2016 SEASON IS UPON US!

Well here it is, March 11th, 2016 and the new race season is upon us!  We at Flying Pig Racing don't usually attend the March Meet at Famoso Raceway but I don't care which side of Bakersfield you're from, the March Meet IS the start of the drag race season!

Thanks to Bangshift.com livestreaming, I got to watch a whole lot of the event online.  If that doesn't get your drag race urge fired up, nothing will.

So anyway, the Central Coast Autohaus Flying Pig Mustang is ready to make our first passes down the 1320 on March 19th.  That will be race number 1 of the Summit Racing series at Famoso Raceway.  It looks like it will be a short crew that weekend, just SLO Racer and the Bdawg making the trip.  We're looking forward to knocking off some cobwebs and getting the routine tuned up for the ANRA season which kicks off on April 22-24.

   

See ya there!

SLO Racer. Out.

Flying Pig Racing Gunning For ANRA Title

The Central Coast Autohaus Flying Pig Mustang kicked off the 2015 effort on April 17-19 at the ANRA Season Opener at Auto Club Famoso Raceway.

We were sporting the newly rebuilt 557 CI BBF that Autohaus Dan, and son Travis had just stuffed back into the pig the day before.  And to complete the picture, we are sporting the newly repaired and painted front clip! During the off-season Barry the twin, and body man extraordinaire, took the faded and cracked fiberglass front end and treated it to a facelift.  New paint, added stripes on front facia, and spiced it up with a chrome look bumper!

 

It's always a little bit of a nail biter when you roll a new piece off the trailer to make that first run.  The one thing I have learned is that once I roll into the water box, instinct takes over.  So, we took 'er to the line and just did what comes natural.  We ripped off a solid first pass, albeit with a little bit of power loss at the big end, so we made a timing adjustment, pulled the plugs and re-gapped to Dan's specs, and tried again.  This time we made a full pull, with plenty of power and speed at the top end. We finished off saturday with the third and final time run for me, another solid run, ready for eliminations on Sunday.

Hot Rod
Round 1:  I was up against the eventual D-Gas runner up Bo Duke.  I dialed a 10.43 to his 10.30. I had .05 second in the bank with my better reaction time, and since I had him covered by a car length at 1000 feet, I backed up a little and took the stripe by a bumper, winning with a 10.53.  Not a bad 1st round win!

Round 2: I dialed a 10.47, and again had a ton in the bank with my better reaction time so I backed off again and took the win with a 10.54.  Going on to round 3!

Round 3:  I had a bye run and used it to make another flat out pass.

Round 4: Up against Steve Gonzales, I dialed a 10.51 to his 11.12.  We both had crummy reaction times and were separated by just 3/1000ths of a second at the start.  As his dial in was 6/10ths slower, he left first.  I tried putting the pedal through the floorboard and got lucky when he broke out by .02, because I never quite caught him.  That was my gift for the day!  On to round 5.

Round 5: this is the quarter finals.  Only 5 cars left in a field that started at 68 cars!  Up against Richard Lillo.  I dialed a 10.57 to his 11.54, so I had a full second to wait at the tree.  I had a lousy .084 reaction time and ran him down at the speed cone, and took the stripe, but in doing so I broke out, running a 10.51.  Game over.

So, all in all, it was a super first outing for the Central Coast Autohaus Flying Pig Mustang.  Qualified 10th of 68, finished tied for 4th, and in good shape in points after ANRA race 1.

Looking forward to the next ANRA race in June!!

SLO Racer. Out.  (here's some older video...just for fun)

ANRA SPRING NATIONALS: BUST AND BUSTED

The Central Coast Autohaus Flying Pig Racing duo went bust and BUSTED at the ANRA spring race.

That's not to say we didn't have a good time...but it turned out to be more about the food than the racing!
The Nuke and I arrived Friday evening and set up camp. Our good friends the Irvin's (that's Crystal who drives the Camaro, and dad Chuck who drives the  El Camino), along with the McIver Motorsports crew, saved us a couple spots way out past the finish line.  So, me and the Nuke rolled in, set up, got teched, and popped open a cold one.

way out there

Then the Nuke proceeded to cook up a couple of killer Ribeyes.  The marbley ones with the "prime" grade on them.  Oh Yeah. So, it seemed that this weekend was off to a prime start!

serious ribeye

About that time, word came that Dale Thomas from McIver Motorsports was BUSTED on the side of the highway about 60 miles from the track.  That is, the motorhome died, so picture that- motorhome with the trailer and race car behind it- dead on the shoulder.  Anyway, Chuck hopped in the one ton dually to go to the rescue. Me and the Nuke popped open another pair of cold ones and got busy on the red meat, BBQ'd bread and some rabbit food. Now that's livin'!

