2010 Woodburn Season Opener: With no test sessions and putting the finishing touches on the car the night before we left, expectations weren't too high going into the opener. We were excited to receive three qualifying passes on Saturday. With the changes we had made we came off the trailer extremely safe, and the result was a 7.44 at 183. Not too bad, as it left us third for the session, but definitely sub-par. Unfortunately in the second session, the firebottles discharged in the staging lanes (with the safety pin still installed) causing us to miss the run. After extensive cleanup, we ran the third session still on the safe side and put up a 7.04 at 199.95. This resulted in a #3 qualifying position. In the first round we raced Monte Grubb who had qualified with a 7.62. Rather than make any changes we chose to run the car with the same set-up. We won the round with a 7.03 at 198. This matched us up with #1 qualifier Howard Anderson whose team had his car living in the 6.80's all weekend. We figured there was no better time to test our race set-up, so we massaged the clutch, blower, and fuel system. Howard got the holeshot with a .037 light to Scott's .078, but that advantage was gone by the 330 mark. The Willy's ran it's best number to date with a 6.694 at 206.94 to Howard's 6.85. Unfortunately, Gary Reinero was victorious, but broke in the other semifinal, and Scott had a single to victory running a 6.79 at 202. Not a bad first weekend with no expectations.
2009 Woodburn Hot Rod Nationals recap: Good and bad news from Woodburn. Our blower held together for five consecutive passes this weekend. Much better than going through three blowers in four passes the weekend before. During the first qualifying session on Saturday, we towed out near the back of the line so we could get a sense of what the Woodburn surface was offering. The air was very good (1300 feet) but most of the cars were having problems hooking up. We had the car set up pretty weak for the first pass, and left the line at a low RPM resulting in some pretty massive clutch slip, and a 7.04 at 197. This was good for number one of the session by over two tenths. For the second session, we made the clutch and motor both slightly more aggressive. The car responded by launching like it had never done before, running a 2.86 to the 330 foot mark, the best we have ever run. Unfortunately, the burst panel gave away, only holding in 12 pounds of boost after 3.7 seconds into the run. The car took the half track cone at 4.37 (equaling a career best) and 159 miles per hour. For comparison, on our career best run of 6.75 at 206.65, our car took the 330 foot marker at 2.89 and the half track at 4.41. On Sunday we backed the car down just a touch for first round. The result was pretty severe tire shake at the top of first gear, and a 7.40 at 195. We were able to win the round against a 7.34 by Troy Owen. For the second round we backed the car down again, and the result was much more violent tire shake, and a 7.39 at 194. We lost that round, but made one more pass, spinning the tires to about 450 feet before aborting the run.
Mission unkind: These are some images from Monday night after the AA/S race in Mission, Canada. We leave for Woodburn on Friday, so this isn't the sight you want to see.
Yes, the camshaft also came out. The crank did not.
Bob decided it's time to in house our blowers.
2009 Spokane Hot Rod Nationals recap: The team was finally able to regain form from years past. After qualifying number two with a 6.94 at 199, we received a first round single on Sunday after new AA/S driver Joel Matton had catastrophic failure in the second round of qualifying on Saturday. One of the rear end hubs on his 38 Chevy broke off and was un-repairable at the track. After lifting during the single, we ran a 6.92 at 200.47 to defeat Mitch Chamberlin, then ran a 6.86 at 202.06 in the final to defeat points leader Gary Reinero. It was definitely a team effort, as Saturday during the second round of qualifying we lost the seals in the blower and were forced to rebuild at the track, as our spare was wounded at Woodburn two weeks ago and is off being repaired. Then during our single on Sunday, the driver go a little hopped up and buzzed the motor, breaking some valve train parts. The result was swapping out one head at the track, and a bunch of extra work at home as many parts now need to be replaced.
This is the most enjoyable picture to pose for of any racing weekend, the crew with the champions trophy.
Makenna White celebrated her first birthday with the family on July 4th at Spokane County Raceway as well.
2009 Oldies But Goodies recap: It appears we finally found the major issue that has been plaguing us at the beginning of the season. The car was able to leave the starting line on all three passes this weekend without experiencing the tire shake we've been having in the first 60'. We finally got some good data, but unfortunately, we found a few more issues during the race that we needed to address. Last year at Bakersfield, our wing was creating so much downforce that the front end of the car would begin floating around 1000', making the car difficult to steer. In the offseason Bob moved the wing forward and down, so instead of trailing the rear end, it's close to right above it. Since we've had trouble getting the car off the starting line we didn't have any data on the new wing location. We have it now. On both qualifying hits on Saturday we were unable to keep the Goodyears stuck to the track in high gear. With the tires spinning at 180 MPH, the car was really wandering around on the top end. Unfortunately both passes were aborted just past half track resulting in a 7.58 and a 7.39. This put us in 6th qualifying position, racing eventual event winner Gary Reinero in the first round. We missed the clutch setup a bit, and with a short shift in low gear, the run was doomed. A 7.28 at 193 MPH resulted in us packing up early.
Action photos from the Season Opener at Woodburn. Thanks to Larry McFarland for the photos.
