Busy, busy, busy.........

Been so busy between things falling apart and computers acting up I haven't had time to do much lately let alone write a blog entry. As a matter of fact there was almost a full day between this sentence and the previous one. I finally got Marie's computer all fixed up and naturally both of mine started going sour. Most of it was due to my slowness in learning how to configure a new firewall to work with our network. Right now everything is purring right along and all the software is doing what it is supposed to do. One thing I did get rid of was my Office Outlook email. Most of my email addresses now forward to my Gmail inbox instead. I figured why store all that stuff on my computer when Gmail and Google Document storage will do it for me. Also on the subject of data storage you absolutely have to check out  \http://www.adrive.com/ - You can get 50 GB of FREE online storage. Upload & Store Files, Access Files Anywhere, Edit Documents Online, Remote File Transfer, Desktop Backup Client and tons more. It sure freed up a lot of room on my computers. I still back up stuff to CDs and external drives but it never hurts to have more options. 

Cape Breton Dragway's test and tune session on Saturday July 12 had perfect weather, great traction and almost 60 entries. The field was split about 1/3 Tuners, 1/3 bracket cars and the last 1/3 was Bikes and sleds. Next event will be a Wednesday night Test and Tune session on July 23 then July 25-26-27 will be an ADRA Points Meet. The weekend after that it will be the Extreme Drag Race event at Miramichi. I've got so much going on lately it looks like it may be awhile before my next entry - check the Maritime Drag Racers Message Board for what's happening on the Drag Racing front.

Later..........

I hate Windows

Marie's Windows XP crashed a couple of days ago so Ross and I recovered some stuff with a Linux disk, formatted the drive then reinstalled XP and it worked just fine. Fast forward through two days of reloading documents and installing programs and other stuff to lunchtime today. All of a sudden there was the "blue screen of death" back again.

As before I was able to run a Linux disk but couldn't access the C: drive at all this time. Looks like it's time for a new hard drive but until then her computer will continue to function on this Linux/Knoppix CD.

The browser, email, Word and PDF reader are all built in and it does almost everything that Windows does(only faster). This stuff is awesome - check it out at http://www.knoppix.net/ Tommorow I'll swap the faulty hard drive for a more modern one then put the old one in an external case to see if I can recover anything.

Not much news on the Drag Racing front until we get the reports from Greenfield Dragway. Looks like they finally got some good weather so they may get a good car count. HUGE amount of discussion everywhere on NHRA's decision to shorten the track from 1/4 mile to 1000 feet so I won't bother to say any more on that subject. Personally I prefer 1/8 mile - it's safer, easier on parts and a whole lot better for the spectators.

Rain(again)

It's raining here, Miramichi Dragway Park just lost another weekend due to rain and even the NASCAR race in New Hampshire was called after 284 of 301 laps. Went out to visit my brother Spencer today and on the way home the skies opened up and the wind got even higher. It's more like mid May than a Canada Day weekend and the forecast doesn't look much better for the holiday on Tuesday.

Waaay behind on my work on the Readers Rides pages. I sat here bored all winter and never got an updated profile or picture. A week ago I put a message on the board looking for some pics. Duh!! Now I'm swamped with it. The racing season is in high gear plus I'm so busy with other stuff I'm only at my desk for a few minutes a day so naturally all the inboxes are full of updates and photos. Maybe now with all this rain I might actually get some time to work on it.

Later.........

 

A tough week..........

Wednesday June 18 was setup day for a Test and Tune session at Cape Breton Dragway. Thursday and half of Friday we spent working on Ross' shed getting the roof ready for shingles. Friday afternoon it was back out to the track to work on the gold dust and traction compound. Saturday and Sunday back to Cape Breton Dragway at 8:00 AM for both days of the season opener and first points meet. The traction was good, it was sunny and warm(hot at times)and there was some pretty close racing when eliminations started on Sunday. Full report with winners photos on MaritimeDragRacing.com results page.

