36. Santa Pod or Shaky

It looks like I have a quandary to sort out, I sat down the other week with my son to try and see when we could fit another day in to do some testing on the track. After much discussion it was decided that 14th September would have to do as it was the only day that we could all get together at the same time. So the crew were informed that we would be attending a RWYB at the Pod on that date...but!!! I get a message from a friend and fellow racer Jim Tanner that he was going to be attending a meeting at Shakespeare County raceway that same weekend...

Ok so that got me thinking can I get all the crew together for a weekend race meeting hmmmm. well it was not just the crew this time as both my brothers were coming and my three sons and my wife so a lot of phoning and it is all sorted now I hope, if the meeting at Shaky is what I think it is then we are all going but Phill and Dan will be going back in the evening the rest of us will be staying but! if  we have to then we can all still go to the Pod on the 14th..well that's the plan anyway.

Will be good to get a two day meeting in as it will give us time to sort out the tune up with the new injector stacks on and the new spring kit in the magneto with the hope that all this will give us our first 8 second run, I wont be too upset if it doesn't happen this time but I really want it,,dam do I want it.

We will see in a few weeks time and as they say.." what will be will be" or was that Doris Day...anyhow we will have fun trying and fingers crossed we don't damage anything.

Of course a lot depends on whether my son and crew chief Steve gets a car sorted by then and if his back is better as he has hurt it, dam I wish I could insure against such things happening LOL..roll on September...Bring it on !!!!!!!

35. Bigger pipes

Since I bought the car there is one thing that has bothered me...no not bothered, annoyed me and that is the injector ram pipes or lack of them to be honest, the ones on my car are very small and I believe the previous owner cut them down and it really spoils the look of the car, well I think it does...

Anyway not being too sure what is supposed to be what? I left well alone, but! a couple of times I have been told they are not the right length so I made the decision to find out for myself so I got on the net and sent a mail and a photo off to Hilborn in America..

I got a reply  rather quickly explaining that the length of my ram pipes are fine if the engine is revving between 9000 and 9500 if it is lower than this I really need a set of 8 inch ram pipes which will increase the bottom end and mid range torque....which would be brilliant, our engine only revs to around 7000 to 7500 so time to look for some  bigger ram pipes.

It was around this time that I found a picture of the car before the previous owner got it..and guess what??? it use to have much larger ram pipes....

So after scouring e-bay I found a place in America that still supplies the correct size pipes www.alkydigger.com  and after a mail or two about diameters I found the ones that I need.

These are no winging themselves from the Sates and I have my fingers crossed that will turn up before the 14th Sept when we are testing again at the Pod, I am hoping they will make the difference between a 9 second run and an 8 second run,,,,we will soon see.

The next problem is I promised myself that I would let both Steve (son and crew chief ) and Dave (brother and crew) a go in the car at the end of the season, now I know how not so easy it is to keep in a straight line I am having doubts LOL that is such a good idea, the other problem is the required safety equipment I know that my fire suit and gear will fit Steve but Dave is considerably smaller than both of us,, oh well we will have to try and see what happens, I will probably find it more difficult and nerve racking watching my car than actually driving it..October will come round far too quick...........and they had better not go quicker than me or they will never get in the car again LOL.

34. Back to the Pod RWYB

I had been watching the weather forecasts for two weeks and I had my fingers crossed that the sun would shine and the rain would hold off just for Saturday. It would seem that the remains of Hurricane Bertha is a drag racing fans as the weather for Friday was horrendous and acute weather warnings had been issued by the Met Office and again for Sunday looks like we got the "eye of the storm" thank god.

So up at 3:30am  disconnect the batteries and get them in the car and the rest of the food from the fridge. wake Lorni up and get moving. Steve had already left Swindon with my youngest son and was on his way to Luton to pick my youngest brother Andy up. I picked up my other brother Dave and we all met up at the truck in Bedford, So this is a first I have with me my wife, my two brothers and two of my sons, I am hoping that next year I will get everyone together for at least one of the meetings maybe Dragstalgia 2015.

First thing was to get parked up and get the car out and set up camp which we managed to do in record time, then Steve wanted to set the backlash change the oil and warm the car up which didn't take too long in fact the whole session took less time than it did to boil up some water for coffee on Dave's gas BBQ.

Santa Pod were having trouble with the track, there had been so much rain that the water table had risen and water was seeping up through the track so they were having a torrid time trying to dry it all out, in fact for much of the day we were only using one lane which sort of slowed things up which is why we only managed three runs instead of the planned four, anyway while they were still drying the track we made out way tot he food hall and a light breakfast.well some of us did......

I guess Steve and Andy just hadn't eaten for months....?? LOL So on with the testing  we let the tyre pressure down a wee bit to see if that would help with a relatively green track, unfortunately I didn't get backed up into my tyre tracks very well and at the hit the cat turned sharp right and headed for the Xmas tree so I had to peddle and then hit again which resulted in a 10.19 sec pass at 137 mph not what we was looking for but we learned something.

Also on the first run the car seemed to be moving left to right a bit more than is comfortable so having passed this information on to my crew chief  and number one son he changed the tyre pressures for the next run, put a little bit more pressure in. this resulted in a much better launch but the car still moved about a bit.

I also noticed when we were racing at Dragstalgia that whenever i ran in the Pit lane I had trouble with the run so I was beginning to wonder if there was such a big difference between the two lanes. The last run of the day was made on the spectator lane as the Pod track crew had managed to sort out the water problem and with even higher tyre pressures we managed a 9.5 second run at 143mph that was a little bit more like it. what I would have liked was another run in the other lane with the same set-up to see if we could run the same numbers and prove to myself that there is no difference between lanes and that it is all in me head....probably!!

Anyway that was it for the day we were lucky with the weather and I and the team did  learn a few things...how to untangle a parachute , how to pack a parachute, I also learned that you must release the chute under power or you will get bounced all over the track and yes it is uncomfortable LOL...very!

So we started to pack up Steve had a look under the truck to find the source of the oil leak and he found it was nothing to worry about..phew!!! and I managed to get a photo of all three of us Heaven brothers, it's not often we are altogether like this in fact the last time we had a photo of all three of us was again at the Pod about 9 years ago.....

After the photo the crew thought very hard about packing the car away...

And as always with the drag racing fraternity we made some new friends..Jim Tanner  and the "Wavy Gravy" crew, he built the car himself and like us he is going through the steep learning curve stage, great guy great looking car.

photo courtesy of www.eurodragster.com

So we learned a lot made some new friends and it was great to have so many of my family together I am now looking forward to next year, we have to get the car re-tagged (dragster MOT) I will get a licence and I am determined to run in Super-Pro et so we will get the car into the 8's at some point. in the meantime I must check to see if there are any-more RWYB's I can get the crew together for before the end of the season.