IT"S A WRAP

What an incredible racing season. It's hard to put into words the struggles, joy, pain, love, passion, blood, sweat and tears that made this season up. We as a team learned more in one year about this amazing sport we love than I could have ever imagined.
We went to the finals in Montgomery, Alabama two weeks ago only to lose to a mid track wheelstand. We were heartbroken for the loss, but nonetheless happy to go to the final. We clinched second in the points standings, And were preparing for a darkhorse run for the championship at the world finals in Steele, Alabama. We got there with our heads on straight and only one thing on our mind. Winning. We put the old hotrod in the number 3 qualifying spot of the absolute fastest limited street field ever. Normally a 4.62 would put you number one. It put us 3rd. There were 2 cars in the high 50's and 8 cars in the 60's. Still we felt awesome. We were only 5 hundredths off of the number one guy. I think by looking at the computer that we had a 57 or 58 in the ole girl. Couple that with my head chopping off ability in the lights and we think we had a good shot. Mother Nature had other plans. Again. It rained all night saturday night and at 9 am this morning they called the race. This is the fourth or fifth rainout this year. Even the rescheduled rainouts got rained out. What should have been a ten race season turned out to be 5. All in all it was a good year. Finishing second against the caliber of competition that we faced all year is a landmark achievement. I myself consider this a learning year. I learned for the most part that "Less is Usually More" That's a direct quote from my buddy Tim Barton. I also learned that a simple 59 cent part can humble the greatest of ego's. I had a blast this season. Made possible by God, my family, my friends and crew, and my sponsors. All of you must see something in me that I sometimes forget. My passion for this sport is overwhelming, And my dream of racing professionally will not seem to go away. For every 500 people that tell me to grow up, and that it's stupid, and that it will never happen, There are those of you out there that call and email and say that I was born to do nothing less. My crew never waivered this entire season. Not in the darkest hour did they once quit or complain. You guys are my brothers. We have travelled this country together, and the stuff we have been through and conquered are what dreams are made of. As we ride down the raod from the final race of the year, one would think that we would be ready for a break, and that a couple months off would do us good. But we can't stop talking about next year. Big Johnson is driving, me riding shotgun with a computer in my lap, and Brian is almost certainly watching sports. We have a very busy offseason ahead of us. We are making the move from limited street to Outlaw 10.5. Robert Abernathy at Abby's Performance Engines has partnered with us to make this possible. We are still seeking a title sponsor for the 2010 season and will let you know as soon as we get the details worked out. We will still run the orange car in a ton of match races and Outlaw Radial Events next year as well. I consider this as another step for me in the direction that I need to go. I will update you guys with photos of the new chassis soon. As well as details of the new engine combination and power adder. I wish you guys a very Happy Thanksgiving.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

What a week. We pulled into Bradenton Motorsports Park last thursday morning at 5 am. Me and the boys got us about 4 hours of shut eye and then unloaded the ole hotrod for a little more testing on the kawasaki motor. We made three tire shaking hits thursday not really doing anything impressive. The entire powerband on this engine is so much different than the other motor. It makes tremendous power in the bottom, lazy in the middle, and decent out the back. I decided to speed the blower up Friday morning, trying to give the kawasaki motor a little breath on the big end. I felt like we could run in the mid 4.70's in the heat but I knew that wasnt fast enough. The knew blower gears gave us one more pound of boost, which hurt and helped. It made my starting line tuneup more aggressive which could lead to massive amounts of tire spin, but it did sruce up the big end. We went a 4.72 at 164 during testing friday. We were missing something, I just couldnt find it. Then it hit me.Maybe since this motor makes power like a dirt bike, I should treat it like a dirt bike. Maybe we just needed more RPMS. So for the first round of qualifying friday night, I decided to ring the guts out of the ole girl. We left the line at 4000 rpms. I rolled into the bottom bulb and snapped the transbrake button down. The kawasaki sounded like an airplane when I turned loose. She pushed me into the seat and off we went. Now most people might think it's a bad idea to shift a big block at 8500 rpms. But shit the kawasaki loved it. We banged high gear and kept on getting up. We went through the traps in a 4.62 at 165 mph. Goodness goodness, We have a racecar. The ole Kawasaki has now been upgraded from a KX600 to and KX 1200. She just needed a little RPMS. That put us qualified number one with two rounds qualifying on saturday. Me and the boys celebrated friday night like we were rock stars. By the end of qualifying saturday, we were sitting second. Being out qualifyed by one hundreth. That also netted us a much appreciated first round bye run. First round sunday I put in a safe tune up. Bang, 4.64 at 163mph. Just like i told her. I was now feeling like we may have a car to win this race with. WRONG. Secong round during the burnout, the intercooler pump feed tube clogged with ice, allowing air inlet temperatures to reach 160 degrees. This made the kawasaki go from a kx1200 to a kx 250. We only ran a 5.00 and were promptly crushed and loaded on the trailer. What a letdown. This mistake will never happen again. We are in the process of building a water tank that should be on Star Trek, it's so advanced. Im sorry for all my sponsors, fans, and friends that made the trip down. But thank you guys so much for your support. Two companies in particular really stepped up to make the rest of our season possible. UPR Products, And MAC FAB custom wheels both really helped us out coming down the stretch. We couldnt race the remainder of our season without you guys making it possible. I will do everything in my power to make you guys proud. We have Orsca next weekend and from the looks of things, those guys will have their hands full. We need a win to keep the hopes of a Championship alive.

