ANRA Season Opener 2024

 On April 19th the Flying Pig Racing contingent descended upon the world famous Patch, aka Famoso Dragstrip! It was a bonus group for us.  Me and my wingman Barry (Not Dan) dragged the pig over the grade and rolled in at around 12:30 PM.  We pitted in our usual vicinity alongside Zac and Chuck with the wild, Sneaky NE3 Altered, Followed by Woollybear and Frankster with Woolly's bitchin' Nova, and Ricky and Randy with Rick's Sportsman Camaro. Across the way from us was Chuck and Cindy bringing "The Hook" back to the track after a fairly lengthy hiatus. They were visited by Crystal and Chuck's favorite grandson David ;).  Chuck had invited a couple old "army buddies" and an old grade school friend out to mix it up so we were about 15 strong with 5 cars.  That is excluding the day trippers that showed up Saturday- Dave "the wrench Lee", Zac's wife and son, and a couple other intrepid travelers from down the coast.  

Naturally, the food was off the chain.  As usual starting with hot dogs on the grill for lunch Friday. (the boys will work for food)  On Friday night we had a big ol' BBQ chicken feed with all the accoutrements- ya know, pasta salad, potato salad, beans, garlic bread...

Saturday was qualifying day. And from here forward it gets a little tricky for me...my memory ain't what it used to be, and while I try to keep up with how all the boys are doing, I can't remember sh!t. See, my hard drive is full, and if I am to remember something new, well I have to delete something old.  So, here's what I remember- Zac qualified number 3 in NE3 with a 10.62x, Woolly qualified somewhere around 7th in Dgas, I ripped off a .007 reaction time on the first pass in Hot Rod (top 5 in qualifying) and Ricky and Chuck shook the cobwebs off in Sportsman (but I have no idea of qualifying position).  Bottom line we all get to race on Sunday.

On Saturday night we did a little BYO for dinner, I know that Chuck and Zac did burgers and some of us did steak and chicken, but the main event was after dinner when we surprised Woollybear with a birthday cake. Yep, Mrs. Wingman procured a most spectacular sheet cake complete with the image of Woolly's Nova in the winners' circle!

Now, Woolly isn't one to be impressed with all the attention, and we caught him off guard a little, but when we drug him out and sang happy birthday, he had no way out!  After one shy attempt to blow out the candles, we had to bring in the wingman to complete the honors! :) And wouldn't you know it, they're the kind of candles that keep relighting themselves!!

 

So, that brings us to Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

Again, somewhat of a blur, but...

Chuck lost round one, but had a great time shaking the rust off and partying at the track again. (apple juice)

Rick went out in round 1, but the carb ran right!

Zac's debut in NE3 was cut short with a red light in round 1. (bummer. The car was tuned!)

Woolly lost in HR but went rounds in Dgas. If I remember right losing in the third round. A stout showing in a really competitive class.

And finally, Me, papa pig, went all the way to the semi-final before running out of talent at the starting line.  All in all I was pretty proud of finishing T3 in a field of 117 cars.  The highlight for me was taking out last season's Hot Rod champion in round 5 on a double breakout race where I took 11 thousandths at the starting line and 1 thousandth at the finish line.

For the Flying Pig bunch, the season is off to a great start. Cant wait to get back out there for the spring race.

SLOracer. out.

ANRA Finals 2023

 

ANRA SUMMER NATIONAS: MOTHER NATURE FOR THE WIN!

On August 18th 2023, with hurricane Hilary looming out in the Pacific, the Flying Pig Racing bunch headed out to conquer the quarter mile at the ANRA Summer Nationals, held at the famed Famoso Dragstrip. 

Myself and the indefatigable Weldo Plasmoski, aka Not Dan!, aka B-Dawg, my Wingman Barry headed out for the patch with high hopes and great expectations.  We were sitting tied 4th in HR points after a pretty stout semi-final showing at the spring race and having put some new shocks on the rear of the Pig were pretty sure we solved the wheel hop and spin that plagued us at that last race. 

From down the coast Woollybear and Jungle Frank checked in at around 9 AM and they were locked and loaded, and ready to set off too.  Woolly was also chasing the dream- tied 4th in D-Gas points. Word was that Zac ("I make bad decisions") and Chuck, the brains of the "Sneaky" operation were rollin' up later that day after Zacster tended to some adulting stuff.

So it was shaping up to be a fine weekend of racing and doing racing things. Our crew was a little light this race- just six of us but we were gonna give it H-E-Double Toothpicks anyway!

