My wingman Barry (aka not Dan) and I arrived at the Patch a little before 11 AM on Friday October 9th for the ANRA Fall Nationals. We are digging this new system with gates opening at 10 AM Friday. Used to be gates would open at 3PM and we'd be at the tail end of about 33 million rigs stacked in the adjacent field waiting to get in and pit. That system always resulted in a spectacular fire drill as everyone fought for "good" pit space. Not to mention there were countless people who must have snuck in on foot and roped off acres of pit space for themselves and their buddies. Needless to say, by the time you got your rig parked and squeezed the rest of the crew into the half space next door everyone was already pretty grumpy. Just a crappy way to start the weekend. Don't get me wrong- it's a small price to pay for the thrill of that 10.5 seconds of wicked acceleration! So under the new system we rolled right into the pits at about 11, picked some prime real estate with room for Woollybear and Frankster with the Nova and a spot for Dave "the wrench" Lee. It almost felt like we had room.
We had little that needed done other than pulling the oil filter and draining a quart...just because we were thinking we over filled at the last oil change. I like to run about a quart short of full.
While the boys did the heavy lifting I fired up the BBQ and got some hotdogs and sauerkraut stoked up. They work hard for food. We leisurely completed pit set up over the next few hours, ran the car through tech inspection and pretty much called it beer-thirty. That evening we had a nice dinner of pork tenderloins with apple sauce, then settled into story telling and caught a good sunset.
Saturday dawned beautiful. The weather was - well, perfect drag racin' weather! So we went out for qualifier number 1 and I cut an .044 light and ran 10.53. Now, two things... 1 we were expecting to go more like 10.46, and 2 the .044 light just isn't good enough. I felt like I did everything as usual and my lights usually average about .020. Good news is we get 2 qualifiers so we can fix that. Well, in Q2 I pushed the tree a little too hard and went .008 red. The car ran 10.51. We retired to camp for the day and accepted that the car wants to run 10.5x and that's fine. We'll dial for it in the AM!
Back in the pit, Dave "the wrench" Lee went to work preparing for Saturday night "Track or Treat". ANRA racing is home to a large contingent of Junior Dragsters, so promoter Butch Headrick announced that we'd be "puttin' on the dog" for the kids. Way cool! They got fists full of candy and we had hamburgers!
Sunday. Race day!
We were stoked heading into round 1. The car was wanting to run low 50s so we dialed a 10.51. I'm guessing there were 80+ cars in the Hot Rod class. That means 7 rounds of racing and 80 points on the line. Let's get after this!
We'll not exactly as scripted. I don't know what is going on. When the lights came down I let go the button and it felt like a stellar launch (which it was). I hit my shifts pretty much perfect, caught my opponent around 1100 feet, backed up to his bumper then went across the line wide open. I looked for the win light on my wall (darn bulb must be broke) and saw nothing but cold concrete. What the?
I can't handle these first round losses. On my way to the timing shack I considered quitting drag racing. (But I got over it within the half hour). Picked up my time slip and observed: my reaction time was .044 to his .028, I took the stripe by .035 (as I should) but I broke out- running a 10.47 for the loss.
Weird. 4 of my last 5 lights were .044. I have to get off that number. I have lost my mojo.
Has anyone seen my mojo?
So we got to load up and go home early. I guess on the bright side I had the quickest 60 foot time ever.
That matters 'cause it indicates it's not the car's fault my reaction time is off. It's the loose nut behind the wheel that needs fixing!
On Monday morning me and my wingman put the toys in storage and went out for a nice lunch and a couple DBA IPAs. We looked high and low for my mojo. Haven't got it back yet but we have until November 7th when we line up for the ANRA Finals! And I can't wait!!
Flying Pig. Out.
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