Last race was July 9 (bulbed out 1st round). Next is this Friday, August 6.

I've had the car out of the garage once since then. Had the trickle charger on, aired up the slicks & tank expecting to race on the 23rd (rained out), otherwise haven't touched the car.
I'm so ready for some more

 

Sounds like the start of my season this year Ready to go and noplace to go.

It's Wednesday and I'm ready to go for the weekend. The last of the modifications are done. Changes done since last race

Relocate ladder bars up one hole.
Cut rear coils to compensate for all the weight removed off the rear over the winter.
Welded a helmet hook to the roll cage so the helmet doesn't have to roll around on the floor.
Reset timing to 40*
Wire playback tach into transbrake circuit so it starts to record as soon as the transbrake is released.
Remove 2" open carb spacer and install 1" Super Sucker carb spacer. Using the shorter carb spacer has allowed the use of the 4" air filter under the cowl now so that was also reinstalled.
Put the trickle charger on the battery for a day.
Relocate the fuel pressure gauge under the cowl

I think that was about it and it was all done in less than 2 weeks. Our forecast looks good for the weekend. I have 5 more races left this season and they're over 4 weekends. (one double header). Sept 12 is the season final then no more racing until May 2005. That gives me LOTS of downtime to change things again. Hopefully the new engine will be in before christmas and I'll easily run 9's next year.

 

No roll cage, so no place to weld a helmet hook. That would be nice, though.

Forecast for today and tomorrow is "isolated" thunderstorms in afternoon and evening. Lately, it seems to be isolated to the track area on race days.

My brother is visiting today as well. More incentive to make a good showing.

 

(This may be slightly off topic, but what the heck)

You guys seem pretty experienced in drag racing; I was wondering how common breakage is when it comes to your drag car.

I'm a poor college student so I've stayed away from the drag strip 'cause I don't want to tear up anything expensive.
(I did go a couple of times, with, ummmm, mixed results)

 

I raced my street legal truck for 2 years and never broke a thing.

The only major breakage I've had are engines but that was from piston to valve clearance problems. I also "broke" a 383 stroker but it had a complete stock bottom end and I was buzzing it to 7000 rpm and running high 11's so it's life expectency wasn't very high.

I've never broken anything from drag racing. Not even factory parts. The problems I have are usually from modifications. I've had oil leaks, I hurt a tranny I rebuilt and had a transbrake in it. TH400 and it still has no reverse. That's why I now run a powerglide. I've thrown alternator belts a few times until I finally got the pulleys lined up properly. I've bent up my floor panel in the back when I ran a torque arm and LCA. The force of launching was so great the the floor around the tranny tunnel has a huge crease in it now. Since I've gone to ladder bars, all the forces are redirected to the SFC now.

I've never broken the common things like wheels studs, u-joints, axles etc. I've changed all the factory parts out to performance parts long before there was a chance of breaking anything.

When I had the 383 stroker running high 11's I used a TH350 tranny with a 3800 stall converter. I had a 7.5" 10 bolt diff and it was built up as per the "ultimate 10 bolt buildup". I wasn't using a transbrake against it but it held up with 1.7x 60' times.

Forecast for the weekend has changed drastically since early in the week. As of Friday night the forecast for Saturday is now "showers" Not even a percent chance but just showers and they're predicting about 1/2" of rain. Sunday they're giving us a 30% chance of showers which probably means late afternoon or early evening rain which will be after we're done for the day. Sounds like another rain delayed race day and I'm not sure what's going to be happening Saturday night now. I suppose the good news is if I do manage to get on track it will be overcast and cool which could make for great track conditions.

If there's a constant rain all day Saturday I won't even take the car to the track that night. The car isn't rain tight and I wouldn't want to leave it overnight at the track to find everything wet inside the next morning. Time to invest in an enclosed trailer. I'll probably just load the car up Sunday morning in the alley, see how many neighbors I **** off, and head to the track.

 

Do the tracks you guys use have a muffler requirement? I know a lot of tracks are going to that rule lately. The track here has no muffler rule though. That was one thing I didn't like, 'cause I couldn't hear what my car was doing when the guy next to me is running open headers. (it just bugs me when so many guys there are running open headers on like a mid 14s car). These were just test and tune nights.

 

Our track is out in the industrial park or better yet the indurtrial park is moving out to the race track. We're about a mile from any residential.

There's a noise bylaw that requires muffled exhaust after 10:30pm. Even on the Saturday night racing, we're usually through around 9pm anyway.

 

Well, I did manage to avoid the bulb and going out in the 1st round.

But, the rust was still evident. I cut a poor light in the 2nd round Friday against a good racer (.106 to .044) and lost. Saturday in the 2nd round I cut a .012 to the other guy's .140, but the car picked up 6 hundredths out of nowhere vs the previous round and I only took off 3 - double break-out with a .0073 MOV for the other guy.

Bye-bye 3rd place.

 

Standings updated today, wasn't as bad as I thought. In the Saturday series only dropped to 4th place, 3 rounds behind 3rd (he must have gone 3 rounds more than me yesterday, he was only one place point behind me going in), 6 rounds out of 1st and 1 round ahead of 5th-7th. They take 6 to the Division V Finals from that class.

9th place in the Friday series, 7 rounds behind 3rd - they take 3 out of that class to the Finals. With only 2 races left, probably not going to make that up.

Need to start going some rounds. I had runs within a hundreth of my dial-in and .01x RT this weekend, just need to start putting them together in the same (and every) run...

 

Make a voodoo car out of your opponents car and maybe they won't show up for the next race.