[mgarblik]

When your not running a class, everything you discover doesn't have to be a carefully guarded secret. That was a allot of the fun of running this car. Not having sufficient funds was a factor in never being able to really turn the car up to it's full potential. We were forced by economic circumstances to always run a very safe, mild tune-up on the car. Big thanks to Jerry Newman for always taking our financial condition into account when tuning the car. We hurt fewer parts than most of the all Billet Hemi stuff we ran against at most events. The Hemi cars routinely replace a "rack of pistons and rods" every run and several sleeves. Once we had the main oiling problems solved, we hurt few parts in a weekend. A team with a few bucks to spend would put the car into the mid 5's pretty quickly.

[slowbird]

Slightly of topic but, if you guys backed down on nitro to say 60-70% how would that effect performance and maintenance? Could the loss of power be made up for by spinning the blower more? Just wondering if there is a way to get that nitro cackle and not be as hard on parts and still have really good performance.

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by slowbird

Slightly of topic but, if you guys backed down on nitro to say 60-70% how would that effect performance and maintenance? Could the loss of power be made up for by spinning the blower more? Just wondering if there is a way to get that nitro cackle and not be as hard on parts and still have really good performance.

Good question I can't really answer. This is the philosophy we ran off of: Bill Miller, (BME) was a primary consultant when we were deciding what % of nitro to run. He said, you know how fast you eventually want to go, so you have to start there. If we would have say started at 30% nitro and found a good tune up then gone to 50%, the entire tune-up would have to be developed from scratch each time. Each change of say 5% means a new tune-up and melted parts to get it right at that level. So unfortunately, there we were again, wanting to run John Force times with a lawnmower budget. So we took his advice and always ran 90% because we knew it could run in the 5's and 250 MPH.
Also, it's really hard to back a fast car down. No one wants to go to a race to run slower. It's against a racers natural desire to always go faster. Some people can do it because having the best reaction time and running their car to an exact time is the goal. (throttle stop racing) Just was never our style.

[twooldgoats]

Thanks again, guys, for all the information you freely shared---whether your outcomes were good or bad. I have always appreciated it. If I was 30 years younger and a whole lot richer, I might have taken a shot at this.



Jim

[Brian Baker]

Thanks for the memories.

Does this now mean my vintage Boss Bird T-shirt has increased in value?

New adventure had me thinking BONNEVILLE !!! But that can be as expensive as fuel racing.

[Bob with the 66]

Eric,

Watching the Boss Bird go down the track was something that I looked forward to seeing every year at Norwalk. Know matter where I was or what I was doing, when I heard you were coming to the line I stopped what I was doing and was in the stands to watch. Your teams dedication to make passes made all of us Pontiac guy's proud.

Thanks again the memories,

[mgarblik]

Thanks for the kind words. Making the Pontiac faithful proud was a driving force of our program as well as showing the other brands we could run right with them. I am sorry for not mentioning in any of the posts our other major goal, which should not have been missed. That was to honor Arnie Beswick in everything we did with the car, How hard it ran, how we ran the team and how we operated the pits. He was an integral part of our whole plan since 1994. Many, many phone calls, often several times a week. He had input in every facet of the Grocery Getter and the Boss Bird. He actually was responsible for hooking us up with Jerry Newman, our tuner. Jerry has almost as much experience as Arnie except it's always been nitro with Jerry. We owe allot to Arnie, and we are hoping this isn't the end of the Boss Bird story. We started with nothing, and are ending with a turn-key deal, that can easily grow and improve from here. A huge amount of the hard work is done. Not to say it's an easy deal that just anybody can pick up and go with. But there is plenty of help available from us and others who wish this ride to continue. In another thread someone mentioned that a BBC based engine had come apart last weekend and it cost 100K to build just the engine. Think what we are offering based off that number. Hope someone else see's the value and wants a little challenge.

[3fastgtos]

Sad to see you guys hanging it up but it’s completely understandable. Self funding at that level is taxing on everyone involved. That price is a steal considering you get the past R&D with it.
SD

[Elarson]

Originally Posted by 3fastgtos

Sad to see you guys hanging it up but it’s completely understandable. Self funding at that level is taxing on everyone involved. That price is a steal considering you get the past R&D with it.
SD

You need a friend of yours to buy it and then you'll have a pair of funny cars to go match race with. Promoters love booking pairs.

Eric

[3fastgtos]

[QUOTE=Elarson;6112727]You need a friend of yours to buy it and then you'll have a pair of funny cars to go match race with. Promoters love booking pairs.

Eric[/QUOTE

None of my friends will buy it cause they’re all smarter than me.

[pont406]

, Sorry to hear you guys are moving on, but totally understand, I'm sure its pretty hard to find full sponsorship that will help field a nitro car in the nostalgia ranks.

[Elarson]

We've had a few conversations with folks who would like to have the car but the recurring stumbling block seems to be worrying about finding enough qualified helpers to put together a team.

For the record, the sale of this operation wouldn't be a "goodbye and good luck" for the buyer. Our team will train a new team and go along to a few races to get everybody up to speed.

I think I can speak for all of us by saying that working on a fuel funny car team is a life-changing experience that only a few people in the world ever get to try.

FWIW,
Eric

[mysticmissle]

IF the Boss Bird comes to New England I would love the opportunity to help