Last weekend running my car at a small 1/8th mile track near here I ended up losing my 2nd gear "pull" and am assuming my clutch pack went bad since the car would go into 2nd, drive in 2nd, but when I had the foot lbs poured to it it would just hit the rv limiter and start banging off of it... So I just laoded up and went home.
I worked all week changing the trans to another T-400 Manual VB trans I had and went to Tulsa's Nostalgia drags today (nothing newer than 72) and man was it a scorcher! TOO STINKIN HOT - I was getting near heat stroke, my Grandbaby was looking miserable and my wife wasn't doing well either. I entered the 0-10.99 bracket class and they had open time trials for an hour and 1/2 at 11:00 til 12:30...
First pass I went up, burned the tires through all 3 gears and then rolled to the line shifting back to low. I was lined up with a nice Tube chassis Mopar and when the lights came down the car reacted extremely sluggish and seemed to stay in low way too long and when I shifted up nothing happened whatsoever - no shifts at all I was way back on the Mopar and went to the end of the track and turned around on the pit road and put the car in park and it was still in gear, reverse was the same way - pulling forward so I limped it back down to the ET shack and picked up my 11.45 @ 118 slip and on to the trailer... I got under the car and the shift linkage keeper had come out when I was in 3rd gear in the burnout and since my car is a Manual VB I launched in 3rd and made the whole pass in high gear I hoped I hadn't toasted the trans so I made a clip out of an extra throttle return spring I had and got it back together and back to the line. I got lined up with a really nice tube chassis 68 Camaro, with MONSTER rear tires and an aluminum headed BB with a Dominator, Power glide, and air shifter (he was parked right next to us in the pits) and I thought I am gonna get left far behind again...
The burnout felt good and the line seemed OK but it was HOT, I was about to melt down in my fire jacket and helmet when we got staged. The lights came down and I treed him with an .023 light to his .145, My 60 foot wasn't the greatest but I got a 1.42 to his 1.40 after that he started reeling me in but it wasn't a barn burner I ended up running a 6.35 1/8th mile @ 107.75 to his 6.19 @ 111.01 and my 10.03 @ 132.44 to his 9.74 @ 136.87. When I picked up the slip I was in shock thinking my trans must have been way worse than I thought it was before I changed it This run was in 96 degree temps with 104 heat index on Hoosier 295/65-15 Drag Radials.
A bit later we had another time run and my car did something it has never done before and really bothered me... It shook the tires so bad I thought my teeth were gonna fall out and had a 1.56 60 foot and went 10.33 @ 130.21 but the last about 1000 ft I looked at my fuel pressure and it was only 3 psi and dropped to about 2 psi in the traps and the car was laying down some. On the return road it was still low so i turned it on and off a few times and it climbed back to 7 psi but somehow I also turned off my cooling fan and water pump that are on a switch together and didn't turn it back on all the way to the pits which was BAD because when I finally got to my trailer I could smell anti freeze and I looked at my temp gauge and it was pegged I killed it and turned on the fans and pump and it cooled back down but it got really hot ...
We had one of those big fold out Canopy for shade and a gustnado came through the pits and tore the top off of it and broke 3 of the upper mounting attachments... The canopy next to ours blew onto a beautiful 1958 Vette and scratched it all up so then we had no shade and were just baking so after talking to some people I know and Ken (GTOKen) for awhile. I talked it over with my wife and we were miserable, I had no chance of winning due to traction issues with the DR, and most importantly my Grandbaby was acting really lethargic so we loaded up and came home... I am done racing in the heat this year, If it isn't cool or at night I am staying home
It was neat seeing some of the old cars and talking to a bunch of Pontiac guys... I even steered someone away from using Fulper