Saturday was qualifying day.
Autohaus Dan in the Flying Pig Racing blue Camaro had himself a couple of pretty good runs in EGas, holding the #1 qualifier spot for round one with an 11.61, and settling for #2 after the second session!  Not bad for a Gnomish looking old guy.

Gnomish Dan

Meanwhile, in the Hot Rod class, didn't do much to hang my hat on- red lighting both qualifiers, and running a tire spinning 10.49, and a timing slipped 10.49.
In other words, come race day I had no idea what I would run with the timing corrected and if I hooked up- which I did.


With qualifying in the bag we proceeded to the main event (food).  Here's the deal- Chuck Irvin brought out his bitchin' portable pizza maker.  No lie.  He told us last race that he would be making pizza for everybody and he wasn't kidding!
Chuck, Cindy and crew went to great lengths on this deal.  I mean they had about 20 pizza doughs rolled out, a gazzillion toppings all chopped and ready, and the McIver bunch had 700 square feet of shade set up with tables and chairs. So we all got to make our own pizza to suit, slide 'er into the pizza oven and 7 minutes later- presto just like Guido's!  I'm talkin' the real deal!

Pizza made in the pits!

Then came race day.

So...1st round of Hot Rod I am paired up against Dale Thomas. Yep the very same one of broken motorhome fame and McIver Motorsports affiliation.  We knew we were paired so we musta bench raced for 2 hours the night before.  At least until everyone got sick of hearing us yammer on about who was gonna kick who's what.  So anyway, we went to the line, I cut a decent light (.02 better than his), and flogged 'er downtrack.  I knew I hooked up and was on a pass, so when I caught Dale I started to roll off the throttle a little.  About that time he hit the brakes (dumped me, in parlance) and left me way out in front wondering what the hell was going on.  I gathered my wits and stomped on the brake just before the finish line.  But i still went 3/1000ths of a second quicker than my 10.44 dial.  And that's all she wrote.  BUST. At least we loaded the hot rod on the trailer under it's own power.

Which brings me to the Gnomish Dan and his EGas run.  Well sorta run.  Well didn't run far.  Ya see, Dan, the #2 qualifier who was cutting stellar lights all weekend and in a great position to take this one to the final got it about 300 feet off the starting line when the transmission BUSTED.  I was watching from around the finish line.  All I know is he looked great on the launch. Then all of the sudden the car went sideways.  I could hear the tires screaming all the way down track.  I guess the tranny locked up and sent him toward the wall.  But Gnomish Dan had the skills and will to bang it back into second gear and free it up to coast down the rest of the track.  Day over.  

BUST, and BUSTED.

And that, as they say, is racin'!

SLORacer. Out.

Flying Pig Drivers Moving Up In Points

Summit Series races 3, 4 propel the Central Coast Autohaus Flying Pig Racing drivers up the points ladder.        

Barry "the twin" Fehlman advanced to the second round on both Saturday and Sunday in the Central Coast Autohaus Camaro to move up to the 6th spot on the Famoso Raceway  Summit Sportsman points sheet! As a rookie driver Barry, aka Weldo, has been super quick to pick up on the little things that make wins happen in a world where a couple hundredths of a second is the difference between hero or zero! B-dawg has had his share of great lights and figured out when to hit the brakes, too.

Meanwhile I was able to make it two rounds on Saturday and 3 rounds on Sunday. So I collected enough points to bounce up to the 12th spot on the Summit Pro season points list. Not where we want to be but moving in the right direction. 

The highlight of my weekend was the quickest and fastest run ever by the Flying Pig Racing Mustang!   In a fundraiser jackpot race for LeAnn "Lil Redneck" Harris.

I ran an amazing 10.23 @131 MPH!!  So the much better set up with Mo Bigger tires, and the CalTracs split mono leaf spring keeps on giving.  That and the super weather conditions, helped out by a pretty stiff tail wind made for the record setting run!

And that's all I got to say about that!

SLORacer. Out.

ANRA Season Opener

The ANRA season kicked off April 11-13 at AUTO CLUB FAMOSO RACEWAY with Dan Hunt showing up big in the Central Coast Autohaus Flying Pig Camaro!

Not to mention the Central Coast Autohaus team was sporting the new crew shirts that were the talk o' the pits!