Butchie said there was some space for us out by the old oil dump (don't tell the grumpy old man) so we were on a casual roll. Me and B made our customary stop at James Dean's Last Stop aka Blackwell's Corner and topped off the Newmar fuel tank ensuring that we would have plenty of petrol to run the generator 24/7 so we could blast those rooftop air conditioners all weekend. And we did. In fact, we fired 'em up as we were pulling back onto the highway and we rolled into the patch at about 74 degrees, while the outside temp was heading for a slightly muggy 97.  

Upon arrival we found Woollybear and Jungle Frank already in set up mode. We slid into the pit beside their pit, and Barry began unloading and setting up while I got the hot dogs on the grill. We had the customary accoutrements- sauerkraut, onions, pickled jalapenos, relish, mustard, mayo.  Nice break from the sun- and with full bellies- we finished up the pit-in and soon enough Zacster and Chuck rolled in. By late afternoon we were all tech'd and ready to rock.

Saturday dawned cloudy and muggy, but not too hot. As we got ready for 1st round of qualifying the illustrious "voice of ANRA", Mike English, announced that in an effort to complete the event before the predicted rains hit Sunday, we, the Hot Rod class and Jr. Dragsters would run 1st round of eliminations Saturday afternoon to get a jump on it. So we were looking forward to 2 quick rounds of qualifying followed by some afternoon elims. Cool!  

As I prepared for the first hit I spied a barometer of 29.08 on the weather station.  That's a little on the low side from what I'm used to seeing out there. That no good Hilary was out there somewhere! We went out and ran a 10.56, with a 60 foot time that was about 5 hundredths better than last race, so I'm thinking the air is pretty bad but the new shocks helped get the 60 foot back where it should be.  All good.  Woolly went a 10.60 in Hot Rod and then ran a little too quick in D-Gas, while Zac went out and blistered the track with a 9.30 second pass in Open Wheel (the class bottoms out at 10.00) so Zac came back and hid in the trailer (jk) because the hotrod is not cert'd for that ET, nor is he licensed for it. Oops. Gotta slow it down before they kick you out! So, with a little time to kill before Q2 the B-Dawg caught a little nap...

...and then we went out for Q2. That was pretty uneventful- we did our best but no number 1 qualifiers in this group! 

I'm not sure anyone was convinced we would finish this race on Sunday, but I'm pretty darn sure NO-ONE thought we'd see what happened on Saturday afternoon! We got called to the lanes for Eliminations Round 1, I guess it must have been around 3 PM.  I took a look at the weather station and the density altitude had gone up around 1000 feet, and more disturbing, the barometer was reading 29.01.  Now I ain't no meteorologist but I'm pretty sure that's getting into the big time storm type low pressure.  I know I've never seen it that low out there.  Anyway we took a s.w.a.g. at a dial-in and rolled up to the staging lanes.  The joke in the lanes was- everyone had no idea what their car was gonna run in these conditions! So as we sat there ready to roll and immediately after the last Jr. Dragster completed their run, some godforsaken agent of Hilary, sent out to scout for victims, descended on the Patch like a scene out of some low budget end-of-the-world movie! The eastern sky went black, the wind started to howl, and a tumbling wall of ground dust came racing at us intent on destroying everything in its path.  It was an absolute traffic jam as a hundred or so hot rods tried to get turned around and headed back to the pits. But the agent of Hilary was too quick! Those that were lucky enough to be in their pit or at least out of their car had an opportunity to grab what they could protect or hang onto their shade canopies, but the rest of us, well we drove back to the pits to find our stuff scattered all over hell's half acre as the wind blew through at - I don't know- maybe 50 - 60 MPH. I know that our EZ-UP which had about 40 Lbs. of  sand bags holding it down was wadded up and deposited against the car trailer with a couple broken legs and bent arms. The dust was pelting the skin and covering the racing surface. Then came a brief but powerful burst of rain. Well it was more like mud balls as the rain accumulated all that blowing dirt on its way down and deposited little explosions of mud on everything. And then it was over. Just like that. And when I say it was over I mean the storm was over AND the race weekend was over! The decision was made that we would postpone eliminations until the Friday before the next race, as there was no way the track would be able to be returned to a raceable and safe condition.

So, about half of the racers out there decided they'd load up and get out of dodge before anything else could get them while me and my Wingman decided we'd stay and camp, carry on with the BBQ and worry about travelling tomorrow! About then Some friends from a few pit rows up came by and invited us to a shrimp and crab boil over at their pit in about 2 hours. I said "let me think about it, Yes"!

So me and B, did a little clean-up around the pit, bade farewell to Woollybear, Frankster, Zac and Chuck, took some time to put on our game face, and relaxed in the cooler air left behind by the (here it comes again) "godforsaken agent of Hilary"! And then headed off for the best dang dinner going down that night. Thanks Yvonne, Rodney, Jerimie! And anyone else who was responsible for that incredibly delicious feast!

