A huge amount of work had gone into getting the car to the Nostalgia Nationals and a fair bit of cussing and plan changing, we had a set in stone plan for this year which went straight out of the window when the tow truck broke and used up all the budget so it was a a case of " we will just have to make do" with what we have, and try and optimise the motor to get the most of out of it. And of course the biggest `omission from this meeting was myself, this was the teams first outing without me, I have to admit it was really weird watching my car go down the track on the PC here in Spain. Bearing in mind all the stress leading up to t his meeting they did very well. The trailer was picked up Thursday morning and camp was set up at the Pod there were a few jobs to complete before the car was ready for the track most of which were completed without any problem, The team was made up of Steve and Dave of course and my other son Phil and one of Steve's friends,
pit set up
Phil's accommodation for the weekend
On Friday the car was warmed up this is the first time the motor has run since the Hot Rod Drags last year and considering the length of time it's been idle in the back of the trailer she sounded sweet.
To be fair this engine has always sounded great. but while going through the gears on the stands Steve heard something he wasn't happy about he shut the motor down and turned the wheels and there it was a noise coming form the recently rebuilt axle, did this deter them, put them off nooo (probably yes) out came the tools and the odd naughty word I bet and the car was stripped down again, and axle removed and stripped and the problem was found, a loose lock nut that had shaken loose because the lock tab had worn, problem soon fixed with a centre punch and thread lock, then the long job of putting everything back together and in the car again, they even managed to get the car on the track late Friday afternoon...
.. as you can see things didn't go according to plan, in the burnout (not shown) Steve started to spin the wheels is first then pulled it into second and lost drive??? on the run he rolled the beams, when putting everything together after the rebuild earlier in the day the team got the gear linkage back to front so second gear wasn't where it should be and on the run it was finger/ glove trouble Steve just didn't push the trans brake button hard enough..well it has been over 6 months. The team got in three runs on Saturday with a best of 8.8 seconds, still down a bit on top speed but Steve knows why, I wasn't there to take the videos so please bear with me I'm not of the order of these but what the hell.
A great picture of Steve launching the car by Paul Evans
Sunday morning saw the team out with a dial n of 8.6 which ended up being a little optimistic as the car slowed to a 9 flat but worse than that it was to be the last run from the car that weekend as a blown crankshaft seal ended play, replacing the seal is no biggie but the cause was a problem and a shim kit is required so the team loaded up and headed home. The meeting itself was brilliant so many PB's set it was unreal and as usual The Wild Bunch put on a great show. It was a shame the car broke as Steve was after points, but the car did run the engine sounded awesome and the team did feature in the Nostalgia Nationals official highlight Video quite heavily...
Video courtesy of Santa Pod raceway for more great videos check out Santa Pods YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/user/SantaPodTV
Never seen Dave jump so high!!! So now its time to sort the couple of small problems out and try to get the car back to it's best ready for Dragstalgia and of course my turn behind the wheel ..looking forward to it..maybe we should re-paint the axle black!!!!!
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