7/17/07:
Pmotorsports had an amazing weekend with two events back to back that brought, Sun, Fun, a Trophy, and N.E.T.O. points home!!
The weekend started with a trip up to York, PA where we attended the York Nostalgia Reunion. Our two racecars were both in the featured area of the indoor arena. This place was filled with great cars that were very famous and award winning. We were able to meet some of the nostalgia celebrities as well like Linda Vaughn “Miss Hurst Shifter” and Pam Hardy better known as “Jungle Pam”.
Here is our crew with the famous Linda Vaughn “Miss Hurst Shifter”
The car show was taxing though, because we were indoors we had to wait until the show ended at 9pm to load our cars up and drive to the racetrack. Normally you would think that wouldn’t be such a big deal, except the racetrack was in Beaver Springs, PA a good two hours away. Luckily we have a top notch crew and were able to get on the road by 10pm and arrived at the track right around midnight.
We were up Sunday morning at 6:30 a.m. and were assigned our pit area. The whole crew sprung right into action prepping the cars, getting us through tech inspection, and most importantly getting breakfast made. Marvin is known on the nostalgia circuit now for his famous cream chipped beef and it was great yet again this weekend. Next the drag racing drama began occurring. Beaver springs dragway utilizes a very old school system at the starting line. They have you pull into the race area through an opening in the middle of the track, enter your lane, then back into the water box. It was very bizarre for me and I didn’t get a good burnout on the first two time runs, in fact I didn’t do a burnout at all on the first pass, but the car ran consistently around 9.0 at 149MPH all day even without a burnout. Dads car was running in the 9.20 range with midtrack handling issues due to a good size bump in the racing surface where the concrete transitions to asphalt. On my first time run I actually felt my car spin really bad and completely unload the rearend traversing that bump.
Now for the good stuff, eliminations went much better than the time trials. My ‘40 Willys was able to run right on the 9.0s index. The first round had me racing Tony Supino in his black Chevy Nova, Tony pulled a tricky lane swap on me at the last second, to try and break my concentration, so I played some games with him at the tree waited till the last second to stage. I cut an 0.065 light and ran a 9.11 playing with the throttle at the top end, I never saw Tony after the 1/8th mile and didn’t want to go too fast and be disqualified. Dad raced Gary Lavine in his black Chevelle with a blown big block Chevrolet first round and had fluke occurrence where he accidentally shifted from first to third gear, but somehow went faster than he had in any of the time runs. He thought for sure the race was over but stayed in it and ran too fast clipping the lights with a 9.02 on his 9.25 dial in. Unfortunately that was the end of his day, but its always better to take the stripe and run too fast than give up. Next I raced Gary Lavine and had to get him back for putting my dad on the trailer first round. Things were dicey on the line when Gary shallow staged and his transbrake kept shaking the car causing it to flicker the stage beams. I focused on the tree and killed it with a 0.040 light and a full out 9.04 taking the round two win. In the final round I had the N.E.T.O. racing organization president Tony Feil and his wicked 1961 corvette. Tony and I staged, only I messed up and bumped in too quick and too deep. I lit both bulbs at once and when I saw the tree I didn’t think to slow down my reaction I just killed it again. Unfortunately I also killed my chances at the win as well and turned on the red light by only -0.011, thats 11 ten thousandths of a second for you race fans at home, or probably 2 inches on the starting line. The worst part is I had Tony covered, I ran a 9.018 on a 9.0 dial, and he ran an 8.55 on an 8.50 dial. So I gave the win away, Tony told me after the race that he had done the same thing twice that day so it made me feel a little better since he has been racing for over 30 years and made the same mistake. Even with the final round loss we had a great time, made lots of new friends, and went to the final round. All in all a great day at the races.
Here is a Picture of Tony Feil handing me my trophy
This is our Pmotorsports Crew in the Winners Circle
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