Well, opening night happened. Actually, I guess practice did too but I’ve forgotten to post anything about either until now.

Practice went pretty well. The car ran a little hot but otherwise everything went smoothly. I didn’t get a good feel for how competitive it would be but it felt solid and smooth and I did get to run down a few cars. Of course I also got run down by a few in turn. but since everyone was on different tires, I figured I was doing OK. The important thing was that it stayed together and there didn’t seem to be any serious issues. After practice I picked up a couple of sets of tires for me and Jason and headed home and during the week I worked on lettering and getting the Big 10 tires mounted up. Unfortunately, neither went all that well. One of the tires had a hole in it that I plugged to get the car set up. And we messed up one of the pieces of vinyl and ended up putting it off and just making some numbers.

Friday I got to the track reasonably early and got everything all set up only to find that there were no tires. I guess this was a big issue for a lot of people. Supposedly the Big 10 guys are working on a solution but it was certainly a problem this week. Billy Gleason was kind enough to offer me a right front for the night, but eventually the tires did show up and I was able to get one swapped, mounted, and on the car for practice.

Again, the car felt good. I wasn’t blindingly fast but I was within a second or less of the regulars. I ran pretty even with Gleason and Strusz, and chased down Vogler, but Jason and Wright were a little faster, and Steffenhagen was in another class. Unfortunately, the car started running hot again. We tried a few things during hot laps and seemed to be getting somewhere before the heat.

I started 5th in the heat and managed to dodge a mess on lap one to jump to second. A few laps later Jason gave me a little nudge coming out of 4 to get by on the inside and we started chasing down the leader. But with 3 to go the motor started breaking up and by the last lap I was back to 5th and barely held that for the checkers. The car only made it to turn three before it died on the track and had to be pushed into the pits. We did some testing and eventually found a bad coil. Blue from Willie’s crew was nice enough to lend us one and we got it fired for the feature.

Due to my disappointing heat finish, I started 15th in the feature. We took the green and ran one lap before someone did something stupid up front and caused a pileup in three and four. I missed it and picked up five spots or so and was looking forward to a decent race when I looked down at the gauges and saw that the temp was at 230 again. I waited to see if it would drop any and it kept going up. So I pulled it in and called it a night. Considering that the difference in payout between fifth and last is exactly $0, and that there was so much carnage that only 6 cars finished, I figure it was a good choice.

I’ve been working on the cooling all week and after a lot of research and contemplation, I think I’ve got it figured out. Of course I’m throwing so many things at it that it might be too cool now but I can fix that. I also picked up a set of tires so I’ll be on a close to level playing field for the start of the regular Spencer season. Now I just need to get through tech…

Well, it’s black and shiny again. I’ve got  few little things to do to the body before it gets lettered but for the most part that part is out of the way. Thanks a lot to Dad for making a lot less ugly than I would have.

I’m supposed to put the motor together Saturday. I hope I haven’t forgotten anything I need.  As far as the rest, I want to replace the spindles but the rest of the chassis is pretty well done. I even painted the front clip. After that I just need to make sure everything is tight,  bleed the brakes, and scale it.

So the Spencer rules are up. Finally. They’re identical to the Chemung rules. Which is good and bad. It’s good because they’ve allowed Vortecs and admitted that people are moving their upper control arms and are allowing it. And they didn’t specify a particular muffler. So yay. Unfortunately, they are allowing floaters but aren’t allowing anything but straight street headers and pipes. And they still won’t allow bearings in the trailing arms. Or anything but stock dimension upper fronts. Why do they put rules in there against stuff that’s not a competitive advantage?

Added to all that, the body rules are contradictory and vague. Is my body legal? Is Jason’s? Is Kelly’s old Daytona?

So now I’m wondering what the thinking behind some of these rules is. Why is there a ride height rule? Or at least, why is it 6″ (or 5″ or 3″)? If you can move the control arm mounts, why specify a particular control arm? Why allow floaters? Why isn’t there a camber rule for them?

Why did Spencer open up the rules to be just short of the NYSS and Big 10 rules? I’m confused and conflicted…

So I won’t be at the Expo. Well, not with my car anyway. I’ll be down on Sunday with the boy to see Dad’s car and all the people that had time and heat. It looks like things are warming up in the next week or so so I’ll be getting to all the stuff I was going to put off until after the show.

So I’ve been looking at the schedules and I think I’ve come up with one I’m going to try to stick with. It looks a little like this:

It’s a pretty aggressive schedule and I may have to bow out of a couple weekly shows if it gets to be too much. I’m still working on a plan for keeping tires on it. We’ll see how that goes.

Well, it’s down on its wheels again. I need to build a couple of brackets and re-hang the body then it’s off to dad’s for some body work and paint. I’m going to call about lettering tomorrow and see how much that’s going to set me back. So it’s feasible that I can make it to the expo with some time to spare. I’m a little concerned about being able to afford buying pretty parts like chrome wheels so we’ll see just how nice it looks when it shows up.

I got the block back a couple of weeks ago and I’m starting to pick up the rest of the parts to put it back together. hopefully I can fit what I need into my budget so I’ll have a better motor for opening day.

Speaking of opening day, Spencer finally released their schedule. 16 races. If I add in  RoC, the Open and the Fall Brawl, that’s a lot of shows. And a lot of tires. I’m told Spencer will be allowing F75s so I guess I’ll be running them for everything but the Big 10 shows. Now I just need to figure out where to get them. Oh, and how to pay for them..

Racecars are inconvenient, And expensive. And frustrating. That should set the tone for my weekend.

