Cordova Report Nitro Madness

The World Series of Drag Racing


The Nitro Madness AA/FA team went to Cordova, IL to match race the Nevada Rattler AA/FA last weekend.

First, I need to say what a great time it was
racing Rick and Cheryl Ruiz and their team. They had a bunch of people on their team and we had fun hanging out with them all weekend.

We had been at the track for less than an hour, and a golf cart pulls up with Ron Colson in it. I am not sure of his position this weekend at the World Series. However, after about the first 10 minutes of chatting with him, I am pretty sure job-1 is to harass the Rapid One. He was a blast to talk to, even though he kept telling me Ricky was out to whip the Nitro Madness boys. I alluded to the fact that Rick may very well accomplish that, but he wasn’t going to get it the easy way. He would know he had been in a drag race. Most of you drag racers will remember Ron used to drive the Chi Town Hustler AA/FC. He was telling us some funny Jungle Jim stories. After I survived that round of “the first liar in the group doesn’t stand a chance”, I head back to my pit area to warm up the car.

Friday night around 9:30PM we went up to make our first pass. We have the left lane. Rick agrees to at least “start” in the right one. We both know with Fuel Altereds, any portion of the track that is not being used by either, the timing equipment or your competitor is fair game! We made side by side burnouts to way past ½ track. Everything is perfect. The car sounds good; tire smoke is covering the starting line. I can see out my visor for a change, and I can breathe. Heck this driving a race car is simple now!

We both rolled forward, Rick turned on his top bulb, and I am right behind him. I roll on forward, his staged light pops on then mine. Right after I
stage, virtually the same instant, bam my side of the tree glows yellow, then green. I don’t leave as his side of the tree didn’t come on. I thought the tree malfunctioned. Then he takes off, and I thought, well I did get yellow, guess I will mosey on off the line also. I have a comatose .446 light to Rick’s almost as bad .216. Neither of us thought the tree worked. He didn’t see my staged light come on. Once I got to thinking it over, I figured out the deal. They had a divider board up for the bracket guys. So I couldn’t see his side of the tree working, and visa versa.

The car hikes the front end and really makes a good move. The shift light is coming pretty quick. That tells me we are making some power. I have a great view of Rick’s header flames, as he is about a car and half ahead of me the whole run. Nice view, “Not Exactly” the view I was wanting though. When I hit third gear the car is pulling pretty good and the finish line zips by. It is time to push the chute launcher button, both chutes hit, and the car really slows quickly. Right after they hit, I eased on the brakes. The car hit a slight bump or dip, as the rear of the car bounced off the ground a couple of times. It settled right back down and I turned onto the return road. I made sure with Rick that everything went all right. We discuss the tree being weird. I have no idea what the car ran, but since the chutes hit so hard I was pretty sure it was a decent run. I was blown away to find out we ran a 6.61 @ 205 MPH!!! That is a new team record and a career best for myself!

Well, there is no-way we are going to put it into the box without checking it over. Just to make sure that kind of run didn’t tear it up. We pulled the
System One oil filter, it looked perfect. We pulled the sparkplugs; they looked just like they should. It is possible, you can lean on the Hemi and it won’t bite you back!

Saturday dawns clear and beautiful. The humidity is only around 25%. It is a perfect day to be at the races. With this air and the way Cordova preps a
track, I can’t wait to get after it. We watched the corrected air get closer to 3000 foot. Scott and I looked over the over the run log and believe we see some places to make a change or two. I didn’t have the springs needed to be able to make a move on the Hi-speed. I changed the pill on the hi-speed instead. I will work with the main pill closer to actual race time. Then the correct weather info will be available. We all were really looking forward to the runs on Saturday night.

Rick and I changed lanes for the Saturday night run. After we fire them up, roll thru the water, we both lay into the burnouts. My team said they
couldn’t even see the tree after we both went by it. Both cars ended up at almost ¾ track. The crowd was going wild. My car was moving around and ended up doing the last ¼ of the burnout sliding sideways. Man that was fun! I gave the crowd a quick wave, and back to the starting line. The crew checks the car and sends me to the line. I rolled in to the pre-stage beam. Rick turns on his top bulb. I move on in, and Rick comes in right behind me. I am not going to be taken by the tree again. It flashes and I launch. The car marches off the line like it hates being there! The shift lite glows and I hit the 1st to 2nd gear air shifter button. It just keeps pulling harder. The shift light again, stab the air shifter button, to go from 2nd to 3rd. It is really trucking! The car makes a move to the right, and gets a little loose. It is just out of the groove. I am still ahead of Rick at this point, and there is “NO WAY” I am lifting. I muscle it back into the groove and right at the finish line he came around and gets the 2nd round win. When I hit the chutes, the car felt like it was being slammed into reverse. I knew the MPH was up on that run. When I found out the “old purple heap” had just run a 6.47 @ 211 MPH, you could have run over me with a truck. I swear I wouldn’t have felt it. The feeling of almost out running Rick, setting another career best/team record, I have no words to describe.

Of course you know the drill. We are in heaven over the run, but can’t really let loose until we can verify we didn’t burn it up. Pulled the plugs,
great. We checked the System one, perfect. Now it is time to brag to each other! That kind of run and no carnage! To top it all off, did I mention the .02 light I put on him?

“Life is Good”, to quote a friend of mine!

The service work is done, we vote to leave it alone, and just adjust the fuel for the weather change. It should pick-up a bit as the air will get better still.

It turns out that since there are four of us AA/FA’s there tonight, we switch partners for the last run. I am running the Drastic Plastic.
We do side by side burnouts, my car starts to fishtailing a bit, so I was sliding around in the burnout and waving at the crowd. I know, I was
Hot-dogging it a bit. The place was packed, and I wanted the crowd to have as much fun as I was. That was the end of the good part of the weekend. I was
backing up and I saw a track guy come onto the track ahead of me with a towel and lean down to wipe something up. One thing we know it is not water, as we have a solid block and heads, no water on board. When I get back by the line I get the “shut it off” signal from the starting line crew. That is the kiss of death to a driver. When I was pushed back we discover it is leaking oil out of the right valve cover. There is a small amount of oil on the track, some on the body, and a little on the right slick. That explains why the car was moving around so much on the burnout.

When we moved the car back to the pits, pulled the valve cover. The problem was clear. We run 2-valve cover gaskets stacked together to clear the Stage V rocker equipment. The top one closest to the cover was fine. The bottom one was split allowing oil to leak out. Our day was over. This was truly a weekend I will never forget.

I want to thank Scott Gardner and the whole Cordova Raceway for putting together a great event again this year. It was a standing room only crowd. The track was packed all day long. Don’t miss out next year if you didn’t make this one.

I hope you liked the latest version of “What I did last weekend”

Rapid

[ August 30, 2005, 01:47 PM: Message edited by: Rapid Randy AA/FA ]