2009 is rolling and I wanted to give everyone a few updates.
I have started my new job at the Flint Creek power plant and I am really enjoying the work, the people, and learning all about boilers and the systems used to produce electricity from coal. I feel like I am working and going to school at the same time. I like learning new things and the challenges associated with it. We have 2 planned outages of the plant this year for maintenance. When the plant is shut down no employees are allowed to take time off so that is definitely going to affect our racing this year.
I do have a couple of dates to mention though. We plan to test the car April 18th at Texas Motorplex near Ennis, TX and we have a match race scheduled at Northstar Dragway for Sept 26th. I am still working on finalizing who will be the other car we will run against at Denton.
We still plan on racing at the Goodguys race in Indiannapolis, IN on June 12 - 14 but that will most likely be the only open race we run this season because of my work schedule. Hopefully we can make up for that with some more match racing and I'll keep you posted on any more developments in that area.
Thanks for reading my blog!
Brad
Friday, January 16, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tough loss..........
Our great friend and driver, David Pace, lost his brother Richard this morning. The entire Speed Merchants team offers our sincerest condolences to David and his family during this tough time.
Brad
Brad
New parts, new year
Preparing for the 2009 racing season has begun. A new set of billet aluminum cylinder heads from Don Webster at Billet Machine Technologies tops the list. We are also going to hone our cylinders .010 to make a 4.040 inch bore and get new pistons. Rods rings and bearings and we are ready to put our engine back together. The clutch also got new facings and certifications for another year. As far as the car goes things are coming along nicely and I'm very excited.
I start my new job with American Electric Power January 5th. Being a new employee with a rotating shift work schedule is probably not going to allow for as much racing as we did in 2008. So far it looks like some spring testing in maybe May and the Goodguys race at Indy are what the springs holds in store for the Speed Merchants. From there we will just have to see but I really want to book some one day/night match races at some of the tracks in our area. I have made contact with those tracks and hopefully we can work something out that will give us some opportunities to run the car locally and have some fun while continuing to tweak the engine and clutch.
To all my friends, family and readers of this blog HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
Brad
I start my new job with American Electric Power January 5th. Being a new employee with a rotating shift work schedule is probably not going to allow for as much racing as we did in 2008. So far it looks like some spring testing in maybe May and the Goodguys race at Indy are what the springs holds in store for the Speed Merchants. From there we will just have to see but I really want to book some one day/night match races at some of the tracks in our area. I have made contact with those tracks and hopefully we can work something out that will give us some opportunities to run the car locally and have some fun while continuing to tweak the engine and clutch.
To all my friends, family and readers of this blog HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
Brad
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Cover and feature in Vintage Fuel!
We made the cover and feature article in the latest online issue of Vintage Fuel magazine! Thank you so much Christy (editor) and Dave (photographer). It is a huge honor and I am extremely excited. You can see it at: www.vintagefuel.com
The cover is there and you can go to the article by clicking on the featured racer link on the right hand side of the page. Please check it out!
I also want to post a link to some of the neatest drag racing photos I have ever seen. Copy and paste the address in your browser and you will be amazed at what you see here:
http://markjrebilas.com/blog/2008/12/best-of-2008-best-drag-racing-photos/
Brad
The cover is there and you can go to the article by clicking on the featured racer link on the right hand side of the page. Please check it out!
I also want to post a link to some of the neatest drag racing photos I have ever seen. Copy and paste the address in your browser and you will be amazed at what you see here:
http://markjrebilas.com/blog/2008/12/best-of-2008-best-drag-racing-photos/
Brad
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Looking forward.................
2008 is coming to an end shortly and thoughts of 2009 are filling my head. There is a lot of work to prepare for a new racing season. Much of that work is at a standstill for me. As many of you know the manufacturing plant where I have worked for almost 14 years has closed and my duties there will end Dec 15. I will start a new job Jan 5 at a local electric power plant. I have a lot of concerns - Will I be able to get the time off required to make the events next year? Will I be able to afford the parts required to be ready for another season? Will a sponsor step up for the team and give us the funding so badly needed?
Time will answer all of these questions and I will do my best to exercise patience in the meantime. I am extremely grateful for all the help and support we were given to get through our first season. I can only hope for the same for next year.
Brad
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Some explanation of the sequence
Here's some details of what happens from the time we tow the car to the starting line to the end of the run.
