I don't suppose for one minute I'm alone in thinking "good riddance" to 2020, on all levels of life this year has been one to forget if that is possible. We did however manage to salvage one or two highlights in what has been a bleak racing year.
At the end of last year we had a tow truck that was just about falling to bits we had a trailer that was also just about falling to bits and a race car that was being held together with bodge tape and jubilee clips, so Steve made the call to sit out this year while repairs were applied and to get ready for a full on assault in 2021. We all know what happened, this dam virus hit and it looked like no-one was going to be racing in 2020 which in a way suited us as we were sitting out 2020 anyway. I believe in miracles and we got one...racing commenced thanks to Keith and Santa Pod Raceway. Suddenly Steve got an itchy right foot and decided to run at the Nostalgia Drags, this is where we found out what the problem we were having was caused by? Our fuel pump had decided to go into retirement so Steve borrowed a smaller one from our friend Mr. Colliver. Steve didn't get the fuelling right but was convinced the car was pulling better than ever so made the decision to go to the next event The Hot Rod Drags.
With the ever present help of my brother Dave on the Friday at the HRD Steve ran faster and quicker than the car had ever been before grrr lucky sod. But we had purchased a new pump which showed up on the Saturday so Steve sat out the first run and fitted the new larger pump which resulted in Steve hitting the magic 160mph mark, Not bad when we were supposed to be sitting the year out.
I was sat at home here in Spain watching the live feed from the Pod I nearly fell off my chair, yes there is some competitive feeling between us but I was so proud of my son. We had a very happy Steve.
Steve was convinced there was still a lot more in that set-up but that was it for the year so what for next year??? well new valve springs so that we can un-leash all of the 10,000 rpm horse power along with a revised and updated fuel system to go with the updated valve train. Ok so Steve has turned out to be an ok driver *&^*(!! but the boss will be back for one last go in 2021 at Dragstalgia and yes I will be riding my Yamaha all the way from my place is Spain for one last time. I have already changed the name of the blog site from "Russ's Racing blog" to "Tight Fit Slingshot" next I suppose we need to get rid of the "DangerRuss" sticker on the cockpit and replace it with...."7.SecondSteve"???
Happy New year everyone from the team...Russ, Steve, Dave and Diana
I would like to thank everyone that has helped us this year including Mike Oates, John "Mr Mopar" O'Sullivan and the Ball Breaker Team I hope next year will be a fast and safe one for everyone.
We are living through some very strange and testing times, who would have thought there would have been any racing at all this year but here we are so a very special thanks has to go to Santa Pod Raceway for putting on the events and to everyone on the site for keeping us "Covid Safe" ensuring more meetings this year. But hey! what an event this was? only four classes of race machines and RWYB cars, and it proved that you don't always need the big show cars to be able to pull in the fans and keep then entertained. We had the weather on our side the track was perfect and the PB's were coming at every other run. As usual The Wild Bunch put on stunning show.
B.T.E (Before The Event)
As most of you know Slimline Racing can not get to or attend a meeting without some sort of drama and this was no exception after the Nostalgia Drags and all the problems with fuel and fuel pumps we decided it would be a good idea to buy a new one a slightly bigger capacity one to future proof ourselves So I got hold of AlkyDigger and Steve and I went halves on a new pump, It was supposed to be delivered on the Thursday before the meeting but! due to a cock up with the contact numbers it got delayed by one day, luckily one of Steve's friends was coming up to the Pod Saturday morning so it was arranged that for him to pick the pump up Thursday evening. One problem solved. the other problem involved Steve's health a few days before the meeting an old injury flared up, his arm from his wrist to his shoulder started to hurt and began to swell up then just three days before the meeting while removing a gearbox from a vehicle Steve really hurt his back, then with just two days before the meeting he woke up in the middle of the night in agony he had a huge infection in his ear he ended going to A&E it's a wonder he managed to make it to the track let alone race. Steve was determined to make the meeting he's made of steel that boy.
