We survived yet another successful mission to Mission for their old time drags. Weather was perfect and the car was performing like a champ. It's been a couple of years since we last ventured down for this race so my memory failed me (yet again) when it came time for the molasses in January pace of the program. We waited no less than four hours between our 1st and 2nd passes on Saturday. That is an eternity to sit in the sun without beer. The endless line of beautiful race cars, low riders, hot rods, customs, boogy vans and choppers was like letting your favorite car show come to you.
We were saddened to see our pal Steve Chase explode a u-joint then probably not coincidentally drop a valve in his small block powered '64 Merc pick-up. He's worked so hard to make it perform but fortunately has a really positive attitude towards rebuilding. Our entourage in the pits consisted of no less than 15 friends and family cheering us on in the newly created "straight axle" class.
When eliminations finally rolled around on Sunday afternoon we had our game face on big time. I rolled through my burn out and waited while the crew cleared debris from the track. I was on the verge of backing up to re-heat the tires when we were urged forward. I cut an .052 light which got us the trophy for best light in our class (sadly enough) but spun the tires out of the hole putting us on the trailer. Note to self, heat tires to laser temps before trying to launch.
Great weekend over-all and we look forward to hitting that race next year.
