Yellow Bullet Nationals Results 275 Drag Radial Race Page, Photos, Videos, Reviews
The Engine Assembler General Has Determined That Smoking May Lead To Terminal Engine Failure!
BUT FIRST THE GOOD NEWS | Yellow Bullet Nationals
Mar-Schan Motorsports competed at the First Annual Yellow Bullet Nationals at Cecil County Dragway over the Labor Day weekend.
As usual we had a blast at the track with our competitors but we had to do a little work too, much to the disappointment of my crew. Sorry guys!
I tested the week prior with a new torque converter from Pro Torque but it was a little tight and my engine couldn’t get into the power-band where it needed to be so Joe Rivera sent me another one to get us a little closer to that sweet spot.
The weekend began on Friday with a test session at the track that was interrupted by a nuisance named Earl swirling off the coast who was determined to get in the way. Earl made a hasty exit a little after the noon hour when he realized that the atmospheric conditions were changing rapidly as some nasty Outlaw engines started gulping the oxygen in the area and exhaling fire. The rest of the weekend turned out beautiful!
The new converter still didn’t get us where we wanted to be so after 4 test runs in went our Old Faithful converter and we decided to make a test hit late in the evening during the normal Friday night test and tune session dominated by diesel trucks and imports. SIGH! The track was not there to hold the power and we spun the tires but I could tell that the motor liked the change.
Saturday morning dawned a little earlier than I liked after a nice semi-comfortable night’s sleep in Hotel Chevrolet Silverado. I knew I should have got the leather seat option! Our first qualifying run netted us an unspectacular 8.34 but we got down the track with a tune up that would make sure we went from point A to point B. I am constantly hearing from the photographers that I never do wheelies during the day and on the right side of the track so it was time to quiet the haters.
On the second qualifier the car left great after stepping up the tune with the wheels in the air as planned but I felt it wasn’t staying straight based on the angle of the clouds I was now staring at so I sat the car down and aborted the run.
As the sun set we got another shot at the track and ran a personal best 5.26 @ 133 mph, which was a personal best speed also. We ended up qualifying in the number 12 spot out of a 32 car field.
Once again the darkness to daylight ratio seemed skewed, and after a chilly night in our upgraded accommodations in the 28′ long Hotel Haulmark, with the king size diamond plate mattress, the crew prepped the car for eliminations.
In the first round we drew Eric Hendrickson who went up in smoke as his Mustang attempted to accelerate. On the other hand we had a personal best 60′ time of 1.22 and ran a 5.23 @ 131mph, and won the round, but something was wrong. I could feel the engine start to decelerate down track and the 2mph drop from qualifying confirmed that sensation. We pulled the NGK spark plugs at the pit as we always do and we were missing a couple of ground straps and the #2 plug looked really bad.
As it turns out there would be no compression in that cylinder so something tragic occurred. There is no quitting in this team and every time we go to the line there is an opportunity for media exposure so we decided to try and catch a break and line up with our 2nd round opponent on the 7 cylinders that didn’t have holes in them.
When the lights flashed and after a BIG puff of smoke from right side of our injured bullet, the car launched but as was expected we were behind from the start and the race was over and so was our day.
I want to thank Steve Johnson from Induction Solutions as well as Joe Rivera from Pro-Torque and Rick Gorski from Fire Core 50 wires for being in at the track supporting the racers and taking time to make us the best we can be.
As of this moment we are waiting on some new piston rings from Total Seal, pistons from Diamond Pistons and some new head gaskets and we are hoping to be at the Ultimate Outlaw Shootout at MIR next weekend if things go well. Stay tuned
