Well we got the car torn apart and did find that there was an oil leak. Pops and I pulled the clutch can to find a nice layer of oil/grunge. We gave everything a rinse with brake cleaner and put in a fresh disk. Hopefully we got it sealed up enough for this event untill the car comes apart for the winter. I get 2 hits tommorow and start eliminations on Friday!
The air looks to be fast for qualifying :)
First off, I wanted to thank everyone for all the nice messages I've been receiving. My blog turned out to be a great way to keep everyone up to speed on my trip when its so hard to talk to everyone in person.
We spent last night in Barstow off I-15 between Las Vegas and L.A. Pretty much in the middle of the desert so not much to see. The rig is freshened up with supplies and were heading into L.A. out of the mountains as I type. Here's a shot Robin just snaped at about 4,500 feet and decending.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/DSCF0163.jpg
I wanted to put in a fresh clutch disk yesterday and do some testing while we were still in Vegas but they wanted $500 to make some practice laps which is not in my budget! So we'll make the best decisions we can in preparation for Thursday qualifying. We're going to pit today and get the car teched. After that I'd like to make it over to the NHRA museum which is on Pomona's Fairplex property.
T-Roy out
Well MIke beat me 3rd round. He was on a 10.51 dial to my 10.48 which means he left only .03 ahead of me. It was close on the starting line with both of us sawing the tree down. He was on a tear with double 00 lights the first 3 rounds. I stepped it up and strapped an .010 on him. I had about .011 thou to push him out but the car slid the clutch for some unkown reason much more than it should of and slowed my car down. So we'll take a look at the car and possibly swap in a new clutch for Pomona.
Here's Mikey and I..
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/IMG_1524.jpg
And a shot before we ran.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/IMG_1520.jpg
And the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDf94ezPiXM
Had I beat Mike I would have had a doable path to the final. That would have put me up in the top 5 in the Nation. We'll just have to put our focus on Pomona now!
Despite the loss the trip has been a blast so far. My buddy Fish and Trista have been having a great time hanging with us. Trista even ran into Elvis yesterday ;)
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/IMG_1533.jpg
Robin has been great support too. Although I know she can't go too much longer watching everyone else drive "her" future race cars!
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/DSCF0111.jpg
We finally got into Vegas last night! The old men stayed at the track so it was Trista, Robin, Fish and myself tearing up downtown. We started with Vegas Blvd hitting up all the popular Casinos. We found an awesome restraunt at the Excalibur called Dick's. That place was a riot. They pride themselves on poor service, crappy bands, bad manners and gernerally anything they can do to mess with you. Perfect for us! They started a paper fight with us as soon as we sat down. Fish and I definitely enjoyed ourselves ;)
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/DSCF0135.jpg
No trip to Vegas is complete with out seeing the water show at the Bellagio....
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/HPIM0475.jpg
Today's plan is to get the toterhome reloaded with water, fuel and groceries and make way towards Pomona.
See ya!
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/HPIM0449.jpg
Well like trista said we knocked out the first 2 rounds of competition. That put me up 50 points which is 9th in the nation, just have to keep up the momentum!
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday1083.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday1055.jpg
The stands are packed today. This is one of the most popular races on the tour.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday1117.jpg
Oh and here's the Hulkster!
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday1113.jpg
Well another fantastic day in the Henderson/Erb racing camp. Brother has dominated thus far winning his first two rounds and now waiting for the last round of spankiness to begin (which isnt til the end of the day.)
Troy has Mike Koppien for the third round and we have a present that we will display later as to the excitement they decided to add to it.
Also, we were surrounded by the Hulk Hogan pressence which made me want to piledrive a certain Butterface....I mean...wait, course not.
That's it for this afternoon.
Shake and Bake
The heads up racing is sweet! I think that this is what the shine-runnin' hillbilliies intended it to be when they started the sport. Troy's car has the biggest chrome balls of them all, so of course you see the Wally that was the result of that. Strong work Troy!
Troy told me to walk over to the car that was spewing Nitro exhaust and I followed him. All these fanatics are standing around watching and listening to all of this horsepower while my nose is burning, my eyes are watering, and my head is humming. Hot damn, I ran away to take cover. I looked back to see Troy laughing at me, and all the other fanatics still drooling over the display of horsepower.
Mike, you better buy a big-screen TV, You're gonna need it to display all the Wally's Troy's gonna bring home!
Had a nice video from the final round of Class but it took too long to download on our T-mobile connection. To make up for it, here is a nice video breaking in the new set of Mickey Thompson's Yesterday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXo5MYH9dvc
Side note: The smoke from all the fires from San Diego is really hazing up the skyine! Pretty wild...
Trista (my sis) and Fish (college buddy) are both here at the track. This is Trista's first time in Vegas so we're going to go out Sunday night to see the lights. Fish is actually on his way to baja California to take his jeep down the baja 1000 course..How cool is that?!
We had a busy afternoon after class eliminations. The alternator and battery are on the edge so I decided to just replace them both. Pretty funny trying to describe to Autozone the application so they could look it up on their computer. Here's Fish and I swapping the alternator.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday1021.jpg
Monty & Cheryl Jones sent us the best cookies I've had in soo long. Thank you so much! Between your cookies and Brad's wings I'm feeling spoiled :)
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday1004.jpg
First round eliminations are 8 am tommorrow. I believe the plan is to knock out 3 rounds before the Sunday Show. Stay tuned!
Quick update. Qualifying was a struggle. The car wouldn't 60' very well but we got a decent tune-up for today to run class. For those who don't know I had the chance to run the other A/S cars for extra winnings and a trophy. We went a best of 10.41 and took out the other cars. I'll be bringing home another wally for the case :)
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/DSCF0025.jpg
I'll try to upload some videos tonight.
Well we're here! Dad and I left Topeka at 4:30pm on Tuesday and didn't get to the track untill today at about 2:00pm driving it straight through the night. We stopped in Salina to get Robin then in Oakly at about 10pm to meet Bra Erb who has the semi and enclosed trailor were using.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday11-1.jpg
Here's the crew, pops is pointing at Brad because the guy's nothing but trouble and we wouldn't have it any other way.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday12.jpg
Here's a pick heading through Utah on I-70
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday13.jpg
And here's a fun pic of us changing on blown tire on the side of the higway with cars flying by at 85mph...good times!
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday14.jpg
As soon as we pitted the first priority was to get teched and prepare the car for it's new track. Here we are in the tech lane.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday15.jpg
Vegas is an amazing facility! Concrete everywhere with a beautiful setting.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday16.jpg
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday17.jpg
Brad already found someone with a sponsor he's jealous of.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/troy5118/Vegasday18.jpg
Hope this isn't too incoherent but I'm running of fumes! Time for bed, we've got qaulifying first thing in the morning.
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