The next few days

Corey and I put the rods and pistons back in the motor and buttoned the bottom end up. John and David are coming up here for a day or two this weekend. David will meticulously assemble the clutch while John and I check over the whole fuel system and the blower. By Sunday everything should be back together. Corey and I both have next week off work. We'll get the truck and trailer serviced, cleaned up and packed. Tuesday we'll load the car and Wednesday morning we leave for the 16 hour drive which we are splitting into two days. Thursday afternoon we'll drop the trailer off at the track and get checked in to the motel. It will be the night for a good meal as a team and some relaxation before the hard work begins Friday. We will have one qualifying run Friday, one on Saturday along with first round of eliminations Saturday evening and the final two rounds of eliminations will start at 10 am Sunday morning.
Norwalk should be the best track and the air should be the best we've seen all year. Hopefully things go our way and maybe we'll even have a little good luck!
We're all excited and looking forward to it!

Brad

Teardown and inspection

The engine is torn down and inspected from our testing at Denton. Everything looks great and the Speed Merchants are excited. The car's getting FASTER and we're not hurting parts. This is where you live with a low budget nitro team. You have to walk the thin line with power on one side and destruction on the other side. Our goal is to walk the line and stay consistent, stepping a little over to each side as the conditions and rewards demand. My crew chief John Dearmore is the master at walking this line. He's been doing it longer than I have been alive. We will be ready for Norwalk in 2 weeks, in fact, we've never been more ready for a race.


Brad

Videos from Denton

Here's some short videos of us at Denton.

Burnout:







Early shutoff run:








These were shot by David's brother Richard.

Enjoy!

Brad

Results from Northstar

Saturday was calling for rain but the clouds kept their moisture and gave us a very cool and enjoyable evening. We made 3 good hard runs with the best being a 4.14 @ 192.72 mph. Northstar is a great little eighth mile track with nice facilities and great fans. We had a great time, were treated well and best of all we seem to have turned a corner with our setup on the race car. The incremental times are getting down where they should be. David said he was driving a whole different race car than we had at Tulsa! So now the tear down and preparation for Norwalk OH begins. We have 3 weeks to get her ready for the trip up to Lake Erie and Randy and I are going to race our flathead dragster next Saturday at MOKAN in Missouri so I am going to be a busy boy!
Chris Graves was snapping photos at Northstar Saturday night and got some good shots. View them here: http://www.maxcacklephotos.com/
David Pace and the Dearmores had a lot of friends and family at this event and it was nice to meet all of them and for them to see what this is all about. David's brother got some video of the car running at night with nice big header flames. He is going to get the video emailed to us so hopefully I can post it here or at least post a link to it so it can be viewed by our blog readers! I am really excited about that!
Thanks to all who came out and watched and thanks to all our fans who come here to keep updated on our adventures in Top Fuel drag racing!!!!
Brad

Denton Texas

Well tomorrow morning we head Southwest to Denton. The rain forecast is calling for 50% chance of rain but like John told me today - that means there's a 50% chance it won't rain! I talked to Rich at Northstar Dragway today and he said they have very good track drying equipment and not to worry, so I won't. We really need to get some runs on the car to work on our tuneup so we are praying that the evening will be dry. So far this year it has rained every Saturday that we have been at the track with the car except for our first outing in May. That was in Texas so maybe the Lone Star state is good luck for us??? Let's hope so.
I'll post a full report Sunday night so stay tuned!

Brad

Brad Thompson update

The latest word on Brad Thompson is that he has broken ribs, sternum and a vertebrae in his neck that will most likely require surgery. Hang in there Brad, our thoughts and prayers are with you!

Brad

News- Brad has had his surgery and he recovering - doing fine but very sore. There were more cracked vertebrae than originally thought and he now has some titanium pins installed. He's going to be down for a while. Keep him in your prayers.

Brad

Brad Thompson crash.........

Last night at the race in Boise Idaho fellow Top Fuel racer Brad Thompson suffered a bad crash at the end of the final round run. Word is that he was awake but groggy as they got him from the car and that he complained of shoulder and arm pain but that he appeared to be OK. He was taken to the hospital for observations. Our thoughts and prayers go out to "Bad" Brad and his family.

Here is a link to a report from the race with a picture:

http://www.dragracingonline.com/livecoverage/x_7-boise-3.html

Brad

Fliers for match race at Northstar Dragway

Click to enlarge.............