Monday, July 11, 2011

IHRA Summit Sportsman Spectacular


IHRA Summit Sportsman Spectacular

Maryland Int'l Raceway
Budds Creek, MD (Washington, DC market)
July 8-10, 2011
Stock - Duck Tape Turismo
Main event: Round 3
FF/SA Class Eliminations Winner
Super Stock - Duck Tape Volare
Main event: Round 2
--"The rest of the story..."--
With the help of fellow Super Stock racer Robbie Draughon and his stacker trailer, we were able to get both the Turismo and Volare to Maryland International Raceway this weekend for the IHRA 40th Anniversary Summit Sportsman Spectacular, to compete in both Stock and Super Stock. On Friday, I got one test n' tune run in with the Duck Tape Volare between the rain drops before the clouds commited to opening up and canceling the rest of Friday's test session. The car's newfound horsepower and torque overpowered the suspension again. It spun, I pedaled it hard once, and when I got back in it, it yanked the front wheels off the ground. I thought that only happened in the movies! The back half of the run was decent, tripping the clocks with an 11.03 @ 122 mph.

Saturday, things ran smoothly in Stock with the Duck Tape Turismo, with a .008 reaction time in the first qualifying session, the FF/SA class Stock Class Eliminations winner plaque, followed by an .015 light en route to a first round win in eliminations. I struggled with the fuel-injection tuning on the Volare, and spent hours on the laptop between rounds trying to find the magic combination. On the first qualifying run, I backed down the timing to a mere 32 degrees to find traction, but I'd taken too much fuel out of it, and it didn't want to go down the race track. On the second run, I tweaked the timing up just a hair, and fine-tuned the fuel map, succeeding only in making it spin AND not go down the track! I'd gotten the Air/Fuel ratio down to around 13.3, which is still rich from what we've been told, but it simply would not go down the track. I had to listen to what the car was telling me it wanted, and adjusted my Target A/F Ratio to 12.5.

Flying blind for the first round of eliminations with Friday's best of an 11.03, I dialed a 10.92 for first round. I took the fuel and spark maps from the first half of the program that got it to hook, and the second half from Friday's run that went down the track, and merged them with a couple little tweaks. When it hooked AND pulled smoothly through the gears, I knew the 10.92 was a pessimistic prediction, not an optimistic one! I backed off at the finish for a 10.87 double-breakout win against the recent Dunn-Benson Pro-Am winner, Mark Young.

Sunday, I picked up a round two win in Stock with the Turismo over multi-time World Champ Monty Bogan, Jr. with an .011 reaction time to Bogan's foul start. In Super Stock, the Volare responded with it's best run so far, but lost a close round two Super Stock match by six thousandths of a second, with a 10.844 breakout on a 10.85 dial-in. Still, things looked like they were going well in Stock, until the Turismo swallowed something in the carburetor on the burnout in round three, and the car shut off. I re-fired it and it died again several times, until I finally fired it up and goosed it into the stage beams before it shut off again. I re-fired it again just as the lights came down, and was able to make the run, but it slowed dramatically. It mostly cleared itself out as it didn't try to die on the way back to the trailer. Once on the trailer, I could just hit the key and it started fine and idled, but it still appears not quite right, so I'll be taking it apart for a thorough cleaning and inspection.

Robbie Draughon took the Volare back to his shop for installation of frame connectors and a back brace for the rear end this week, in prepartion for the addition of the CalTrac rear suspension setup in the coming weeks, from Alex Denysenko at MoneyMaker racing. Once we have the suspension installed and dialed in, we should be able to apply all of the engine's available horsepower and torque for some substantial improvements.
Thanks to all our supporters, Duck Tape brand duct tape, Mickey Thompson, Abruzzi Racing Transmissions and Converters, Sloan Racing Engines, Southland Speed, Bearden Oil-Sunoco Race Fuels, K&N Filters, CAM2 Blue Blood Racing Oil, Bradley Auto Parts, MoneyMaker Racing, Ross Pistons, FINISHED Ultimate Performance Metal Finishing, Macy Motorsports, Billy Nees Race Cars, Stephen Beard, Matt Zapp, Terry Knott, Jill Beard, and everyone else who has helped along the way!


Media:
"Top IHRA drivers looking forward to battle at Budds Creek this weekend"
-- http://www.ihra.com/News/2011/07/07/1/


"Fields Set At Summit Racing Sportsman Spectacular"
-- IHRA.com http://www.ihra.com/News/2011/07/09/1/
-- DragRaceResults.com: http://dragraceresults.com/fullstory.cfm?id=4103&type=2

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