hi top fuel fans-smax here from canada
just updating wots been happening in smaxland
earlier this year i answered an ad re driving for a topfuel team from michigan at the ihra meet in rockingham n.carolina-after checkin dates it clashed with my daughters wedding in jamaica same w/end so after waiting all this time for a drive i had 2 sadly decline-then they kept same driver for the milan meet so strike two
imagine how chuffed i was to get an email asking if i wanted the drive for the two local canadian top fuel meets at grand bend then toronto in sept
i needed to upgrade my ihra nitro funnycar licence to top fuel and was told i could do this as 1st qualifier on the fri nite
i had never seen the car nor met the team and i was to turn up and drive full pass to cross licence so no pressure there then!!!!
me and my boys aidee n ronan n azzy and their 2 matez took my motorhome and arrived thurs to meet bob the dad n owner who is 70 yrs old n been driving injected nitro since 1960 (nitro only discovered in the 50 s!!)we helped unload the car n got ready 2 meet team friday
i just went into the storage business so i gave the guys some parts in exchange for advertising on the car and got car ready for first session
i fit the car well and believe its viveca avestadts old chassis from florida that tony pedregon drove-anyhow its fully updated with some good stuff but no clutch or fuel management-6 primary fingers n ton of weight so yahoo lets ride!!!we went to the line ist out and burnout etc perfect
staged the car and launched with a .980 60 ft -3.8 to 1/8th and recorded a 6.0 @230 mph-nice relaxed run and secured my licence-the fuel check revealed why down on power recording a 79 % mix rather than 89 % which could kill 1000hp !!!!!also may have had a timing issue as we had set the mags b4 the run as normal but next day getting ready 4 the 2nd session we had timing off and discovered the keyway in ck hub had broken and moved ck hub so we decided to sit out 2nd session and fix this and check over some stuff and discard data from ist qual completely
we came out for 3rd n final session against mitch king and recorded a 5.5@ 250 mph only good enuff for 9th spot but we had a cyl dead as well as too much weight not allowing motor to rev up as reqd
still i was now licencesed and earned the guys no 9 money as well as no damage and best incrementals to date a .920 to 60 ft 3.6 to the 1/8 th and best e.t
team were happy with me and decidied we would go to martin michigan less than 1 hr from chicago as toronto race cancelled due to them not making facility improvements- also gr8 to see dave bryant (from shockwave) there helping terry haddock win nitro funny car
so now 2 weeks later fri aug 1st me n aidee n buddy kev set off in a shitbox at 5.30 am to make the border at 8 am n drive to hook up with team by detroit
then drove the laborious 3 1/2 hrs across the state and arrived martin by kalamazoo around 1.30
unloaded car n finished last few jobs deciding that a few jet changes to balance motor and more blower was all we were going to do to record data for tuning from 2 runs-went out fri nite against luigi novelli and nailed him on the tree with an 0.25 light and ran 5.8 @230 as dropped 3 cyls and belt broke
data revealed we had some jet issues still but checking the motor we had bent a couple of pushrods that HADN T dropped cyls but realized this happened after belt broke-we had gone back 2 a 4 disc clutch as 5 disc needs more power that we hadn t got at the mo!!!
long thrash and we had some issues but we waded thru and got car ready for afternoon session
we warmed up after taking out weight
putting more timing n blower as well as fuel and sounded awesome then disaster- it stopped ?????
after careful checkin realised clutch had locked up-didn t make sense but we had to pull out pack
we missed the call so watched the other racing
then there was huge oildown so we ran back 2 see if we could get ready and discovered the flywheel bolts were loosened and one bolt had moved out n struck ist disc-how lucky were we not too run!!!!!!
we got another disc and me n aidee put clutch back in with 20 mins 2 go dad decides he wants 5 disc back in so we ripped out 4 disc n out in 5 disc only to find pack thickness not correct so put the 4 disc back-with few minor jobs still 2 do decided to sit out the session after all and go out at nite and run in the cool air ant track rather than the heat
we came out and after fire up was smoking from no 5 cyl but had no choice but to try n make the cut
did gr8 burnout n car sounded awesome
stopped clutch in selected reverse but nothing????
reveresr was smashed so got pushed back thern 3 rd problem rpms too high
gary crew chief was pushing on blades
i highsided to drop rpms but we got shut down-bummer!!!!!!
capacity crowd too
never mind
we took car back enjoyed rest of racing n a few beers and watched full show next day too
we serviced car got parts 4 revereser from lenco n fixed nipped ring on no 5 piston then decided to let dad see if he still had it n go 4 a 330 ft squirt end of day
we did get him to the line and after a fine burnout he launched car but it kaboomed almost immediately n pushed out both head gskts into a spectacular fireball
he will have some stories for his pals who think bowling is the sport of kings!!!!
we suspect mechanical failure which will be checked tomorra as we left track after 10pm and faced a long drive home
we haven t discounted being on high side for too long either!!!!
should be a couple of pics to follow too
want to thanx all the fans who email me good luck wishes and also hello to all the teams competing so fiercely in top fuel there-well done guys

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