WOW! Where to begin?
What a blast we had at the ANRA Fall Nationals.
The usual suspects, Dan, Dave, Kenny and myself (absent Barry and J.C.) were joined by a couple of California surf legends turned badass drag racers, hall of fame surfboard shaper Wayne Rich of Wayne Rich Custom Surfboards and the ultimate fiberglass repair guru Woollybear, of Woollybear Ding Repair!! along with Frank, helping Woolly sort out the beast.
Wayne and his boards
Woollybear's shop
Neither of these guys had been down the 1/4 mile before this day! So Wayne showed up with a newly acquired '74 Vega. He's been stressing on this thing for days leading up to this race and had a mad thrash just days prior, after breaking the starter case and turning it sideways to the flex plate on a late night start up at the shop. Having got it all back together he actually prepped a local street (we won't say where!) with some VHT and heat and tried a practice launch. Crazy stuff!
Meanwhile, Woollybear shows up with an absolute bitchin' 67 Nova pro-streeter. He was riding sleeper style with the rat-ish exterior look. Underneath was some of the cleanest sheet metal work I've seen.
In the pits
Woolly's Nova is a monster. After a few passes to sort things out and get her to launch and hook, he turned a 10.15 E.T. at something like 135MPH. That was with the beast up on the rev limiter somewhere around 1/2 track! No telling what that thing would run on an all out pass. One well built car!
This is priceless! This is Wayne's reaction after making his first pass in the Vega. A stout 10.56. I think he liked it!
The day was a blur, trying to keep track of all 3 cars. But here's the highlight- WAYNE WENT TO THE FINAL ROUND OF HOT ROD IN HIS FIRST ANRA RACE!, eventually losing to NHRA stock, super stock veteran Mark Kirby in the final. What a day!
I managed to make it 3 rounds in Hot Rod, and 2 rounds in D-Gas. Not a bad day at all...
Wayne and the Nuke
Putting the FPR sticker on Woolly's ride
Wayne's Runner Up trophy
Wheels up launch!
Wayne and I
smoky, sideways burnout
Dan and the Nuke
Wayne
Westbound and down
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
As we prepare for the 2017 season, here are some pics from 2016 to get us in the mood.
So, our good friend and fellow drag racer Chuck Irvin, goes to Oregon and buys a bitchin' 10 second 70 Nova. The story is pretty amazing- he bought it from a guy who's been drag racing for decades and has decided it's time to hang up the spurs. Not just any guy- this guy lost an arm, and drove the car with a prosthetic "hook". I kid you not. The steering wheel was outfitted with a sort of a heim joint (or something similar), which I can only guess accepted the hook. Pretty cool. Hence the name on the side of the car- HOOK.
Drag racers can be very creative, eh?!
So anyway, Chuck brings the new car out to Famoso for the Summit race on May 14th. Only issue is he is waiting on a correct sized seat so that he can get his tall frame in the thing without putting his head through the roof. So he tells Barry (B-Dawg, Weldo Plasmoski, the Twin), go ahead and make a pass in it. Well about 4 passes later Barry is floating around the pit with a big ol' grin on his face, having posted some stout runs in the 10.54 126 MPH range. - I can hardly believe it- talk about generous with your toys!
When I mentioned to Chuck that I thought it was really generous of him... he says...
"I was always told If You Don't Share Your Toys, They Will Be Taken Away'!!!
Drag Racers Are Awesome!
See ya at Famoso for the ANRA Spring Nationals June 24th!
SLO Racer. Out.
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.
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)