We tow up, unhook the car from the truck and position the car beside the truck and lined up with the track.
We have batteries in the back of the truck and we run cable to the starter which mounts to the blower.
When we get a signal from the track official John gives the engine a big squirt of alcohol from a squirt bottle to prime the engine. I begin spinning the engine over with the starter and John signals Corey who pulls a ground wire from the coil which energises the ignition and brings the engine to life. John continues to feed alcohol from the squirt bottle to the engine until the nitro fills the fuel lines and the engine starts running on the nitromethane. I remove the starter from the front of the engine and hand it over to Allen who puts it in the back of the truck. Randy switches the power on to the data recorder.
David rolls the car through the water box and feathers into the throttle and the engine roars as the tires boil with smoke. David lets out of the throttle and brings the car to a smooth halt a few hundred feet down the track. I jog down the track and give David signals as he backs up toward the starting line where John is standing signaling me. We make sure that the car is lined up straight and centered in the rubber he just applied to the track on the burnout.
David stops the car behind the staging beams and John checks the oil pressure and idle speed. He has an adjustment on the hat riser that he can raise or lower the idle to get the idle speed he wants. He then guides David within inches of the first staging beam where he turns the car over to David to proceed staging.
I go around the back of the car and wait for David to light the first staging bulb. At that point I start the data recorder and David pulls a cable which switches the fuel system on the car from low pressure to high pressure. You can see the fuel start billowing from the pipes and the sound of the engine gets really serious. David then lights the second stage bulb and waits for the tree to activate the green light and he is gone!
You can see most of this in the photo sequence below except for the backing up. You can also see that on the run the car does not just drive perfectly straight down the track and that it lays a clean stripe of smooth black rubber down the track. These cars are really a handful to drive and they are always on the edge of spinning the tires. At the end of the sequence you can see a lot of raw fuel coming out of the pipes because the engine went lean around half track and destroyed some of the spark plugs. This caused the car to lose some of its acceleration and David felt it and shuts the car off early around 1000 feet into the run. That also attributed to the relatively slow speed (198mph) for a 6.14 run.
Hopefully this will give some insight into what events take place during a run for those of you who read this blog but have not yet had a chance to see us race in person.
Brad
We tow up, unhook the car from the truck and position the car beside the truck and lined up with the track.
We have batteries in the back of the truck and we run cable to the starter which mounts to the blower.
When we get a signal from the track official John gives the engine a big squirt of alcohol from a squirt bottle to prime the engine. I begin spinning the engine over with the starter and John signals Corey who pulls a ground wire from the coil which energises the ignition and brings the engine to life. John continues to feed alcohol from the squirt bottle to the engine until the nitro fills the fuel lines and the engine starts running on the nitromethane. I remove the starter from the front of the engine and hand it over to Allen who puts it in the back of the truck. Randy switches the power on to the data recorder.
David rolls the car through the water box and feathers into the throttle and the engine roars as the tires boil with smoke. David lets out of the throttle and brings the car to a smooth halt a few hundred feet down the track. I jog down the track and give David signals as he backs up toward the starting line where John is standing signaling me. We make sure that the car is lined up straight and centered in the rubber he just applied to the track on the burnout.
David stops the car behind the staging beams and John checks the oil pressure and idle speed. He has an adjustment on the hat riser that he can raise or lower the idle to get the idle speed he wants. He then guides David within inches of the first staging beam where he turns the car over to David to proceed staging.
I go around the back of the car and wait for David to light the first staging bulb. At that point I start the data recorder and David pulls a cable which switches the fuel system on the car from low pressure to high pressure. You can see the fuel start billowing from the pipes and the sound of the engine gets really serious. David then lights the second stage bulb and waits for the tree to activate the green light and he is gone!
You can see most of this in the photo sequence below except for the backing up. You can also see that on the run the car does not just drive perfectly straight down the track and that it lays a clean stripe of smooth black rubber down the track. These cars are really a handful to drive and they are always on the edge of spinning the tires. At the end of the sequence you can see a lot of raw fuel coming out of the pipes because the engine went lean around half track and destroyed some of the spark plugs. This caused the car to lose some of its acceleration and David felt it and shuts the car off early around 1000 feet into the run. That also attributed to the relatively slow speed (198mph) for a 6.14 run.
Hopefully this will give some insight into what events take place during a run for those of you who read this blog but have not yet had a chance to see us race in person.
Brad
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