I think we found out why we were so inconsistent in Phoenix: part of it was the loose blower belt, and part because Brian ran the fuel lines into his stomach instead of the barrel valve!

Florida was cool, and I don’t mean weather-wise. We had a good three-day test, making a total of seven runs and getting a handle on some new clutch stuff (that’s Latin for “the crew won’t tell me what they did”). The new owners of Palm Beach Int'l Raceway really have done a beautiful job with that facility, and I envy the local bracket racers for getting to run there consistently.

I landed in West Palm Thursday night, and got my typical bedtime in at 2 a.m. That sure made waking at 8 o’clock fun, and I really enjoyed the traffic driving out to Weston. Why Weston, you ask? (You DID ask, didn’t you?). I paid a visit to Mail Terminal Services corporate offices to discuss our race program with all of the executives. They were very receptive and excited to hear how many people we connect with through the racing, and especially with the Mail From Home program. I apologized for having to “speak and run,” but I did have a racecar to drive that day, so off I sped up I-95 North to do our testing thing.

This was the first time that the 2009 version of the MTS/Valvoline team had been to the racetrack as a group. Back from last season is the one and only Johnny West, or “JFW”, as many know him (no, his middle name does not begin with an “F”, but many of his words do). Our assistant this year is John Collins, who worked on the Scelzi car last year and is definitely a crew chief for the future. Also back from last year are Chris Kuhlberg (“Warrior”), now in charge of clutch and facial wipes, Joe Chrisman (clutch assistant and bad jokes), Chris Afflerbach (heads, and towing back to the pits at 300 mph), and Mark Stewart, our very own poster boy for WyoTech (also does bottom end and shortblocks). Coming over from the Monster car of Kenny Bernstein are Brian Mac Dermott (the lucky guy who gets to strap me in the car AND work on it) and Phil Austin (right side of engine and beanie model). Rounding out our crew is Troy Allen, son of 1981 Top Fuel Champion Jeb, who paid his dues last year serving food to all of us rude, grimy fuel guys (Troy that is, not Jeb. He refuses to serve us anything).

I also got a chance to visit with two of my best friends, both of whom I met while in the Air Force. Mike Pearson and Greg Byrd were two of the people responsible for making my four years away from home bearable. Mike brought out his two boys, and Greg called that, plus raised him by one little girl, plus wife Emily was able to come out to smell the nitro. Getting to hang out with my buds, away from the hustle and bustle of a national event, was very cool. Mike’s wife Anne, who is a great singer and was in several bands before joining the Mother’s Brigade, wasn’t able to make it. However, I got to see her do a “gig” one night and spend a bit of time hanging out. All in all, a nice trip east.

Rich and I were able to squeeze a surfing session back home, in between my testing, and this one was great. We went south of our usual spot, braving the rocks on the shore and the kelp beds out in the surf (I hate trying to get in/out with all the rocks, but I especially eschew floating around in a bunch of nasty sea weed) and were treated to some very fun waves. I really want to get one more session in before Pomona, but right now the surf is pretty flat.

Since the whole family (all three of us) was taking the RV to Phoenix, it was time to stock it and get that one last “maintenance” item taken care of: the install of the cable box. We just switched from Direct TV to FIOS, so we had to return the cable box in the RV. Then we had to have a new card mailed for the box we own, now under Cindy’s Direct TV contract, so we could install it. (Apparently satellite is the way to go with the RV; otherwise you wind up having to carry hundreds of miles of coaxial cable with you on those long trips). On a hunch, we delayed installing the new box. Sure enough, the card never arrived (I think our UPS man ate it). Soooooo, we took the spare box from the guest room at Cindy’s and shoved it into that “entertainment center” space in the RV (you know, the one that looks like a Radio Shack after a tornado, what with all that electronic crap and wiring stuffed into small, hard-to-access area that necessitates you standing on the passenger seat, holding a flashlight in your mouth, and bending your head sideways to try to see what you’re doing!). Happy times, and now we get to do it all over again with the other unit. (Amazing how NOW they are able to just activate our existing card … sounds like they should have done that in the first place and saved me some headache). Anyway, we did have satellite for the weekend, which keeps Jason happy (which keeps Momma happy … which keeps me happy). (Update: installed the other box, spent 40 minutes on the phone with Direct TV, removed box, installed previously removed box, and enjoyed wasting 90 minutes for nothing.)

