SMAX TAKES TO THE TRACK
its been a funny old year 2007 for smax racing
after the damage sustained at last years finals with the massive clutch explosion the mcdonalds dragster took a season sabbatical and smax was left without a ride in the uk so turned his sights to canada
imagine his delight when one of the ihra top fuel dragster teams asked him to step in when their driver was sick but it never transpired as the driver got better in time-oh well-not meant to be
then fuel funny car hero terry haddock gave smax the opportunity to drive one of his fuel funny cars but at the last minute General motors failed to come up with the reqd funds so smax missed out again
then another fuel funny car team needed a driver for the ihra meet but they ended up not racing in toronto then finally got a call sat morn asking if i could get to michigan to qualify at 6.pm but 6 hrs away plus border crossing-smax was ready but not clear iof ihra would allow this on the last qualifying session
this prompted smax n 2 sons aidee n rooz to get the blown alky altered ripping as smax hasn t missed racing in 34 years n didn t wanna start now
so massive effort and late nites saw the ex southern rebel altered and a blown bbchev on alky ready 2 test last saturday
the plan was to run the smax notorious 35 chevy altered body (which still holds speed record at 203.14 mph) but hadn t time to finish the tinwork and make f/car style headers so decided to run the 33 pl;ymouth (the build pics from aidee should be posted any time on the site www.smax.co.uk)
after gettin to the track early it was after 2 pm b4 car ready to test
a smax tune up and a planned 1/2 pass was marred by the timing system failure and poor track but smax did a huge rolling burnout then nice launch to rocket away with a clean sounding motor
he was having 2 much fun and went to 900 ft b4 testing chute-bks etc as the plan is to do a full pass then stick aidee in the hotseat!
back in the pits all seemed fine -no apparent damage then on last leakdown discovere intake leak so with hardly any tools (as loadin was last minute thrash) stripped motor and got head off to find we had a spare valve but no v/spring compressor

a trip around the pits failed to deliver so a dash to local auto place 1/2 hr away at 5.30 pm (close at 6 pm!!) smax got 3 weedy lookin tools toget the valve ouit
1st a proper tool collapsed -even with a hose clamp around it and was never gonna move a spring with 300lbs on the seat
then a g clamp affair couldn t get the collets then finally a decorators aid to clamp a piece of wood did the trick but disaster-we had cracked a valve seat
never mind
we loaded up in the dark as trailer lts didn t work n 4got flashlihght-we headed home
hopefully we ll go again very soon
cheers 2 aidee n rooz and local mates for all the hard work and
thanx to eurodrag for all updates re the supercharged outlaws and nffa
full revs
smax :-)

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