Cocked, Locked,And Ready To Rock

You will never guess what happened when we got to Virginia last weekend... RAIN. Thats like the tenth race this year we have been rained out. We did get the new motor fired though. It sounds like a cross between a weedeater and a kawasaki dirtbike. Its only 522 cubic inches and you can tell it. But it'sallthe parts we havelaying around so we will have to use it. I will screwevery ounce of power out of this thing that she can muster. We are on our way to the Outlaw Radial Tire Championship Race in Bradenton,Fla. Big Johnson has the blue goose (our motorhome) in the wind. He has one eye open and the hammer down. Brian is sleeping and doing nothing like usual. Thats only because there are no sports on tv at this time. And i have spent the last 4 hours going over every single tune up I have looking for a way to squeeze this motor like a lemon. We made a couple test hits today before we left South Carolina. The ole girl is slow. The best the kawasaki could deliver was a 4.78 @159.00mph. Which is decent but not cowboy style. The crankshaft howevert is still bolted in so I will find a way to ring out some more. This race this weekend is a really big deal to us. We are all focused like a laser beam and if it can be done, I assure you that we find a way. GPS says we should pull in at 4 45 am. We will test tomorrow evening.

Back in the Saddle (Almost)

Two wekes ago when we blew everything apart under the sun, sucked. The last two weeks have been like midevil times. We thrashed all week following rockingham, overnighting just about every internal part in the engine, Got it done in the middle of the night friday night, and then they called the ORSCA race due to race. We were really bummed out at first but in the end it would prove to be a blessing. We decided that since we had a fresh motor that we would go test for the Shakedown at Etown race this weekend. Which is a 1/4 mile race, So we went down to Valdosta, Ga last sunday to do some testing at SGMP. In the back of my head I still couldnt justify as to why the motor tore up the #6 piston last week. I mean it broke the piston in half. We had to sleeve the block and everything. But we chalked it up to a broken lifter and could find nothing else wrong. So we unloaded Sunday at SGMP and made a nice smooth lazy pass. I just wanted to get some data on the motor. Pulled it back to the pits and pulled the plugs and damn if #6cylinder wasnt torn up again. One pass and smoked the same cylinder. All tune up data looked good. The rest of the plugs were perfect. Me and the boys were really pissed. We drove home 5 hours at like 90 mph. Snatched the motor back out and apart. It was worse than I thought. Number 6 detonated so bad that it egged the cylinder and split the block. What the hell? So now were up the creek again. We are supposed to leave thursday for englishtown, nj and we have no motor. Not to be detered, we scrounged around the shop looking for used motor parts. What do ya know, there in the corner was last years ez street motor. Old faithful. She needed a little freshening, and she is way smaller than our good motor, but we figured we could piece her together. Robert at Abby's Performance Engines really helped us this week. He dropped eveything like he always does when I need him, and jumped right on it. We bored the block, got a new crank rods and pistons. Basically a new shortblock. It has been a long exhausting week, but at 3 am last night, we finished up. Well almost. Guess what. Shakedown rained out also. Im so tired of rain. All this work and favors for nothing. Once again, always the optimists, we decided to find somewhere dry to race. The pushrods just came in and we are on our way to Virginia Motorsports Park. I cant belive we are taking a brand new engine 7 hours to a race and it's never been fired, but we are. I think I found what keeps breaking the engine. We will see. I replaced almost every piece of electronics on this thing. Yall keep your fingers crossed. Sorry for the short post but I have only slept about ten hours this week am due for a little road nap.

