Shake Rattle and BLOW!

[cuda66]

It was cool crisp day in Oregon as we rolled the motorhome out of the driveway with the red Fish
"Hooked up" on the backside at 7 am sharp. Generator humming, coffee brewing and fresh chocolate
coated donuts....breakfast mmmmmm.

Registration was pain, looked like a NASCAR credentials line, we did get our old number back, 88 so we
were all set to blister off the new MT 8.5x26 hides.
The first run was a nice easy pass with my Crew Chief in the dish washer seat, we pulled up to the
bleach pit and heated up the hides to get rid of the stickers and scuff the rubber. Up to the staging lights
and throttled up the motor up to 3800 to lock the convertor....with the brake proportioning valve twisted all
the way to the rear as soon as it hit the lock it slid the front tires across the beam and tripped the red
light...hummm this won't work, but we took an easy pass and turned in a 15.2 shutting off at 1/2 track.
A confusing vibration started just as we shifted into second gear and stayed with us down the 1320 and
back to the pits...we checked everything???

Next run with my best buddy with me the same thing happened....slid....shift and vibrate???

Ok, now it's my turn.....rpm at 2800 just off the convertor..blink....blink....Hammer Down!
How about a .557 light......(first run of the year).....1.99- 60 foot....then it started...shaking and vibrating
like it was having an epileptic fit.....but there was a Chebby in the left lane and I wasn't going to
lift......(Sprint car Training ..Lift you Lose)
About 1/2 track it really started shakin' hard...I couldn't focus my eyes.....then KABOOM right at the
1000 foot mark.....I decided it was time to lift as the motor hit the Chip and smoke filled the
cockpit...hard on the binders and over to the wall she banged, rattled and burned.....
I bailed out and the flames quickly subsided as they had run out of tranny fluid....split the case opened
the valve body like a Tuna can and oiled the track down from about 1/2 track to finish line.

Everyone asked "did it scare you"...Naw...what scared me was when I bailed out...I was standing about
10-15 feet out in the right lane of the track and there were 2 more cars coming at me at 100 MPH!!!! I did
the 15 foot launch over the wall in less than .500...Zoooooom they screamed by me...JEEEEEEZE!!
missed the fish by about 5 feet!

Anyhow we found the weak link hahahahaaaaa
and how about 1.99 60 foot and 13.38 at 99.5 with a 318 and half a tranny hahahahahaa...new tranny
already organized and as Arnold would say "Ve'll be Bach" ....but only for about 12 seconds, so don't
blink.

Other than that everything worked perfect, the motor is real strong, all the electric stuff, cooling system,
suspension stuff we built worked like a charm.
Don

PS
Make a note...cuda66@cnnw.net is going away this week so change your address books to
bigdaddy@4secondsflat.com