Horrors!! 2020 Scheduled To Last Until April 23, 2021!

Well not for everyone and everything (thank the lord above), BUT for ANRA Drag Racing, well yep.

You see when the Flying Pig Racing team set out for the ANRA season finals at Auto Club Famoso Raceway last weekend we knew the weather was looking sketchy.  But we are drag racers, optimists, and adventurers. And kind of dumb.  But that's another story. {drag racers are dumb}

Me and my wingman Barry (not Dan) loaded up the stuff, including the incredible Orion smoker that Barry recently procured from Chuck {if you don't share your toys} and hit the road early Friday morning committed to spending the entire weekend at the patch.  We were accompanied by Kenny (the nuke) following behind in his purdy Wayfarer. We three had decided that we were at worst going on a 3 day camping trip in the rain, or at best a fine weekend of championship drag racing, or most likely a little bit of both.  It turned out we were right!

We rolled into the track at about 11 AM Friday morning and picked us a nice spot, saving some room for Woollybear and Frankster, as well as the three musketeers that Woolly talked into coming out to play. Ricky had been there before with his beautiful Camaro, but the other two were bringing out a couple show cars to do some grudge racing, basically.  I immediately threw some hot dogs on the grill as has become our little tradition. These boys will work for food. We leisurely set up the pit and had some lunch.  That done, we took the pig through tech and settled in to wait for beer-thirty to roll around.  And it did. And Barry fired up that Orion and loaded up 6, count 'em, six racks of baby backs.  Now, the thing about the Orion is that you can cook 6 racks of ribs to perfection in about 1.5 hours.  No lie.  If you don't know about the Orion check it out. https://www.theorioncooker.com/

I'm tellin' ya, we always have spectacular food at the race track.  And this was no exception.  The ribs were off the hook! 

So what about racing you say.  Well...Saturday would be qualifying day and we woke up to a nice steady rain which had started in the wee hours and pretty much kept up most of the day. So we sat. And we waited. And we looked at the radar.  And we waited, and hoped. And then it got dark. And cold. Well cold-ER.  It had been cold all day. So the long and the short of it- Saturday was a washout.  Well, I mean, except for camping in the rain.  That part was good. In fact we got hailed on at one point- and I can't even remember which day that was!

When Sunday dawned it was looking like not much rain in the forecast. So the plan was to get 1 qualifying run in, and then start eliminations.  Juniors to run first and then being as Hot Rod is the biggest class (about 65-70 cars this week) they were going to have us run 2 rounds pretty much back to back and then work in the other classes.  

Our qualifier was super quick- a 10.39, due to the extra low density altitude, so we dialed a 10.39 for round 1.  My opponent (former E-Gas champ, Josh Wagner) red lit. I saw his red light, cut a sleepy .058 myself and ran it out the back door to a 10.36. A pretty stout run with my quickest 60 foot time ever of 1.410.  It's always nice to get handed a "W" at the tree so you can use that pass for a little more data!  

Things progressed pretty nicely. One or two really light showers and a lot of dark skies but the able crew at Famoso kept the track clean and dry.  So before long we were called back to the lanes for round two.  This time me and the wingman decided to dial a 10.37. I ended up paired with a 9.60 car- a scary-short-wheelbase Austin or fiat or whatever.  Anyway, I'm leaving about 7/10 of a second ahead of this guy and trying to be first to the line.  So I cut an .013 light and boogied on down there. As I was getting close to that finish line he was on my back bumper and coming strong, so I just kept 'er matted and snuck across .035 ahead of him with a 10.375 on my 10.37 dial.  A fine race by any account!  Man, I'm beginning to feel like I got my lost mojo back! 

Back in the pits we were feeling pretty good about things and looking forward to round three.  And then the skies got dark.  And we stood around with Jeremy -the champ- Jennings and crew and looked at the skies.  We kinda got mesmerized there- staring out at the squall that was headed our way.  We just stood there contemplating it until the first raindrops hit. Then we all ran for cover.  By the time I got to the motorhome I was being pelted by hail. HAIL! And it poured.

Well it was also approaching 3:30 PM and in these the short days, well it became apparent there was no way this race was going to finish today.  I think ANRA head honcho Butch Headrick contemplated bringing us back next weekend, but in the end decided we would finish this race on the Friday before next race.  Unfortunately, the next race is the 2021 Season Opener in April 2021! 