On Sunday, me and my wingman left the pits which were punctuated by little piles of broken stuff and took the uneventful ride home and wrapped up the weekend Monday with a post race burger and beer!

We'll try this again on September 29th!

SLOracer. Out.

ANRA Fall Nationals- Woollybear and Zac and the hardware!

 

Wow! What a blast that was!  The ANRA Fall Nationals and annual Track or Treat did not disappoint.

The Flying Pig Racing pit was in full swing with Me and the Wingman, Kenny the Nuke, Sneaky Zac plus Chuck, and the dynamic duo of Woollybear and Gangster Frankster . 

We procured the same approximate pit space as last race and immediately set up camp and pilfered the picnic table from the late oil dump. I decided to up the lunch game a notch and BBQ'd some delicious brats, topped 'em with some sauerkraut and put out the habanero mustard that Wingman snagged at Blackwell's Corner (aka James Dean's last stop). That made for a pretty spicy and satisfying lunch! Oh yeah and we got an early start on Mrs. Racer's brownies and Pammy/Tiegen's chocolate chip cookies!

Anyway, the weather was a pretty tolerable 90-ish and we completed set up and tech before 5PM. Beer-thirty at the track is always a pleasure!!

Saturday rolled in beautiful, waking to the sounds of Jimmy Black "draggin' the track" laying down lots of sticky for us racers, and the smell of sausage and pancakes on the griddle. Yep. Zacster treated us to breakfast again! Dang, that was good.

Qualifying went well- I had a decent .013 reaction time. Woollybear was inching his way towards 10.60 in D-Gas. And Zac nailed the #1 qualifying position in Open Wheel picking up a nice little trophy (the traditional ANRA October pink-ribbon-trophy) for his effort! Way to go Zac and Chuck!

After qualifying we began to set up for what was to be an EPIC Halloween track or treat. This got started a couple or 3 years ago and has just begun to blow up. I can't believe the extent to which some pits were decorated!  There was chaplain Matt running around in his Uncle Sam costume, and ANRA grumpy guru Butch and Cindy tooling around in a cart dressed as Fred 'n' Wilma.

Yabba Dabba Do.

We had a pretty bitchin' set-up too. I brought a 6' motion activated screeching witch that I thought was pretty cool, that is until Zac brought out his home created "Scary Flying Pig". Holy crappers. That thing was cool. He had the pig sitting in a chair holding a bowl of candy. When the wee ones stuck their hands in the bowl the Pig reared back his head and let out a frightening squeal followed by some kind of sinister laugh! The kids were pretty wary of that thing. I saw a couple kids standing there working up the nerve to reach for the goods and when they went for the treats that pig scared the candy out of 'em. They spilled half the candy on the ground with their hasty retreat. Mom and dad sitting in the golf cart had a good laugh! 

                                                                                                           scary pig video

                                                                                                         the witch video

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!! 

Eliminations kicked off at 9:00 AM with Jr. Dragsters. They were probably all still jacked up on candy from the night before!

Anyway, Hot Rod hit the lanes around 10:00AM and I was gifted a first round win when my opponent red lit. 

In open wheel, Zac had a competition bye as his opponent was unable to make the call. Thank you very much!  As I tell everyone- It seems like you never win one of these events without a gift or two along the way...

And in D-Gas Woollybear lit up the win light, so we had 3 cars in 3 classes going on to round 2! Nice.

In round 2 I lost in a close one when I went too quick by .008 second, running a 10.562 on my 10.57 dial.  That left Zac and Woolly to carry the Flying Pig Racing torch for the remainder of the event. And boy did they! 

Zac and Chuck have put a ton of work into that Sneaky Topolino over the last three seasons sorting out the bugs, chasing gremlins and figuring out the fickle fuel system, and they have finally got it done! Zac drove his ass off, running some consistent 10.44s and absolutely crushing the tree in the final round to take the Open Wheel win with a deadly .005 reaction time and another 10.44 with a 4.  Super impressive!

Meanwhile, not to be outdone, Woollybear put together a string of deadly runs that took him all the way to the final in D-Gas. As the #1 cheerleader for FPR I got to watch both of these finals from the starting line and when I saw Woolly pull ahead of his opponent I was getting off the gas in my mind and Woollybear was getting off the gas in the car trying to prevent the breakout loss. unfortunately he reeled 'er in a little too much and handed the stripe back to take a loss and finish with the Runner-up trophy.  All in all a great day of racing in the Flying Pig camp!! Next goal is to get all three cars in the finals!

We're all looking forward to the November race!

SLORacer. Out.