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Current News on the top, read from the bottom up to start at the beginning...Thanks!

 

 

June 20, 2009

We all loaded up Friday morning for Bakersfield, CA. It was an ANRA weekend. ANRA is a great group of guys & girls that race (www.anra.com). The trip started out with a sick Boxer dog. She got into the packed dog food the night before and had an upset tummy on the way, so Leona, driving her VW had to make a couple pit stops to remove the dog food reversal moments that the Boxer had. (Yuck). Her car was starting to give fits restarting. I figured I would look it over at the track and see what was going on. After the boys (us) stopped for breakfast ½ way to the track, Leona was ahead of us and going to meet us at the track. We made it 5 miles past Chowchilla (where we stopped) and lost the center tire on the right side of the trailer. Luckily it was a tread separation, and the fender lived thru it. It took all of 14 minutes to change it out, and get back on the road. Nothing like having a portable garage with you. Well, all was good until Leona made it to the exit for the racetrack. Her car died & wouldn’t restart. We were about 30 minutes behind her, and she was going to wait there. Once we got there, we were able to get it refired and she drove to the track.

We got the pits setup and the cars unloaded. After getting Austin’s JR car and my car ‘teched’ in, we set back to relax after the ‘interesting’ road trip. We hooked up with old friends, and met new friends. Life was good. My new tires for the dragster showed up, and looked great on the car. Thanks John Hashim (M&H Tires).

Saturday morning, following a great warm up, we towed up for the first qualifier of the weekend. The driver (Me) totally botched the first burnout on the new tires, barely getting enough tire speed to dry the tires off! Needless to say, it spun pretty hard, and ran a 7.85 ET, but the MPH was 182.55. A personal best by 2.5MPH! Looks like the fuel system mods paid off! For the next qualifier, I kept it together in the water box, did a textbook burnout, and left on time. We new we were a little too hot for the index with the new fuel system mods, but needed a baseline. Well, that baseline was 7.49/182.40. Ya, a tad quick. How about .101 too fast. Ok, now we had something to work with. Back in the pits, we backed 5* out of the mag, and left the fuel/blower alone. The air got quite a bit worse also by the third session of qualifying. For the third hit of the day, another nice burnout, backup, and leave. I left a little early, .016 red, but the pass was nice. It made a decent move to the right about 30 feet out (turns out three other NE1 cars did the same deal), and ran a 7.630/179.00. It responded nicely, and we sat #5 qualifier in a field of 15 cars. I was due to race Eily Stafford in the morning for first round. I later found out they were having operational issues and were not going to be able to make the call first round, so I had a comp bye in the morning. I was ok with that!

Sunday morning, another nice warm up, everything checked out great, and we towed up for first round. I left the tune up just as it was Saturday night, however, the air quality was quite a bit better, so I knew it would clean up and run harder. I needed to know how much, so the plan was to run it out and tune from there. While getting in the car in the lanes, I experienced a very odd closterphobia feeling and basically ‘bounced’. As soon as my butt hit the seat, I came right back out. My crew chief said I was GHOST white and not responding to him talking to me in the radio. I’m not sure what happened, but after getting out, and ‘resetting’ I felt fine and climbed right back in. The burnout was nice, and I laid a .010 light to the track. The run was a tad fast with a 7.519/180.00 pass. Knowing that, I pulled three more degrees out of the mag to soften up the hit and get rid of some ET. I was due to face my friend Kevin Sarginson in his new funny car for second round. We towed up and laid down a nice set of side by side burnouts, backed up, and for some reason (brain fart by the driver), I bumped in deep on the tree. I knew I wanted to save it on the tree, so I made damn sure I saw yellow. I had a .039 tree, to Kevin’s .o99 tree I was a car behind all the way down track, unable to run the low 60 tune-up I had on it, and ran a 7.75 to Kevin’s 7.62. The margin of victory was around .060 in favor of Kevin. He went on to the finals.

Great day for our racing team! We ran well all 5 laps. The tune-up was responding, and we were having a great time. After packing up, and saying our good byes, we ready to head home.

Austin had a trophy race during this weekend, so we actually raced both cars for the first time. Austin made it to the semi finals, and lost a VERY close race (.0085 at the stripe). He was able to get on the microphone at the end of the day. It was fun to listen to him over the PA.  He’s a ham!

Sunday morning Vintage Fuel did a photo shoot of my car, to possible appear in their magazine later. That was fun. Mike Ward, Vintage Fuel, is a nice guy!

After replacing the fuel filter on Leona’s VW (found a lot of water in the fuel, and filter) she headed for home, uneventful. I had the boy & my crew chief with me. We stopped for dinner on the way home, and had another flat on the trailer. Same damn tire as Friday, this time, a ½ bolt stuck thru my tire. GRRRRRR. We swapped it out after dinner, and headed for the barn. The rest of the trip was ‘boring’ and made it home at 9:30, hit the showers and headed for bedded. J

Thanks for reading. I appreciate all the help from my friends & family. A special thanks to my new sponsor, Bumblebee Motorsports (www.bumblebeemotorsports.com). A great motorsports marketing company here in Northern California. Annette is awesome to work with.

 

 

May 4, 2009

We towed to DragFest 2009 in Bakersfield.  Our first outing in the new car.  Off the trailer Saturday morning, the car went 7.75 @ 172 mph.  After making minor tune up changes, it responded by running a 7.69 @ 174 mph.  We qualified #10 in the tight NS/1 (Nostalgia Slingshot 1) category.  Sunday morning, the tree was a little slow (LOL) and I had a -.018 reaction time.  Oops.  I'm attempting to get acclimated to how fast this new car responds.  The old car would have been much slower (and green).  First round, after the red light, I did run my first 180mph pass in the new  car though!  A personal best. Good times were had by all, and that is what it is all about.

 

April 19, 2009   

We have had a successful two months of testing.  We are starting to get a decent baseline on our tune-ups.  While keeping a target of 7.60 racing, We have managed to run repetitive 7.60's Looking forward to our next racing, May 1st, 2nd, & 3rd in Bakersfield.  www.randkdragfest.com   

More news when it arrives.  Thanks a million for checking in!

Thanks,

Greg Means

Owner & Guinea Pig