Usually, Steve O sends me weekend details and I post a big old Weekly Update. The email I got about Memorial Day weekend was so good that it doesn’t need to be rewritten. So, this week’s update is brought to you by Steve O himself. Some day we can all say we knew him when he was grinding away on weeklies.
Talk about a long, HOT weekend!
Friday we made the trek down to National Trails Raceway in Columbus, Ohio for the 11th annual Great AMC Day (GAD). Matt went into the event with three consecutive class wins. There was a total of six racers from our clan that made the journey. It is a fun event mostly because its low pressure and it is way cool to race with a bunch of AMCs that we don’t often see. The track was in great shape for a club type event, so kudos to National Trails for providing a great track on such a hot day.
Our group did rather with Matt winning his 5th GAD race, Steve O with the Runner-up, and AMC Dan with a semi-final finish.
Saturday at Summit Motorsports Park was a hot one, too, but it was a little better than the day before in Columbus. A nice breeze kept the day bearable, but made racing interesting.
As I said in Big Money, Big Pressure, I had a big run-off before the main part of eliminations, then I got my first time run with everyone else. The car went 10.27 seconds with a great .007 seconds light. I thought I was set. The second time run I made was called specifically for the Super 64. This time I finished in 10.36 seconds. Something just wasn’t right.
My care has been very consistent this season, so that is a huge loss in esitmated time (E.T.). That loss in time can be attributed to that breeze that was making the day livable. That made for an interesting first round of the run-off. We were all second guessing our dial-ins for that 1st round.
Every round was a stout competitor and the first was no exception. This was no time to choke but I did and had a .04 second light. That’s not what you want in such an important race. Fortunately, my competitor red lit by .002 seconds handing me the win. That’s why you run the race out everytime.
I went right back up for 2nd round and now I’m paired up with the driver who won the points last year, was number one on the ladder, and has not lost a round at Summit yet this year. I knew it was going to be a good race, it always is against him.
We were identical on the tree, posted the same exact 60′ times, the same exact 1/8 mile times, and we were welded to each other until the 1000′ mark. At that point I had a bad feeling.
We were identical until then and I know he has more MPH than I do, so at some point he was going to pull away. I decided to spray the nitrous to keep it even till about 10′ from the finish line. I knew I would be breaking out (running faster than my dial-in) because I was spraying so much. That meant I had to hit the brakes hard and hope he ran his pass all the way out to make sure he finished ahead of me and would break out himself. And it worked! Whew!!!
On to the round of four I went, with another tough one coming up. I was feeling good and thinking this was a winnable race. We did our burnouts and staged. The tree came down and BLAMMO! The Crimson Orb is shining in my face like the sun. I red lit by .002 seconds, ending my chances for the big prize. I was honored to make it as far as I did and still had the nights races in front of me.
While Matt finished his last time run during the finals of the Super 64, I licked my wounds and got ready for the night’s events. My night ended pretty early after making a dead on pass, but having a bad reaction time, but Matt continued his streak from Friday with new found excitement from finding the “Gremlin” in his Spirit. He was looking good until he met up with an almost perfect run against him.
Sunday finally came and we finished the weekend at Dragway 42 on one of their many three day non points weekends. Each racer pays $25 to enter to win $1000. That’s not a bad investment.
It was also a late 4:00pm start on a Sunday because of the holiday on Monday, so Matt, Amanda, and I had some time to recover from two days worth of long, hot track fatigue.
I decided I would get the 3rd Stevand Racing car out and do some shake down runs. It is a huge advantage having a working back up car at our disposal in case one of our cars breaks. Last year I used four different AMCs to finish pretty high up in the points at the end of the season.
My 1970 Javelin has been competitive in the past and it is where I got my start, but the first pass with her was pretty much a disaster. I spun my wheels, missed some shifts, and the car wouldn’t rev past 5000 rpm. I did some tinkering and things improved slightly, but still not even close to right. We decided to try a jet change and that was a huge step in the right direction. She still spun but revved right up to 6000 rpm and was as smooth as silk down track. I lost in the first round but the runs with the Javelin were still an success overall. I need to do some rear suspension work to get the spin out of her and we should be alright. Matt took a 2nd round loss which he talks about in his latest blog.
So, our short to-do list presently consists of a couple of oil changes, rear end work, carb repair, and start a new secret project. (Stay Tuned!)
This coming weekend we’ll be at Summit Motorsports Park and Dragway 42. Hope to see you there!