Monday, Tuesday and today Ross and I put the rest of the roofing shingles on his shed. Also today my resto project VW Golf got jacked up a couple of feet off the ground to make it a little easier to work on. A couple of small patches to MIG weld on the floor and then swap some front sheetmetal from the donor Jetta and the body is ready for paint. Since the Jetta works so well I'll scavenge almost everything else mechanical that will fit the Golf. Looks like there won't be a whole lot of trips to the parts store either - just little things like hoses and lines and all new brakes just like I did with the old Golf last fall.
For me the worst part of the weekend was learning of the death of Funny Car driver Scott Kalitta in a horrific qualifying accident. It was a big shock for those of us who followed his career from the time he was a kid guiding dad Connie back from a burnout to his world championship. Since there's so much information about the crash on every drag racing message board on the planet we won't go into any details.

 

 

CB Dragway slideshow

Check out the link at the bottom to see what Cape Breton Dragway looked like this afternoon - since I was the only one there I figured I'd just walk around and shoot some pics before we started messing around with the gold dust and the traction compound.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v413/maritimedragracing/Maritime%20Drag%20Racing%202008/CBDragway.swf

Parts hunt chapter 1

Spent the morning cruising the boneyards looking for one of these VW Jetta cast aluminum 14 inch wheels and two center caps. They're usually found on the upscale VW Jettas from 1986-1992 and some Golf GTIs. Didn't have any luck at the parts places I visited but I saw lots of them in parking lots and people's yards. Need a minimum of one wheel and two center caps but I'll take a whole set if necessary.  Also I'm still on the hunt for any 84-92 GTI parts or even a rusty GTI parts car. Anyone has any of this stuff please let me know. A little tip too - If you're a VW owner you absolutely have to check out: http://forums.vwvortex.com/zeromain?id=1 

 

Cape Breton Dragway Test and Tune Session

33 brave souls outlasted 3 brief showers and gale force headwinds last night at CB Dragway. Man, was it COLD!! We had the printer in the back of my VW and we had to huddle behind the raised hatchback. We had lots of first timers with some pretty quick front wheel drive cars. Not all Hondas either - there was some GM muscle there like a turbo Cavalier and a supercharged Cobalt.

Doug Wrathall got his 1969 Camaro to launch pretty hard but had trouble getting hold of the top part of the track. Last pass off and on the gas around 1000' netted an easy 9.28 at almost 150.

Sheldon Brewer's Dart was getting a tuneup for this coming weekend at Greenfield and Chris MacDonald made a few 9 second passes in his LeMans. Oddly enough there wasn't one Mustang to be seen but there were a couple of late model Camaros and a Firebird. Bikes and sleds were off a little bit because of the wicked headwind. Julieanne Harrietha was getting some seat time in her Dad's Dragster and made a few easy passes to get used to the beast.

Thanks to Jordan White and Barry Grossett for the help with Tech and Timecards and thanks to the people who braved the cold and the showers. There were more CBDRA Members there for the setup, operation and teardown than I can remember for a good many years. Best of all I actually enjoyed myself for a change.

Random notes.........

Been too busy to update this page lately. Ross and I are still framing his 14X18 shed - no mean feat considering the number of windows involved. But it is progressing rapidly even though it's a "design on the fly" LOL.  As for the VW project(s) I lined them up on Wednesday and took stock of what works, what needs replacement, and started a "wish list" of new parts for the resto project. Don't laugh but the one in this pic with the missing front sheetmetal is actually the best of the three and is the long term replacement for my old primer spotted Golf that's been in the family since it was brand new in 1991. The 4 door Jetta drives and runs great and will be cannabilized for parts for the other two. It will give up it's front sheetmetal, wheels and some of it's drivetrain for the resto Golf. Hopefully the original Golf will keep on running until the project car is finished.

This coming Wednesday night's Test and Tune session will mark the start of the 2008 season at Cape Breton Dragway. After much post season soul searching and hand wringing I have been persuaded by a large group of racers / friends to reconsider my "retirement" from active duty at the track.

The decision to come back was not an easy one. Between concern for the condition of the track, the loss of dedicated track workers, CBRDA politics, the constant scheming by some racers to try to outwit the rule book and the status of the agreement with the Airport Authority I decided it was not worth the stress it was generating in my life. One factor in my return was an effort by some of the CBDRA Members to initiate a "Quick 8" program at CB Dragway. That sure got my interest going again with a chance to see a field of 7 second cars(or faster) in Cape Breton. Another one was the pressure from some local racers to return citing the proposed improvements at CB Dragway for this season. I just hope it works out..........

