Pretty wet day at the FE Race and Reunion...

[JERICOGTX]

Congrats on the win Doug!

[Ctcobra]

Doug’s car ran as good as it looked all weekend! It was great to finally meet him at the event.

Incidentally, it was my 64 Galaxie, driven by my buddy Ed, that won the bird race against the 67 wagon.

The wagons numbers on the final round were as follows:

Dial In:   9.20
Reaction:  .2661
60 ft:  2.1950
330 ft:  5.7989
1/8 ET: 8.7903
1/8 MPH:  83.38

Steve D.

[Lenz]

Yep, I'll add my congratulations on the win Doug!  I had to leave around 4:00, missed the end.  Know I've got at least one of your passes on video.

It was great to meet and talk with Forum and reunion regulars and my impression is that the reunion grew again this time around.  Picked up a set of our administrator's clear valve covers, turned out I was the 10,000th customer of FE Power so they were gifted to me (ok, the gifting part's a lie, good to meet you Jay).  Anyone who's never been, when you get to one of these reunions you will find yourself trying to figure out how to get your car there.

[Stangman]

Boy I wish I was there sounds like a great time had by all.
And congrats to you Steve on the bird race win. I’m glad that the car ran good for you.
Steve’s kid just got out of the navy and came with him this year to watch him win the bird race.
Ed congrats to you too you guys make a great team!!!!. And I can vouch that both are great guys.

[blykins]

The wagon’s owner was Dennis Towle.  The engine that was in it was the 540 hp Trick Flow headed 390 that I built last year.

The Thunderbolt clone that it was destined for wasn’t ready so he dropped it in the wagon in front of a close ratio Toploader and a 3.91 gear and brought it to drag race.  Dennis had a ball with it and got lots of attention because of the unique combo.  He made it to the last round and lost by .001.

Brent,
Do you remember what times that big 67 wagon of Dennis T with your 395cid was running?
It looks like a street car, guessing as such I'm gonkulating:
No wind:
1.95
5.29
8.13 at 86.4
12.63 at 109.8

20mph headwind:
1.96
5.36
8.26 at 83.5
12.96 at 104.2

The wind hits that big brick pretty hard.

Dennis goes by Towd56 on here, I'm sure he'll post when he gets settled in.

I know that he told me Saturday that he was running "low 8's" at around 83 mph I think. 

He was scrambling to get the car ready to go and his current throttle linkage doesn't open the carb all the way up.  Combined with a 4000 lb weight, a close ratio Toploader, and street tires, I don't think that's too shabby.  He was also having trouble launching the car, it was either smoking the tires or bogging.  I have one video that shows the tires light up around 200' off the line. 

I have to hand it to him.....he basically had everything against him, including an engine that's not conducive for a heavy car, and he made it to runner up. 

[CaptCobrajet]

Congrats Doug!  I tried all day to get by to speak to you, but between you racing, and other things, I just didn't get to speak to you.  I did see your wife at the line a few times.  Glad to see you doing good!

[cjshaker]

Hey Doug

It was great as always to see you and Trish again and meet your son and grand son. What a day it was. Great job you did with the 69 Mustang. Hope ever thing went as smooth going home as it did at the track.
Later Bud

Dan

Dan, no issues going home. I didn't even lose one collector bolt on the truck, but I had those suckers cranked down tight before leaving!!..lol  It was great as always to see you and Mary. And congrats to both of you on your 40th anniversary!

Nice win and great to see that the drag race bug that caught ya is also rewarding you for the efforts!

Barry, you bring up a good point there....to anyone who has no desire to drag race their car, I would highly suggest NOT going to the Reunion! 

On another note, the truck (also FE powered) ran great all the way there and back. Fuel mileage seemed to pick up a bit as it only took 3/4 of a tank to get there, and 3/4 of a tank to get home. That's 9 hours of driving time each way! I suppose the fact that it was a 100 gallon tank may have had something to do with it, but whatever..lol  My "auxiliary" tank worked great, and it was nice not having to stop for fuel every 1 1/2 hours with the puny stock in-cab tank. That alone cut over an hour of road time off the trip. Now I just need to get on the ball and start fixing up the truck with all the NOS parts I've collected over the years.

