The meek, the "Greek", the geek, and the muscle freak

Enticing title, don’t you think? Bear with me and I’ll try to explain it all. Chicago weekend featured lots of stories, exciting things, and no round-wins. The race was a real disappointment to all of the Valvoline Engine Guarantee team (our new paint scheme highlighting Valvoline’s new commitment to car owners), and now we really need to go rounds (preferably winning four of them) next Sunday in E-town.

I landed at O’Hare (which I think originally was, “Oh, here?”, but was changed) Thursday just after noon and headed straight to the MTS terminal for their open house. We again had the show car on display for the employees, customers, and potential new partners. Not only did I do an appearance for the open house, I came back with the Comstock’s for the midnight shift-change visit, spending time with the night crew and thanking them for being instrumental in our racing success.

Sandwiched between the MTS visits was the annual Don and Sarah Schumacher house party, where old friends, crewmembers, and legends gather to bench race and socialize. Getting to chat with Chris Karamesines is always a highlight in my eyes, and hanging out with several of the guys who were on Don’s Funny Car crew back in the late ’60s and into his driving heyday in the early ’70s was enlightening. Matt Ilas from ESPN brought his camera out and we filmed a piece in the garage behind Don’s house. That is the workshop that housed three nitro funnies back then, and it’s a far cry from the 100,000 square foot shop that we now enjoy in Brownsburg. We’ll film the rest of the piece once we arrive in Indy, and it will be a nice comparison of racing then and now.

After looking real good with our new chassis (last year’s car with a new front half) at a very hot Topeka racetrack, a much cooler Chicago threw us a curve and we just never caught up with the car. Friday netted us a 4.36 (lots of top end tire spin and an early shutoff) and a 4.32 (with a cylinder dead from the step of the throttle), so we already were a run behind and needed to step on the tune-up for Saturday. With intermittent sprinkles and the very real threat of not making any more runs, it was a difficult position for Johnny and John. We were too aggressive on run 3, and I had to pedal the car to a 4.58, which was bumped out by the end of that session. Now we had to hope that the weather held out long enough to get our last run in and bump into the show. It’s no fun at all knowing that you literally have one run to get into the show and you have to run in the 4.20s or better. Taking what they had learned from run 3, the guys took a slightly less aggressive path and got us into the show with a nice 4.22, though that only was good for the No. 15 spot. I’m a firm believer in it not mattering much WHO we race, but rather WHEN we race them. Unfortunately, round one gave us a red-hot Ashley Force (I mean her car was very fast and consistent, but you can call her red-hot for other reasons if you wish). Team John (West and Collins) stayed late Saturday culling over the computer data, as we had to pick up a tenth just to be in the game.

Though they did a nice job with the Sunday tune (Lee Beard also lent his expertise), we just didn’t have enough. Had I staged shallow, we would have run a 4.13 (our e.t. was 4.16), and tire spin downtrack probably slowed us another .02, but Ashley’s 4.0 was too much for us that day. We think we learned some things that the car likes, and hopefully they apply to hot and cooler tracks so we can utilize them in the coming weeks. Our weekend was officially over, but there is so much more to tell about my adventures:

Being that Rodger Comstock already owed all of us a round of drinks for being No. 6 qualifier in Topeka, we upped the ante and decided to make it double (dinner included) or nothing (we eat at Arby’s). Well, let’s just say that I’d like extra Horsey sauce on my roast beef sandwich. Be careful when betting on nitro!

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The MTS diecast FINALLY should be available starting in Denver in the NAPA/Army souvenir trailer, and both it and the Valvoline car should be at shoeracing.com shortly. Hooray!

 

I’ll let the photo captions explain the other events I had going on in Chicago and move on back to getting back home just after midnight on Sunday. Jenna and Jason picked me up at the airport and took me to the fly-away station to pick up my truck before heading home. One day I think I’ll just abandon the old Nissan in some parking lot and see how long it takes the local police to find it. Perhaps I can donate it to one of their balls, though I’m told that the Highway Patrol no longer have balls (that’s a terrible cop joke, don’t try using it to get out of a ticket!).

I was all set to fire up my Yamaha after my amazing 30-day carburetor rebuild, and I was plenty excited. Yep, right up to the point when I turned on the fuel petcock, causing gas to start pouring out of one of those “non-rebuildable,” “non o-ring replaceable” tee-fittings. I had replaced the o-rings that looked questionable on all the fittings that allowed, but this one didn’t. Anyway, another carb removing (not quite as easy as unbolting a Holley off of your intake manifold, by the way), silicon applying, carb reinstalling sequence followed. This time I was a little smarter, mocking up the gas tank and carb assembly on a bench in the driveway (gas fires in the garage aren’t much fun) to check for additional leaks. Bueno (Spanish for “the second time is the charm”). Once I plugged everything back into place and installed the new battery, it started in the first 2 seconds. I did the typical “man victory dance,” complete with two pirouettes and a fist pump (after carefully checking to make sure no one was watching). What a feeling of satisfaction. I took it around the block a couple of times (the bike, not my dance) just to make sure all systems were functioning (sorry, Don, but I really was careful), so now it’s time to put it up for sale. I bought it new when I was 19 years old, and though it sounds silly, it’s kind of tough to part with all of the memories that bike represents.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but I’m on a plane Wednesday heading to Jersey, and I need to be there a day early to do an MTS visit. I’ve left the last several races without that pretty gold man, so I sure hope that the other Funny Car competitors see fit to let me have this one!

Stay tuned.