Photo Courtesy of Scott at Eurodragster
Friday
Steve spent Thursday evening at his friends place just outside Luton so he could get to the car and trailer early, He met up with Dave in Bedford and dragged the car to the Pod.
Camp was set up and all the Covid Safe stuff put into effect then it started! at the last meeting Steve couldn't get the tick over down and therefore couldn't hold the car on the brakes so! first job of the day to sort out the tick over, well this ended up taking most of the day as no matter what Steve did it just didn't want to work. Having paid for the Friday Steve was not going to give in and eventually got the car about where he wanted it.
Around 4pm Steve towed down to the start line with Dave and Diana not expecting too much but just to shake the car down make sure everything was OK for the following two days. well!!!!! I don't think anyone was ready for what happened even Colin the commentator was surprised.
What a run 8.33 at 158.04 mph a double PB incredible and still with the borrowed smaller fuel pump.....thanks Anthony. No time for another run as the lanes were closed. Steve spent some of the night in the trailer I say some because he was cold even with the sleeping bags etc.
Saturday
The Wild bunch were first on track I was sat in front of the PC watching the live feed but no Steve... I tried to phone him and Dave but no-one wanted to talk to me!! then it dawned on my, even though Steve had said he would keep the borrowed pump on the car as it seemed to be working so well I knew he wouldn't be able to stop himself fitting the new one and that is exactly what he had done he missed the first run setting up the new pump.
1st run: Netted a very wayward 9.5 at 151 mph but what a burnout must have been the best that car had ever done.
2nd Run: A bit better, no in fact a lot better 8.63 at 150.5mph Steve reckoned she was a bit on the fat side so some more fettling.
3rd Run: Getting there he ran 8.41 at 157.9mph getting a little excited now more fiddling required.
4th Run: Slowed up a bit to 8.66 at 156.8 mph it was getting dark and Steve was having trouble seeing where he was going and the throttle was playing up again , wouldn't come down to idle. But all in all not a bad days racing considering it was a new pump and a larger capacity than we have used before.
Steve put everything away covered up the car and locked the trailer and like a real racer he is left the site and stayed at his friends place for the night because he didn't want to get cold again.!!
Sunday.
1st Run: Backed up for taking too long to get to the line but this was because the throttle stuck and Steve went too far on the burnout, eventually carded an 8.76 at 153.1 mph. bolt came out of the butterfly linkage on the run car stuck at over 4500 rpm after going through the lights.
2nd Run: With more fettling of pills still ran 8.76 this time at 155.7mph not getting full throttle due to butterfly's out of alignment and was warned over a leaking catch can that if he came to the line with it leaking again he would be taken off the track.
3rd Run: Catch can gasket had swollen up and no longer fitted correctly so Steve moved the pipe from the leaky catch can to the fuel catch can on top of the battery box, more fettling with pills and even slower only 9.03 and a slower speed much head scratching ensued.
4th and final run: Problem found! both the high speed lean off valve and main valve are side by side on our engine and...yes Steve got them muddled up and had been changing the wrong one, so back to an earlier setting and da da da!!! 8.73 at 160.19 mph well done Steve.
All runs on this day were witnessed by his sister, my daughter KT ad family who took a trip up to the Pod for the day with both my grandsons who had a great time. and watched their Uncle Steve go over 160 mph which is a mystical barrier, a right of passage if you like for naturally aspirated small block Chevy's.
The next generation in training my Grandson Leo
Once again a big thanks to Santa Pod for putting on such a brilliant event and for keeping everyone safe and a really big pat on the back for all the spectators for behaving impeccably and of course to the racers for putting on such an awesome show.
That's it for us for this year not bad considering we were going to sit the whole season out even before Covid was a thing, Lets hope the joke that is Covid 19 has vanished by next year and we can get back to normal, Stay safe and see you all next year.
Time is now getting short the last part required for the tow trucks gearbox arrived the week before the meeting and was promptly fitted and tested..it works lots of smiles the team will go to the Nostalgia Drags. The next hurdle was the MOT the lock down extension now being over the truck need to be tested it was quickly arranged by Steve and she passed, The Monday before the meeting the truck was taken to have the LPG system looked at and tested. The truck was picked up two days before Steve was due to leave.