The Sky Is Falling

Have you ever had a weekend that you wish you could just step back to friday around noon and stop, and do something completely different? Almost everything that could break this weekend, did. Me and the boys headed to Rockingham, Nc for the Holcomb Civil Wars race. We decided to use this race as a tune up race for next weekends ORSCA race. It turns out that we need way more than a tune up. We need an overhaul. I'll start you off from the beginning. Friday night we unload and pull around for first round qualifying. I smoked the tires and pedalled the car early and ran it to the 1000ft mark. It ran decent but something was wrong. Turns out we broke the torque converter. So just for good measure, we put in the spare trans and converter. First round qualifying saturday morning, all was well until we shifted into high gear and there went the new transmission. Smoked another one. We thrashed and changed transmissions again between rounds of qualifying and got her ready. On our next shot I blew the supercharger up in the water box during the burnout. So we missed that session. Next we changed blowers and pulled around for the last round qualifying for saturday. The car launched straight and hard but right past the shift it laid over like a wet noodle. It was skipping pretty bad so i shut it off. Turns out we broke a lifter and two rocker arms, and bent some pushrods. Now I am thinking that this blows and I should have just went fishing. On top of all this suckyness, My Georgia bulldogs got beat by LSU. Well we couldnt get the lifter out of the block so after about 6 hours of wamming and framming we welded a piece of all thread to it and jacked it out. So another all nighter later we had the motor put back together, and ready for action sunday morning. Now at this point i am fairly certain that all the bad luck is behind us, and that we are ready to do some racing. WRONG. Next pass out we kicked the rods out of the side of the motor. I was actually relieved that the weekend was over. I feel like we fought hard all weekend, and Chris, Brian, and Fatboy never gave up. We do have a problem though, We have an ORSCA points race this weekend coming. So who knows what we will do. I will take the motor out and apart tonight to see what left and whats usable. Hopefully we can piece something together by saturday. I have a theory on bad weekends like this one. We will call this a Steveilosophy. I believe that anytime a man has too much "FUN" or more fun than he is supposed to, that he must pay it back. I think that fun is like a line of credit at the bank. Everytime you have alot of fun, It's like taking taking out a loan against your fun account. This overexertion of fun must then be paid back through various ways. The thing I hate most in this world is losing. So therefore my pennance for paying back the Fun is a weekend like this past one. Over the past two years, Me and the boys have had a massive amount of fun. Therefore the fun must repaid, So hopefully after this week is done I will once again be square with the fun, And we will be ready to move on to more fun. So think about that next time you are preparing for some fun. Sometimes payback is hell. All in all we are in good spirits. Its refreshing to be under the gun again. Motor updates coming soon.

The Race To The Chase

Well for all of yall that live in the south, you completely sympathise with me when I say RAIN RAIN GO AWAY. I dont know of hardly a day when it hasn't rained in the last month. Between all the torrential downpours and flooding, little racing has been done. The Orange car hasnt even been started in 3 weeks. Me and all the boys are going stir crazy. Me and Chris have been busy working on a new business project, While Brian has been constantly glued to the tv, and has earned the new world record for the most sports watched ever. I mean it's sometimes ten hours a day of sports. I wake up and there he is in the chair. It's sportscenter, followed by gameday, and then more sportscenter, followed by ten thousand games, and then game highlites of the ten thousand games he's watched, followed by the game recaps of the highlites. And then..............Sportscenter. I have been working on the new transmission for the hotrod, which is almost done. If the rain ever stops long enough for me to unload the car from the trailer I will put it in. I am pretty fired up about it. Its built a from scratch unit utilizing the new 1.125 nasa 2 input shaft. So hopefully we can curb the parts breakage a tad. Me and Johnson are on our way to Nashville Tn as I write this to film a Tv show with the Orange car. And by goodness if you pull up weather.com , you will find hardly no rain in the southeast this weekend. Which means only one thing.. WE ARE GOING RACING. We cant wait. Brian is even gonna leave the living room long enough to climb in the motorhome and turn on the tv. Next weekend is ORSCA and we are using this weekend as a test session to get our minds back right. We are only two rounds out of the lead in the championship standings and are really hungry for a win. We have three races left so all the cards are on the table. Its time to put up or shut up and we have never been more ready to put some folks on the trailer. Look for more frequent updates as racing escalates this fall. This is my time of the year. October has always been my month. The air is crisp and so is our attitudes. Its down the home stretch we go, And with 6 straight weeks of racing coming up, Its going to be exciting. See yall soon.

