Friday, August 15, 2008
Recovering from a Busy Week
Hi everyone!
Well, we just started what I hope to be a non-eventful week! The last two weeks have been sheer madness and Murphy's Law controlled it all. First, Johnny's 2006 F-350 entered the shop with serious fuel issues (as if the cost of fuel alone isn't already an issue). Of course, 2,000 miles out of warranty and it decides to stop running!
Then, my 5-year-old dog Mallory got extremely sick. Thank goodness for my veterinarian! After two days of serious, aggressive treatment, it looks as though she is pulling through. I could tell a difference after three days when she decided that her ball was still the most important thing on Earth to her!
Friday night was the first Test-n-Tune session we have had in weeks, so at least I had something positive to look forward to. Considering it was very hot, my car ran a decent 9.97 seconds at 131.4 miles per hour so I was happy.
On Johnny's first test run on our Sportsman Chevelle, the car launched fine but the run wasn't the best. It has been patiently sitting in our garage waiting to be unleashed at The Strip. Needless to say, it unleashed at about the 1,000 foot mark...literally, unloading just about every working internal part it had onto the drag strip surface!
It left the track crew one heck of a huge mess. It took the Las Vegas Motor Speedway crew nearly 45 minutes to pick up the pieces and clean the mess. At that point Johhny did not want to even attempt to run the Corvette for fear of a repeat, but he did and it ran great at 8.67 seconds at 152.00 miles per hour. By the way, the crew at LVMS did a great job cleaning the mess and re-prepping the track surface.
Saturday was a little less chaotic. After about four days without air conditioning in our house, the repairman finally made it out to fix it. By the afternoon, we had working air! Our friend Mike Niswonger was down from Sacramento, Calif. to compete in the King of the Track Race at the Strip, which he qualified for by winning sportsman at his last race. We are always happy to see him! Unfortunately, he red lit during his first round. This race is always a tough one. The King of the Track Race is always a tough one, and this year was no different. The race hosted eight very good racers competing for the trophy. In the end, it came down to two motorcycles competing for the win. Congratulations to Rick Newport for taking the win!
After the King of the Track Race, it was finally time for us to get our racing on! Finally some good luck started to come our way! Johnny's Mom loaned us her new 2008 Ford Focus to run in the sportsman class. He managed to drive that little car all the way to the semi-finals where he lost to Sal Cachia, another real good driver. Johnny dialed in at about 19.45 seconds and had a real good night. He got to the finish line on the brakes hard and broke way out running at 19.17 seconds. He almost had the car stopped on the top-end but took a loss. Despite some great runs, Johnny lost in the second round of the Super/Pro races.
I managed to make it to the semi-finals against Greg Hicks. We flipped to decide lane positions and I lost which put me in the right lane. I prefer the left lane of the track, but that is not the reason I lost. His light was great, timing .005 seconds to my .067 seconds and my car would not run the number. Even if it had run that fast, I still would not have won because of the hole shot on the starting line. Hicks is such a great sport, so I wasn't upset when my win light didn't come on. It's not so bad loosing to a nice guy!
Next week we leave for Sacramento, Calif. to do some racing and hopefully bring home so of their money! I'll update soon! See you at the races!
