End of the Season Recap:
Accomplishments this
season:
One of the biggest accomplishment in my opinion is that we got some of the quickest passes out of the car with the different motor combination. As the tuner, this was definitely one of my greatest challenges throughout the season.
As a driver the greatest accomplishment, besides taking 2nd in NIDRA is that we never lost first round. Also we won BOTI Q 16 as well as took runner up in PRA Sacramento S/C.
Plans for next year are up in the air right now. The first thing to do is get the shifter figured out and fix the damage we did to the gearboxes this season. Other than that, we will definitely be making most of the NIDRA races next year and you never know, we must might make it back to the PRA.
Have a great off season and check back for updates periodically. I will try to get them posted as soon as possible.
WOODBURN September 27, 2009
What a day!!!! We
make a pass and first pass pop off a 10.55 at 126.3 MPH. WOW best pass and best MPH with the little
motor ever. We tried a little different
setup and next pass got even faster 10.52 at 126.7MPH….. AWESOME! For the event we ended up qualifying 4th
in the 16 car field which was very exciting.
First round go to start up the car and it won’t go into first gear again. Great our day is done. But I decided to stage the car anyway and break
the beams because you never know the other guy could go red. At it would turn out, he didn’t go red
however he did break out of his dial in.
This puts us back up for round 2.
We go back to the pits, jack up the car, and smash the shifter into
gear. We decided to just start the car
in first, forego the burnout, and just make a pass. Round number 2 we do the procedure previously
mentioned and it worked. Catch the
slower opponent at about half track and coast the rest of the way to the
end. Again we go back to the pits and
smash the shifter back into gear and head up for round number 3. Here my opponent goes red which sends us to
the finals. This time we go back to the
pits to get the shifter back into first and after working and working to get it
in we finally get it. However John, who
we are racing in the final round, is very aware of what was going on and figuring
he would catch onto this I thought we were done. Final round I take off first and cut a good
light. Then i get to the second gear
shift and shifter just won’t go as I figured.
Then I look up and my win light was on….John went red. What a way to win a race. We only truly “won” one round and ended up
winning the Q16 event. By taking out John I had just taken our
standings in points from 5th or 6th to now finishing 2nd
overall in the points for the season.
Not too bad after all the different mishaps we had throughout the
season.
Dad and Myself with the BOTI trophy and second NIDRA trophy.
Week after the Yakima Event
I decided to go home again to do some investigating on the cars shifting issues. I get home and pop off the shifter and notice that the ball on the bottom of the shifter is galled up really bad. Thinking that I have found my problem I weld up the gouge and clean up the ball and put it back in. But the car still won’t go into gear again. More investigation and we find that the linear bearing has made “tracks” in the shaft coming out of the shifter box. But because this is a precision ground shaft getting one and making the modifications over the weekend was near impossible. So I cleaned it up as much as possible and rotate the bearing so it would hopefully not be in a “tracked” part of the shaft. It works great in the garage. Looks like some of the gearboxes may not have any issues with them after all and it was just the shifter system. ON TO BOTI Q16!!!!!
YAKIMA, September 12, 2009
Second to the last race of the season and since we were racing in Quick 16 in two weekends, I decided to put the big motors ignition pieces on the little motor and see what we could turn out of the little guy. We made a one good qualifying passes, but with the weather near 3000 corrected altitude we were not going to get the super good passes we were looking for. However the car felt like it was going to be able to turn up the pace if we ever get the weather we were looking for. Second round….transmission troubles again. Great, now we have two broken gear boxes and only have the big motors box to put in. The gearing is definitely not optimal for the smaller motor, but without any other choices it goes in and we give it our best. This gearbox change was probably one of the most difficult this year and we almost missed first round. Needless to say I was not in the best shape mentally and physically to get back in the car and make a pass. On top of that, we have no idea where this gearing will put the motor ET wise. So we dial a 10.90 and hope for the best. First round, I cut a terrible light but thankfully my opponent breaks out and I run right on the 10.90 dial. Up for next round, I cut a great light and on a pace to take the win and BAM the car pops out of gear and won’t go back in. Needless to say we lost again due to a breakage. Humm….. this got me thinking that it’s not the boxes fault but that we might have other issues that need to be addressed.
WOODBURN, August 30, 2009
I think this is one of the prime examples of a track that is constantly changing. From the last race at Woodburn, the track was so bad that we couldn’t figure how to get the car to hook up at the starting line or the finish line for that matter. This race was very similar except that the track went form one extreme to the other. From the best of my knowledge we qualified number 2. However in the third round of qualifying we had some transmission troubles, the car just wouldn’t go into first gear. So out came the spare box and the thrash was on. We ended up getting it all taken care of and back up for first round. First round we won but the track conditions were very slippery again. So we made a slight adjustment with the tire pressure and went up for second round. Well apparently the track personnel decided they wanted the attempt to break more transmissions so they prepped it exceptionally well right before we were up. Needless to say the conditions were less than optimal for the setup we had in the car and with a BIG bog at the starting line, we were done for the day. However this was one of those times when we could learn from the mistakes and may be looking at a little different car setup for the next season.