Cooking The Bacon

We headed to Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Ga this past weekend for Orsca. Me and the boys were really in high spirits, even though we havent been fast in two months. We have really been fighting mechanical gremlins and this weekend would prove to be no different. We unloaded and puttered down the track first pass to a nice smooth lazy 4.89. Normally if I get down the track early in the weekend, look out. Second pass i pepped the tune up a little and the sixty foot dropped almost 5 hundredths, but the car drifted right about a hundred feet and i had to abort the run. But the look in Brian and Johnsons eye was unmistakeable. They knew we were right where we needed to be. We adjusted the rear of the car just a touch to make her track straight, tied the front end down, stacked all the weight we had in the nose of the car and decided to see if we could rock the house on our last test pass. Now i dont need much talking into stuff like this. So i put a tune up together that if it didnt flip the car over, should run in the 4.60's . I burned in hard and backed through the smoke. Brian and Johnson put me dead in the groove and gave me a thumbs up as they shut the doors. Little did I know that we were about to blast into the record books. I let loose and the orange car jumped out the hole like cheetah chasing a gazelle, I passed the 330 mark with the tires still dangling, I knew I was freaking flying. I blazed past the 1/8th and rocked the scoreboards with a 4.53 at 170 mph. A new Drag Radial World record. I was so excited that I drove the car back to the trailer. I had already blown my voice out by the time the boys got there. We partied like rock stars most of the night before heading to bed feeling invincible, ahhh but as they say, all good things must end. Saturday I eased back on the reins just a little for safety, First round qualifying we went a 4.67 at 171.99 mph. Which was awesome considering the air was bad and the track was slick. We decided to sit out the second session, feeling good about our number one spot and wanting to limit parts breakage. Last session we again went for the moon. The car left harder than it ever has, and was on another shot, until I shifted to high and the car stood sraight up on the bumper. I pedalled her and eased her down. We were still sitting number 1, and feeling like we were in good shape. That was the last of those feelings. First round Sunday we had a bye run. I had an awesome sixty foot and was straight as an arrow, all was going to plan until the orange monster shifted into high gear and rung the input shaft in the transmission off. We really dodged the bullet here. I yelled at the boys on the radio to get the spare trans out the trailer. We thrashed and changed transmissions in record time. I still wasnt worried, having confidence that my tuneup was dead on. We burned in second round and I was in the zone. I tiptoed the car into the lights and flash, I was off again, Like a bullet i shot down the track,and then the worst happened again. The spare trans gave up the ghost and I lost the round. We were headed home early. As disappointed as I was, I kept telling myself that it just wasnt meant to be. The competition in Limited Street is red hot right now and we love it. We are counting the minutes till the next race. It's easy to praise your sponsors in the good times, but in times like this weekend when we went down and they all called monday morning to tell me they were still proud of us and are with us, we realize once again how fortunate we are to have the support of some great companies and individuals. We are a low budget team, and without you guys we could not race. Thanks again to Procharger, Mickey Thompson, The Supercharger Store, Upr, Grp rods, 2Keys Customs, Aiken Augusta Paving, Abby's Performance Engines, Torque Converter Services, and Stainless Works.