[cjshaker]

Congrats Doug!  I tried all day to get by to speak to you, but between you racing, and other things, I just didn't get to speak to you.  I did see your wife at the line a few times.  Glad to see you doing good!

Blair, I had every intention of tracking you down to chat with you, but it was literally non-stop all day. I barely had enough time at one point to eat half a sandwich before heading back to the lanes. I'll give you a call one day this week after I get everything unloaded.

[blykins]

Dennis says his lowest time was 8.34 at 83.

It trapped the same speed pretty much whatever ET he ran.

[CaptCobrajet]

Sure was a shame that Randy rolled the '58.  I hated to see such a good car get mangled.  The only good part of it was that he got out and walked away.

[shady]

Dennis had dialed a 9.20 for cool fe, but was kind of all over the place trying to figure out the launch. Very cool car. First round I did a 10.84 on a 10.84 dial with an .05 light, so that was an easy win. Second round I went red with a -.008 light (staged a little deep) giving Doug an easy win. After that I took the ole 352 home and didn't stick around for the bird race. That wind just beat me down plus I drive the car there. And you really do have to race. Doesn't matter what you bring or how slow it is, nobody cares, it's just a really good time. What are you waiting for Brent?

[9310alloy]

Congrats Doug..... Plus congrats to all the participants....!!!!
Wow...way to kool to see all those FE really run..impressive..!!!!
First time reunion for me and had a fantastic time short of the weather.....
I will be back........Mike

[chilly460]

This was my fourth time attending, always impressed by the quality of the cars you see running up there, very clean.  I intended to run the Merc but when they cut it down to 1/8mi I bailed, still running a weenie 4.10 open rear on street tires so 1/8mi isn't too impressive.

Jay's heads were very interesting to see, I guess it didn't register how small the ports are until I saw them in person, great efficient flow out of a MR port opening. 

[John67427]

Looking for video of one of my runs....
  Despite the crappy weather I did enjoy going again this year. Met new  FE friends in our pit area!! If I don't get to say Hello it's because I'm just a quiet guy and listen more than talk. The video I'm looking for is in round one of Hot FE. I was running John Pregitzer with a baby blue 66 Fairlane hardtop. My car is the 67 White Fairlane 500 Hardtop plain jane no lettering #1053 on the window. I need to see what went wrong on that run. I have never been so crossed up in that car in the 20 years I've run it. I had to get out of it on at least 2 runs on Saturday. I know the wind was some of the issue but just would like to see what the heck happened. Appreciate any help or photo's.                                       JOHN

[Towd56]

Dennis says his lowest time was 8.34 at 83.

It trapped the same speed pretty much whatever ET he ran.

Hi guys - I own the 67 Country Squire Wagon. As Brent stated - last Saturday my son and I decided to swap the original 390 out of the car and replace it with the motor Brent had built me last year. The swap fought us on nearly every angle and we finally finished it up on Thursday night. We drove the car about 10 miles and loaded it on the trailer to depart Friday am.

On the track it would either spin like crazy with a high rpm launch or was very lazy out of the hole. The motor definitely likes high rpm's and that heavy car didn't help things. We were running street tires with about 30 psi. Our times ranged from a 10.1 to an 8.3 with everything in between. We were not even paying attention really and were just having fun . It ran the best times when I would just let her go and try to feather the gas once it was moving to control wheel spin. We opted for a dial in of 9.20 as it seemed to be in the middle somewhere. We ended up breaking out of that # several times once we figured how to launch it.

Next year we will return with a different gear, slicks, and maybe a little more knowledge. It was great to meet people and even better that we didn't break anything .  My 17 year old son is still smiling ear to ear this morning and laughing about how our "old ugly wagon" ran. I will try to have him post a video of the last run in FE bird class.