Back To The Drawing Board

Holy Smokes What a Week. If racing wasnt my life then i would be lost. What would i do with all the free time and money? Wednesday night at carolina dragway we unloaded the car with high hopes and tired eyes. We thrashed monday and tuesday changing stuff on the car. I was bound and determined to get ole bruhilda off the starting line. Well we did but boy it was a turd. 5.31@ 142.01. Now most of yall that know me know that im a go big, or go home type of guy. Call it my ego or my stupid redneck cowboy attitude, but if im not at the top of the field, im not happy. So with that in mind i put the oooompaloompa tune up in. Poor Chris Johnson. He had know idea what was about to happen to his motor. I launched, i smiled, i shifted, i then mushroom clouded the motor. I blew the heads off it. Now yall dont get the wrong idea here. im not talking about lifting a head, or pushing the gasket out. Im talkin bout i blew the tanks off the radiator. We i tear shit up, its tore up. I hadnt even got the car stopped when i realized we were up shit creek. I had blown up my motor, my friends motor, and all my friends parts. We are SCREWED. We got home and pushed the car in the shop. I have never in life been as depressed as when i turned the lights off. and went inside. I had given up. There was no way to get another supercharger motor together by friday. My championship dream was over and six months of hard work was in the toilet. I went to bed and had nightmares all night about being a failure. I woke up at 6 am thursday morning, and went to work in the midst of a clinical depression. My old buddy Joe called and we were talking about the situation at hand. He is always good about cheering me up when im shot out. He told me to get my stupid cowboy attitude back and figure it out. At that moment the strangest thought crossed my mind. Its wierd the things u remember that u think you never will. When I was in tenth grade in high school, i had an english teacher that had a poster on her wall. It was a picture of a seagull eating a frog. the frog was all the way down the seagulls throat except for his two back legs. which were sticking out of the seagulls mouth and wrapped around the seagulls neck choking him to death. The caption on the poster said, "Never EVER GIVE UP" Boy did that get me. Its kinda retarded but that poster has got me through more hard spots in my life than i can count. Something clicked inside me and i decided i would make this race this weekend no matter what. Sometimes the hardest thing to do in life is to decide that you arent going to quit. Me and Johnson got our heads together and decided the only option we had was to put my old nitrous motor in. Thats right, i said nitrous. But it was in his 68 mustang. So at 5 pm on thursday night i parked the tool truck. Walked in the shop, and went buck nasty. By 10 pm the car was stripped. Motor and trans out, water tanks, plumbing, wiring, fuel system,, everything. Johnson got there with the motor and trans at 10:30. By 4 am we had the engine and trans in. by 7 am we had the fuel system done. at 9.14 am i hit the starter button and it didnt spin over twice and busted off and sat there chirping its ass off. I forgot how that thing sounded. All big and nasty. I love the sound of crickets chirping in the morning. I went to work with no sleep and worked till 1pm. we loaded up the orange car and headed north. Completely unsure of what was gonna happen, but we were on our way. I felt like i had already won the fight. It took three hits friday night to get down the track. 5.18 @145. The converter was way loose and i had no data aquisition on the car so i was tuning by the seat of my pants. Saturday morning we warmed up the hot rod and towed her to tech. You shoulda seen the looks on peoples faces when the hood came off. Where two days ago sat a nice neat mild mannered superchargered motor, now sat a giant balls nasty wicked nitrous motor. There are systems all over this thing. Its was time to finish the piedmont race from two weeks ago. We raced Brian Mcgee in the semis and boy was it a pedalfest. i got there first and we were off to the finals. Where we were quickly crushed. But i was happy just to be there. We qualified 5th for the mooresville race with a 5.13. Gettin better. Made it through first round. In the second round we were matched up against the current points leader Jason Richards. I knew we had to go so i screwed it to it. This was one of the best races of my career. I got him by 2 hundredths on the tree. We had identical sixty foots. He had me by half a car at half track. then my Take Me To Jesus stage came on and i drove by him barely nipping him at the traps. What a race. 5.09 at 146.9 Close races like that are what i live for. We got beat in the semis. But you couldnt tell us anything. We had went from giving up to going to a final and semi final in one day. Sometimes the real victories in life come without a trophy or winners purse. We are now 35 points out of the lead in PTRA points, And are leading Orsca points. The next race is in Jackson, Sc in two weeks so i expect to see all you home town guys there. And remember that no matter how dark the tunnel you are staring down, there is always light somewhere. You might just have to walk a little while in the dark to find it. I cant wait to get the new stator in the torque converter. I think we have some killer numbers in this thing. We will test thursday night.