In this world there are those people who have a strong commitment to life and there those that have steely determination and then there are those people that are just bloody minded, as from this weekend there is a new upper level of commitment now called "The Steve" Why? read on!
The plan was simple wash and clean all the sleeping bags and the fire suit borrow a Hans device form John O'Sullivan pack the truck load the barrel of Methanol and leave straight from work Thursday evening and spend the night in Toddington at a friends place, then go to the trailer the next morning and sort out things like putting air in the trailers tyres clean out the trailer set the back lash on the dragster in fact do as much as possible so not to have too much to do when at the track. However nothing is that simple when any of us are involved Steve rang me from work he had smelled something nasty on the way to work and it looked as if the rear wheel bearing had collapsed and that was it not going!. A little while later I got a call From Steve telling me was going anyway and if the dam thing seized or caught fire he didn't care it was insured and he had recovery on his insurance. The next call I got was to let me know he had made it to Toddington and that the diff had no oil in it so he had topped up and everything seemed OK. Next phone call from Steve came the next day, please remember I am in Spain, Steve rang me as he was locked in the storage depots yard where the trailer and dragster are kept, his security key fob had stopped working and it wouldn't release the lock and let him out, I had to send him the companies telephone numbers so he could get help and be let out. Dave met him at the trailer later that afternoon hitched the whole thing up and left for the Pod ready for the gates opening at 5pm they got there early and were directed into a field along with rather a lot of other excited racers. Now remember we were going to take this year off anyway...didn't last long that idea did it?
Camp was set up at the Pod that afternoon and Steve and Dave fettled the car ready for the first fire up of the year the next morning.
Early Saturday morning was where the fun started, The car didn't sound right so the fuel system was gone through, injectors cleaned fuel pipes flushed etc the car was taken tot he line but wouldn't run so the tam now including my other son Phil towed the car back to the pits, the team found the first of many problems a split fuel pipe that ran to one of the injectors, a replacement couldn't be found so a repair was made.
The car was fired up again but still wasn't running correctly so the fuel system was gone through again but still there was problem, so Steve took the fuel pump off and dismantled it and there he found the culprit the impellers had hit the surrounding bronze bush breaking up the bush and the impellers parts of which in turn had got into the bearing and knackered that as well, so that was it then race over? Well no!Steve never gives up there is always a way out of these problems..isn't there? Phone calls were made racers were asked but no go, then out of the blue Steve's wife Kerry made a surprise visit, she was staying over-night in a nearby hotel so Steve pinched her car drove all the way back to Swindon and picked up our old fuel pump from his workshop then drove all the way back to the track only to find there was a piece missing from the pump!! They had missed all of Saturdays runs but help out in hope of making some runs on Sunday but now that looked very unlikely. Until up stepped Anthony Coliver who runs the "From Hell" altered and he has a spare pump yippee. But the mounting was different so Steve drilled and tapped new threads into the front timing cover and fitted the pump and then had re-route all the fuel pipes to match. Along with re-routing and mounting of the fuel shut off valve and cable. All this work was complete Saturday evening but it was too late to try and fire the car up.
Sunday morning arrives the car hasn't made a run yet, because of the difference in fuel pumps Steve had to make some adjustments to the fuel system he needed a much smaller pill (jet) for the main valve the smaller the number the less fuel is returned to the tank and more fuel pumped into the engine, Steve changed the 80 that was already in place for a 60 which was the smallest he had and he had to blank out the high speed lean out valve and he had to fix the fuel shut off cable which had snapped due to being mounted in a different place.
The car was fired up but! still wasn't running right, temperature checks showed a problem with the middle two cylinders on the left bank, the same head and same place where in the past they have been repaired three times due to being torched ever so slightly, game over again?...well no! second son Phil then had a look and found the spark was a bit weak so he had a peak in the distributor and found some corrosion on the some of the pick ups so she cleaned them up and cylinders firing properly again but! there was now a problem with the two front cylinders which after more investigation turned out to be blocked injectors so once again out came the tools and the problem was fixed at last but the team had missed the days first run.
