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Race Diaries - 2010

Muncie Dragway, Muncie Indiana (July 30-31, 2010)

Almost UMDRA.com Race #2

Saturday, July 31, 2010 - by Shelly Boruta

Our report is a little late due to computer issues - but that was only one of the small emergencies during our "vacation".

In a nutshell -

(1) The spark plug Eric McK picked up for us Saturday morning worked like a charm in the generator!

(2) While Eric was picking up parts for his car and a spark plug for us on Saturday morning, we were searching for and found a local service garage to replace a front wheel bearing on our truck. The truck brought home a souvenir on the front passenger side but, hey, they didn't charge us for the wheel bearing replacement!

(3) Got back to the track 3 hours later to find out the race had been canceled (see pics).

(4) Had a safe trip home on Saturday afternoon. Construction was on the opposite side of the road both to and from Muncie. We saw Michigan's oil spill cleanup, stopped in at Turkeyville for dinner (Finally! Shelly's first time, Bob's second), and were home by 6:30 PM. So, we got a good night's sleep and got up bright and early on Sunday morning and went racing at our home track..

US131 Motorsports Park, Martin MI (July 9 - 10, 2010)

MMPSA.org Thunder Nationals

Friday, July 9, 2010 - by Kevyn Ashbay

A day with a bike ride is always a good day; except when your cruising down the highway and you feel you cell phone hit your thigh and then slowly skid behind you. So if you are around southbound US131 near the 58th mile marker, look for my LG phone (I could use some of the info on it!)

On a more interesting note... Right as I pull into the track, the Mountain Motor Pro Stock Association was holding they first qualifying session. Little did I know that by the time the weekend ended, I would be quite sick of hearing the PA guy say “”Mountain Motor Pro Stock”. I made my way around the back of the track and up to where Bob and Max had parked. We were on the highway side just on the other side of the fence from the track, about an 1/8th mile past the finish line. It was a fun place to be parked because every time the Pro Stock guys came down the track the large boom of them throwing out their parachutes came right in from of us. Plus, later on Saturday, a nice western breeze brought the nitro from a couple A/Fuel dragsters would float by our noses!

By the time I had got there Bob and Max had already made a tuning run. The focal point of the day was to play with some clutch converter settings and this run seemed to be half and half. The early numbers were pretty good and the down track numbers were not so great. Just to make sure we got the correct info off that run, we ran it again and got quite similar numbers. For the next two runs we did some more changes trying to find where our limits were. Thinking we found them, Bob put in what we thought was the best of both world (Off the line and down track numbers) and we headed up after the 3rd session of Pro Stock to find we were all alone and everyone was headed home. So we towed back and packed everything into the trailer and hit the showers.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

An early morning came because the gates were lined up so far that they decided to open them early. The car count for the day was very high. Over 100 in both Modified and our class: Top ET. They ran two whole sessions of our bracket series before going into Pro Stock and Alcohol Dragsters. We got our first run in just after 10 AM before the heat could come and before all of the humidity could burn off. As we figured it was a little slow as it always in the beginning of the day not including the added humidity from the early morning. As the car counts were up, it took almost two and a half hours to get back around to Top ET so it was well after noon before our second run. This time our 60ft time came around as well as our down track numbers and ended up with a 9.32 at 138.5 MPH. Surprisingly, first round came quickly even though Pro Stock had their last qualifying session. We got everything together when they called our class as always but somehow we got stuck all the way to the back. Which I guess came out well, as the dragster we were up against could not make it to the starting line, we ended up with a competition single. Bob ran a 9.30 on our 9.32 dial sending us into round 2. There was another few hours and first round of PS and A/F cars before 2nd round. This time we were up towards the front and ready for this round. With our 9.30 in the first round, we slapped a 9.30 on the side and went up to the line. After a great .022 light and running just off our dial with a 9.32, the win light still didn’t come on. There wasn’t much left on the table for the left lane to take but somehow he did.

I ended up leaving shortly after our lose, before all of the fun went on. Bob and Max stuck around as some of Max’s friends from Chassis Shop were there to make some Nostalgia Funny Car runs in the evening. I had to get back to try and straighten out my phone. Plus, my anniversary is tomorrow so I should probably be around for that.

Mid Michigan Motorplex, Stanton MI (June 12, 2010)

Looking for that wally!

Saturday, June 12, 2010 - by Shelly Boruta

Yesterday was the National Dragster Challenge (race for a Wally!) at Mid-Michigan. Shelly had a sore throat on Friday and woke up with no voice on Saturday. Other than not being able to talk to anyone (any louder than a whisper), she felt fine so we headed to the track.

The forecast was predicting same hot and humid weather as we had in KY last weekend. Since we didn't change anything on the bike since KY, it should be pretty easy to get a good comparison of bike's performance between KY elevation and our home track elevation.
We thought the gates opened at noon, so we got to the track about 12:30 to discover there was no one in line because we were 2 hours early. Luckily the gate was open so we pulled in and had plenty of time to eat lunch before the start of time trials. When we got to the track, we discovered the weather was warm but nowhere near as humid as KY. There was a steady cooler (head) breeze which helped keep things cool but dragged down the top end numbers for the bike. By the last round of time trials, the skies were pretty much clear with clouds to the south and north.

Round 1 - we had Ben (from Big Ben Tires near home in Sand Lake) in his new ride (a Vega). We got the advantage and the win when he had problems at the launch.

Round 2 - we were picked for a possible BYE so got to sit and watch the rest of our class since we'd be last to run. We ended up having an opponent. It was Jeff Ledford who tends to lurk toward the back of the pack. He had a stellar 0.002 reaction to our 0.026 and we ran a 5.97 on a 5.94 dial for some unknown reason, so you can guess how that one came out.

Round 3 - (Bought back since it was early and a pleasant evening, and prize was a Wally). We had the hemi dragster this round. He had a 0.009 light to our 0.034, but he broke out with a 4.999 on a 5.0 dial. (We went 5.966 on our 5.96 dial.)

Round 4 - Since it was humid, we were debating whether to leave the dial at 5.96 or bump it to 5.97. We went with the latter. This round we had Mike Zednicek. We were pretty even on the launch. He had a 0.010 and we had a 0.013 light, respectively. But he ran dead on his dial with a 4. However, we ran a 5.963 on a 5.97 dial, handing the win to Mike. (Upon calculating, Mike had given us room to not break out but in 1/8 mile, and talking thousandths of seconds, it's hard to make that call during the run unless your way ahead of the opponent.)

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