down the track ahead of us so we shut the motor down and put the car in park. Once we got the all clear to continue i fired up the car and shifted into low and the car wouldn't move. Running the shifter back and forth didn't seem to do anything. I immediately hopped out and looked under the car and while someone shifted the car, looked to see if the shifter arm was moving and it wasn't. Shifter cable was broken and that ended our night. It was a sign from above that I was just not meant to race that night. Who knows what would have happened throughout the night, oil under the tires, engine fire, who knows but someone was telling me not to race and we packed it up.
Since then, we have been working to install a one-piece valley pan with not welds, reliefs, nothing to see if that fixes it. We have posted on multiple forums and the responses have ranged from over-pressure of the crankcase to parts flying around, sophomore slump, and more. We are also going to make some more tuning changes on the car as we will be switching to pump gas with octane boost and dialing in the jetting more. Our hope is to get down to 11.0 - 11.1 range in July. Then it will be some fine tuning to start knocking on the 10 second door.
We don't plan on pushing the car much further than high 10's as that would mean a significant jump in cubic dollars we will need to spend and more humbug. A low 11 second street car is very respectable and is not something to sneeze at around here. The car looks good, runs awesome, and soon will be deadly consistent. All of that means that we will have a good chance at wins. It would be nice to be in the hunt and do it without any of the electronics and such that others use on their cars. Old school is fun and puts the racing back into the driver's seat and not in the boxes.