I can't believe the dreaded year 2020 is going to last another 5 months. That is just cruel.

We'll be there!

Rain means watching football with Wingman, The Nuke, and the Legend.

"Rain? What rain?"

Flying Pig. Out.

ANRA FALL NATIONALS - Looking For My Lost Mojo

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.

ANRA SUMMER NATIONALS- Flying Pig Goes To School and There Is More To Life Than Drag Racing

The Flying Pig Racing team spent the weekend of September 26th and 27th at the ANRA Summer Nationals held at Famoso Raceway.  We rolled into the patch with the points lead in Hot Rod and high expectations of continuing the mini streak. (coming into this event I had won the last 3 ANRA races in which I competed) Of course we all know that "prior performance is not an indication of future success" or something like that! Isn't that what they say when you look at the historical performance of your favorite mutual fund?!

So let's just get this part of the story out of the way.

I got schooled in round one.  Period.  I mean jeeez. The guy in the other lane cuts a near perfect .002 light to my .044.  Then he runs me down, covers me at about 1250 feet, backs up to my bumper and we both go wide open across the stripe and he takes the win by .004. Unfortunately I wasn't familiar with the car and never caught up with the driver afterwards so I can't give him props by name. But he schooled me good.

So let's talk about the great food, great friends, and the many stories shared around the pits.  And this- the highlight of my weekend. I had the opportunity to meet a lady named Cindy Crenshaw-Martin.  Cindy was the guest of Dave (the wrench) Lee, his wife Jann and Aunt Gail.  Cindy was a bit of a motor head dating back to her high school days when her first car was a hot Camaro. Sounds like it was the real deal and she fended off a lot of proposals from dudes that wanted to drive her car!  Well Cindy ended up joining the Air Force after high school and was stationed in Germany.  While in Germany she lost both of her legs in the 1980 terrorist bombing at the Munich Octoberfest.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest_bombing  

So we were chatting about driving with hand controls, different types of controls, etc. and Cindy asked if she could sit in the race car.  Of course I said yes and then I one-upped her and asked if she wanted to fire it up.  After a quick instructional she held the ignition button and I thought she was gonna go through the roof when that thing fired up! I wish I had it on video because it was one of the best moments ever!! It made my day to see her excitement when she whacked the throttle a couple times!

There is, indeed, more to life than drag racing...

Cindy taking the wheel

So while we were short on racing success we were long on great times with great people!  We had Woollybear and Frankster with the Nova running HR and D Gas and then Zac got to make 3 passes in his crazy Topolino altered with a new alcohol injected motor completed at Woollybear's shop.  Zack was being wisely cautious by soft rolling it off the line using the footbrake not the trans brake as he gets comfortable with the speed and down track handling.  I think the last pass was a quick 10.05.  I suspect when he let's his hair down that thing should run 9.50s or better.

The pit was colorful at night with lot's of visitors and story telling. Met some great folks in the pit next door who hauled in from Salt Lake City to get some run time on their NE1 dragster.  Super nice folks. Anzalone showed up and told some great stories and Jim Data did a lot of data downloading.  Talk about a lifetime of knowledge and experience!

The Nuke feeding the fuel he bought me last race!
It's a standing offer: If I make round 4 he buys a jug!

The nuke sporting a new Tiffin, complete with
pink flamingo

Beautiful shot of "Lane Life"

Wingman bringing the driver a cocktail. 
#important jobs

FLYING PIG RACING KICKS OFF 2020 ANRA SEASON WITH VICTORY!

 The long awaited, much anticipated kick-off of the 2020 American Nostalgia Racing Association ANRA season took place on August 21, 22, 23 at the famed Auto Club Famoso Raceway.

I just got off the phone with my buddy Dragster Jeff and one of the things he said to me was "it's really really hard just to load up your stuff, haul it out there, unload all your stuff, go racin', then load all your stuff back up and get home safe with everything in one piece. You just don't understand how hard it is to actually WIN one!"  Amen to that, brother!

We are extremely grateful that all the work paid off and everything came together- culminating in the win in the Hot Rod class.