The car was towed down to the pairing lanes on what was to be its first run of 2020, it was everyone eases 6th run of the weekend the car was fired staged and run, now first of all the thing picked up its front wheels quiet violently which took Steve by surprise he backed off put his foot down again and had to back off at the top end as the engine was labouring..not enough fuel getting through but still a 9.6 at around 150mph after all the effort wasn't too shabby considering.
Back in the pits and another thank you to the Ball Breaker Team for loaning Steve an even smaller main pill a 30 this livened the car up a bit. Also during this time Steve made a very interesting discovery on the Saturday while chasing the problems with the car,, last year we let Dave had a couple of runs in the car at the Mopars to make things a little less frightening for him Steve restricted the Revs to 6000 Shhh! don't tell him!! Dave still ran a 9.1 on this setting but! Steve forgot to reset the rev limiter which means his later runs of 8.5, 8.4 and the best one of 8.3 were made with the rev limiter set to 6000 rpm so this was reset to 7200rpm and the car was towed back to the pairing lanes for the teams second run of the meeting.
On this run the first problem was that the idle was too high it was leaning out due to not enough fuel but Steve had no time to do anything with it and because he couldn't hold it on the brake he decided to use the trans brake to hold the car and he then bumped it into stage a la turbo pro mod style but he bumped too far and cut the second beam which meant an instant red light however he still floored it had the front wheel off the deck and this time as he went through the lights he checked the rpm it was just over 6500 and still rising. now bearing in mind Steve has hit 159mph at 600 rpm then probably he was going over 160mph, and as it was still pulling for a change Steve reckons that was fastest run he has done in that car so it probably would have been a low 8 second run. We will never know!
The third and what would be the final run for th team of the weekend was a little bit of an anticlimax as Steve didn't burn out over the line which resulted in wayward launch and some sideways action and yet another red light.....!
The team were going to try for another run but at just after 5pm the pairing lanes were closed so he couldn't do it, Wow what a weekend the team left happy at the end in the knowledge that they had found a lot more int he car than they thought it had more to work with so now the search for parts continues and with a bit of luck and a following wind the team might even make the Hot Rod Drags if they go ahead?? this covid thing is really messing everything up.
The team would like to thank Anthony Coliver and the "From Hell" altered team for the loan of the fuel pump, Daniel Boon and the "American Pie" team for the use of their timing light and leak down tester and for some slightly used spark plugs and of course to Mark and Steve of the "Ball Breaker" team for letting Steve have the smaller pill.
It was very frustrating for me here in Spain trying help and organise whatever I could making lots of phone calls and not being able to see anything as there was no live feed I understand why that happened. Here's hoping that the future brings an end to all this virus stuff and we can all get on with lives as normal as a drag racer can.
Our tow truck which is a 2002 Dodge Ram 5.9 litre 1500 has been playing up a bit over the last 12 months it had been losing oil, water and power as well as juddering a bit while pulling away so after sorting out the workshop the next thing on the agenda is sort out the truck.
First things first the front suspension has taken a battering pulling our race trailer, The trailer is a nose heavy american style trailer and it pulls the back of the truck down which in turn lifts the front right up where it shouldn't be, so most of the front suspension part were replaced bushes top and bottom arms etc.included the shocks as the original ones were in a "bit of a state" And while Steve was at it the rear shocks were changed as well.
Next job was service the gearbox, sump and filter removed and.....bits of metal in the sump parts which looked like bits of a retaining clip, Steve did some digging around and found that this is again another "common Fault" with the Dodge also the had been other damage int here and the clutch plates needed replacing so with his usual gusto Steve stripped the box down and rebuilt it...using his now new workshop! The rebuild kit was ordered and duly arrived but when Steve took the pump apart he found a broken spring yet another "common fault" so new parts ordered.