Elsewhere things are heating up at NHRA's Route 66 Nationals. JOLIET, Ill. Latest news from Drag Race Central: http://www.dragracecentral.com/

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Ashley Force

It may seem that, after earning her first career win as a professional driver more than a month ago, a No. 1 qualifier would be somewhat anticlimactic for Ashley Force.

But when she drove her Castrol GTX Ford Mustang to a 4.759-second pass at 329.10 mph during the second round of qualifying at the Torco Racing Fuels Route 66 NHRA Nationals on Friday, those numbers stood for more. They proved her young team, in only its second year together, is becoming the kind of consistent and comfortable team that posts competitive, winning numbers, like her career-best speed.

"That's definitely the most exciting part for our team, even over that No. 1 qualifier and E.T., is that speed, because we're racers and we love the quick speeds in drag racing," Force said. "It doesn't seem like four miles per hour is a lot different, but from 325 to 329, we're pretty pumped up."

Qualifying concludes with two rounds on Saturday at Route 66 Raceway near Chicago. If Force's performance stands, she will be the first woman to earn a No. 1 qualifier in Funny Car. Eliminations for the event, the halfway point of the regular season in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs, are on Sunday.

The biggest difference between her first season and her second, she said, was with her team.

"Definitely just consistency (is better), a lot less mistakes for all of us," Force said. "The driver; my team. Working on the car. When you get all the kinks worked out things go so much smoother that you're able to build on things and go rounds and that gives you confidence. That makes a big difference as well, when you can get in these cars or prepare these cars and know that you know what to do, even against people who have been doing it over 30 years. We're a new team, so to have that kind of confidence from round wins definitely makes us better."

Message Board Chronicles

First thing this AM the Messenger windows started popping up on the taskbar, all the inboxes were full and even got a couple phone calls about the Message Board not working.

Turns out Proboards had a major meltdown and lost all ther servers and we may not be back up for days. To read the whole story try: http://support.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=status&action=display&thread=244738 Anyhow, we dove in head first and threw together a backup board to do us till the main board is back up and running. Check it out at: http://members7.boardhost.com/maritimeracers/index.html

One of the test pics I posted on the backup message board was this Top Sportsman VW I saw on an English website. Now I'm obsessed with the damn thing - It's all I can do to keep from coming up with another "hare-brained" scheme involving a 2 door Golf and some old parts. Let me see now.... I've got a posi Jeep rearend that could use a set of Moser axles, a big old FE Ford, headers, and........  See what I mean?

On a more serious note MDP has been rained out and has rescheduled the points meet for the saturday of the 2nd meet. Last spring they lost so many events it was hard to keep track of it. Even Greenfield Dragway lost one day already this season. Three weeks to the season opener at CB Dragway so they may escape the monsoon season. Rumour has it they will be doing something this season to improve the traction. If they want to attract a "Quick 8" field it had better be right.

Later.............

More of the same..............

Biggest news first: Miramichi Dragway Park's first points meet and Maritime Stock/Super Stock series event scheduled for this weekend has been cancelled due to a wet forecast.

As for me I finished up most of the work at home and started another big project helping Brother in law Ross build a workshop/shed at his place. Gonna be nice - 14X18 with clerestory windows and a small loft on the back end. Spent the day putting the sills together with half lap joints and getting it all level and square. Rest of the floor will be done tomorrow maybe.

Picked up a Mig welder at Canadian Tire in North Sydney today. They had it on sale at $175 off so I couldn't pass it up. Looks like there's no excuse now for not finishing the Hornet's cage. As you can see all that's holding it in place now is some red Tuck tape, an interference fit on the crossbar and the force of gravity on the door bar. There's also a small tack with a stick welder where the main hoop mounts on top of the subframe connectors. but maybe now with a new welder there'll finally be some progress on the old girl. Long term plans are to build a "tribute" car similar to the Maskin and Kanners Hornet X Pro Stocker from  1977. It was either that or the Wally booth car from the same era and since I think the paint scheme on Dick Maskin's car would be easier to reproduce that made the decision easier. Still got to move the leaf springs and do something with the wheel tubs but the layout of the Hornet's subframe/rear hatch area makes it easy. There's no weird bends or curves and even the stock tubs are shaped almost like aftermarket ones. Will post pics as I go but first thing is to fix a couple of small holes in the long term VW Golf project's floor just to get used to the welder.