At 01:10 AM 4/8/99 , you wrote:
>What?! Jon when did this happen? "tore itself apart""... was this a tow it
>home situation?
>
Yep. You didn't hear about that, eh? :-) Must have been when you were
off the list a while back.
I was up at NYIRP with Bill (and a few of the other Mopar truck guys).
I had been experiencing a snapping sound for a couple of weeks, which I
couldn't pin down. I made a run (14.80) and during the launch I heard the
snapping sound (before then, it only happened during turns). After that
run, I was trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. I don't
remember if it was my idea or someone else's, but somewhere along the line,
I got the idea that maybe it was the traction bars. I removed them and
drove around the pit area for a little bit, and the snapping noise was
gone. I figured I had found the problem. One of the guys who races a Ram
suggested that I might want to pass on racing until I figured out what the
problem was. I sort've figured I had found the problem though, so I get in
line...
I pulled around the water box, spun the tires to clean them off, started
to move, then I hear SNAP! GRRRRRIND, and my forward motion slows
considerably. Needless to say, at this point my stomach was scraping on
the track. I had enough momentum to pull off the track though, and got a
push back to the pits. Thanks to Bill, my Dak and I got a ride 85 miles
home on a flatbed. I contemplated having an 8.75 or 9.25 put in, but since
it was still under extended warranty, I had them flatbed it to the dealer
who replaced the pumpkin innards with a new "module". (I tried to get them
to upgrade it to a 3.90, but they weren't allowed to, so they put a new
3.55 SG in there.) I didn't actually see any of the old parts, but the
service manager said that I tore 'em up really good.
Oh well, at least it taught me to never do something stupid like trying
to race with a vehicle that I'm not sure is 100%. I also signed up for AAA
plus. :-)
Incidentally, the very first time I heard that snapping noise was backing
up in the parking lot of a gas station near NYIRP after Bill let me try out
his BFG drag radials that night. Sometimes I wonder if the stickiness of
the drag radials was the straw that broke the pumpkins back, as they say.
(I think it was a plot by Bill to put my Dak out of action.) ;-) It
worked too... I scraped together an Izuzu P'up and came back the next two
wed. nights, but Bill whooped me and took the trophy home... (Ever see a
25 second Izuzu bracket racing a 12 second Dak? Apparently its pretty
funny from the grandstand, but its downright scary when you're watching
that red blur getting larger in the rearview mirror!) I think I got him
back after my Dak got put back together though. :-)
-Jon-
.--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ------------------------------------.
| Affiliations: DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA. RP-SEL |
| '96 Dodge Dakota v8 SLT CC (14.58@93.55), '96 Kolb FireFly 447 |
`----------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'
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