Dan, the Nuke, Not Dan, the Wrench, and SLORacer

Dan stepped it up like never before, qualifying well, killing the tree and going to the semi's in Sportsman before going 12/1000 of a second too quick to lose in round 4. Like a good racer he took the stripe by .024 second.  It just was .012 more than he needed.  And that's drag racin'!

Here's a look at rounds 1, 2, and 3:

Ok so maybe Dan didn't kill the tree in sportsman, but he also ran E Gas, the gotta run 11.60 class, and absolutely chopped the tree down with a .008 light in round one, but he broke out by .006. Count it. 6/1000 of a second.  I don't care what side of Bakersfield your from, that was a good drag race!  Check it out: Dan cuts a .008 light, the other guy goes and cuts a .025 light, both very respectable.  And then Dan runs a too quick 11.594 to the other guy's 11.608!  Margin of victory: 14/1000 of a second.
Hate to lose those, but you come away saying  "damn, that was fun!"

Meanwhile, in the Central Coast Autohaus Flying Pig Mustang...well we had some really quick runs and a couple of really good reaction times, qualifying 5th in Hot Rod with a .008 reaction time, only to throw it away in round one by red-lighting .15 too quick!  I quit racing on the spot.  After a period of ranting and self inflicted beatings that lasted  about an hour, I came out of retirement.  Can't wait to get to Summit Race 3 and 4 on April 26, 27!

SLORacer. Out.

Dan and the Nuke discuss cracked tranny cases with Chuck

Heading down the road

The Nuke guarding the hot rods

Night time in the pits

Summit Race 1 and 2

The good , the bad and the ugly.
Yep, the first race had it all- firsts, bests, ups, downs, and of course good food, antics and great friends.

The good: B-dawg drove his first season opening race ever. Autohaus Dan decided to put his twin in the driver seat of the camaro for the summit series this year. Well B-dawg debuted in style, going 4 rounds to the semi's in his first race ever!  And he did it like a pro- cutting lights and running on the dial like he knew what he was doin'.

The bad:  the flying pig mustang was all over the  board posting the quickest ET ever, the fastest speed ever, the quickest 60 ft ever, and then having timing issues and carburetor issues that made it impossible to dial in.

The ugly: well that's a tossup.  Me going out round 1 Saturday with a sputter, or Bdawg losing round 1 Sunday with a red light after a promising debut on Saturday.

As far as firsts go, the Flying Pig Mustang was sporting the new bigger is better slicks thanks to Barry (Weldo Plasmaski) and Dan along with Da-Dave and Da Da -Dave.  We ran the quickest ever 10.26, the fastest ever 130.45 MPH, and the best 60 foot time 1.44.  So that was spectacular.

Unfortunately, we could not turn all that good stuff into anything competitive on the Mustang as we were plagued by little gremlins all weekend.  We pretty much toasted the distributor drive gear and that had us us scrambling.  Fortunately engine builder Ric Fauset was in Las Vegas at the NHRA national event and was pitted near the MSD trailer so he picked up the new drive gear.  Rest assured we got all that figured out and we'll be ready for ANRA in less than two weeks.

So after 2 races, Barry is number 4 in points in Summit Sportsman, and I am number 9 in points in Summit Pro.

Off the track, we had some killer rib eyes for dinner and Jann the newlywed Lee, (mrs. Wrench) knocked it out of the park with home made egg mcmuffins Sunday morning.   Mrs. Wrench also brought along our two biggest fans Auntie Karen and Jenna. So the 2014 season is under way and looking like it will be the best ever.

I'll post some pics and video as soon as I can get the wrench to edit the go pro stuff.  We had cameras in both cars so there should be some great stuff!  OK here they are.

2014 Preparations Under Way

Well, it's been a while since I have posted, and I am not going to go back and fish for the info to bring 2013 race season to a proper close.  Suffice it to say that the Central Coast Autohaus Flying Pig Racing team had a productive, competitive, humorous, hi-jinks filled, season... punctuated with crazy good track-food, and closed with a BANG when Dan annihilated the posi rear end on the Camaro at the final race of the year!

So, for Dan, his off-season started with this:

And a new set of 35 spline axles to go with!  Being the impatient type that he is...he had that thing back together and on the trailer ready to go before we even began thinking about the task at hand for my car.














As for the Mustang...Well in order to fit "Mo Bigger Tire" under the Flying Pig Mustang we had to call in the talented Weldo Plasmaski to make certain modifications.

Mo Bigger Tire

Weldo Plasmaski at work

Junk in the Trunk?

Where's Weldo?

Weldo's on a cookie break

No Weldo, not fender skirts!

And finally looking like a wheelhouse!