From Hero to Zero, and Back Again

Sorry it's taken me so long to update my blog. I have been on vacation in mexico without the internet, or telephones, and let me tell you it was amazing. Just what i needed to get me back in the game. Anyways, back to last weekends ORSCA race. Can you imagine the absolute delight of me and my crew when ORSCA announced last month that one of it's cancelled races was rescheduled at my home track in Jackson, SC. We couldn't we believe we would be so lucky as to have all the limited guys come to us so we could lay the smack down on their ass. Well thats how I imagined it anyways. Fast forward to thursday before the race. The car had been sitting in the paint shop for almost a month, So we were testing just to kinda shake the cobb webs out of the ole girl. I was trying a new blower and a few new things with the tune up and having no luck getting down the track. The car was shaking the tires so hard it hurt my back. So saturday came and we decided the smart thing to do was put the old blower back on, and go with some safe proven tuneups for 1st round qualifying. I mean this was my home track and i have enough testing data on this surface to just about tell you what the car will run to the thousandth for every race condition you could think of. So first round I put a soft tuneup in it, It left good then pulled hard right around 30 ft, causing me to pedal three times and only running a 5.17. What the hell was up? I went over the car from front to back checking shocks and struts and found nothing. So I'm thinking, maybe the track? Maybe a drop of oil under the tires? Maybe a fluke? Second round qualifying, it left hard, went a hundred feet and smoked the tires. Now we are panicking. Both of those tuneups that i had just tried would go down a mud road. So now im thinking, maybe the tires are shot. They had very few runs on them but maybe sitting for a month had an affect? So we changed tires for last round qualifying. Desperate to get down the track for some hope at a good qualifying shot. Now had this been just a last round qualifying round I would have loaded a mid 4.90 bull crap tune in, Something to just put us in the middle of the pack. But, This wasnt just an ordinary round of qualifying. This was also the final round of eliminations for the Montgomery race. I was racing Jeff Paulk in the car killer, So I couldnt just take it easy. My balls wouldnt let me. I put a mid 4.60 tune in and we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. The tree came down and i didnt move 2 inches before i smoked the tires. He took the win and what made it really bad is that the track was really good. I mean exceptionally good. I knew something was wrong with the car but i couldnt figure it out. We were up shit creek without a paddle. Qualified dead last. At our home track, in front of my sponsors and my friends and family. I was blindsided. It was like the civil war when all the yankees came down to watch the Battle of Bull Run, expecting an easy victory, and the south came out swinging and kick stomped that booty. Anyways i didnt sleep saturday night. I was determined to find out what was wrong with the car. I started taking things apart and found two bent control arm bolts in the rear suspension. I guess all the tire shake thursday bent them. We were however on the wrong side of the ladder. Having to run the all the heavy hitters if we were to go any rounds at all. I put a low 4.80 tune up in for 1st round eliminations and prayed alot. I had an extra long pep talk with the hot rod, explaining to her that i was sorry for bending her and that she deserved better and that it was ok to crucify me in qualifying, but this was showtime. I burned in hard figuring that if we went out first round, at least we put on a good show. We staged and off we gallopped into the sunset, straight as an arrow, and pretty quick, We won the round with a 4.80 on a 140 degree race track. It was like we won the final round already. That was the first full throttle pass we had in the car in over a month. But next round we were up against Jeff Paulk, the car killer. Again. The Orange car was looking jazzy and Big Johnson and Brian were still sore from the last nights ass crushing and looking for some get back. I pepped her up just a tad, Not wanting to overpower the super hot racetrack. We both lit the bulbs and I tore out the gate like a banshee. Winning the round with a 4.77. Now we were on track but like all good things, there is always a catch. There was all kinds of electronic noise in my run data. Meaning that something was going on in my ignition box, or Efi box. The computer was spiking all of the sensors and inputs during the run. This is bad for many reasons, First the computer was adding and taking away fuel and timing all over the place. The rpm were showing erratic which put the car into different cells on the timing map, Also it was turning on rev limiters sporatically from the MSD box. All in all we now have an inconsistent car. So i went through everything trying to find it. Nothing. I took off all the rev limiters, and tried to program a timing map that would not be so sensitive. In the third round we squeeked by only running a 4.88. But we were off to the semis, bad news was that we were running the number one qualifier. I had no idea what to do about the box malfunctions. So i went old school and turned off the fuel correction, programmed the same timing in the whole map, which is bad. Basically threw the kitchen sink at the thing. We staged and launched and I took off like a bullet. But at 100 feet it shook the tires and i had to pedal. Only running a 4.87 to his 4.77. BUT WAIT. My win light was on. He had redlit, giving me the round win. I hate to win like that, but at this point i'll take em however i can get. We were headed to the final. Who would have thought it? We were facing the master of disaster, Eric Dillard. He had just trashed my Limited Street record in the last round and was on top of his game. We burned in hard and long. I was really feeling good. The track was awesome and i had the car set on kill. We staged and i drilled the tree. Cutting a .015 light and putting up the best 60ft time we had ever had. I was an entire car length out front at the 80 foot mark, But then all things turned to poop. I smoked the tires like a funny car and he blasted by winning with a 4.67 to my 5.00. All in all it was still an amazing day. We were happy to just be racing past the first round. I wanna thank my boys for not giving up and trusting me. Brian, Big Johnson, Wingnut, and Dad worked their tales off this weekend. So you may be asking yourself, or have noticed, how we seemed to make it to alot of finals this year, but have no win yet? It's true, We have been to nine finals so far this year, and not a single win to show. I can't tell you why this is, or how. but I promise i will figure it out. We head to Atlanta, August 23-25. Its time to get the monkey off my back, and in Atlanta, The monkey gets it.

