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