This was one of the meetings I had targeted for our truncated season, this was a meeting to fine tune the car ready for Dragstalgia, it turned out to be far more, the whole meeting was a tribute to our recently departed friend and fellow racer Scott Durrant, both Dave and I have been attending meetings for well over 40 years now and and we have seen accidents and death we have lost some legends in the sport over the years but we have never seen anything that comes close to the events prior and post Scotties death,it is great to see this drag racing family we belong to come together and unite in not just financial help and fundraising but real support for Scott's family. The day started on the track with a minutes silence while we all lined the track on both sides with some very beautiful words from Barry Bohannon followed by both Gina,Scott's wife and their children driving up the strip to rapturous applause.
So what about our day then we were pitched up with our friend the Stones and the Shindigger team again, we had left the same tune in as we had at the last meeting but for some reason it just didn't work here, the car bogged down wouldn't pick up no top end just flat to be honest no power at all. Steve was perplexed we went through some plausible reasons but it just didn't make sense at all, Steve made some serious adjustments but then came the rain,,dam this British summer it must be one of the worse ones for some years....
After a good night out if spending the night at Kenny's bar can be considered out and watching the Ska band aptly named "Skabucks" So in the morning and after some advice we Steve set the car up again and..we ran a mid 10, not what we really wanted and again the car was flattening out at around 5000rpm and wouldn't rev any higher I was beginning to think that maybe the rev limiter want working properly
So for the second run Steve weakened the fuel up as the new plugs were showing we were running far too rich we also noticed at this time that the fuel tank seemed to be bulging it has became distorted, we found out that the vent we had and the vent the car had for years really wasn't big enough so we rigged up a hastily made bigger Vent, thanks to mark of On the Bottle for his help, next run and again we were beaten by Mr Raw in his Beetle powered slingshot and again we ran a mid 10 and like the other runs the car would not rev over 5000rpm, but it did pull a bit better. So with some head scratching we set the car up for the last run of the day but...rain stopped play again, which as we found out later probably saved the team from some serious grief and a lot of money. It was good to see some new vehicles in the Wild Bunch and I have to say some very well engineered and good looking race cars at that, all of which helps to raise the profile of the Wild Bunch, we even had some visitors from Berlin in Germany, in a very pretty and well put together altered.
So while packing up we were all called over for the prize giving ceremony and here was another surprise we picked up a trophy from the last meeting for the best appearing car..
That's the third trophy we have won and not the last I hope, it actually means a lot to us and we hope that in the very near future we will add a trophy or two for performance as well.Steve had a bit of a fiddle before we put the car away then we drove 130 miles home in the rain. A liitle while later Steve rang me he had found out..using some of the very good American forums that there is a strong possibility that our barrel valve is back to front due to be being put on the other side to usual on the hat, he now knows how to sort this out and check for it, he also told me that after checking the timing again he found that the timing had in fact slipped since the last meeting to 20 degrees from 38 and we still done know how? but it can be put right,Along with the vent problem he has also found the formula and tables on how to set up the barrel valve so even though we got a lot of help on this it does vary a lot depending on fuel flow and engine size so we now know that even if the barrel valve is the right way round it was never set up right from the beginning.
So we have now entered the Fast show along with seven other invited vehicles from the Wild Bunch where we shall sue the time to put these things right and finally get the performance we have always known this engine can give us in time for Dragstalgia..fingers crossed.