Phoenix testing was a different story altogether (seems like that word should have another “L” in it). Thirteen runs, lots of clutch discs, nitro, and sweat (sounds like a good name for a car, though I give Gary Ritter credit for his “Blood, Sweat, and Nitro" car of the ‘70s), and a few decent timeslips. To say that nearly every nitro car struggled would be an understatement. Most runs didn’t even make it to 100 feet, and lots of crew chiefs pulled hair out that weekend. We even stayed Monday and Tuesday to make a few passes, just to make sure we answered most of our tune-up questions before loading up for Pomona. We did run a 4.13 at 302.96, which was low e.t. of Tuesday for any car, so we feel optimistic for the season opener. I wish I could say the same for the local meteorologists (shouldn’t that be someone who studies meteors, and “weatherologist” would be the correct term? Of course, we all know that proctologists don’t look at “proct’s”, and thespians aren’t people from Thespia, so I guess it all works out in the end, or would that be the proct?). Looking out my front door right now it’s impossible to visualize it raining this weekend, as it’s perfect weather right now. Keep your fingers crossed.

I also got to visit with some friends at Phoenix. Steve Morgeson was a building engineer while I was an elevator man, and we became very good friends before I moved on to teaching drag racing, and he moved on to Phoenix. He now owns his own air conditioning business, which makes a lot of sense if you live in Phoenix. Everyone there has an air conditioner. I would say they are as ubiquitous as “proct’s” (if you know what I’m saying). Steve and wife Terry have a beautiful house, complete with a volleyball court in the backyard, which gives him the only beach in Phoenix. Peter Dahlberg served in the Air Force at the same time as me, and he now resides in Phoenix. I last saw him back in 1991 when he was visiting a relative in California. He came out to the track and brought his girlfriend, Lauren. Peter now works for Intel, or so he says. I think he’s with the CIA. Our other dinner guest was Andrew Keech, whom I met through Steve. In addition to having a PhD and owning Advance Protein Systems, Andrew is one well-traveled Kiwi. He too may be with the CIA. Neither is in the proctology field.

While there testing at Firebird, I decided to keep my track-cleaning skills honed by wiping up some 70 weight in the left lane. I believe it was Anne Profitt who caught this rare photo of me performing some manual labor. Funny, the last time I took the Blackbird to Fontana to race someone sent me a picture of me moping the starting line, but I can’t remember where I saved it in the computer, so it never made the blog. By the way, Steve Faria … you owe me for the cleanup! I also spent a considerable amount of time up in the announcer’s booth with my buddies, who were kind enough to let me join in with the color commentary. I enjoy announcing, and perhaps may explore that route after my driving days are through. Jason watched from the fence and cheered his daddy on.

We departed Tuesday after testing and made it home around 1 a.m. In bed by 2:30, up by 10, perfect for me! The day we left for Phoenix the engine for Rodger’s dragster had arrived from MADCAP, so I knew that I had some work to do. I figured that I’d have it running by late Wednesday or early Thursday, but I may have been too optimistic. After I unwrapped the engine and got it up in the air with the chain hoist, I took the oil filter off to see if it was the one used on the dyno, but it appeared to be brand new. I primed it with oil, reinstalled it, and gave it a “bit more torque” with a filter wrench, as once a filter has been installed the gasket can take a slight “set”. I swear to you I didn’t tighten it that much! After I got the engine into the chassis and bolted up to the transmission, getting all of the accessories installed went fairly smoothly. The real problem started when I went to reinstall the shifter cable through the midplate. I always like to double check the little things, and I wanted to get the alignment just right … not! Needing to slide the cable as close to the filter as practicable, while still allowing adequate removal room, I decided to loosen the filter to make sure that Rodger would be able to service it easily. It wouldn’t budge! (The filter that is, not Rodger). Now, this isn’t my first rodeo, and I certainly have had my share of stubborn filters over the years, but none of them were much of a challenge for my MacGyver-like skills. Today I would meet my match. After twisting the entire case of the filter nearly 90 degrees with the filter wrench, I was wondering how I could have overtightened it that much. I didn’t have any Wheaties the night before, and I doubt that my long hair could have increased my strength by THAT much. Okay, time to ratchet (no pun intended) my plan up a notch. After hammering my largest Phillips screwdriver through the casing of the filter, I was sure it would relent and loosen. No dice. How about one Phillips screwdriver AND the oil filter wrench? How about, no! Two Phillips.....not. Two Phillips and the filter wrench......nada. THREE screwdrivers, a pair of gloves, and pushing with all my might with my foot on the slick.......zilch. By this time the case was splitting and I had no choice but to tear all but the threaded portion of the filter off, throwing chunks at a time into the garbage. Once down to just the base, I really got smart and fashioned a tool out of angle stock and three bolts that would insert into the drain holes around the threaded portion of the filter (check it out next time you have a filter). Two broken bolts and one scraped knuckle later, that was in the trash. Now I was desperate. I either needed to cut through the outer rim to relieve the tension (In the filter, that is. I would need more than that for my tension) or grind down to the threads, which was much more dangerous. After drilling several holes (I had to be extremely cautious to not touch the block), abandoning the drill and converting to the Dremel with the small cutoff wheel (I only used two and a half), I still was no closer. I guess I should mention all of the various pry bars, hammers, punches and chisels that also contributed to this fiasco. Time to do some serious metal grinding and, try as I might, I wound up damaging the threads on the adapter. But, four hours into this project, the filter was OFF! After scrounging through the garage, I got lucky and found an adapter that I had stashed years ago. If I wasn’t able to find one, either Jenna’s engine or my El Camino were going to be a donor. I was totally baffled by this “case of the overtorqued filter” until I crawled under the car to examine the carnage and make sure I had cleaned out all of the debris. It was then that it struck me how the bellhousing bolt protruded far enough into the filter area to … well, I think you can figure the rest out! With the Dedenbear transmission case, there are four short and two long bolts. Since I put all hardware into a box and reinstalled it myself, the mystery grew ever larger. It wasn’t until I removed the other “long” bolt from the bellhousing that the mystery began to unravel; seems someone had ground about .100-inch off of only one of the longer bolts … just enough to clear the filter! Why they only did this on one side blows me away. If someone ever had to do a trans swap in the pits they easily could have the same outcome. After installing the “customized” bolt, I still felt that it was too far in to the filter boss area. One trip over to my hardware bin yielded two bolts of the correct length, exactly ¼-inch shorter than the offending fastener. Four hours, countless nasty words and tears, an empty tool box, metal shaving all over the garage, and the fear that I would tear up Rodger’s engine didn’t make for a very productive day.

