68. July shoot our/ Fancy dress party

When I say we have been having a tough year I wasn't joking! and the bad luck followed us to Shakespeare County Raceway this weekend as well. I set off from home at around 12:30 on the Friday I went straight to Luton to pick Dave up then up to Bedford to pick the truck up then head for Shaky, a trip that can be done in under four hours but not on Friday, 6 and half hours later we turned into the airfield gates I was shattered before I had even got there, we got the car out and set up camp as fast as we could. While getting from the  cab of the truck tot he back I stepped on one of the big plastic storage boxes that we keep our plates and stuff in..it collapsed I slipped and kicked the car..not on purpose, I caught he drop arm on the steering I was wearing sandals!!! I heard the crunch first..ouch. I had broken my toes what a start tot he weekend?

 

We were a little disappointing to find the catering bars were not even open when there were so many people there so it was a good job we had bought some food with us so out with BBQ and after a couple of burgers we felt good..

Steve turned up early the next morning and went straight to work, serviced the car, fuel pump on wait for 9am and fire her up, we were really looking forward tot his weekend and seeing what the car could really do!!!! first run out of the block and we only ran a !).2 at 126 mph she was going really flat after half track. so Steve took some timing out and changed the pills, the next run was very strange after the burnout I staged the lights ran I hit the throttle and....nothing!!! the engine was still running but wasn't revving and the car didn't move??? so I hit the throttle again..same thing..I was about tot make the decision to shut down and get pushed away form the start when the car just took off ..when we got back we found a wire had come off the trans brake switch and was shorting against the steering wheel adn therefore activating the brake..no wonder the gearbox smelt a bit hot. Two more runs that day netted us a10.1 and a 9.9 still not brilliant but at least we were going the right way.

There were rumours of some serious weather hitting overnight so we covered the car up, we didn't want anymore problems to deal with.

This meeting was our (The Wild Bunch) party meeting and of course it had to be fancy dress, now we, that is our team didn't dress up as first of we really had only made the decision to go at the last minute and we had all been so busy we just didn't have the time to sort out anything. But it didn't stop a lot of the other members....

 

A good time was had by all and yes the weather did turn bad for a wee while in the night as we woke up to a damp and soggy Shaky, but luckily it didn't last too long and we were ready to go not long after ten.

We ran twice more and each time we got a little quicker we got down to 9.7 in the end but at a cost, we managed to fry our starter motor which Steve changed for the spare in record time, we have stripped a tooth or two from the flex plate and the car was still flat at around 800-900 feet hence we never got much over 130mph and now we were seeing little puffs of smoke coming from one bank of the engine which usually is an indicator that something is wrong,

 Steve was convinced we had cracked a head but this wasn't the case after a chat with the ever helpful Mr. 6 Bob Hawkins we have concluded that the car has been running far too rich for far to long and we have suffered from what is known as "Bore Wash" too much fuel taking away the oil has damaged the rings letting more oil come up from the sump ..the cure??? new set of rings and hone the bores not a difficult job or too expensive thank god but it will be time consuming because of the distance we all live from each other..So at that point I called it for the team not just for the meet but for the rest of the season.

 

We were a little down as you can imagine, we were just getting the car to perform from the lights, the 60 foot times were starting to come down, but not as fast as the last engine so Steve is going to do some homework on torque convertors, we have no idea what one is in our car, and we were hitting the rev limiter at around 800feet which explains why we were so slow through the traps so maybe a new set of gears for the axle???? lots to do and think about.

The drive home was not a happy one..we did had Tom follow us for the first part of the journey and then

Keith for the last part of the trip into Bedford, not a lot was aid on that trip till after we had dropped the truck off and I was heading back to Luton to drop Dave off, when I got a call from Steve.."Dad just order the rings and I will fit them and sort it all out lets get the car ready for the Hot Rod Drags"...That's better!! Steve reckons he can get the fueling sorted and then we can worry about the torque convertor and axle ratios...right so back to the internet then, and fingers crossed we may make it out again this year........

Once again a big thanks to everyone that helped us out over the weekend and well done to everyone for putting on such a good show and again look at all those PB's and what can we say about the ever happy Claire,,wouldn't be the Wild Bunch without her????