To Jeff's point- it's hard. Stupid hard. Here's how the weekend started: Wednesday, me and Kenny "the nuke" went out to storage and picked up the motorhome thinking we were getting a real early start on the load-n-go... so Kenny hooked up the race car trailer and plugged in the in-line brake controller  https://www.curtmfg.com/dm/echo-mobile-brake-controller I have been using, and when I tried to check it on the phone app it would not pair.  Further inspection uncovered NO power to the brake controller.  Now, I have been using this thing behind the motorhome for about a year, and supposedly it picks up power from the 12v accessory pin on the 7 way connector on the motorhome, right?!  Suddenly, no power.  Must be a fuse. I decided to tow it home without the trailer brakes (a couple miles) and troubleshoot at home.  Long story short, we could not find a fuse that fed that circuit.  I mean under the hood, under the dash, under the bed, under the stars...nada.

Well, I have an awesome mobile RV tech named Matt https://www.matsonrv.com/contact who had recently done some repairs so I texted him and asked if he knew of another fuse box hidden somewhere.  He responded he'd be up here in the morning and find it. So Thursday morning after 2 hours of looking we concluded we will never find it.  So let's pull a new 12v hot lead to that pin in the 7 way plug and call it macaroni. Boom!  Matt crawled under the bumper, and of course there was no access to the back side of the plug, so remove the plug from the frame, riveted of course, and pull the plug apart and guess what?!  THERE WAS NEVER A HOT LEAD TO THAT PIN! That's right. For the 1 year I have been pulling that trailer on that motorhome, the darn brake controller has been pulling power off of the little brake-away system battery on the trailer!  Drag racers are so dumb. Anyway, we got that squared away finally and the leisurely load up was now more of a rush.  Me and my wingman Barry (not Dan) were committed to getting on the road at 7AM Friday since the gates were set to open at 9 AM.  A new COVID related thing I guess.  

We did get on the road by 7:30 Friday morning and rolled into "the patch" around 10:30 to find absolutely no lines, no backup at the gate, no waiting.  We rolled right in and found our friends Chuck (if you don't share your toys...) and Cindy who had saved us a pit stall.  We were located just 3 rows from the lanes and had space for Kenny the Nuke to roll in with his airstream, and parking for day-tripper Dave the wrench Lee as well.  Chuck and Cindy weren't running The Hook this weekend, they literally came out to camp out and cook us a smoked rib dinner on Friday night.  Seriously great friends! I mean they hauled out the https://www.theorioncooker.com/ smoker and fired up the best dinner ever...smoked baby backs complete with a pot of beans, pasta salad and dinner rolls. In fact we had a couple of great dinners out there and were able to enjoy the time with some other Flying Pig Regulars- Woollybear with his badass D-Gas Nova and Gankster Frankster and a couple part timers Ricky and Randy with the beautiful mint green Camaro.

When qualifying came around on Saturday it was, well, weird.  The raging wildfires in California had been going for a few days and most of the state was blanketed with heavy smoke and falling ash.  Literally yellowish sky and the acrid smell of smoke hanging in the air. So we made our 2 qualifying runs on Saturday and had good consistency at 10.655 and 10.659.  The weird thing was that was a good 1/10 second slower than what the weather station was saying.  Seems that the weather station can not pick up the ash in the air.  Those ash molecules won't burn in your engine and they are replacing oxygen in the air.  Net: the car slows down a bunch! 

When Sunday dawned the air was quite a bit improved.  There were even some patches of blue sky. I'm guessing a few people got caught off guard by the improvement in performance and missed the dial-in a bit on that first round of eliminations. anyway, we dialed a 10.63 for round one and I won a double breakout affair with a 10.61 on my 10.63 dial. I also cut a .001 light, which looks good on the time slip but is clearly only 2/1000 of a second from a foul so...on to round 2.  

In round 2 my opponent fouled, I saw his red light so I ran it out the back door to a 10.56 giving a real indication of the improved air. So that information helped a lot and we dialed 10.58 for the rest of the day. The rest was kind of a blur as we marched through the field tallying up 6 round wins and a big ol' ANRA trophy!  The final round was an awesome race against long time tough competitor and super nice guy Tony Chivington. It was a blast to yuk it up with Tony in the winners circle.

While I was consumed with keeping the winning going in the Flying Pig Mustang I unfortunately didn't have time to see what Woollybear and Ricky were doing.  Rick went to the semi final in Sportsman an incredible accomplishment in his rookie season.  And Woollybear qualified number 2 in D-Gas and rode that pony 4 rounds to the semis in a class that boasts some of the toughest drivers out there.  Big congrats to both of those boys!