openroadracer3
04-24-2006, 10:40 AM
We rolled into Ft. Stockton around 2:00 on Thursday and checked into the room, unloaded the car and headed down to Sanderson to run the car through tech. Passed tech and then ate free food and drank free beer.
From the get-go we battled electrical probs, it was one problem after another with the car. We replaced the battery, starter solenoid, dist cap and rotor. Even wired the car start via push button because the brand new key switch would not signal the solenoid.
We finally felt comfortable with the car about 12 hours before the race was to begin. We took it out on 285 and hit 125MPH and the car was running strong…. We felt somewhat fairly confident.
The morning of the race, we took the green light and started hauling ass. The car got up to 111MPH and planed off there. I knew we were in trouble then. We struggled to maintain a 103 average and couldn’t improve on that. I knew the car would have struggled once we got into the hills. After about 20 miles, I noticed engine ping and we lost a little power and then it gradually got worse. It began misfiring and our speed dropped to 90. At that point we started looking for a place to spend the rest of the day. We rolled into a gate and watched the cars go by. The good news is that we were able to drive the car back instead of having to go get the trailer.
I took several pictures and will post them up later this evening. There were 40 rookies this year… the largest by far compared to past years. Probably because of the publicity this race has been getting in gearhead mags like hotrod, super chevy and some mopar rag.
The race was full at 140 cars and there were some pretty nice cars. Some that come to mind was an authentic 95 Cobra R #145, a 94 Cobra Indy Pace car, 2 Shelby Cobra’s (65 & 66 models) and a beautiful 63 Falcon Vert that was awesome. But my fave was a Canary Yellow 1955 Plymouth Belvedere that was chopped 3 inches. The car was a work of art. The guy handmade the hood, deck-lid and both bumpers out of fiberglass.
We had 3 unlimited cars this year. A 62 Dodge Polara, a Landry Saab and a Monte Carlo Nascar. The Nascar and Polara both got DNF’s because of problems. I think I heard that the Polara broke an oil pump shaft and I’m not sure what happen to the nascar.
The real pisser is that we could have placed this year. All we had to do was be 1.5 seconds or closer. My goal was to have us within a half second of target. Oh well, looks like a Painless wiring harness kit is next up. Oh yeah, we diagnosed the problem to be a loose dist cap. Seems that the spring clips didn’t have enough spring left in them and the cap was moving around enough to cause it to misfire.
Next up, we’ll probably pull the engine back out and get our shit together for the October Road Runner Open Road Race.
I’ll post up the pics later this evening.
From the get-go we battled electrical probs, it was one problem after another with the car. We replaced the battery, starter solenoid, dist cap and rotor. Even wired the car start via push button because the brand new key switch would not signal the solenoid.
We finally felt comfortable with the car about 12 hours before the race was to begin. We took it out on 285 and hit 125MPH and the car was running strong…. We felt somewhat fairly confident.
The morning of the race, we took the green light and started hauling ass. The car got up to 111MPH and planed off there. I knew we were in trouble then. We struggled to maintain a 103 average and couldn’t improve on that. I knew the car would have struggled once we got into the hills. After about 20 miles, I noticed engine ping and we lost a little power and then it gradually got worse. It began misfiring and our speed dropped to 90. At that point we started looking for a place to spend the rest of the day. We rolled into a gate and watched the cars go by. The good news is that we were able to drive the car back instead of having to go get the trailer.
I took several pictures and will post them up later this evening. There were 40 rookies this year… the largest by far compared to past years. Probably because of the publicity this race has been getting in gearhead mags like hotrod, super chevy and some mopar rag.
The race was full at 140 cars and there were some pretty nice cars. Some that come to mind was an authentic 95 Cobra R #145, a 94 Cobra Indy Pace car, 2 Shelby Cobra’s (65 & 66 models) and a beautiful 63 Falcon Vert that was awesome. But my fave was a Canary Yellow 1955 Plymouth Belvedere that was chopped 3 inches. The car was a work of art. The guy handmade the hood, deck-lid and both bumpers out of fiberglass.
We had 3 unlimited cars this year. A 62 Dodge Polara, a Landry Saab and a Monte Carlo Nascar. The Nascar and Polara both got DNF’s because of problems. I think I heard that the Polara broke an oil pump shaft and I’m not sure what happen to the nascar.
The real pisser is that we could have placed this year. All we had to do was be 1.5 seconds or closer. My goal was to have us within a half second of target. Oh well, looks like a Painless wiring harness kit is next up. Oh yeah, we diagnosed the problem to be a loose dist cap. Seems that the spring clips didn’t have enough spring left in them and the cap was moving around enough to cause it to misfire.
Next up, we’ll probably pull the engine back out and get our shit together for the October Road Runner Open Road Race.
I’ll post up the pics later this evening.