ANRA Summer Nationals

On Friday August 19th The Los Osos contingent- (Me and my wingman "not Dan") haulin' the Pig, and followed by the Nuke, headed out to the Patch for the ANRA Summer Nationals. The weather forecast was calling for +/- 104 degrees each day, so we were pondering how miserable it was gonna be. Not really.  My wingman aka Barry, aka Weldo had returned less than 24 hours ago from a trip to Nashville where he sweated it out in the 90/90 kind of temp/humidity that makes the 100 plus "dry heat" seem like an improvement. And the Nuke, well he just thinks "the hotter, the better". I mean the dude wants to live in Margaritaville- Daytona! Just get a sauna.

Anyway, a little later Woollybear and Gankster Frankster set out from Ventura land with the Nova as did Zac and Chuck hauling up the Sneaky Snake.

So we all rolled in to Famoso Dragstrip shortly after Noon o'clock and settled into a perfect patch of very hot asphalt to start the tedious routine of setting up the pits.  By luck we were pitted next to what used to be the old oil dump station, which has been "reclaimed" for some reason. Like probably the insane regulations surrounding the storage and removal of used oil products. LOL.  Anyway, what remains is a dirt patch with a comically placed picnic table on top!  So my ever industrious and accommodating crew hauled the picnic table over to our pit and created the perfect hospitality area. 

I promptly lit the BBQ, because as said before, you can get a lot done if you put out a pile of hot dogs for lunch while the boys are hard at work. So we ate our all beef wieners with some chopped onion, etc. Shortly thereafter Dave "the wrench" Lee rolled in with his trailer and set up opposite of me creating that sweet pit/hospitality space between our two rigs

But wait, there's more! He also had his Pit Boss Smoker in the truck!  

But wait, there's more! He had a 10 lb. brisket with him!!

Meanwhile Barry pulls out a new flying pig deal that he carried home from Columbia Tennessee. Something he found at the flag shop while doing the tourist thing- you know- antique shops on main street- ice cream shops- all that. so he sets the thing up, zip ties it to the EZ up and boom. We have a big ol' pig flying like a madman over the place.

After a little lunch, a lot of leisure, and a cold beverage, the boys installed some new belts to replace the date expired harness in the pig and the wrench installed a new "solo cup transbrake-button cable protector". Hey, don't judge. That cable wants to get pinched between the end of the steering column and the steering wheel adapter. But a nicely placed solo cup and some duct tape works to right that! With evening coming I threw a pot of Chile Verde on the burner in the wrench's outdoor kitchen, blistered some tortillas and sat down (at the oil dump picnic table) for a nice dinner. 

Next day Zacster breaks out a new flat top griddle and proceeds to absolutely blow our minds with a sausage and pancake breakfast! I kid you not. Man we live good at the track!  Not to mention, he topped it off on Sunday with scrambled egg-and-sausage breakfast burritos.  Breakfast has been elevated!! (I didn't bother to break out the frozen breakfast croissants I brought)

With full bellies we made our qualifying passes. Me in Hot Rod, Zac in Open Wheel, and Woollybear in DGas.  The weather was pretty miserable- the humidity was high, the barometer was low and the temperature was climbing fast.  All that makes for some pretty hefty power loss. Anyway the pig huffed on down there to a 10.62 at 125 MPH, probably about right for the conditions, but my reaction time was a terrible .110 or so .  Woollybear, if I remember ripped off a respectable 10.65 which temporarily put him at the top of DGas qualifying, and Zac had a good reaction time and legged it down track in the ever challenging alcohol injected Topolino.  On our 2nd qualifier I improved my reaction time to a .005 and ran a 10.65.  Woolly tuned 'er up a little too tight and went something like 10.57, and Zac ended up qualified 4th I think. A nice day's work by all.

By the time we were done qualifying the temp was pushing 100 degrees, so some of us retreated to the motorhome, and some took off to walk the aisles of Walmart and enjoy their 65 degree A/C!

Meanwhile the wrench, er, shall I say Pit Master, was keeping one eye on the temp reading of the 10 pound brisket he put on the pit boss at around 6 AM. 

 ~The smell of smoking beef was gently wafting throughout the fabled pits of Famoso Raceway~

I'm guessing it was around 5-6 PM when the brisket was removed from the smoker, wrapped in a towel and placed in the cooler for a little rest.  Once the evening cooled down a little we gathered up at the picnic table and noshed on delightfully tender brisket and coleslaw. 

Finally, Sunday came around and Eliminations were off to an early start...trying to get this thing in the books before we all spontaneously combusted.

I was first of our group to run in Hot Rod and I cut an .033 light besting my opponent by a whole bunch, and was able to coast to an easy win at 10.69 on a 10.62 dial.

Zac was up next in Open Wheel and his opponent broke out at the top end handing Zac a nifty round 1 victory.

And Woollybear drew a bye in round one to take the easy win and store some more performance data!

Its super fun to have all 3 cars going on to round 2.

Luckily for us, there was a good hour+ to enjoy that before round 2- which resulted in all 3 of us being eliminated!  Man drag racing can be humbling.

I lost by red-lighting away my chances by 5/1,000ths of a second, and then to add insult to injury I ran 10.625 on my 10.62 dial.  I was so spun out, mad at myself that I can't even remember how Zac and Woolly got beat.

  

p.s. any rumor that I quit drag racing is totally unsubstantiated. ;)

So for Flying Pig Racing we got to take home some great memories with great friends, a full belly and lot's of stories, but no hardware this weekend.  We'll be back at it October 7-9 to try again.

On Monday, me and the wingman and the nuke drug the pig back to the poke and went out for lunch and a beer at the Rib Line . We sat in a newer section where I'd never been and saw this on the wall. A sure sign Flying Pig Racing WILL be back.

SLOracer. Out.