It's Hammer Time

Holy smokes this off time has killed me. I thought i was ready for a break but four weeks of off time is slightly excessive. The Hot Rod is out of the paint shop and she looks top notch. Van and Neil at 2Keys Customs slap laid it down. Orsca comes to Carolina Dragway this weekend and I think we are ready. Updates to follow

The Heat Is On

Down here in the south, we are in the midst of a massive heat wave that we call summer. It is routinely 95 plus degrees during the day. Thoughts this time of year often turn to beaches and tropical vacations, but not on my team. We went to the finals at the PTRA race last weekend in Mooresville.We got beat by 7 hundredths of a second in a dawg fight of a race by my buddy Flyin Brian Mcgee. But we picked up 30 points on the points leader and are still tweaking the hot rod. I am having a problem making the ponies gallop in this hot stanky air. But I think i am headed in the right direction. The orange car is in the paint shop as we speak getting a new look. We have a month off before the next Orsca race, and will be giving the orange car a break for a couple weeks. We almost have the new 68 camaro done and may test it this week. It is called the Cowmaro and you will see why when we bring it out. It will be a monster and i can't wait to lay down on the honker pedal.

BREAKING RECORDS AND PARTS

Remember in my last post i told you guys that the orange car was gonna be a handful, Well it was. We got to Montgomery Motorsports Park at around 7 friday night ready to shake the ole girl down one time. I knew i had it flying thursday night at carolina, but was unsure if my tuneup would work at another track. Well shortly after we got there a tsunami of biblical proportions busted loose. It rained like 5 inches. So no testy testy friday night. Saturday morning Tsunami number two hit. It rained from ten am to 3 oclock. Finally around 6 we were ready for our first qualifying shot. No testing, just straight down to business. I figured if we were gonna show these boys we were serious, now was as good a time as any. I rolled through the water box and Big Johnson gave me the signal to drop the hammer, I stepped down on the honker pedal and burned in hard, rolling to the 330 in a cloud of smoke. I gave the camera guys sitting on the wall a thumbs up and backed up ready to rock the house. Brian got me dead centered in the groove, I eased into the beams. It's crazy how a sport so violent and wild as drag racing requires you to be so delicate and gentle. I mean when we stage the car it looks like i am treating that thing like a delicate flower whose petals could be easily knocked off if i am too harsh. And then half a second later, i am trying to sling the crankshaft slap out the motor for 4 seconds. Anyways, I launched hard and straight and we lit the clocks on fire with a 4.679. Thats a new Orsca Limited Street World Record. If we backed it up. Second round qualifying i became my own worst enemy and tried to run 4.20's and knocked the tires off about 200 feet out. Third round i picked up my balls and stuffed them back in my pants and screwed my head on straight and ran a 4.682. Which backed up the record and gave me a boost of confidence going into eliminations on Sunday. We had the first round bye and again i let my balls overwhelm my good judgement and smoked the tires. Once again Brian and Big Johnson calmed me back down. Second round we won with a 4.68, Third round we won with a 4.74. She was on a serious pass but about 300 feet out it broke another intake valve and backfired the blower.I wasnt sure if the motor was hurt or not. We only had about 15 mins to get ready for the semis. We thrashed and changed blowers, and just ran the rocker arm down on the broken valve tip hoping she would hang on. Evidently the backfire hurt something else because it was running like doodoo. We absolutely got lucky in the semi's when our opponent went red. The orange car would have made the pass but probably not fast enough to outrun him. I couldnt believe we were going to the finals. I found that the crank trigger gap was 150 thousandths off the wheel. I didnt know if that was causing it to