ANRA SEASON OPENER 2021 AND SEASON FINALS 2020 Part 1

On April 22nd my Wingman and I headed up to Famoso Raceway for the big event!  We were finally going to close out the 2020 season.  After a crazy rain and hail storm brought the November 2020 finals to an abrupt halt, the ANRA honcho Butch Headrick had made the call that we'd finish at the season opener in April '21.

This is probably a good time to thank my crew and friends for their support and hard work.

I could never do this without: Dave the wrench Lee, Barry my wingman Fehlman, Kenny the nuke Wilson and Autohaus Dan Hunt.

And racing with and pitting beside these guys is what makes it so much fun: Wayne the legend Rich, Woollybear the surf board guy, Frankster Gankster, Rick Eubanks and Topolino Zack.

When things got interrupted in November we had won the first 2 rounds of Hot Rod.  So as it stood we were 20 points (2 round wins) behind the leader Dan Rowley, and tied with Ed Walker, both of whom had also advanced in round 2.  So, we were set up for an interesting finish.

Anyway, me and my wingman Barry (not Dan) made the customary stop at Blackwell's Corner aka James Dean's last stop, and topped off the fuel tank. We rolled into the Patch at roughly 12:30 and straight through the gates.  Incredibly, the pits were packed with myriad rigs and enough caution tape to wrap a mummy festival.  (for the uninitiated, the caution tape is used to claim pit space for your buddy who is arriving later) Since we were also the designated "space savers" for our buddies, we found the only big chunk of unclaimed turf and set about tossing cones out to mark our ground.  So, touché I guess. When all was said and done we had a great row, including Kenny the Nuke and Ashley, Dave "the wrench" Lee, Woollybear and Frankster Gankster, Ricky and Randy Eubanks, And Topolino Zack with Chris in tow.

Woollybear surprised everyone when he showed up with a fresh coat of red paint on the previously rat nova.  B-dang!  Complete with gold leaf lettering. Are you kidding me?!

It was Thursday and all we had to do was set up camp and get the car tech'd. So we leisurely unloaded and I fired up the weber and got the hot dogs going for lunch.  (just the first step in a meat overload weekend)  Well all that went smoothly, until a few hours into it the generator on my rig died.  We were sitting right there and heard it cough a little, then stumble and halt. Weird.  So we tried starting it and it acted like it wasn't getting any fuel. We gave 'er a drink from a can of starting fluid and it fired up. Cool. 10 minutes later- cough, sputter, dead.  We pulled the fuel filter, had a look, gave it an air treatment and put it back. No go. About that time Ricky walks in and says "sounds like a fuel pump".  Well not good news, but certainly what is seemed like.  So Rick says he thinks he might have one in his rig. What?! 30 seconds later he walks in with the exact fuel pump in his hand. Brandy new, in the box! Drag racers are awesome!! 10 minutes later, the generator is singing like the Velvet Fog. 

That night Kenny and Dave grilled up the Ribeyes that the Nuke had brought along and we feasted on red meat. Then we sat around the campfire and told tall tales.  Perfect evening at the drags.

Friday rolled around and we were ready for the resumption of 2020 season finals. The gig was one time hit, and then round 3 of elims.  On the time run I had a great reaction time of .013 but I was seriously rusty on my shifts.  I ran 10.59 or something like that when really it should have gone around 10.48.  So when round 3 came up we lucked out and had a bye round by virtue of my qualifying reaction time. I took the freebee as another opportunity to get it right and ran a 10.47.  So when round 4 came up we dialed 10.49 and figured we were pretty close. I cut an .014 light to his .034 and it turned out to be a double breakout affair. I took too much stripe going under by .05, and he was under by .03. So that's how my 2020 season ended.  Dan Rowley went on to take the season championship and I think we ended up in 3rd in season points.  A great year by any measure. 

With the season over, it was time to turn to a really good night of eating, drinking and comradery.  Dave the wrench had put a massive brisket on the Pit Boss at about 6:30 AM and it was smelling really good. I for one, haven't had the best of luck with my brisket. Turns out this masterpiece of Dave's was the best I have ever had.  Melt in your mouth tender and seasoned to perfection.

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. 
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