I did actually accomplish some things but they seem so little in the grand scheme the I feel like the weekend was wasted. I’m pretty happy with the exhaust. And I can now drain the rear without wearing half the gear lube. But the trailing arm holes are still a mess and I’m fighting with a big piece of lead (and losing)…

The problem with being thorough about fixing the issues on the car is that you find all the stuff that’s wrong. And then have to fix them too. I hung the rear housing in the car to make sure the holes would be centered and found out the suspension has a HUGE bind in it. That explains why I was having such a hard time getting my ride heights right. Important safety tip for anyone building a car to drive in circles: Don’t use drag racing suspension parts… So now I have to find and put bushings in a set of trailing arms…

I found out last night that my block is ready. Now I just need to come up with the cash for it. And rings and bearings and gaskets…

…ohmy…

So I spent two full days working on the car and other than the garage being even more of a mess, it doesn’t look like I got anything done.  I did get the welder set up and obviously got to the bottom of the car. It’s a mess… I also got the exhaust mocked up and I only need to weld one piece of pipe. It’ll be nice to have a real full exhaust this year. Next weekend I’ll get the trailing arm holes welded back up so the rear end doesn’t move around, weld up the drive shaft loop, and rebuild the heat shield for the wiring. You know, all the stuff I didn’t do right last season… Having the car up like this and thinking about how to get it right is just reminding me of all the little things I need to do. It’s going to be a long 9 weeks…

This week I’m going to try to touch base with Spencer and see if they’re going to have any issues with my car or Jason’s. They’ve been pretty quiet so far this off season.

Well, we’ve survived the apocalypse and the holidays. I hope everyone had a good 2012 and is as hopeful about 2013 as I am. Last season went about as well as I expected. I learned a lot about some new tracks, my new car, the competition, and the state of Street Stock racing in CNY/WNY. Now it’s time to start getting serious about getting competitive.

Spencer hasn’t released anything about rules or a schedule but I’m going to assume they’ll be running again this season so I’m working toward getting the car ready to run there weekly. I’m also planning on making RoC, the NYSS races, and the Fall Brawl. And if Spencer gets a Big 10 show I’ll probably try that too. We’ll see how my finances handle all that. My plans are to have the car ready for the Motorsports Expo in March and to possibly have a fundraiser to cover RoC.

I had the car apart and on stands in October and it’s not looking too bad. This weekend I’ll start getting it ready to go back together. I’m going to move some things around and try to make it more comfortable. And clean up all the little things I didn’t get to before last season. Hopefully the phantom noises and binds will go away. The body came through pretty well so I’ll get Dad to help me clean up the few little dents and throw some more tractor paint at it. I’ve talked to couple of people about lettering so hopefully it’ll look a little more professional this season.

The motor I ran for the last race is in pretty good shape so I’ll probably leave that alone other than putting new valve springs on it. I’ve got a block at the shop that should be ready any time now so I’ll be able to put my Vortec motor together. I’m also going to rework some stuff on the 9:1 motor I was using and make sure it’s solid(just in case).

What a weekend. We spent a lot of time last week getting the car back together and I  was pretty happy with it overall. But when we got to the track things were still a mess. Not that it mattered much Friday night. It rained off and on and Kelly only got to make a couple of slow lap runs. The motor broke up the whole time and the steering was all over the place. We did find a bad center link before they called the show so at least something went right.

Since Kelly and I were supposed to put a roof on Dad’s garage, he passed on coming back for Saturday. (That didn’t stop me from working on the roof until it was time to leave for the track. And most of the day Sunday). I’d left the car at the track and had too much wrapped up in the show to blow it off so I hopped in for the rain date. I shanghaied Eric Connors to help me out and we headed back to the track.

At the track we got the new center link on and I went out and over-drove a loose car and slapped the left side into the wall, bending a tie rod and ruining the new centerlink… In the process I also threw the power steering belt. With some help and parts from Jason we got it back together for the last hot lap session. It held together and by the time the heat rolled around it even pointed straight.

Starting on the pole didn’t help much as Steffenhagen blew by me into one and another three got by me by turn 3. I settled in then and managed to stay within a straightaway for the rest of the heat, finishing just far enough back to miss the redraw. Considering the car was bent, the motor was still breaking up, and I had no power steering, I didn’t feel too bad about it. It was the most competitive the car’s been all season.

I managed to get the power steering fixed and attempted (unsuccessfully) to figure out the motor problem before the feature and lined up 14th. I did a little better on the start only losing a spot or two and held my position until a caution on lap 7 that took out most of the front runners and left me 9th. Unfortunately, 2 laps after taking the green, the car took a right into the back fence. I’m still not sure if it was my mistake or the ball joint breaking that caused it but looking at the part I’m inclined to give myself the benefit of the doubt.

The tow truck dropped me in the infield and I was getting ready to settle in to watch the rest of the race when I remembered I had some ball joints in the parts bin. As it turned out, one of them was even the right one. So Eric and I got to work and planned on getting the car ready to load up. After some thrashing and a mad search for a proper nut, we got the car back on it’s wheels. And as it happened the race was still going. So I hopped in and ran the last 4 laps, picking up a couple of positions in the process to finish 16th.

Considering the way the weekend went, things could have been much worse. The car is still mostly straight, the motor is still running, I got a feel for the potential of the car, and I’ve got a decent set of tires for the next NYSS race. And I only lost a couple hundred bucks, which is more than many of my competitors can say.

The car is back in the shop and I’m looking around for a welder so I can get started on some changes I’ve been noodling. Hopefully Spencer will start looking at their rules early enough that I can get the required changes in before the Motorsports Expo next year. It would be even nicer if they could come up with something before the racer’s auction so I know what to buy. I’m thinking about heading out to the Spencer banquet next month and seeing if 10th pays anything and talking to the guys making the rules.