After having pulled into the driveway around 6 p.m. on Monday, I've finally
recovered enough from the Nats to make it to the keyboard and downloading
about 1000 emails.
Thanks to Steve and Leslie for coming over to the red Dakotent Friday
morning and giving me moral support while I was waiting in the staging
lane. I'm only sorry that I wasn't able to spend more time talking with
both of you at the Dakotent as I had to get HOT DAK ready for racing.
I see that you both survived the 100F and 65% humidity (in the shade)
on Friday! Glad to hear you enjoyed yourselves and made it safely home.
That sure was a great pic of your QC.
>"Mark Kuzia" <flyboy01@mediaone.net> wrote:
>: I just got back from the Nats, I met up with Jon Steiger, Shane Mosely, and
>: Bob Tom and son, had a lot of fun there. Thanks for bringing the tent, Bob,
>: it was a lifesaver!
>
>Jon Steiger wrote:
> Yep, it was great to finally meet you, Mark! And of course, drool over
>your truck for a while! :-) I'll be looking forward to seeing a post
>from you in the near future with a new best time! :-) I'll second your
>sentiments regarding the tent! I have one similar in size to Bob's (although
>its nowhere near as nice; mine was a $10 K-mart special.) :-) I'll try to
>remember to bring it next year so we can put 'em together and double the
>shade. :-)
I echo those sentiments. After all these years corresponding on the DML,
it was sure nice to meet Mark and to see his Dak in person!
I was also glad that Shane Baker was able to make it. Always a pleasure
talking with him!
Sorry that we all had to share the tent with the engine bay of HOT DAK .
It was getting a little crowded under there (wasn't it?) but priorities are
priorities :-) With the 180F tstat, water wetter and now with the shade,
the engine sure cools down fast. Actually, that part of the hill was pretty
crowded with a whole bunch of Dakotas.
I thoroughly enjoyed this year's show as compared to last year. I have
Sat.'s two time trials of all the street cars, the exhibition runs put on by
the Mopar Performance big-name boys (got a good shot of the OH sky
too when the fueller took off and blew David right onto his back ... he was
about 100' away and squatting down to get a better angled shot), the
first run of eliminations on Sun. for the Street Money class, the cars
in judged field and about every '71 RR and GTX that showed up.
If anyone is planning on running on National Trailways, be prepared to be
humbled. It's a beautiful track ... absolutely level and measures an
exact 1/4-mile because of the official NHRA events that are held there
but a combination of elevation (~1000' although not listed as such),
temp. and humidity makes it a slow track.
On Friday (last time I experienced that much heat and humidity combo.
was in spring of '94 in Norman OK and Dallas TX), I got in 6 time trials
with a 15.29 best ET and a 88 mph (normally on Ont. tracks I'm
doing 14.8s and 91 mph). I took David down the track on the last
run and now I know what weight (160 extra lbs) can do to our trucks!
On the Ont. tracks, I go through the line at 5000 rpms. On Nat. Trailway,
it was 4700-4800 rpms. With my son onboard, I went through at
4500 rpms. About 3/4 of the way down, it was like Overdrive came
on and the torque converter locked up. Wound up with a 15.51@86.87.
Person at the timeslip box said to me that I was certainly getting my money's
worth ... better believe it!
On Sat.'s two time trials, luck had me running against two different yellow
R/T regular cabs (anyone from the list?). Against the one with the hard
bed lid, I ran a 15.132 @ 89.11 (pb for this track) to his 15.699 @ 86.37.
The second one against the one without the lid saw me end up with
a 15.215 @ 89.29 to his 15.884 @ 85.55.
On Sunday, I went out in the first round of eliminations. Luck of the
draw had me against a local Gen II (he only showed up on Sun.).
He dialled a 14.58 to my 15.18. I did not think that he passed me
at the finish line but the light in his lane came on showing that he
had won. The timeslip showed that I had crossed the line 2/1000th ahead
of him but that I had broken out by 2/100th. I ran a 15.164 @ 88.93
to his 14.727 @ 88.76. The timeslip also showed that I had no
wiggle room to play with as he got off a 0.507 reaction time. My
rt was 0.668 as there was no way I was going to redlight this year.
After coming this distance, I was willing to gamble on a slow rt.
Sorry I wasn't able to make it out to Brice Rd to meet Tim and James.
Friday, I was bagged and a toasted right foot, and, on Sat., it started
to rain just after we got back to the Westerville motel.
Thanks for the bandwidth.
CECIL dragstrip ... here I come ... need to get my ego boosted!
I'll get in touch with you, Shane.
Bob
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