It was too cold to be enjoyable. The wind-chill was the problem. According to the tracks weather station, it got to 13 MPH with a temp of 42 degrees, at one point during the day.
I entered the Top Doorslammer class and on my first pass, I laid down a 5.690 @ 118 MPH to make it into the field. You have to run at least 5.79 sec. to qualify, or they will let you run if you enter and put 5.79 on the window. My final qualifying run was a 5.703 @ 118 MPH. In round one, I won by the smallest of margins. That put me into the 2nd round with, Mr. Dave Walker, who had beat me last night for the money in Super Pro $$$. His .024 RT, too my .035 RT, and his 5.471 ET (5.47 dial-in) too my 5.696 (5.69 dial-in) was the end of my day. Dave had put me out two straight days!
Again, the car ran very, very well and I was happy with the car.
Runner-Up!
I took the car to SCR Friday night and ran in Super Pro $$$ Class. After three rounds of racing, I found myself faced off with Mr. Dave Walker of Double-D Electric in his little truck. I did not give myself a chance with a big Red Light! When I say big, that’s what I mean. When I released the button, instantly the car left (I am a top bulb racer). When it happened, I thought it was a mistake of using the wrong button. I have one button for launch, and a second button for backing up, or just by-passing the box. What really happened was, I had mistakenly erased my delay from my side of the box. That caused me to have 0000 in the box, or No Delay. Anyway, I lost, big time. It was good enough for a check and one of those coveted Money Stickers.
The car ran exceptionally good all night. As I have said before, I can find unique ways of losing races. Kevin was with me all night and was very helpful, as usual. I was so happy to get past the first round, I did not know what to do. In the second round, my opponent turned on the red light and put me into round three, which I won. Dave and I squared off in the final and I lost.
Along the way I set some new “Best” times for the car and for me individually, ever. To some of you, these time may be slow, but to me, I am extremely happy. We clicked off a 1.233 sixty-foot time, my best ever. The new tires are working just fine. That run come on the 4th pass on the tires.
The 1st pass was almost a disaster. When I left the line, the car took off for the right wall. In my younger days, I would have tried to correct it and stayed in the gas, but now, wiser and more careful, I just got out of it and came back on the 2nd pass and it ran perfectly, hanging the wheels and cutting a 1.279 sixty-ft time. Which for me was very good.
Kevin had me doing some unusually long burn-outs to try to get the tires in shape for competition. I am sure those burn-outs had a lot to do with the low times. We will go back to our regular, short, burn-out shortly.