Things did go smoothly after that, with the exception of installing the diaper (not mine; that went just fine). With an external oil pump and wide pan, this engine was a certain candidate for a custom oil retention device. I tried it forward, backward, and back to forward again, and still wasn’t satisfied. Short of breaking out a needle and thread, I guess that’s as good as it’s going to get. Besides, Rodger and Karen were driving out Friday to pick the car up. It ran, had no leaks, and I had no leftover hardware, so I guess I did okay.

I don’t think we would have made any friends in the neighborhood had anyone wanted to squeeze between the motorhomes of us and the Comstock’s, but we had to get his car loaded. Next house will have to be on a wide street, with a big driveway, and no oil filter wrenches! I think we pissed the UPS driver off, as he was very reluctant to attempt the go-between on the rigs. Seems they aren’t allowed to pull into any driveways to turn around, and he wasn’t willing to back up. Scelzi could have made it with his eyes closed, but we had to coach our guy. That’ll teach them to lose our Direct TV card!

Since I just hadn’t spent enough time at a dragstrip lately, I decided to hang out at Fontana this past weekend and watch Rodger and Karen test. Brad Cannon also was running in the Summit Series (he made it to the semis on Sunday) so I got to be his dial-in-writer. Saturday night I headed up to friend Scotty Keough’s to watch the UFC fight and have a “guy’s night out”.

Once home I had to face the inevitable: Jenna or my hair. Tough call, but my lady won out. I cried like a newborn in the barber’s chair, but it was cheaper than counseling (or therapy for being nagged). I washed the motorhome, PT, and Nissan truck (it still looks the same … guess that was a waste of my time). Rodger thinks I’m cheap for washing my own RV. I think he’s right.

I don’t know if any of you read any of the other driver’s blogs, but yesterday I was reading Hot Rod’s latest entry, just checking up on him and hoping he found a ride. Whichever one of you busted his backyard table should ‘fes up right now, that ain’t cool!

Tomorrow (actually today, as it’s 2 a.m. right now) we head out to Pomona, and the first official runs of 2009 are only a day away. I really am excited as can be to start the season here in Pomona. I can hardly contain the fan in me, as the kickoff always is the most exciting race of the year in so many respects. Jenna took this picture of the hawk (I hope I’m not offending any “birders” by getting the species wrong. I also don’t want to offend the thespians, meteorologists, or proctologists. Especially the proctologists!) in Cindy’s backyard. I’d have to say it’s “Hawks: 1, Pigeons: 0” after this one. I hope to be more like the hawk, less like the pigeon in Pomona.

Photo 7095

Stay tuned!