MID SEASON REBUILD
While doing some regular maintenance on the motor after Portland i noticed that there was a considerable amount of black magnetic sludge in the motor. Time to tear it apart and check out the cam. Turns out it didn't look entirely too bad but was probably in the process of letting go. Also while inside the motor the split flanged bearing looked not so good. After a few days re-setting everything up, cutting a camshaft, and splitting bearings the motor is back together and ready for action.
Finally an event which did not get rained out this year!! I cant recall entirely but i think we ended up qualifying around the 5th spot. Which to our luck out opponent was broke and couldn't make it to round 1. Round two was not quite so good due to a driver error..... -0.028.
BREMERTON July 11 & 12 2009
After long hours over to Bremerton all i have to say is BREMERTON = RAIN!!!!
BREMERTON June 20 & 21 2009
Some say a picture is worth a 1000 words.....
Does this one say 1001???
Not too many exciting pictures were taken from the event...except for the one above. Turns out the suspension and alignment worked great. Best 60' the car has ever done and the fastest the car has ever went. First past 10.04 and second pass 10.008 at 131.98 MPH. Not quite out 9 second slip but it will have to do for a while. As you can tell out big motors head will be out of commission probably till the end of the season. While in the burnout on the third pass one of the valve heads probably broke off breaking off the other valve head and taking out the seat. Needless to say a lot of welding needs to be done. We ended up putting in the SC motor for the rest of the event. However it turns out the weather was not on our side and the rest of the day was a rainout. Sunday weather looks good in the morning so make our first pass with the SC motor and everything worked out fine. Next pass, first round we won but due to the weather again, we were on the trailer heading home. Seems like Bremerton is always rainy....
BETWEEN EVENTS
Because of the "unpredictable" weekend in Woodburn we decided to get some new torsion bars on order. After the installation was complete it went off to the alignment shop. There, the alignment was found to be off considerably. This would explain why the front passenger tire was wearing out so fast. Maybe now with the better alignment and new suspension parts the car will work better with more power being applied.
The car on the alignment rack
.
WOODBURN May 30-31, 2009
Saturday bug event.
Everything maintenance wise checked out great on our new combination so
we go up to make our first pass of the day.
Car hooked a lot better than it did Friday night and we were finally
able to dial in the tune a little better.
Eventually got the car tuned down to our fastest pass so far which was a
10.11 at 131.9MPH. The car still has a
lot more in it and with a better track and a better tune on the carburetors the
illusive 9 second slip should be attainable.
Back to racing for the event (or what should have been racing) we decided
to dial at a 10.15 because the track was so unpredictable. First round against Steven Beherens I get
lane choice because of an .007 reaction time during qualifications. But it didn’t really matter, the starter
decided to stop working and I was left in the staging lanes with no power to
the starter. I guess unfortunately
that’s racing but we had a great day and tuning and running the big motor was a
blast. Next race we will probably be
trying to dial in the beast a little more.
Thanks to David we have a AWESOME video on youtube. Check it out!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Huz6W4Q0w&feature=channel
SACRAMENTO PRA May 23-24, 2009
For the first race of the season I think this event went
great. Right of the trailer keeping the
same setup as last year we click off a 10.906, right on the number. For the first round of qualifying same exact
setup except we ended up running three thousands of a second faster than the
10.90 index. Next round of qualifying
which was the last for the night I decide to play it safe (a little too safe)
and ended up running a 11.08 but that put us in the field and a little stress
was taken off for Sunday morning.
Sunday morning and the last round of qualifying, same exact program as Saturday night and end up running a 10.897 a little too fast again. Oh well the 11.08 ended up qualifying us in the middle of the pack but at least I know I’m all over the number. First round the competition had a little trouble and ran something around an 11.2 to my 11.0. Next round Muffler Mike and I got matched up. We both had equally bad lights which put us about even at the tree but at the stripe I ended up taking the stripe later with Mike breaking out of the index by only a few thousands of a second. Next round up against AJ Sims. I treed him at the starting line and again he took the stripe before I did resulting in a double breakout. His being worse which puts FT2 in our first final round for 2009. For the final round it was a black choptop nitrous combination who I have never seen. After the burnout, both cars staged, I ended up cutting a .020 better light than he did but when it came to the end of the track… I must have gotten a little nervous and really wanted to go to fast causing a brake out pass and my day was done. But in the end it was one of the greatest BOR we have ever been to and all of the parts on the car are still together and in one piece. Next week Woodburn and the BIG motor!!
First test and tune for the season went….ok. After a few snags and carburetion issues got
resolved the car ran great!! We should
be ready for S/C in Sacramento if we end up making the race. Otherwise it has been a pretty uneventful off season with the car. I fabricated some
door panels and fixed some of the wear and tear that went along with a full
season of racing last year.
This year we probably won’t be making a full season in either the PRA or NIDRA due to various reasons. But we still plan to go out, win some races, and turn a few heads in the process!!
So thanks to John at Morris Race Engines www.morrisraceengines.com for the technical help and use of his shop for the day a new set of main bearings, cut for a flanged crank were fabricated.
Currently the motor has been put back together in a freshened up form and is ready for action in the 2009 season!!
2009 NEWS
FT2 recently acquired a new supporter for the 2009 racing season!!!
