Well it was a
big weeks effort by the whole team and a special thanks to Lionel Durre from
Engine Improvements and Russell Mackay and my two sons Nathan and Zac.
After
Townsville's damage we had to get the engine out, fully disassemble it and
Lionel pulled the sleeves, decked the block and put them back in with new
head gasket and we put them back together and put it in the car and it was a
mad trash to head off to Benaraby. Incidentally, half way to Benaraby
the air conditioning cut out in the truck and we were down to poor mans air
conditioning - all the windows down.
By the time
we got there Lionel and Russell were already there and we set up camp amongst
the biggest patch of bindies you could ever find and proceeded to
scrutineering where an ANDRA Steward from Brisbane was up and we met up
again with Graham Slapp and the team and I would have to say they put on a
first class show.
As soon as
Graham gets one of the $400.00 electronic controls he will be able to do
similar to Chuck Haines - the Americans show, prior to the run. At
moment Graham is doing it all manually so it is not quite as choreographed
but next time you see the car run I urge you all to have a look. It is
certainly a good show and the wheel stander again after a few initial
problems, he had a wire nearly broken through on the ignition and once he
fixed that he did a great run up and half way back.
If anyone is
considering book the show it is great value and you will not find a nicer
bunch of people. I have particularly past onto Palmyra's president -
Paul Porter, that they should consider the whole Graham Slapp - Zoom man,
metal mickey motor sports, What ever you call him, travelling circus.
Russell
Mackay from All Hours Glass 63 Splint Window corvette had to do his final
solo licensing pass and it was a great run - a 7.59 at 173mph.
His best run of the day was that licensing pass, given the thumbs up by
Trevor Slaughter.
From then on
the show probably deteriorated a bit. Russell put in some 8 second
runs, one were he got terribly out of shape and was lucky to keep it all in
one piece, enduring a little roth from the stewards as his many years of
speedway got the little bit better of the actual requirements in ANDRA drag
racing, i.e.: as in when you are totally out of shape and crossed up you need
to back off and coast through. Russell must have thought he was back in
the litre sprint car and give it a few stab and whilst it looked good for the
spectators, the officials were not terribly impressed, so we have told him he
is kept in after school and must write "I must forget litre sprint
car racing" out a 1000 times.
Onto the
Lexus Piranha Hotrod. Whilst we were still trying to properly seek the
new head gaskets, we used a set of spare ones we had and ran it up once and
retentioned the heads before doing a half track check out pass. In the
next two runs a lot of pressure in the vacuum hose could not handle it and
blew the cam seal plugs out on both runs so we ended up with two oil baths
for the night, subsequent leak down shows that we have two good and 6 very
sick cylinders. This week end (after Russell's 40th birthday party) we
hope to pull it out and get it down to Lionel's and find out what the
problems are.
Sadly the
last three meetings we have gone away with a great car and came back with
junk but then that is drag racing. We certainly had 10% overdrive on
the Hotrod to try and step it up as we need to regularly run it at about the
7.70's to complete at the Winter Nationals to get into the field. At
the other supercharged outlaw meetings getting into the field is not a
problem but certainly the Winter Nationals you really have to be able to step
it up. We will get on top of it and hopefully we will back for
the Tin Tops.
Catch up with
you all at the drags. Hopefully the Tin Tops @ Willowbank 24-25 April.
PETER A
PEIRANO.
