We have really had a blast taking the car out the past few times. We have been out to Mason Dixon twice in the last 5 weeks. Both times we ran with the outlaw pontiacs which is always fun. But it was a little soured by losing first round in both events because of red lights. I am eagerly looking forward to the thrill of getting down to the wire at the bottom end of the track. Its really different being back on the 1/4 mile track vs when I was running on 1/8th mile. It seems like the finish line is forever away. And frankly it seems like it would use more gas but I honestly haven’t noticed an increase in consumption. Which is very good at $8+ / gallon
Tags: drag racing
Well, not much going on at the track for Leese racing. But we are moving the operation back to Maryland. Moving a racecar operation is expensive, so we’ll just have to see if there is any money leftover to run. If there is, we will race with the outlaw Pontiac drag series most likely.
Man, it has been such nice weather out there lately, it DEFINITELY feels like racing weather. We haven’t prepped the car yet because we are considering moving to a new town this spring. If we end up spending $3K on moving, it seems like racing will get prioritized out. Pretty much a bummer, but that is the way life and racing work out sometimes.
We are very excited that the holidays are coming and that means a new year and a new season. We haven’t had to do too much to the car, thank goodness, so we have just winterized it (put extra air in the tires) … living in florida, there isn’t much risk of busting a freeze plug or having other severe weather related problems. So we are just planning on having a nice holiday season and also with the chance of moving in the spring we are looking at our parts inventory and considering paring down a little.
Well, just want everyone to know that even though we didn’t get a chance to compete – we had a great time doing test-and-tune runs. Had a really great reaction time on the second run, and a great ET and sixty foot on the first run.
Dragtracker is working nicely for organizing our runs and quickly finding runs from comparable weather conditions.
Tags: 60', drag racing
Found this article very interesting…
http://sportscarnet.com/blog/2008/09/shocking-and-fascinating-facts-about-top-fuel-dragsters/
Looking forward to getting out on the 4th. Hopefully I can keep cutting good lights and get even better at the top end game. Iactually feel pretty confident with that, but getting a good dial-in, well, I don’t have any experience with it since Dad always dialed us in. But I hope to get the hang of it before too long. It was always about trusting him, so the times that I wouldn’t have dialed the same thing he did, I would have lost and so I need to use his logic a little better at those moments.
Tags: dial-in, drag racing, finish line
Well, I’m happy to say that the tranny leak has, for the time being, been solved. I found that the speedometer cable cap was missing and have a way to fill it so that it won’t leak anymore. But I still saw some fluid on the very bottom of the transmission shield, so I need to continue to check on it. Now, we just need to figure out when we can go racing again!!
Tags: transmission
Now this book looks really interesting. I’ll bet that alot of concepts apply to Pontiac engines:
Well, for a first weekend out, it was a major success. Went 3 rounds in the first race, and 2 rounds in the second one. Solved a water leak, and trans leak and almost solved an oil leak. Unfortunately the work required pulling the lower heater hose off the ’69 firebird, but that is okay. I was glad to find and fix the leak before it blew out the hose on the track.
I made a mistake of showing up at the track without the right spare parts. Dad always took lots of spare parts and alot of them I wouldn’t be sure how to change at the track (for instance, converting the ignition system to the original points system if the coil went out). So I failed to take a spare alternator belt and it almost bit me except that on the run when it flew off, the opponent red-lighted and the following run I lost. Not a lot of repercussions, but I will be buying a few spares and making sure they go to the track with me.
The ET’s were good on the car. Although they ranged pretty wide from 7.22 to 7.01. And the 60′ times were pretty consistent with a best of 1.50. That is as good as we can expect using 4.11 gears and a slightly lower horsepower motor. I think we have seen as low as mid-1.40′s but for summer heat, I’ll take a 1.52 consistently any time.
Reaction times were all within 0.000 and 0.100 which is really good considering how long it has been since I competed.
Tags: 60', competition, spare parts