All rebuilt back to factory specs, this is when Steve had one eye on the impending closed doors test weekend of the 4th and 5th July even though the team were going to sit out the whole season to update and sort out all the racing gear withdrawal symptoms had set in but! there was one other problem while under the truck Steve found a water leak and it looked to be coming from the thermostat housing so a new one was ordered but it didn't cure the leak, So more digging around and yes another "common fault" is the front timing cover as it has water running through it and it wears and leaks so another part was ordered and a new timing cover was winging its way from American , this arrived with just a few days left before the test weekend. Steve stripped the front down and the old cover replaced with the new timing cover and what do you know?...leak cured.
Time is running out so just a couple of days to go Steve filled the gearbox up with oil and took the truck to work with him just to check it out but just outside Swindon the truck decided it only had one gear...so the truck was carefully and slowly returned to base and now no hope of getting to the test weekend. Turns out that yet another "common fault" was to blame for the failure. A governor/speed sensor was faulty a new one was ordered but wont arrive till the end of this week.
A shame but there is it not a lot anyone could do about it I am sure there will be more test weekends coming up, In the meantime there is also the problem with the rear suspension as I said the trailer is really heavy so it looks like a set of air bags will be going on the back and the LPG system is going to be sorted soon as well and re-certified. Once that is done it is time to turn our attention to the trailer then the race car itself new rear gears and bigger valve springs so we can use the 9000 rpm it is capable of and not the restricted 7200 rpm we have been running it with.
And some people think we just turn up and race eh?? keep safe folks see you all soon I hope.
Just because we are sitting out racing for the year...maybe? doesn't mean that we are not busy at Slimline Racing HQ, first off is the HQ we didn't have one our HQ was the trailer which meant when we had to do anything to the dragster we had to meet up from all points West and South then take the dragster out of the trailer to work on it usually in wet and cold conditions and occasionally ..snow! So first thing to do...man shed! or to better describe to it as....a workshop. Steve already had a big wooden shed in his garden but it was falling apart so a new one was needed what Kerry didn't know was Steve had ordered a 20 foot by 10 foot metal structure to replace the original one. A lot of clearing and digging was done and then concrete poured for the new base.
Saga of the workshops
First Workshop
The idea being that the new fence panels can be removed and the dragster wheeled in form the road behind and at 20 foot long the dragster fits in no problem but the big garage which is what it really is comes in kit form from Australia when I say Kit I mean lots and lots of bits and pieces.
So Steve got his tools out dismantles the old shed got all the bits and pieces out ready to assemble the new workshop, only it didn't quiet go to plan, after hours and hours of drilling and screwing and marking out on the floor something was wrong! the completed workshop wasn't square and the doors wouldn't fit properly so Steve tried to manipulate the panels but it just got worse and worse then Steve got mad..short fuses run in the family. anyway the workshop got beaten up and ended up at the local tip!!
Second Workshop
After he had cooled down a bit Steve ordered another one and paid for their own fitting team to come and put it up for him.
The new workshop duly arrived and a date was arranged for the fitting team to come and put it up, it was supposed to go up in a day.
The parts were all laid out ready for the assembly, the fitters got some of the panels together put a corner of the workshop up was about to put a brace up when the wind got up the structure fell over and buckled....end of workshop number 2.
Third Workshop
The fitters apologised and ordered a replacement workshop, that was the end of the year so the new one wouldn't arrive till January. Then the wait for the fitting team but it appears that when the team turned up to assemble workshop 3 there was some parts missing so once again Steve waited and then at last the fitting team re-appeared with all the parts needed and they put the new workshop up...yaaa!!
But after closer inspection Steve found that the had buckled some panels missed screws and bolts out and even worse that that they had assembled the whole thing too close to the dividing fence between Steve's place and the neighbours garden!!!
Lots of irate phone calls later and Steve was offered £200 to forget it or £100 and the fitters would come back and move it, Steve was of course not happy with this as the fitters had screwed it up twice now so another phone call or ten and Steve got the whole fitting fee refunded and he is now going o move the workshop over himself and fix the other problems but...we now have a HQ.