run bad but we adjusted it and fired the motor in the pits and damn she sounded good again. So we towed around, ready to get down to business. I loaded in the baddest tuneup i had. If we got beat, it wasn't gonna be because we got outrun. I was strapped in the car ready with my fingers crossed when one of the two cars in front of us oiled down the whole track. Now it was midnight on Sunday and the track said it would be a hour or so before they could get it cleaned up. So me and Jeff Paulk decided to split the money and run for the points and the trophy at the next event. Kind of a bummer but we were slap worn out. We drove all through the night, getting home at 6:30 am monday morning. I stepped out of the motorhome and got in my tooltruck and worked 12 hours Monday. Which for the record absolutely blows. Anyways, its thursday and we have PTRA this weekend in Mooresville, Nc. I talked to my buddy Phil Shuler who is a Top fuel crew chief for Schumaker. We think we have the valve problem identified, we are going to put a complete top fuel valve setup in after this race and see if it hold up better. We really need to win the race this weekend to stay in points contention so you may see some crazy stuff going on.

Alabama Bound and Down

Well we are loaded up and headed west. As i type this, Big Johnson is behind the wheel with the pedal to the metal, Brian is in the back sleeping like he always is at least 12 hours a day, And i am staring at the laptop looking over tuneups and fuel maps. We tested the car at Jackson last night and boy let me tell you, She ran like a wildabeast. We only made one hit and i told the boys that that was all she needed to do this weekend. So we are all in high spirits. I cant wait to get there and rock the box tonight.If the track is good the orange car should be a handful.

The clouds have parted

It's crazy how my mood and overall demeanor is directly affected by how my hot rod is running. My mom says i have motor oil flowing in my veins. Anyways, I tore the engine apart and i think i may have found the slowness. The valve springs were junk, along with one bent exhaust valve, (because the valve springs are junk) and the cylinder head was warped pretty good. Possibly to due the overextension of my right foot on the gas pedal. Abby's Performance got my heads fixed up yesterday with a new set of springs, a valve and a fresh surface. We slapped the motor back together last night and i will bust the ole girl off when i get home from work this afternoon. Then if all is well, I have the sneaky suspicion that we will probably head to Jackson, Sc tonight to make a couple test hits before we leave for montgomery in the morning. I cant wait.

Getting ready for ORSCA

A quick recap on last weekend. We were racing in our hometown, at our hometrack. We unloaded friday night and made two hits. Decent et and Mph for the air and temps we were running in. But i didn't feel that it would be fast enough to win. So i took the Supercharger Store Gear drive apart and changed the gear ratio inside, speeding up the blower in attempt to combat the bad air. Saturday morning, first qualifying pass we went a 4.92 @ 156. Second round i whittled on the ole girl a little and sped up slightly to a 4.91. Which put us qualified number one. But it was however a very tight field. I really leaned on the car pretty hard during each round of eliminations. In doing so i popped a head gasket in the semi's slowing to a 4.96. That still was enough to muster the round win but we were headed to the finals against Jeff Tyson. He has won the last two PTRA races and is deadly consistent. At this time i didnt know that the head gaskets were toast, i just knew we were down on power. I tried to compensation power with a big balls tune up in the finals. We both staged and i took the slight advantage off the tree, but that was the only time i was out front. I smoked the tires about ten feet out and Tyson cruised down for the win running a 4.93. Congrats to those guys, They know how to win.So we have Orsca Limited Street this weekend in Montgomery, AL. The engine is apart (again). and ill be up all night all week (again). I need a vacation.