With high expectations we headed off the Willowbank, setting up on
Thursday lunch time expecting to run a high 780 but the best laid
plans
of men and mice often go astray.
On our first run at 12.16 p.m. Friday the air was not exactly brilliant
as it was hot and humid. After a strong burn out unfortunately the
crew
let Nathan down as we had a loose injector line which sprayed fuel
out
the side which is evident from the photo on our website -
www.piranharacing.com.au Better luck next time.
Second run at 6.12. p.m. on Friday 21st November another strong burn
out, however this time a ball broke off the throttle cable on the
injector hat and at this stage with two runs down we did not have
a
qualifier on the board.
We set the car up soft for the one last shot qualifier on Saturday,
ran
a good pass - 8.124 seconds at 164.35 MPH and for the younger people
264.5 KPH.
At that point we were sure we had qualified because on the entry
list as
at November 7th - 5.00 p.m. there were 25 entrants for super charged
outlaws - 10 open cars and 15 sedans. With Bill Fletcher out in his
dragster and Barrie Young from Tamworth out in his altered, not running
the numbers, 10 minus 2 = 8 in my books and we assumed we were in
only
to find out that an entrant from modified had bumped us out to number
9
in the open cars.
We have sought clarification from the track and will post it on our
website accordingly.
The disappointing fact being that if you knew you had to beat one
car to
get into the field you could set the car up differently.
At qualifier all we knew was that we had to run better than 8.30
which
we did and it was very disappointing and it should not happen and
we
hope it does not happen to another competitor.
Next meeting for the Lexus Piranha race team will be 3rd January
at
Willowbank and at that stage fellow Team Capricorn member Russell
Mackay
is slotted down to do his final qualifying passes in the corvette
-
Askika. We will also be making the trip in December prior to both
cars
and Dave Ferricks, Noël Smith Piranha Insurance Brokers modified
dragster heading off to the opening of Western Sydney International
Dragway.
Hopefully our new racepack data logger will be on board for January
and
we can finally figure out what is going on, rather than guessing.