Driver's Seat

Ok, so it has been a few races since I posted last. We have been busy with the car making adjustments and fine tuning not only the car but the driver. After looking at the photos and videos from the April race and noticing that the springs are wrapping up on themselves and eventually breaking the tailshaft housing on the transmission, it was time to upgrade from the 46 year old original stock springs. We installed a set of Super Stock springs from Summit Racing as well as adjustable shocks and a 1" lowering kit for the 3 day May races. 

What a difference these springs made! The car launches not only flatter, but much, much faster! We reduced our overall 60' times by .03 which reduced our overall top end ET by .1 seconds. During qualifying we hit our best ET with a 11.93 second pass. As well, our times were a lot more consistent with qualifying runs between 12.04 and 12.06 all three days with the exception of the 11.93 all out pass once we got the second qualifier spot in the first pass. Now with the down side of the springs... the car launches much faster and until I figured that out on Sunday, I was seeing nothing but red. By Sunday, I changed my launch timing on the light and was again pulling .01 lights. Now I just have to keep on the practice tree with the smaller rollout. 

One of the races was a lot of fun on Sunday. I was up against a Toyota Matrix and a young gal racing it. After waiting over 5 seconds for my light, I managed to run her down before half track. Rather than blow by her, I stood on the brakes and kept about a car on her for the rest of the pass. Afterwards I went over to her pit to tell her 'good job' and she wasn't there so I left the message with her Mom. Later that night, she came over to my pit and gave me a big hug and said that our pass was the most fun she had racing because I didn't just blow by her. That was one of the things that just made my weekend!

Another shocking thing that is happening is that a lot of people have been rushing up to the return road fence to take pictures and video of the car and we have had a lot of people come by the pit and comment on the car and how cool they think it is. I asked a couple of the people why and many of them said that it is so pure old school that it just looks cool. Between the unaltered look, the multi-color primer, and the fact that it is an old Mopar, they just think it is cool. Another thing I have been having fun with is throwing Shakas on the return road and so many people send Shakas back, get excited, wave, or simply wait for me to come down the return road. Hey, we are here to race, but part of the fun is the show and interacting with the fans. 

Well, I guess we should get back to prepping for the next race in a week. Let's hope I can get my lights down better and go rounds. Until next time, keep the hammer down and the car between the lines!