Ever since last September I've been thinking about Drag Week 2014. I came back last year pretty disappointed in my performance, and it was clear in restrospect
that I just hadn't been very prepared for the event. This was the same situation as 2012, when I tried to bring three cars but didn't make it with any due to
last minute problems, and 2011, when my Shelby clone was pretty much brand new and I had thrashed like mad just to get it finished before the event. Last time
I won my class, in 2009, I'd been much better prepared. I had resolved this year to make a better effort, so that I could at least finish the race.
Watching the message boards and Hot Rods website it was clear that Drag Week had mushroomed in popularity. Last year all the spots sold out in 8 hours; in
previous years they had never even sold out all the spots. This took me by surprise last year, and I ended up not getting registered; I had to go down to Bowling
Green with the car and hope somebody cancelled so I could get in. This year the talk was that even more people wanted to attend than last year, so last fall I
started to get worried about even being able to sign up. With my intake manifold project going also, this uncertainty had the unanticipated effect of keeping
me from getting too motivated on getting my car done for the event. I sweated this situation out for most of the winter while the race car sat, but finally
Hot Rod came out with a statement in March that they would give a week's warning on their web site before registration went live. Again I was concerned because in the
middle of April I was going to be in Europe for 10 days, and didn't know if I would have the time, or the internet access, to get online and register if it happened to be
while I was there. Fortunately for me, my trip came and went without any news from Hot Rod. Then a week ago the registration information was posted: Saturday, April 26,
9:00 AM Pacific time.
Well, with all these people wanting to register I didn't know if I could even get in! So on Saturday at 9:00 AM Pacific time, there I was hitting the refresh key
over and over again, waiting for the registration link to go live. As mentioned elsewhere all the spots for DW14 went in 8 minutes, but I was lucky enough to get in.
So, now I have a car that is apart, that needs to go back together and get to the track as soon as possible, so that I can be a little more prepared this year when
the event finally rolls around. I decided to put together another Road to Drag Week board to chronicle my progress. The car I want to bring is my '69 Shelby clone,
but if worst comes to worst and I don't get it ready in time, I can bring my Mach 1 instead, which is essentially together, needing only about 10 hours of work to
finish the wiring project I started on it last year. But I'd really rather bring the other car. Here's a couple of photos of it in its current state:
Right now I'm working on getting the oil pan for my dry sump setup finished up; once I have that done I have to go through the heads, replacing the Ferrea valves with the Manleys that flow so much better, then get the whole thing put together, and finally put the sheet metal intake that I built for this engine a couple years ago on it. Then, I have to mount the crank and cam sensors, and get the MS3X EFI system all wired up so I can dyno the engine. Hopefully the dyno work will go smoothly and I can get that done in a weekend. I'm targeting the end of May for the engine to be together and dynoed, and ready to go in the car.
Then of course I have to put the car back together, and change the wiring all around to remove the ems-pro EFI system and install the MS3X system in its place. I also need to replace the rear end gears with a set of pro gears (there are street gears in it now), and get the car running and driving. Hopefully I can get all that done by the end of June. If I can keep that schedule I'll have a few weekends to sort the car out at the track, and plenty of time to drive it on the street, before I have to head to the event in September. My history of keeping schedules is miserable, but I'm going to give it a try. I guess even if I'm a little late, as long as I get some track time on the car it should be OK.
We will see what happens. I will try to post a weekly update on my progress - Jay
